Isaiah

Yeah, and hopefully that'll mean he doesn't play tomorrow, because "his mind is elsewhere" as the managers always say, and they'll want to wait until after the deadline before putting him on the pitch again. That said, I'm still pessimistic. It's just a general thing with me these days, it doesn't matter the opponent or their line-up, I just assume a miserable scraped 1-1 draw is the absolute best we can hope for, and a 2-0 loss to whoever is the most likely outcome.

The BBC just posted a graphic which shows we haven't had a single shot on goal in the league so far this year.

As good a line-up as we have right now I think. Cautiously confident of a win.

Holgate

Gana very impressive so far. Good in tackling and aware of what's going on around him.

Giving it to Calvert-Lewindowski. His work rate is superb and his finish for the goal wasn't an easy one.

Job's a good 'un. Just 6 points behind Spurs now.

Time to sub Holgate, he's on a yellow and we can't afford to lose him for Chelsea. He's been immense recently.

THAT'S why we bought him!!!!!

Holgate did one of the best tackles I've ever seen and got a yellow card for it. If he ends up getting sent off it'll be a travesty.

Not pretty but I'm absolutely delighted with the improvement our defense has made over the last 5 games. Yet another clean sheet for them today. Kenny is rightly getting a tonne of plaudits for his mature performances, but Holgate is quietly doing his job superbly as well. 10 points from the last 12 and just one goal conceded. Progress.

Rooney limped off

Williams had to score that.

Gana does have qualities but he is the worst striker of a ball I have ever seen in the premier League. The man simply can not ever hit the damn target.

Hi there, and welcome. Off-topic question - is your user name a Chris Squire reference?

No Bill, I'm not saying they "can't play football for 3 hours a week". I'm saying it's difficult to do it at the optimum level if you don't take rests. I don't know why you're getting hung up on some guy running a bunch of consecutive marathons as if that actually means something in this context. You may have noticed professional marathon runners never do that, and there's a reason for it. But fine, let's use your reasoning. Let's say that between now and Sunday, Everton organise proper matches for the first 11 every single afternoon against professional opposition. Just to instill some Eddie Izzardian guts and "bottle" in them and prepare them for facing Liverpool at the weekend. You support this idea? After all, if Eddie can run 150 miles a week, these fairies ought to be able to play 9 hours of football between now and Sunday, right?

It's not a suitable comparison in my opinion. Izzard isn't running at an elite level. He may run those marathons but he sure as shit doesn't win them. I could easily play 90 minutes of football every day of the week, it doesn't mean I could do it at elite level. If we were at home on Thursday then I'd say keep the team together, but the fact it's a long flight away, back late night, Friday's training mostly physio work, then Saturday to prepare...the statistics show that teams simply perform worse the match after a Europa away game.

^^ Really hope that's true. I don't care who plays, where they play, in what formation, and who manages them, so long as it involves nobody who will feature on Sunday. Liverpool need to take their midweek match very seriously, so let them tire themselves out while we rest and work on the Derby's game plan.

My (faint) hope for him is that John Stones was a laughing stock when he first went to City, he was fucking up on a near constant basis and their fans were tearing into him, yet by all accounts he's been immense this season. Now, of course, he's had Pep to tutor him, which counts for something, but still...I think there's a lot of talent in Keane and he needs someone to bring it out.

If Unsworth is to be given the boot tonight or tomorrow morning, who on earth takes charge against West Ham? How does a new manager pick a team having seen at best 1 training session? I'm nervous as fuck about Wednesday's game. If by some miracle Unsworth is still in charge, he and the players will know it's his last game and they'll be even less focussed than usual. Really, really don't want to lose to a Moyes team.

Rafa 0 - 3 Silva so far...

Going through a bit of a rough patch, some United fans getting frustrated: http://www.redcafe.net/threads/romelu-lukaku-2017-18-performances.430573/page-90 A couple of astute observations that's he's too reliant on service for the modern game (I guess that's a fancy way of saying he's a bit lazy sometimes). I like Rom and I think he did great things for this club, I hope he succeeds over there, and to be honest I've been surprised how many United fans have concluded already that he's not their level. If they want to send him back to us for around 60 mill, I'd take him.

Aaron Lennon's defensive display saved us on more than one occasion from losing to bottom-of-the-table Crystal Palace. And while that's not a sentence I ever expected to be writing in November of 2017, nevertheless it's why I've given him the MOTM.

Niasse. The lad's got guts and, to quote R. Lee Ermey in Full Metal jacket, guts is enough. His goal was ugly as shit but it was all about determination and drive. I'm sorry to say that if Rooney had been in that same situation, I don't think that ball would have gone in the net. Niasse may not have the talent to be an Everton player under normal circumstances, but in terms of spirit he's Everton through and through.

Apologies if you think this could have gone in an existing thread rather than being given its own, but rather than have this discussion spread across the Koeman, Unsworth, Missing Players, and other threads, I want to hone in on the topic here. Firstly, in the title I wrote "so quickly", and I guess I'm talking about the difference between how we play now and how we played about a year and a half ago. Perhaps then we were no world beaters, but we still gave everyone a game, we scored goals, our defense was relatively solid, and there was a spirit about the team. No team looked forward to playing us. Now though? Here's the thing - we have not only become worse, we have become almost unbelievably awful. As in, head-scratchingly terrible. I've looked at a few other clubs' forums tonight, and nobody can quite believe how bad Everton have become in such a comparatively short space of time. So why has it happened? The players who are injured now were injured for most of last season too, and we were not this crap. Our starters have become older, yes, but they haven't suddenly become pensioners. You would still expect them to perform better than this. We don't have a proper striker, obviously that's a problem, but at least 5 other teams in the Premier League have that issue now, and they don't have a bunch of capped internationals in their teams, and they are still above us in the league. We seem to have no leadership on the field, yet most of the players we bought had been captains or vice captains at their previous teams. What has happened? I'm interested in your thoughts. Obviously there is no one reason, it's a bunch of things which have, unfortunately (or maybe not - should this have been foreseen?), all happened to converge at once and mess us up royally. But if you were tasked by the board with explaining why it has all gone to shit, what would you say to them? And, more importantly, what steps can be taken to put it right?