brisbaneblue

You're not correct there. Mirallas played 1003 minutes last season and made 2 assists which makes 0.179 assists per 90mins of football - this made him our fifth highest assist per minute contributor last season behind: 1. Deulofeu (1,385 mins and 8 assists = 0.520 per 90min), 2. Kone (1,458 mins and 4 assists = 0.247 per 90min), 3. Barkley (3,086 mins and 8 assists = 0.233 per 90min) and 4. Cleverley (1,613 mins and 4 assists = 0.223 per 90min) This is assuming a qualification of at least 2 assists and 300 mins of football - Darron Gibson made 1 assist in 239 mins = 0.377 assists per 90 min which is obviously a biased figure, especially since my Darron Gibson is a worse footballer than my grandmother. More to the point, Mirallas was a pretty average player in a pretty average team last season. If you look at the image below and compare his output for the seven attacking statistical categories (goals, assists, shots, shots on target, woodworks, offsides, goals per shots, shots on tagret per shots), he's decreased for every stat (ignore offsides). Most other players in our squad have improved their statistics simply because we're playing better (i.e. retaining possession more) and winning more games this season than last. IMO, he's been given a fair chance at the club for the past two and a half seasons and hasn't found any form that consistently resembles him when he first arrived. I'd sell him for £6-8m in Jan, bump up Deulofeu or Lennon to starting RW and bring in Arber Zeneli or Sam Larsson from SC Heerenveen, both of whom might not be as good as Kevin Mirallas currently, but are young enough that they can exceed his potential.

Jags has been poor his past two or three starts. I don't think he deserves another one, at least not against Swansea. I'm not a big Funes Mori fan but who else do we have that can play CB? I'd say possibly Holgate but he's yet to prove himself at CB. Funes Mori is the next best option we have IMO..

We haven't even been slightly linked to him but each week I think more and more that Tom Rogic from Celtic would be a perfect fit at Everton. We don't really have another Ross-type player in the squad which means there's no one putting pressure on him, and we have no like-for-like options if Ross gets suspended or injured. I've been following Rogic since he debuted in the Australian A-League in 2012. He reminds me a lot of Ross at his best: really good first touch, can turn on the tricks, good vision, very creative and he can hit a ball from outside the box with either foot. Along with Dembele and Sinclair, he's been one of the best players in Celtics undefeated start in the league contributing 5 goals and 2 assists in 10 games at ACM, and he played really well in the 3-3 draw against Man City in the champions league. He's been very impressive for the Aus national team of late too. Someone needs to email Steve Walsh his highlights package.

Really depends on who wants you and what that circumstance is, Ross McCormack went to Aston Villa for £12m and he's 30 and has never played higher than the championship. But I think you're probably right. £6-8m might be more realistic for Mirallas, but even for that amount you could probably pick up at least one of those promising youngsters I mentioned.

Haha I think i've been playing too much football manager this week..

He's on a £1.65m/year contract for another 2 and a half years - we'd need to pay over £4 million to release him from the contract which we wouldn't do. No club would be willing to pay a transfer fee for him. So if we really wanted to get rid of him, we'd need to find a club that would be willing to loan him and pay his wages.

- Wasn't anything special last season. - Hasn't been particularly good this season. - We already have loads of wingers in the squad (Bolasie, Deulofeu, Lennon, Valencia and Tarashaj to return) - And he's turning 30 next year Unless he finds some form in the next couple of months I'd sell him while he still has some decent transfer value. I think we could get somewhere near £10 million or more for him if we offload him in January or £8 million in the summer. I know we apparently have an abundance of cash in the bank so it's not necessary to sell anyone, but for £10 million or less we could pick up a promising young striker, winger or attacking midfielder from the dutch league (a la Zeneli, Haller, Dolberg, Larsson, Pereiro or Basacıkoglu) who has the potential to be something great - Mirallas hasn't had a good consistent season in a few years now so I don't see much risk in a move like that.

Barry has been reasonably good for us this season but he looked about a thousand years old against Chelsea. I know he's never done this in his entire career, but I'd offer him another one year deal and have him as just a squad player - someone who's always on the bench and can come on slow down the tempo and control play when we're trying to close out wins against smaller clubs.

He needs to sweep a broom through the squad over the summer - clear the deadwood, try his best to retain lukaku and work with Walsh to find new talent to rejuvenate the squad.

