Kant

Everton’s Record with and Without James McCarthyThis season
Record with McCarthy (starting appearances only)
W9, D7, L3
Without McCarthy
W4, D5 L4
Last Season
With McCarthy
W16, D8, L10
Without McCarthy
W2, D7, L8
2013/14
With McCarthy
W21, D6, L10
Without McCarthy
W3, D4, L1

Punches more, but also looks quite solid on most of the things he does.
 
Something I noticed, he's not scared of kicking it far away to Lukaku. I feel this has helped the team tremendously, as Lukaku is winning most of the headers and also our lines regroup.
 
Same trend with Jags and Funes Mori, when they feel they can play short passes they do, but when they doubt they aim for the big man up front and we look much more solid.

He's vital to us. He does need to improve certain parts of his game, but those talking about selling him because we've got Besic and Cleverley are foolish.

Just touching on what Romey said in the MOTM thread...check out his Squaka page, notice our performance patern last season and this season when he misses spells? Coincidence that our worst form hits when he is missing or an underestimated key component of our team?
 
http://www.squawka.com/players/james-mccarthy/stats#total-goals-scored#everton-(current)#english-barclays-premier-league#8#season-2015/2016#165#all-matches#1-25#zone

Roberto should go dancing every week.

We were in total control in that second half. 7 or 8 nil really wouldn't have flattered us.

You lost me here definately.
 
By comparison with the top 6 I would say:
- Goalkeeper: Very far away. Only Mignolet is as weak as Howard. De Gea, Hart, Cech, Courtois and Lloris are top notch.
 
- Defense: Two good full backs that are weak defending, three good CB underperforming. Then again, on the comparison I do not think that they are that far away from the rest of the league, but they leak goals with incredible individual mistakes.
 
- Central midfield: As much as I love Barry - McCarthy, they are not Schweinsteiger - Schneiderlin, or Cazorla - Coquelin or Fabregas - Matic. They would be on the lower end of the 2nd tier (with Liverpool and Tottenham ones)
 
- Wingers: I feel Deulofeu has been performing very well, Mirallas / Kone not so much. However, the wingers of all the other top 6 teams are pure quality, I don't think we are close to this. Maybe Deulofeu becomes De Bruyne or Hazard one day, but it will not be this year or the next.
 
- Attacking midfielders: Barkley. Let's compare to: Eriksen, Silva/Yaya Toure, Coutinho, Mata/Herrera/Rooney, Fabregas/Oscar, Ozil. Again, for me, quite a distance there.
 
- Strikers: Lukaku is top notch and his performances have been very good this season. This is a department I'm confident it is a match. Not everyone has an Aguero on their team, but the Girouds and Kanes are on par if not inferior.
 
Bench: We are nowhere near the top tier (City, Chelsea and United spend loads of cash on subs like Herrera, Fellaini, Pedro or Bony). The second tier (Liverpool and Tottenham) is much closer.
 
 
To summarise, yes we can and should compete with anyone, but with a top 6 finish I would be happy. Obviously the league position is nothing to be proud of at the moment, but to demand competition and top four seems some distance away. If all the young talent flourishes, or if a big money player is sold (Stones?) and new signings are made to improve the team, maybe the expectations can change. For me this is what the situation is at the moment.

Me (as long as a packet of jelly babies is thrown in also) .
 
Actually, nobody. I know nowt about Niasse but £3.5m buys nothing nowadays.

I was fine with the transfer request as it happens. Totally understood it - earn a guaranteed £25m with one signature rather than run the risk of having a career ending injury and being left with half a million or whatever. He wasn't a boyhood blue, it was business and his family and agent will have been telling him to do it - it made sense.
 
What I haven't been fine with is the clear change in attitude from him. The criticising of other players has stood out when he makes mistakes - I mean how many ways does he want it? You can't profess to being inexperienced and "I will make mistakes" then start pointing fingers and reacting to the crowd like you are some super experienced world class player.
 
To me the lad wants to go, has always wanted to go and will go. To many fans he represents a status symbol more than anything else - they are proud to have a talented young defender at Everton that everone wants - its the closest thing we may have other than winning a trophy that represents kudos, and that is sad.
 
Its this mindset that has made far too many fans defend him when in reality he shouldn't be defended. To me, he has become a very uneccesary focus point for the wrong reasons. The media make out he is too good for us and I feel that he believes this.
 
He needs to focus on defending, which I don't think he's particularly brilliant at, not consistently anyway. Caught ball watching far too often, he smacks more of David Luiz rather than David Watson and that is the problem.

Is there a better manager available than Rafa Benitez?
I didn't like the idea at first but after it was put to me I think I could forget the past. He is a big name, so would attract big players. He has won plenty! He lives in the area already. There's no chance of Liverpool wanting him back now they have Klopp and he wants to be in the premier league.
I think it would make perfect sense.

But isn't that just a different approach from different personalaties with different opinions??? How did I react after the Swansea game??
 
Again, how should I show I care?

Because we have a different opinion we don't care? Wobble. Head.

Well that is that, season over, and as far as I'm concerned Martinez's tenure over. Fuck the bad decision on their second goal - bar a piece of magic from Barkley and a waste of a gift from Geri, we were rank second best all game. It was as bad a performance as Swansea, we look a ragged, disjointed, dispirited team and at the moment I just cannot see where a win is coming from. For everyone hiding behind the 'great football' Martinez has us playing - where? Bar the first leg, I haven't seen us play anything but shite since before Christmas.
 
It looked to me tonight like the players were starting to turn on each other, pointing, sniping, bickering. There's no heart, no sense to me of them playing for each other. I never felt that under Moyes, even during the worst runs under him you always felt there was a grit and determination that would see us turn it round. I look at that team for where it might come from, and it is just not there.
 
