Keith B

I feel almost overconfident about this match, which suggests doom. That means we should win 0-3 but will lose 1-0 on a set piece goal.

I was proud of the effort the blues gave today. If I had to critique it, I'd say that we need to be faster on the counter attack. But the defense was solid and the subs came at the right times. 

7 hours ago, StevO said:

The players agree to it, I think that is important to note, rather than the club makes them. The players agree to give up their time, they aren’t forced. 

Not having a dig Keith, I just think it’s important to note it that way. 

It’s a great article, I’m a huge fan of Denise and I’m made up the great work she did with EITC gave her the chance to take the big job. 

That's right StevO, I wrote it incorrectly. Still a beautiful thing and I'm proud to call myself an Evertonian.

Anyone else spending Friday night listening to z-cars and becoming irrationally optimistic about this match? No? Maybe I'm the only one.

Marco is faced with some challenges with the players available. I actually think it is a good test for him. He's not shown a great deal of tactical flexibility and when he's tried it hasn't been great. But he's going to have to come up with something here and Wolves are a decent side. So it will have to be savvy.

It doesn't seem like we have three healthy center backs but we also don't have any available left backs. So my guess is Coleman, Zouma, Keane, Kenny, Davies, Gomes, Siggy, Richarlison, Walcott, and Cenk Tosun. Pickford in goal obviously. 

Absolutely appalling from top to bottom. The lack of a plan for set pieces is on the manager. If he can't adapt, and he hasn't shown any ability to do that, he needs to go. You hate firing managers every year but that was a disgraceful performance and that's saying something since most of the last two months have been disgraceful performances.

At no point in the 80 minutes that have been played so far did I think Everton was likely to score. There is just so little going forward.

14 minutes ago, Shukes said:

Problem is we don’t have a player that can do a job to take Gomes out of the firing line for a bit. We need him on the pitch and have to hope his form comes back. 

Having a terrible game again. Can’t work out what’s wrong with him recently, or did he just have a few matches at the start out of his skin and this is the real Gomes?

I believe it is the latter. He had a few good games early but this is the real Gomes. For all his technical flair, he's slow and sloppy on the ball and inaccurate with his passes. 

This is the first match where I've really questioned Marco's plan. Starting the same side that looked so extremely average against Bournemouth has led to predictable results. I don't know what the fix is but what I do know is that the current set up is not working.

3 minutes ago, nogs said:

Great post. I agree with all of that. I hate watching us play like today but this is the fifth season running I've felt this mix of frustration and empty resignation heading into the new year. The only way that is going to change is with vision, leadership, strategy and patience. In the meantime, learn to live with feeling like shit at every bollox performance like today. We won't buy our way out of mediocrity, we've tried that and we've got worse. We need people in charge who can build a team regardless of the names on the shirt. 

That's right--we had about five days this season when we thought we might be top six quality. But other than that, most of the last five seasons have been mid-table futility. We lucked into a Europa league spot two seasons ago and flamed out fast. Doing more of the same will net us more of the same. 

Spurs are battering Cardiff as I type this and another thing we lack is player development. Two or three seasons ago we thought we were getting Mousa Sissoko but he changed his mind and went to Spurs at the last minute. I was actually happy about that at the time--I thought he was overrated. However, after a couple of seasons under Poch, he's improved his game and is a valuable piece for a top four side. Does anyone believe that he would have improved playing for Everton? Can you name a player in the last five years that clearly improved during his time in the first team? Something has gone wrong on that front as well and is something that can be addressed with proper prioritization and investment. Or at least more easily and cheaply addressed than "We need a striker that can score 20 goals."

We are what we are: A mid-table side that is about as far away from the Champions League as we are from relegation. This is an opportunity to invest in process, not players. We absolutely shouldn't buy in-their-prime players in January. There are very few of those players that would actually lift Everton into the top six and even fewer that want to play for Everton and fewer still that we can actually afford. The ones that are for sale will demand exorbitant fees. The bottom line is that Everton is not in position to buy in prime players as a way to make it into the top 6. 

We can, however, invest in youth development and youth talent identification. We have very few players that have come from the Academy...off the top of my head DCL, Davies, and Kenny. All three of those are too young to make final judgments on, but they don't look (to me) to be Champions League quality players. Our academy has to improve. Further, club leadership needs to have a pathway/plan for the club. Are you confident that Moshiri/Kenwright  have a vision for how to lift us into the UCL? I sure don't...so far Moshiri's plan has been to buy in-prime players and hope for the best. It is hard to say how much of that is on the previous coaches and directors of football but the owners are the accountable parties for vision and club culture. Maybe Brands and Silva have taken steps in that direction--it is hard for me to tell from where I sit. 

The bottom line is that we are not going to be able to compete with the same strategies as nation state supported clubs and plutocrat owned clubs like Manchester City and Chelsea. But even worse, I'm not sure Everton has a strategy to compete with those teams at all. Not even a bad one. A well run club doesn't buy Cenk Tosuns and Omaur Niasses in January. (And I like both of those players more than most people.) In neither case were we a striker away from the UCL or relegation. 

That's why I think we stick with Silva and Brands. The purchases we made this summer were much more savvy than in previous years. You'd hope though, that those purchases would be a reason why you'd expect to beat Leicester City at home. We didn't do that (and haven't beaten Newcastle and Watford at home either), which is disappointing but it shouldn't lead us to panic and bring in an overpriced and mediocre striker this January. 