If/when Sunderland get relegated in May, I think Pickford would be available for around £10-14 million. Robles is contracted until June 2018 and Stek until June 2019. If I was manager I would sign someone new, keep Robles and offload Stekelenburg at the end of the season but the problem is that Stekelenburg has no transfer value while Robles does - the only other alternative is to have three senior goalkeepers and possibly loan one out. I'd be disappointed if Stekelenburg was still first choice at the beginning of next season. While he was exceptional against Tottenham and truly exceptional against Manchester City, he was directly to blame for goals at Burnley and Chelsea. He's a good keeper and seems like a very professional bloke but I don't want him as number 1 because of his inconsistency, long history of injuries and age.

The Chelsea game while painful to watch, was a good exercise in showing what we need to fix in our squad. If I had my way I would bring three new key players in either January or in the summer: A tall, strong, quick striker to backup Lukaku = Sebastien Haller A good young goalkeeper to replace Stekelenberg = Jordan Pickford A naturally athletic box-to-box midfielder = Youri Tielemans or Ruben Neves (although both probably too young and raw to go straight into the starting XI) IMO, of the current squad: - Browning, Garbutt, Rodríguez, Kone, Niasse, Gibson, McCarthy and Miralas should be offloaded unless they can prove their worth before the end of the season. - Barkley, Deulofeu, Besic, Tarashaj, Galloway, Holgate and Davies should be in the squad for next season based solely on their age and potential. - Joel, Lennon and Oviedo (maybe less so) are useful squad players. - Jags and Barry could be useful squad players and provide experience to the younger blokes in training. - Lukaku and Gueye should be kept at all costs. - Bolasie, Williams and Baines should stay in the starting XI. - Jury is still out on what to do with Stek, Cleverely, Valencia, Funes Mori or Coleman.

I think Haller would fit the 'two for every position' rule. He's reasonably tall, can dribble, a good finisher and very good in the air - if he can work on his hold-up play and put on a bit more muscle then I think he can be our number 2 Lukaku.

My preferred XI: Joel Holgate Williams Funes Mori Baines Gueye Davies Deulofeu Barkley Bolasie Lukaku Most probable XI: Stek Coleman Williams Jagiela Baines Gueye Cleverley Miralas Barkley Bolasie Lukaku

I didn't say anything more than that he played awful and he deserved a rating of a 1 in this specific match. I'd still consider him the best GK at the club, as would most. I think you're jumping to your own conclusions. We should look at each performance in isolation as opposed to making pre-determined judgements on players. I saw a lot of people bagging Oviedo on twitter after yesterday's game - Oviedo has played like shite recently but last night he was fine (he didn't have a blinder by any means but he did his job and there were at least 4 or 5 players who put in worse shifts than him). I also saw the Liverpool Echo give Stekelenburg a rating of 5 for that match - he was solely to blame for the first goal, made a mess of a couple of clearances to gift them shots on goal, and didn't do anything else in the match - why does he deserve a rating of 5 and not something lower??

Jags has had a shocker two weeks in a row. If Koeman wants to stick with Coleman on the right, then I'd tell him to start Holgate at CB to partner Williams. Holgate is the only bench player who has proved he deserves to start.

I don't like this Mirallas/Barry one-two combination on our corners, they didn't eventuate into any decent balls in. I thought our corners looked more dangerous when Deulofeu came on and pinged them in direct.

Stek had a shocker. Had very little to do and didn't even do that properly. He won us one point last week but cost us 3 points today - 1 Oviedo didn't do too much wrong, had a couple of wayward passes up in the front third but thought he got on with his job okay - 5.5 Jags made too many schoolboy errors, his passing was all over the place - 4 Williams played well, made some good headed clearances - 6.5 Coleman made some half-decent runs up the right flank but he also had some horrible touches and threw away possesision on too many occasions - 4 Gueye was everywhere as usual. I wouldn't have subbed him off - 8 Barry did very well. Showed his experience to try and draw fouls for Arfield to get a second yellow. Thought his pass to create our goal was excellent - 8 Mirallas missed a few very good opportunities early that would have made our day so much easier - 5 Barkley had a couple of decent shots on goal. showed some good touches at times but didn't have a huge influence on the game - 6 Bolasie good goal, some nice crosses in there too - 7 Lukaku good build up play but didn't get nearly enough shots on goal. Held the ball up well - 6 Deulofeu - thought he made a difference when he came on. He had a few nice tricky touches and made a couple of decent chances from the right. Maybe could have had a bit more urgency - 6.5 Cleverley & Valencia - weren't on for long enough. Koeman should have brought on Valencia earlier, wasn't sold on the starting XI - 5

