Sideliner

Crowd are immense tonight, as they were against Arsenal.

Stek is so awful. Such bad decision making. No idea what Koeman sees in him.

So happy with the first half, hope we can keep up this intensity in the second half.
 
Hope McCarthy is ok, he is fantastic in his favoured position. Just what we need.
 
Valencia and Lukaku are working their butts off.
 
Barkley has been great

The intensity seems to be hurting Barkley he seems to be off the pace a bit

Roms winning headers but no one to get second ball.

He's done well in the air but is getting bullied on the deck. Needs to stand up stronger. 
Other than that good so far. Keep working.

Lukaku is so lazy , i wonder whether he chews his own food

Bring Barkley on as winger and play Deulefeu as nr 10

Lukaku gets pick pocketed tme and again by their defenders

Gerry has more fight than the lot of them.

Oh FFS yet another... disgrace
 
Barry didn't track the run and Gueye couldn't get to the flight of the ball.

Deulofeu and Mirallas truly it for us, and that only through work rate with little quality to match.

Our full-backs look like shite warmed up defensively. Williams once again failing to impress. Mirallas and Deulofeu working hard but but that's about it. Barry played a beautiful ball for our goal but is being over ran at times. McCarthy has run a lot. Gana has worked hard, nothing new there! Rom has won a fair few flick-ons to no avail, finished his goal well in his right foot and has been alright, nothing more, nothing less.
 
It's all so meh.

Weirdly promising start followed by a load of shit. Struggling to find a positive other than the work rates of Mirallas and Deulofeu out wide.

Michael ball said lukaku losing the ball put baines out of position and they countered... williams and mori should have done better.

Hes not aware of where the defender is. He is not moving to the ball allowing them to steal in time and time again.

Gerry is looking dangerous in spells. Put in some good dangerous crosses. Forwards need to gamble a little more.

Realistically, points gained in this manner is the best we can hope for after the recent performances. I'm not hoping for eye pleasing yet, that wouldn't be possible given the state of the team's morale and lack of confidence. It may have been wayward, but there was some fight in them today (fight that peaked, as it always does, in the last 15 mins). There are just SO many missing pieces that our team literally plays with a gap between defense and attack. If Valencia plays with Rom, and we drop the pedestrian joggers, we'll be better off.

Barkley will never fulfill his potential. He has the feet of George Best but the footballing brain of Forest Gump.

We need to press as a team or not at all. Right now we have one or two players doing it at a time. Rom does it sporadically, Barkley is even worse at it, Barry physically can't do it, Baines treats the opposition like they have AIDS and won't get within five yards of them, Bolasie has a go every now and again, Williams and Jags are a bit of a joke, Coleman has a go but his defensive qualities are horrendous.
 
We basically have Gana that presses effectively. That's it.
 
In short, we do not have the players to play that game. So we need to gut this team from top to bottom and get players who can press and are willing to press.

Difference is that Austin has the abiltiy to work how own chances, this is why Mourinho sold Rom.
 
I preferred watching us under martinez, he lost games by attacking too much.
 
Now we lose because we are shit!

But why does Koeman keep on playing basically the same side after poor performance after poor performance

I don't know where to start with how disillusioned I am with this football club. It's not a new feeling either, I've felt like this for two years now. It's like we've gone back in time to the dark days of the early Noughties under Walter Smith, just endless, grinding shit with no realistic hope of improvement.
 
First of all, the football. Fuck me. I can't think of an area of the game I can't criticise. The defending is a ragged mess, we can't press, no one moves for each other, the quality of the passing is abysmal, and in front of goal... no shots on target in two away games says it all. You can't believe some of these are men who have made themselves fantastically wealthy playing football they way they shoot and head towards goal.
 
Even worse than that, they look like a team of strangers. There's rumours of Koeman losing the dressing room etc - well, sorry, the players can fuck off, 9 of the players who got on the pitch for us today bear responsibility for the Martinez debacle, they let the fans and the club down for two seasons under him, they should count themselves very, very lucky they still get a wage from us. They should be breaking their backs to make up for that, listening to the new boss's ideas, doing everything they can to repair the damage Martinez did.
 
Saying that, Koeman isn't entirely blameless. I had my doubts about him as a manager when he arrived, he's done nothing to change my mind. Bar four summer signings, he is playing the same players in the same positions in the same ineffective formation that stank the Premiership out in the final few months of last season. What sort of leadership is that? Anyone with eyes can see that most of this squad is either over the hill or rank out of form - but he plays them anyway. What is the point of having a youth system if we don't use it to freshen up the first team in between transfer windows? Look at what the young lad for Southampton did to us today - fearless, energetic, ready to put everything in. I want some of that in an Everton shirt, and I'd rather watch kids have a go and lose than overrated also rans play the fucking appalling shit they are dishing up at the moment. All Koeman is showing is that he hasn't got it in him to bruise a few egos and take drastic action when needed.

I hope Mirallas starts the next match instead of Lennon

Baines is not half the player he used to be.