It is frustrating because there are ideas and quality in the side. But to beat the big clubs away from home, we can't make stupid mistakes. And we made one or two mistakes this afternoon that cost us. (Walcott not getting back to cover on the second goal and Bernard not finishing his chance are the obvious ones.)

Sorry I missed this, but glad you enjoyed your visit. 

Honestly thought the performance today was decent. Finishing kept it from being "good." The second goal was appalling from the linesman--miles offside. Cech had a really good game, but our best opportunities didn't really test him. I don't think Michael Keane is a starter once Mina gets fit and I have some concerns about Gylfi. Gylfi seems to just disappear. If he's not delivering on set pieces, and he didn't do that today, he isn'tt that useful. Digne's free kick was better than all the ones Gylfi took today.

One other criticism is that Silva is 5-10 minutes late making changes, but he made the correct ones. I wonder if it has to do with fitness in the case of Bernard. In any case, there were long stretches of the match when we forced Arsenal into looking terrible. In past years we have just sat back and let Arsenal boss us, so at least this was a different way to lose. 

That lineup should be enough to win. Zouma got a few minutes today (certainly under terrible circumstances) but he looked okay. I'm a little worried about Digne but hope he gets some time to get comfortable.

Felt like 2 points dropped to me. Referee was horrible. I think we've scored 3 goals with 10 men and 3 goals with 11 men...not sure what that says about us.We haven't had the most difficult schedule thus far so we are going to need to 1.) finish matches with 11 men and 2.) figure out the zonal marking stuff on corner kicks. I'm not necessarily against zonal marking, I'm against bad marking and we have been bad so far on set pieces. It's hard to tell if we are creating more chances offensively because we've played with 10 men for 1/3 of the season so far.

Absent a couple of new center backs, we are going to ship a lot of goals this season. But we will play attractive soccer and score a bunch of goals too. That in itself will be a huge improvement over last season.

The away form has been so terrible this season that I'm very happy with that. Cenk is quickly becoming one of my favorites; he was chasing in the 90th as if it were the 1st. Gana looked a bit rusty and Pickford should have been more aggressive on the goal. But other than that, well done!

I honestly can't understand why I'm still watching this.

I am at peace with the appointment as well. He's a proven manager and will ensure we don't get into a relegation scrap. I think he is going to surprise us and get us in the top half. It's not a simple job but he's got loads of experience to lean on and supportive ownership that will spend money in January. Best case scenario is we finish in 8/9/10 but our young players continue to develop, especially Kenny, Davies, DCL, and Benny. With some smart moves in January, that could equal a side that could attract a more ambitious manager this summer.

I haven't commented much this season because it has been so painful. But this feels like the bottom. No heart, no grit, effort not good enough, and folding like a tent at the first sign of adversity. What happened to our club?

Bye Ron. Here's hoping Tomas Tuchel will take the job.

Same set up as Man City for me.  Soak up pressure and pray for a lucky counter. That's a 5-4-1 for me. 

As usual, there are a lot of good points made in the most recent comments above. I could scarcely do better. But here are my thoughts and concerns with RK:

First, I don't have a sense of what he wants to do to win matches. What is his preferred style? He talks big on having a solid foundation on defense, but it's 8-0 in the last three matches. If we were grinding out 1-0 or 1-1s, I could see it. But absent a solid defense, what is his preferred attacking style? (And honestly, there might be an answer to this that I just haven't seen or don't know.) Lukaku seems to have covered up a lot of our attacking issues, and if losing him is even 33% of our dip in form, he's got to be considered one of the best strikers in the world, no?

Second, why is it that the team doesn't look like it knows what it is supposed to be doing? I don't feel like this was the case at any point last season. We had our dips in form, but it felt like players knew their role and knew what was expected. Why are there so many headless chickens right now?

Third, our best players aren't playing up to their ability. Morgan Schniederlin was one of our best players in the second half of last season. Now he seems like one of the worst. What is going on there. Why is it that Ronny isn't getting even average levels of performance out of players that we've seen perform better recently? Absent tactics, this is the managers biggest job. 

Lastly, he's brought in a bunch of players that aren't gelling. Why is that? They are his guys? What was his vision for Gylfi, Klassen, and Rooney? Did he think he could play them all together?

I remarked on twitter that we'll have to hire Big Sam in March to keep us up. I know we've had a difficult schedule, but I am terrified that my prediction might be right.

Up the toffees!

Mark, I really respect the scouting report. I can't say that I've followed Atalanta at all and know nothing more about them than you've written above. I think I agree with your lineup since we are away. For the home fixture, I'd recommend a pretty rotated squad.

This sort of thing happens all the time in the US with professional athletes. I've actually discussed the drunk driving issue with a friend of mine who had a cup of coffee with a professional American football team. He told me that every team he played for had a phone number that players could call and they'd be picked up and taken home, no questions asked. (This was before Uber/Lyft.) Many players didn't use it because they didn't trust the coaching staff/management promises on the issue. But anyway, I'd be shocked if all of the top professional sides in England didn't have similar arrangements. And if they don't, they should. Which makes it all the more irritating.

And even so, dude makes, allegedly $300K per week--he could hire multiple full time drivers for one week's work of salary. I've driven drunk in my life, but not since my very early 20s--I'm 37 now. But I've never had the money Wayne has. I hope he has learned his lesson. I've got no problem with him having a few drinks, especially on an international break, but I hope he never puts himself (a soon to be father of 4, right) and other people at risk like this again.