Isaiah

Remember when we were annoyed at Barcelona inserting a buy-back clause in Mina's transfer?

Says what I've thought since the summer. He piled on weight/muscle. 

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/dec/09/romelu-lukaku-world-cup-belgium-manchester-united

Always dread this fixture. No matter what form we're in or how exciting our team is or how depleted and tired Liverpool's team may be (after their Champion's League game), we never seem to bring our A-game to this fixture. Really hope Silva changes that tomorrow. 

I agree his touch was always relatively bad (it certainly wasn't one of his strengths, let's put it that way), but United fans who watch him every week say it's getting worse and worse, and they also blame his ballooning weight for it. Just one of many threads on the subject:

http://www.redcafe.net/threads/lukakus-touch.443243/

Oh, and whoever on the United staff is allowing Lukaku to become a bodybuilder should be fired. The guy's insanely huge for a footballer and it's affecting his ability to run and control a ball. 

Injured himself with his attempt at a first touch. Probably ruled out of the Arsenal game on Wednesday now. 2nd lowest rated player on their fan site today after Pogba (who was utterly awful. I watched the game and couldn't believe he was a 90 million pound player. Always trying to do dumb flashy shit instead of keeping it simple. He needs to watch videos of Pirlo. Mourinho just called him out in his interview when he talked about the "genius of simplicity" in midfield).  

Kind of annoyed we didn't beat these, they're really a shit team   

1 hour ago, Palfy said:

Why are we so immersed in him still hasn't played for us for 18 months who really gives a shite here how he plays.

This is the part of the forum where people discuss players who don't play for Everton. 

9 minutes ago, hafnia said:

Apparently palaces first attack was set up by lukaku miscontrolling a pass. 

 

Lowest rated player yet again for them today (2.9/10 on their main fan site). Fans are furious and want him out in January. Can see him at somewhere like Palace or Watford in a couple of years if he doesn't get his act together. Apparently he hasn't scored at Old Trafford for 8 months. 

Interested to get some thoughts on how you rate Ronald Koeman's signings in retrospect, having seen what they can do under different managers. I couldn't stand him as a manager (dour, unlikeable and never seemed like he gave a shit), but the core of our current team owes a lot to him. Here is a full list of the players he signed during his time as manager (in order of cost, and according to Transfermarkt), with my own rating:

Gylfi Sigurdsson (49.4 million euros)

Turned out to be a key player for us this season. Very happy with him. 8/10

Yannick Bolasie (28.9 million euros)

Decent for a spell but not worth the cash. You could perhaps say the injury affected his abilities when he came back, but I don't think so. He's not a top class player but we paid (at the time) top class money for him. 5/10

Jordan Pickford (28.5 million euros)

England's number 1 for a long time to come. Koeman's best signing. 10/10. 

Michael Keane (28.5 million euros)

Who the hell is this rock-solid defender we've seen this season? It's the guy we paid almost 30 million for. Delighted with him but by God he took his time to get up to speed. Him and Mina/Zouma have the makings of a great central defensive partnership well into the next decade. 8/10

Davy Klaassen (27 million euros)

Will go down as one of the biggest wastes of cash in Everton history. No idea if he's a good player or not because I barely saw him play. Good player at the wrong club perhaps? I don't know. Bizarre signing. 1/10

Morgan Schneiderlin (22.9 million euros)

Right off the bat let me admit I'm biased against this player, because I don't like his attitude at all. He doesn't seem to have any passion or drive to win games. Not a fan, and I'd rather he wasn't at the club. Thankfully Silva seems to have sussed him out early on. 3/10. 

Ashley Williams (14 million euros)

Did a job for us. About all I can say, other than he also scored a few useful goals. 5/10. 

