Elston Gunnn

Ok I'll come clean here. I have slated the lad a lot but I wouldn't want to see him go for £1m. He's still an option and can be creative from the bench (only the bench). He has to be worth at least £3m

The problem is that the agent is also telling him "Everton does not trust you, Martinez did not play you when Baines was injured, you are ready now, Swansea is offering you a chance, they have really scouted you...".
 
When the reality is that Baines is 30+, each time more injury prone, Oviedo has had a serious injury and Garbutt can earn the spot here if he sticks around the way Stones did. Martinez has shown that he's a bit conservative but once the player proves his worth he sticks with him.
 
Consistency is underrated in the careers of footballers. The more time they stay in a team, the more likely is that they focus on improving their skills and shine. How many times we have heard that a normal player has been in a team since long time and one year they had a breakout season? I think that kind of season does not happen overnight just because, it happens due to long term trust in the club, organic development and increased responsibility.

I hope working on our fitness will be a big thing. At no point during this season did we look fit - full 90 minutes looked a struggle, and not just for the ageing players like Osman.

Massive thanks to Steve for running this throughout the season. Looking forward to next years game

This is embarrassing.

I don't really agree that he's had a fair crack tbh. Martinez said that Baines has had this ankle problem since 2012, so it would have made sense to have "managed" the injury this season by giving Garbutt more game time so Baines got some rest. But he hasn't done that.

Even accounting for a bit of mutual hyperbole, here's the basis for a fundamental debate, as "great" and "very poor" are 12-15 places apart in the 2015-16 table.
 
Without agreeing with the label "very poor," right now I lean in the direction of MC11's description: mediocrity, no real stars, a kind of aimlessness masked and made all the more irritating by Roberto's pathetic cliches. As to our ship having sailed, I feared over last summer that the narrow CL miss last spring would haunt us. Is there any realistic prospect of challenging for top 4 next season? Top 7?
 
Was 2013-14 a product of Roberto's creative approach befuddling the opposition; and this season the result of the rest of the league catching on, thus reducing Roberto's approach to stale predictability? Can the difference be primarily laid to injuries? Was 2013-14 or 2014-15 the "real" Everton? How good are our best young players -- Barkley, Lukaku, Stones, McCarthy, Besic, Coleman, Ledson, Browning, one or two others? Is Jagielka a strong captain? Is Baines so uninterested in.football that he's perfectly happy to let Lukaku, Mirallas, Barkley, and unnamed others take the PKs; and Roberto happy to let Baines step aside in favor of overconfident boors? Are Howard and Robles strong keepers, or (barely) adequate? Will Roberto think Barry can play 90 minutes week after week after week next season?
 
Like MC11, I don't see any quick remedy, so until Matt expands on his statement, I'm inclined to think we're not very close to great.

Even accounting for a bit of mutual hyperbole, here's the basis for a fundamental debate, as "great" and "very poor" are 12-15 places apart in the 2015-16 table.
 
Without agreeing with the label "very poor," right now I lean in the direction of MC11's description: mediocrity, no real stars, a kind of aimlessness masked and made all the more irritating by Roberto's pathetic cliches. As to our ship having sailed, I feared over last summer that the narrow CL miss last spring would haunt us. Is there any realistic prospect of challenging for top 4 next season? Top 7?
 
Was 2013-14 a product of Roberto's creative approach befuddling the opposition; and this season the result of the rest of the league catching on, thus reducing Roberto's approach to stale predictability? Can the difference be primarily laid to injuries? Was 2013-14 or 2014-15 the "real" Everton? How good are our best young players -- Barkley, Lukaku, Stones, McCarthy, Besic, Coleman, Ledson, Browning, one or two others? Is Jagielka a strong captain? Is Baines so uninterested in.football that he's perfectly happy to let Lukaku, Mirallas, Barkley, and unnamed others take the PKs; and Roberto happy to let Baines step aside in favor of overconfident boors? Are Howard and Robles strong keepers, or (barely) adequate? Will Roberto think Barry can play 90 minutes week after week after week next season?
 
Like MC11, I don't see any quick remedy, so until Matt expands on his statement, I'm inclined to think we're not very close to great.

Even accounting for a bit of mutual hyperbole, here's the basis for a fundamental debate, as "great" and "very poor" are 12-15 places apart in the 2015-16 table.
 
Without agreeing with the label "very poor," right now I lean in the direction of MC11's description: mediocrity, no real stars, a kind of aimlessness masked and made all the more irritating by Roberto's pathetic cliches. As to our ship having sailed, I feared over last summer that the narrow CL miss last spring would haunt us. Is there any realistic prospect of challenging for top 4 next season? Top 7?
 
