Do Everton Still Lack Leaders?

This is a discussion that has been talked about for a long time now in
regards to our club about lacking leadership on the pitch. This is something I think Carlo and Marcel Brands will be looking to address this summer.

There are different types of leaders you need in a team. I look at Richarlison and see him as a leader because he stands up when we need him to. Take the Crystal Palace game this season, we were under pressure and he took the game away from them with
his sheer brilliance. He drove us onto to an important 3-1 win that day.

It has been players like Yerry Mina, Mason Holgate and Dominic Calvert-Lewin who have impressed me with their leadership skills but we cannot just rely on a few players. Look
at some of the great Manchester United teams of the past, even when one went out the player coming in knew there was no hiding.

I personally thought that when we brought in Fabien Delph from Manchester City, he would
begin to sort some of the problems we have had on the pitch. However, due to
his horrendous injury record and ‘off the pitch’ spats with some of our
fans it has certainly not gone to plan.

There is still a place in the game for players to question each other and I do wonder at times if our dressing room is a bit too nice? I look at players like Roy Keane and Patrick Viera who were excellent leaders on the pitch. They did anything to make sure their team got over the line and the players around them followed.

The problem I find in our team is that there is no winning culture and when players come into the club they fall into some of the same traps as the players who have been letting us down for so long. There just doesn’t seem to be that vocal leader that can also deliver on the pitch, if we don’t have one present in this squad we may well have to buy one in.

We now have a world-class manager who won’t stand for players hiding and not
showing their quality and leadership. Let’s hope that a few of our players stand up and demonstrate their leadership qualities to Carlo Ancelotti when we can get back to playing football again.

Steven Kelly 

Twitter @SteveKelly86