KOEMAN: I STILL GET ON WITH PLAYERS
RONALD KOEMAN insists his bond with his squad remains strong as he explained how past experience is enabling him to retain perspective.
Everton’s manager has had to remind senior players of their responsibilities to help the club arrest their poor sequence of results. A 3-0 win over sunderland in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday brought respite but Koeman knows the spotlight will stay on him until his team are out of the relegation zone.
Koeman endured difficult spells at previous clubs and, while this one has stretched his patience, he maintains it can’t be compared to the calamity he endured at Valencia when he was sacked after six months in 2008.
‘You can’t compare Valencia with Everton or southampton or Benfica or PsV because that was really difficult,’ said Koeman. ‘it was a revolution with a new stadium that was not built and still isn’t finished i believe. it was the wrong club at the wrong time.
‘But even when it is a negative period, it is a learning point. That is OK and no problem now. it was a bad experience but even a bad experience can be good for the future. The most important thing is the connection with the players. if you feel you still have that good connection with the players and you think they are committed, then that is the key point.
‘The rest is all about decisions that don’t belong to the manager.’
Koeman, whose side face Bournemouth today, added: ‘i don’t have any reason to doubt my connection with the players.’
The Dutchman has no doubt forward Dominic Calvert-lewin is taking ‘big steps’. having been brought into the starting Xi for the sunderland game, the 20-year-old shone, scoring twice as well as hitting the post.
Calvert-lewin, who has four Everton goals, made headlines over the summer as he scored the winner for England in the Under 20s World Cup final. And this week he was nominated alongside Kylian Mbappe and Ousmane Dembele for the 2017 golden Boy award, given to the player aged under 21 deemed the most impressive in Europe in the calendar year.
Asked how good Calvert-lewin could be, Koeman said: ‘That’s all about the future. he’s making big steps at the moment and nobody knows where it will end.
‘in most aspects of football i think he needs to improve — in holding the ball, in his movements. he can be more clinical.
‘But if you are looking at other strikers of his age, he is a really big talent. he’s strong, he’s fast, and he showed (against sunderland) he can score goals.
‘The boy is really disciplined, he’s hard-working and he likes to improve. he’s listening, and if you ask something (of him), he tries to show that.
‘ he can play in different positions. There are a lot of possibilities with Dominic in the team.’