What a keeper? what a player? sack robles now, we don't need a no. 2

With baines' absense confirmed, I wouldn't be too surprised if he resorts to a 3-5-1-1 that looks something like this: Stekelenburg Holgate Jagielka Williams Gueye Cleverley Barry Lennon Bolasie Miralas Lukaku

Koeman's Southampton were very patchy last season so I am not really sure what to expect. I can't really see a draw happening, I think it will either be a very encouraging or a very disappointing display by our team. I'd expect to see at least 2 changes from the XI that started at Bournemouth. Baines apparently should be fit, but I'd much prefer Oviedo as LB instead of Funes Mori if it comes to it. Stekelenburg Coleman Jagielka Williams Baines Gueye Barry Lennon Miralas Bolasie Lukaku Subs: Joel, Holgate, Funes Mori, Davies, Barkley, Deulofeu, Valencia I could even go Holgate over Coleman too.

We play with 2 DM's: 1. Gueye who plays as a Makelele/Kante style ball winning DM who focuses on tackles (4 to 5 per game on average) and interceptions (3+ per game) but is less involved in passing, crossing or putting in through balls. 2. Barry who plays as more of a traditional DM who gets forward a bit more and makes more passes (65+ per game), crosses (>1 per game) and through balls (0.15 per game) but generally makes less tackles and interceptions than a ball winning midfielder. If you look at my other post about last season's stats, you can see that Besic's stats from last season were on par with Gueye's who was playing in an Aston Villa team that was constantly chasing possession - if Besic is fit to play in January, he is the perfect person to replace Gueye while he's on international duty. We don't need to sign a replacement.

I think we will sell Funes Mori in January. And I think we'd get an inflated transfer fee for him too, I'd imagine somewhere between £15-£22 million because it's a winter transfer window. The game against Norwich showed us that Holgate is comfortable deputising at CB and that Funes Mori can't play anywhere except CB. He gets too far up the pitch for my liking and last season he was very wasteful. Sure he bagged a few valuable goals for us, but he's a centre back, it's not his job to score goals - he took more than twice as many shots as Williams or Jagielka did (per 90 minutes of football) with 67.5% of them off target and made less than half their amount of blocks. We could bring in a Williams/Jagielka-style defender for less than a third of the price we could sell him for, a la Curtis Davies or Steve Cook Besides, Funes Mori has his spot in the Argentina staring XI to lose if he isn't playing games at Everton - guys like Deulofeu, Lennon and Oviedo can be a bit more patient and bide their time on the bench because they have nothing to lose at international level - Deulofeu and Lennon because they're nowhere near the national setup, and Oviedo because he's the first picked in that Costa Rican squad regardless if he is playing at club level or not.

Lukaku will be rested after his knock. Knowing how seriously Koeman takes cup games, I can't seeing him making more than three or so unforced changes, so I think he will go for something not too far off this: Steklenberg Coleman, Williams, Funes Mori, Baines Gueye, Cleverley Lennon, Deulofeu, Mirallas Valencia Bench: Robles, Holgate, Oviedo, Davies, Barkley, Bolasie, Kone Seeing as we're on a good run, maybe it's a good idea to keep the changes to a minimum, but IMO I'd say Holgate, Robles and Oviedo could also come in and do an adequate job.

Koeman's Southampton were very patchy last year, especially leading into November/Decemeber. Take out the 4-0 Arsenal win and you're seeing a 6 game undefeated run, followed by a 7 game winless run, followed by another 6 game undefeated run. With a tough run of fixtures in December - Man United (H), Watford (A), Arsenal (H), Liverpool (H), Leicester (A), Hull (A) - I'd be very weary that we don't drop too many points in November leading into that run: Chelsea away and Southampton away are the two that standout as potential 'momentum stoppers'.

Some of my own takeaways from this analysis: - Besic is a defensive workhorse. Last season he made an impressive number of tackles, clearances and blocks for a DM. He's not a dissimilar player to Gueye. - Deulofeu is one of our most valuable players when he is on the field. 9.1 crosses, 0.52 assists and 0.65 through balls per 90 are all pretty phenomenal stats. His shooting percentage and on target percentages are also extremely high - you can see why Koeman wanted to experiment with him up front. I'd like to see him get a few more opportunities leading the line. - Valencia is still very raw but there could be something there. It's very obvious that Koeman needs to work on reducing his high number of offsides and improving his shooting accuracy. But that being said, he had a decent goals per 90 figure (0.357) and he gets away a healthy number of shots (3.033) - both a pretty good considering he was mainly used as a wider player at West Ham.