Goodison Glory

6 hours ago, barryj said:

*Caveat 

At home to Wolves (only points they’ve got so far) and Fulham (their 7 pts mainly come from 3 against us and 3 Luton) and Sheffield Utd away. None are good teams at all. Only good side was Villa and we had an xG of 0.72

The reality is we will stay in this league based on our performances against similar teams not the elite teams. So the fact that we created a shit load of chances against those “similar” teams can’t be dismissed.

That said, we did not pick up many points or score many goals….so players and manager need to accept responsibility for that.

On 18/09/2023 at 09:04, Matt said:

 

 

The more I listen to Simon Jordan (on the commercial aspects of football) the more I like him. Personally, I don't care whether 777 are just in this to flip it. At the end of the day, to flip the club, they will need to have ensured 3 things:

1. The stadium is finished

2. We maintain prem status

3. Our FFP outlook has improved (which it likely will by start of next season anyway)

As I side note, 20 seconds of listening to Martin O'neill is enough to have you banging your head on the table..speak faster, speak louder ffs.

My assessment

1. It was our worst performance of the season by a mile. I am not talking about the result. I expected us to have little to no possession and unlike other matches create very few chances, but against those low expectations I thought we stunk the place out. As others have said, the inability to pass to another blue shirt on the deck was horrific.

2. Beto looked gassed earlier on. That long run he had first half when he couldn't get the better of Saliba....I thought he was gassed then, possibly because he seemed to be closing down on his own. Not a team press. Not sure why the a disconnect there.

3. McNeil was bad. I thought he was worse when he switched to the right flank. I hadn't actually thought that it might be because he wasn't fit (as Romey said), so fair point. 

4. We aren't often unanimous on a subject but I think we are when it comes to Ashely Young taking set pieces. Please STOP now. Just stop.

5. Arsenal weren't "Pep era Barcelona" but they still were very good I thought. Very slick. Not as much end product as say a Man City but they can murder you with the ball and movement....which was evident,

There's only one question we want answered (besides where's the Arteta money!)......what's happening with Teflon Bill? 

We could've done with this announcement last week when there was fuck all to talk about other than demari! 

Cmon at least let's give some credit for us getting a penny. I'm pretty sure the vast majority thought he'd go on loan and then leave on free, like so many others before him.

just further reinforces what a solid window we've had in terms of adding more quality and optimising balance sheet. 

Seems like some "hold my beer" moments going on here...annual losses at their current clubs are £200M+.

31 minutes ago, Matt said:

Not arguing that it hasn't turned out badly. You said it started with him and it just didn't, we were a mess fighting relegation then.

To make it worse, we've had a "do-over" or "clean slate" whatever term you want to use and we've screwed it up again...bill being the constant in overseeing/making decisions. I think we all agree, we just pray for the day we can move on.

Pure speculation and lazy journalism. 

1 hour ago, patto said:

MSP have loaned 100m to complete the stadium so all is good there. 

£100M was just the next instalment needed. There was still additional funding needed and they were talking to two global banks for the balance...more debt.

regardless, I think Wall Writers point was even if the stadium is paid for, the new owners could asset strip and sell it - then lease it back (shudder the thought).

12 hours ago, Hafnia said:

I don’t give a fook where the manager is from. I never have. I care only about what they do with the team. 

That would mean you don't voice an opinion about any manager (incl Rafa) until they've actually taken over the team. I've not checked posts but if you've managed to refrain from commenting on prospective managers then you're more controlled than I am.

18 minutes ago, duncanmckenzieismagic said:

The squad had no depth last season and it just got a lot smaller so we are definitely weaker, even if the staring XI is stronger 

The lack of options at CB and midfield scares the shit out of me, especially when Doucs and Gana piss off to the Afcon, which is why I can’t believe we are rumoured to be trying to offload Gomes this month

For me we look much stronger in attack and out wide but everywhere else we are considerably weaker, including the GK department. Virginia is a definite downgrade on Begovic 

 

It's a fair call out about the AFCON but  another window will open before then and it is widely known that we would've have brought more players in had we sold iwobi and Gray earlier. So I'm not worried about that. 

You think we are weaker in full back?

10 minutes ago, Palfy said:

It’s not about individual names it’s about the depth of the squad, look at our bench for the Sheffield game one of the worst benches we’ve put out. We improved our forwards in depth our wingers have stayed static, the midfield and defence are weaker. It’s generally accepted in football that our squad is weaker than last season, we are 3-4 injuries away from disaster and that was before Iwobi left who could cover 4 positions.  

we were 3-4 injuries away from disaster last season also. I don't think anything has changed there - our squad is still paper thin its Just better quality this year.

of 6 position groups we are way better in quality and NO worse off in numbers in 3 of them (FB, WIDE and FWD). I'd say it's a push on 2 (GK and MID)....we can debate CB. 