Was 2013-14 a product of Roberto's creative approach befuddling the opposition; and this season the result of the rest of the league catching on, thus reducing Roberto's approach to stale predictability? Can the difference be primarily laid to injuries? Was 2013-14 or 2014-15 the "real" Everton? How good are our best young players -- Barkley, Lukaku, Stones, McCarthy, Besic, Coleman, Ledson, Browning, one or two others? Is Jagielka a strong captain? Is Baines so uninterested in.football that he's perfectly happy to let Lukaku, Mirallas, Barkley, and unnamed others take the PKs; and Roberto happy to let Baines step aside in favor of overconfident boors? Are Howard and Robles strong keepers, or (barely) adequate? Will Roberto think Barry can play 90 minutes week after week after week next season?
 
Like MC11, I don't see any quick remedy, so until Matt expands on his statement, I'm inclined to think we're not very close to great.

As this Ross-debate has cropped up on the "Has Martinez got it wrong?" thread, here's a minor point, but one important to me. I was disappointed to see Naismith starting ahead of Barkley against Villa. While I don't think Naismith the shite that some on TT do, I do think Naismith's strengths and weaknesses are pretty clear, so he'll not appreciably improve either his play or my opinion thereof over our final 3 matches.
 
We know what Naismith can and cannot do. But we're not totally certain about who Barkley can become, and we (not to mention Roberto) will learn a whole lot more if he's on the pitch for, say, 250 minutes the next 3 weeks. There's more to gain for the future, and probably for this season, too, by playing Barkley, not Naismith, at ACM.
 
So, as to Barkley very specifically, my answer to the thread question is, " Roberto's got it stupidly wrong if he starts Naismith over Barkley even a single time the rest of this season."

As this Ross-debate has cropped up on the "Has Martinez got it wrong?" thread, here's a minor point, but one important to me. I was disappointed to see Naismith starting ahead of Barkley against Villa. While I don't think Naismith the shite that some on TT do, I do think Naismith's strengths and weaknesses are pretty clear, so he'll not appreciably improve either his play or my opinion thereof over our final 3 matches.
 
We know what Naismith can and cannot do. But we're not totally certain about who Barkley can become, and we (not to mention Roberto) will learn a whole lot more if he's on the pitch for, say, 250 minutes the next 3 weeks. There's more to gain for the future, and probably for this season, too, by playing Barkley, not Naismith, at ACM.
 
So, as to Barkley very specifically, my answer to the thread question is, " Roberto's got it stupidly wrong if he starts Naismith over Barkley even a single time the rest of this season."

Suggest Roberto and most of the players donate this week's wages to charity.
 
Will Roberto praise his team's "brave" second-half performance?
 
Looks like Roberto saw no need to use the third sub. He must have noticed more effort than I did.
 
Wretched, embarrassing.

Not good enough by a long shot. I hope we can shrug this off and start again next week. They looked like they were on holiday already today, and I've already said that's just not acceptable after the season we've had.

Embarrassed.

Half an hour too late.

Looks like we're signing Tom Cleverley guys... lol. I hate the fact that we were given a lifeline and we just... squandered it

Was just about to say that, Barry having another 'mare as well, piss poor game from him

why is Barry still on...

I'd still rather have Baines back on pen duty, very unconvincing that.

Top half and I'll be happy. Well, not happy, but you know what I mean.

So could we though, as we're in the same boat. If it happens I'll be massively pissed off because the players owe the fans a few performances.

No one knows for sure where Barkley will end up as a player - absolutely no one.
 
There are reasons for this:-
 
Ability - Technically he has everything
Physicality:- pace, strength, he's got the lot.
Tactically:- at the moment he is way behind
Mentally:- at the moment he is weak
 
"IF" he improves on the latter 2 he is world class - no doubt about it. He has everything in his locker from an ability perspective.
 
The reason that no one knopws if he will make it is that the Tactics and mentality are the two final components that a player develops and he is too young to be judged as yet. He is still a novice in terms of games played and has missed a fair chunk of football after a career threatening injury.
 
You only have to look at some of the things he has done on a pitch - certain shots with either foot, freekicks, powerful surging runs, defence splitting passes. Some players go through a career without showing such ability. Its tapping into his head that is key and there is time on his side.

Agreed. Hope he stays but If we get more than 28m I'm okay with that too.

I'll ignore the 'who' part of the question. It will be Martinez.
 
I'll also ignore answers of Moyes.
 
But the topic touches on something quite important. An ageing squad. It's been a concern of mine for a while. Too many players at the wrong end of their career. Could cost a fortune to replace them all.
 
The positive thing is that we have no Europe to worry about next season so we can trim the squad a bit and add to it in stages.
 
There really is some deadwood around.
 
I also don't know why Martinez has a reputation of poor signings for us?
 
Yeah, some have been dogs. But look at every signing made by every team. It's 50% 50 whether they work out or not.

Agreed, stupid defensive mistakes (Alcaraz was MOTM for many on Sunday so no reason to expect his ineptitude, Coleman has been great recently so I don't see how the manager could have seen them hitting the self destruct button) and some world class finishing have done for us. Ross hit the post twice; it could have been very different, particularly if the first one had gone in.
 
Depressing, but I'm not as suicidal as some.