Nikola Vlasic (10.8 million euros)

Doing well in Moscow, but as someone who lives in Russia I can tell you that the Russian premier league is like England's League 2. I don't think he'll ever be an Everton first-team player. A fairly cheap gamble that didn't pay off. No real problem, we'll almost certainly get our money back for him. 3/10

Ademola Lookman (8.8 million euros)

May turn out to be the bargain of the decade, but who really knows at this point? We've seen flashes of what he can do. I'd like to see him take Walcott's place in the first team from now until after the Christmas schedule. A cheap and very shrewd signing. 9/10 (the rating is for his potential and the low price we got him for) .

Idrissa Gueye (8.5 million euros)

An excellent signing for the money. Very solid player. He can't hit the target for shit (never seen an Everton midfielder with a worse shot) but he can make life very uncomfortable for the opposing midfield. 9/10. 

Henry Onyekuru (8 million euros)

God only knows. ?/10

Sandro Ramirez (6 million euros)

When we signed him I couldn't believe how cheap we got him for. Now I can. 2/10. 

Dominic Calvert-Lewin (1.8 million euros)

Never going to be a world-beater, but for the money he's been an excellent bit of business. 10/10

Maarten Stekelenberg (1 million euros)

Not a very good keeper, always felt nervous when he was between the posts. 4/10 

How do you rate Koeman's signings? I think most of us agree he was a poor manager (or at least not a good fit for Everton), but on the whole do you think he spent wisely?

6 minutes ago, BedfordBlue said:

Terrible performance against a very poor side Gomes best player on the park

Hardly "terrible". Personally I thought it was a generally very professional performance. 

Richarlison starting to draw attention even on American media. Front page of the CNN website today:

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/22/football/richarlison-brazil-everton-watford-america-mineiro-spt-intl/index.html

Dominant performance, very good to see. First order of business between now and next season: tie Gomes to a permanent deal. Love his play and love his attitude. 

They're all calling for him to be dropped but I really doubt Jose will drop him for the Everton match. He'll be hoping the occasion of playing his former club will spur him to get his act together. 

That said, his confidence is shot and tonight the Old Trafford fans were on his back constantly. They're fed up of him. So Keane and Zouma (or Mina) need to take advantage of that and make sure he's constantly under pressure, because his touch is poor. Try and get the United fans hostile towards him again. 

Don't get me wrong I bear the lad no personal ill will but I just don't want him breaking his duck against us. Teams and players have a habit of coming out of dry spells whenever Everton rock up.  

Another absolute stinker of a game tonight against Juventus, in fact he's currently on target to break their forum's record for lowest rating for a player in a game (he's at 2.3/10 right now). For those who didn't watch the game, comments on his performance start towards the bottom of this page (beginning with the short and sweet "Dogshit. Get rid in January").

http://www.redcafe.net/threads/romelu-lukaku-2018-19-performances.440063/page-60

All of which means he's inevitably going to break his goalless streak and stick a fucking hattrick past us this weekend. 

He's getting absolutely slated on the main United forum, even to the point that they're calling for him to be sold back to us in January. The consensus is that his effort this season has been atrocious. 

http://www.redcafe.net/threads/romelu-lukaku-2018-19-performances.440063/page-57

2 minutes ago, Gwlad all over said:

dDaw means extra time, then pens? Ffs why can't we field a team to go for a win in a cup?

There's no extra time in this cup. Straight to penalties after the 90 minutes is up. 

That I've seen with my own eyes from the stands, Ibrahima Bakayoko. 

52 minutes ago, markjazzbassist said:

Should be 3 points here.  They are in shambles and we are home and should be getting some players back from injury.  I'm hoping for a 433 with only one sitter.

 

                    Pickford

Coleman Holgate Zouma Digne

                       Morgan

             Bernard    Gylfi

Walcott           Tosun        Bernard

If we're going to clone a player I'd prefer it be Richie. 

In all the time these MOTM threads have been going has there ever been a bigger landslide?

Yeah but Klaassen turned out to be shite whereas Richie is gonna be a worldie. 

Not even joking, this lad is already class, he's only 21, and according to his post-match interview he's ready to run through a brick wall for his manager. Really excited by this signing.   

No chance of Bernie, Yerry and Gomes being ready?