Most of the folks who left didn't even make the bench last year and those that did have generally been replaced by better talent. 

I was just adding to Palfy's comment about the spine (Beto).

I'm surprised at the comments in other threads (demari etc) about us being weaker vs last season. I agree we might be lesser in number but not quality.

GK - No material difference here.

FB - essentially we replaced bench fodder (Vinagre) with a starter (Young)

CB - Granted, def fewer in numbers but arguably stronger (Branthwaite vs Coady/Mina/Holgate)

Mid - Kept the core and essentially replaced Davies with Gomes. I'll call that net-neutral. Not counting the return of Dele.

Wide - Replaced Iwobi / Gray (likely), & Townsend (who never played) with Harrison/Danjuma and Dobbin for depth. Hands down stronger. 

Forward - here's the big change. We all agreed that Simms and Maupay were not up to scratch. We've gone and replaced them with Beto and Chermiti. Again, hands down better.

We also sold Niles, Samuels and Cannon who didn't contribute last season.

so def fewer in number particularly in CB but I think the squad is stronger and we finally got what we asked for up front. 

On an admittedly, very small sample size, I'd say that when fit, it should not be automatic that Dom gets the lone striker role. Obviously, Beto needs to sustain his form and DCL needs to get fit - neither of which is a given 

7 hours ago, RuffRob said:

From what Dyche said in his latest interview Thelwell is very constrained in the deal that he can make, and pulled a bit of a Rabbit out of the hat tailoring a deal that got a £25M signing of Beto over the line.

It is extreamely difficult to judge  DoF at this club. It sounded like both Walsh and Brands where pretty much dictated to by the owner or indeed the owners real  puppet master - Usmananov. Transfer business was shocking under their stewardship, but blame goes far beyond the pair of them.  

Thelwell seems to be making a better fist of it, given what appears to be significant financial restrictions dealing with the aftermath of FFP and lose of significant sponser (although the sponser and owner interferance appeared to be hand in hand).

Our biggest outlays - McNeil (22), Onana (20), Garner (21) Beto (25) and Chermiti (19) (ages when purchased) look to be decent transfers. The only real duck expenditure wise so far is Maupay, although we are still early days on a couple of these, I feel we are now consistently shopping the the right window now. Thelwell just need a bit more cash so the quantity of these types of signings can be increase and spread accross the pitch - i.e your Gnonto's etc. He is definately having to deal with one hand behind his back at the moment. 

 

Agree with this entirely. I would add that it is not just FFP that has constrained us/him, it is cash flow. Moshri does not appear willing to put more money in (or can't). This is why we took out more debt last year and also most of the income we received went to servicing the costs of the stadium. 

We lost some of our targets in January because we could not find the right player where the club was willing to take our buy now pay later type of deal structure. 

49 minutes ago, Palfy said:

No I’m asking you for your evidence, I don’t know what happened but I’m not willing to appoint the blame for the breakdown in relationship at the door of one person based on media speculation. So we no Dyche took his shirt and gave it to someone else, now if that happened without a discussion with Gray or a discussion that was this is what I’m doing like it or not, I think most people would find that they had been disrespected, so can we discount that as the reason Gray said what he said. The honest answer is I don’t know what has happened between him and Dyche and if you are being honest neither do you or anyone on here know for sure what has happened that led to Gray saying that about Dyche. 

Great post, sounds like both groups in this debate are admitting they don't actually know very much and the majority is speculation. 

Gray - posted an unprofessional comment in the public domain, as he did at Leicester. 

Club - gave his number to someone else and blocked a transfer move

outside of that, I'm not sure we know much else with certainty, other than it's yet another distracting side show that we could do without.

MSP only broke down because they wanted equity based loans and Rights Media thought they were getting too much equity in return. 
 

if the 777 deal is different, could be a complete takeover or just partial investments that would include a pay down of Rights Media Debt then that would be different. 

Apparently Hazard was the opposite of Ronaldo in terms of training. Ronaldo would still hone his craft at training, try hard, be there early etc. I read that hazard was last to training and first to leave. Didn't want to improve just use the god given talent he had..:I guess in that context it's no surprise he will just retire...he had enough money and doesn't have the character to try and start again.