Palfy

Your spot on there, it wouldn’t surprise in the least if Bill hasn’t already contacted Moyes.

I don’t know I think having the Belgium job has opened up eyes to the importance of a balanced team. Yes he still probably advocates a more attack minded style of football, which would be great because isn’t that what we all thought was missing from Ancelotti’s play, and he was meant to of been addressing that this window.

I really don’t think they will sanction Ancelotti taking him back my

Great move you should have been our DoF

Exactly he’s history, I’m just concerned now we don’t get the future right.

Ancelotti does have a habit of raiding players from clubs he has managed, could he make a play for DCL Richarlison Godfrey or Digne, I wouldn’t put it past him to test the waters.

You could have asked Yogi bear to take over when you were in the woods, after all he’s smarter than the average bear, which is smarter than most managers we’ve had here in the last 5 years.

I would have him back, but think he would flatly turn us down if asked.

It wasn’t me because if it was he’d be going to Spain in an air ambulance , again someone who proved talk is cheap.

Gone

Guilty as charged

I agree and disagree if that makes sense, the fact that some players didn’t perform didn’t phase me they didn’t for past managers so weren’t going to for Ancelotti, more because they were poor players and Ancelotti was here to cull them and bring in better players to work for him and his system, so I don’t think he will leave because of the dross he has in the team, he new that when he joined and he took the challenge on to change it, if he goes it will be other reasons than players he inherited.

If this happens I will be gutted, for me he was our big chance to move forwards, not just for his wealth of experience but because of the players he could have brought to the club. I wish he or the club would issue a statement on the validity of this story, the more they both keep quiet the more I believe it’s happening.

Exactly what I was getting at, through all our history and achievements we are now suddenly below Leeds or on the same par, for people to think that bar Leeds supporters is a joke, for Evertonian’s to even consider it because of their 1 place above us in their first season back in the PL for 21 years is an insult.

That does surprise me and will possibly effect his value.

They probably would but I would remind them they were out the PL for 21 years and 3 of them were spent in division 1, so forgive me if I struggle to find the comparison that makes them better than us.

Then Moyes arrived and the rest is history.

What impressed me most reading the article was our comparison with Leeds, that we are in someways in the same league as them when it comes to team status, have we really sunk that low that we are mentioned in the same breath as Leeds

A vacuum cleaner salesman knocked on my door, before I had a chance to speak he tipped a bucket of dog shit on my carpet, boasting that what ever this vacuum couldn’t pickup he would personally eat himself, I said I hope you’re hungry I had my electric cut off yesterday.

I agree we could be the architects of our own downfall next season, if we don’t get pace in CD and Pickford doesn’t start commanding the crosses in his area. As the article posted by Mike eluded to we started of well using a deep line, then we started conceding and became very average at defending set pieces, possibly proof that it doesn’t take long for decent coaches to work out how to play against a shall we say an unorthodox system.

Thanks for that Mike, as I suspected and said we are playing that system because we don’t have the ability to play a high line due to slow CDs and a suspect keeper, but as I said the biggest problem is that if the opponents make contact that close in it generally results in a goal.

Personally (and I’m no keeper) I have always been led to believe keepers don’t like to have their area crowded, it pushes them back towards the goal line which makes the goal bigger because they can’t cut the angles down, also they don’t like coming for the ball with players impeding their path and thirdly they have less time to react to shot or header on target from close range than if from distance. That could be the main reason we don’t see that defending on regular basis, keepers strongly oppose it to protect themselves. But it’s a very interesting debate I’ve looked but I can’t find anything from Ancelotti explaining why he advocates it, maybe someone else has something on record of Ancelotti discussing it.

Do you think we have a dominant keeper, not just you but the biggest criticism of Pickford was his inability to deal with balls in his area?

I think you’re right, if he can’t get a PL team he will possibly go abroad, I don’t see him wanting to go back to the championship.

It was probably better that you didn’t find them mate, like you said it could have got nasty and you could have been serving a long time behind bars, I did realise it was a while back mate never the less the pain and anger will be as strong now as it was then, but I get what you’re saying back in 68 was it more lenient times when these sort of incidents happened, in someways society didn’t want to accept or face that these things happened so in turn didn’t deal with them properly.