Why John Stones is still making the first XI is way beyond any reasonable attempt at comprehension. The boy's head has gone, he has probably already decided he's off in the summer, and his appalling decision making is now costing us big time. The fact that Martinez subbed him straight after he cost us the game is an admission by the manager, but of course by then it was too late. I don't blame Stones - he's a young lad still learning the game. I blame the manager for sticking with him out of sheer stupidity and stubborness, when he should have been taken out the firing line weeks ago.
 
Fuck you Martinez, you are a loser who has no place at the top table of English football. Your project has failed, you have taken this great club backwards, it is time you did one and let us claw back some dignity from this pit you have dug for us.

You're so loveable, can you send me your mobile number? I'd love to meet x.
 
Knowing the difference between league and cup games I know is a hardship, but I study very hard.

Interesting how many started posting once we fell behind. Bit strange.
 
First half, we did what we had to do. We looked solid and well organised. We didn't need to go for it, just stay calm and keep solid. And we did. No one at half time thought we were shit, did they? Their goal was a lucky deflection off a hit and hope shot.
 
It was, however, predictable that City would come out in the 2nd half all guns blazing. They had too. They were losing the semi final! We maybe sat back too much. But then again, Aguero was having a game and a half...immense player. They were buzzing...we were under the cosh as you'd expect. Their 2nd goal could have been called for going out of play but it didn't, that's just how shit rolls for you when you are down. And the 3rd, well...that was poor.
 
The subs weren't a problem. Ossie was knackered and just before Geri came off he looked knackered too. Neither Kone or McCarthy did a bad job.
 
I know it's going to be used as another stick to beat Martinez with. But at the end of the day, like it or not, City are a much better team than us. They have a luxury of attacking options and they used them very well tonight.
 
Now for the rest of the season....

Thought the referee was a waste of space. Every time a City man went to ground he gave a free kick. The 'goal' they scored which went out of play will go down in history. I hope the ref and linesman are suitably embarrassed when they see it.

We could, and should, have won that over the 2 legs. The reasons we didn't are many, but Martinez and Stones are the 2 main ones. Martinez game plan for the second leg was totally wrong and Stones needs to stop believing his own publicity.
 
We can talk about deflected shots, ball out of play all we like. It doesn't matter. Everton, with Martinez in charge, are a losing club.
 
He has had long enough and he has to go, now.

So another illegal goal and deflection cost us. Fuck you, Roberto!
 

Mori MoM for me. He hasn't deserved to lose. Not really put a foot wrong.
Forward line non-existent again tonight.

That's not the point though. 90% of Evertonians wanted Kendall out back then and our performances were infinitely more dire than they are today. What would've happened if the fans had had their way and he'd been sacked? Almost certainly no "golden era".
 
Today it's a question of judgement from the board like it was back then and us fans are free to express our opinion either way. I may prove to be a cockwas in the future but for now I still believe we should keep the manager (as I did to much more derision than I'm getting here in 1983).
 
Plus why does Martinez have the players he does at his disposal?

I feel that the talent we have now is not coping with the increased expectations of playing well. Some of the mental f*ck-ups are unbeliavable for pros, and some of them are excellent pros (like Jags).
 
If we lose one of the big two, and we can replace it with 3 or four more players at the same level as the Deulofeu, Besic, Mori... it will be all right. There are not so many good strikers as Lukaku, so I reckon that losing Stones would be less damaging than losing Lukaku, and the top teams need him more. Barcelona could pay up to £50m to land their perfect CB, we'd never play him again unless CL and if you can find another Funes Mori I'll be ecstatic.
 
The picture changes a lot if what they bring in is another Alcaraz, though.

I feel that the talent we have now is not coping with the increased expectations of playing well. Some of the mental f*ck-ups are unbeliavable for pros, and some of them are excellent pros (like Jags).
 
If we lose one of the big two, and we can replace it with 3 or four more players at the same level as the Deulofeu, Besic, Mori... it will be all right. There are not so many good strikers as Lukaku, so I reckon that losing Stones would be less damaging than losing Lukaku, and the top teams need him more. Barcelona could pay up to £50m to land their perfect CB, we'd never play him again unless CL and if you can find another Funes Mori I'll be ecstatic.
 
The picture changes a lot if what they bring in is another Alcaraz, though.

I feel that the talent we have now is not coping with the increased expectations of playing well. Some of the mental f*ck-ups are unbeliavable for pros, and some of them are excellent pros (like Jags).
 
If we lose one of the big two, and we can replace it with 3 or four more players at the same level as the Deulofeu, Besic, Mori... it will be all right. There are not so many good strikers as Lukaku, so I reckon that losing Stones would be less damaging than losing Lukaku, and the top teams need him more. Barcelona could pay up to £50m to land their perfect CB, we'd never play him again unless CL and if you can find another Funes Mori I'll be ecstatic.
 
The picture changes a lot if what they bring in is another Alcaraz, though.

I just hope we don't turn into The spurs of 4-5 years ago stock piling youngsters who turned out wank

IF Byram comes off and he joins the 'school, i'd be hugely impressed by Martinez' recruitment plan (for the most part).
 
I think the player's he's bought in his first year (his old Wigan targets (Kone, McGeady)) have been poop but the rest have been quite something. The squad and the potential of our youngsters is frightening, for which Martinez is due credit.
 
IF we continue to play the big boys, like we did against City at City, then we'll be fine but we've got to start taking all three points off everyone else, especially at home.
 
IF he can change that, I think Martinez's 'plan' could be incredible.
 
It's exciting times but it feels on a knife's edge. We either excel now and keep our young BIG stars or we stall, lose some of them and have to rebuild again. The future is quite bright though, his stubbornness aside. Let's hope his persistence starts to pay off.