SpartyBlue

Solid post. The real test for me will be next season. By then he'll have had 4 full transfer windows and time for the new players to gel. It may take longer than that (perhaps until the stadium) to legitimately bridge the gap to the top 6 but by then we should be getting close and really putting ourselves in that conversation.

Gonna be hard to find someone we "know" is good enough who would come to a non champions league club. Whoever we bring in is likely to be a bit of a gamble. On the bright side we don't need a 20+ goal scorer with how our team is structured now.

You're making the assumption that however the players performed tactically it was because RK had instructed them to do so. Given that Koeman expressed frustration that we didn't do more high tempo passing in the second half, and that he changed formation while subbing in two attack minded midfielders prior to their equalizing goal, I find it unlikely he wanted us to play in the way you describe.

I think your'e overstating what happened in the first 30 minutes. They didn't have any clear cut chances really and we looked threatening on the break. In the few minutes leading up to our goal they were certainly dangerous and should have scored but it's City at home against an Everton side that is still learning itself and who didn't have it's best lineup. High expectations are fine but yours are a little unreasonable at this early stage.

I don't mind the first yellow on Walker. He came in dangerously and you don't need to make contact in those situations for it to be a foul.

I imagine it'll be a wild second half as it goes on. They are gonna have to throw bodies forward at some point and, down a man, there will be opportunities for us countering. I would argue that Because Rooney makes such good decisions and finds those pockets of space he'll be important in those moments.

Probably a bit soft but Walker has no business throwing his shoulder like that on a yellow and 40 yards from goal. Made the referee make a decision and sometimes they are going to make the wrong one.

I'd rather replace Davies with GS. Schneiderlein is a more important player for us, particularly with the lead and I'd trust Gylfi's experience and workrate over Klassen in his second PL game in a high pressure spot.

Lookman and Davies together would worry me as they are both still pretty mistake prone. Also, that formation would make it harder for Rooney to drop back and become a distributor at times.We'll see though, there's a lot of things RK can do to mix it up if it's not going well. COYB

What would your alternative lineup be?

Perhaps I'm missing something obvious but how can he be offsides on a corner....unless he's standing inside the goal he'll be behind the ball when it's played Watching it back again, I misunderstood how the play developed. I issue a full and heartfelt retraction

Likely so but it would still be a much calmer away atmosphere and we wouldn't have to worry as much about large scale incidents distracting from the game. Reading a little bit more it seems they've been fined etc..many times over the last decade. At what point do you get suspended from European competitions. UEFA needs to incentive clubs to crack down themselves and the best way to do that is by costing them real money for not policing this sort of behavior.

http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11959/10956290/hajduk-split-fined-nearly-50000-over-trouble-and-racist-chants-at-europa-league-game I'm not sure how UEFA discipline works in these matters but I would hope that they take into consideration past behavior. If so it seems likely that leg two will be played in an empty stadium which is a shame for our away fans (and their more reasonable supporters) but probably is better for us as a team.

I get where you're coming from but I don't agree with him being in shock. They were fined already this season for racist chanting during a Europa fixture and their stadium is consistently a madhouse. This behavior isn't particularly abnormal for them and even if it was nothing excuses him saying that he "didn't see it". The very least he could have done is acknowledge what took place even if he chose not to condemn it.

After our results against them last season I think they were always going to take this fixture very serious, regardless of who we signed.

I get why they don't show it on TV but I think it's different with their manager. He's in a position to influence supporters and send a positive message about what sort of club they want to be. If he really was taking the position that he wasn't going to address the incident because he didn't want to give them any air time he could simply say that and be done. Claiming to not have even seen what happened is an obvious lie and combined with his comment that "It's not his job" suggests to me his hesitancy is due to a lack of courage rather than a tactical decision. Sometimes silence (or a lack of condemnation) is complicity and, to me, this is one of those times.

In regards to the crowd incident yesterday what upset me even more than the visuals were the comments by their manager. The link is elluding me at the moment but he said he " Was focused on the match" and " Didn't see what happened". He then refused to talk any more about it. What an absolute coward. I realize that these are fans he will be in front of all season and so perhaps it's understandable (if not admirable) that he's unwilling to specifically condemn them but could he not give at least a general statement about how these sorts of scenes have no place in the game? Was a moment to show his character...and he certainly did.

Shame as he looks a very solid, imposing striker and exactly the sort of player we need.

Whoever we bring in I hope their well Fetted.

Absolutely not. The type of players Koeman has brought in are all high character guys. Many of them are captains for either their clubs or their countries or both. Costa is an incredible player when his head's in it but he's one of the worst characters on a pitch in world football, we all know this. Let's not sell our souls as fans so we can have one season of this manbaby representing Everton. For every class goal there would be an incident that would make us ashamed he was wearing the shirt.

I'll probably go with Sig.

Southampton didn't have the quality around Pelle to make them multi-dimensional, we do. We have (and may add) some players who can deliver good crosses into the box. Having a physical presence to convert those crosses can only help us and add another facet to our attack. Obviously whoever we bring in unlikely to be a finisher of Lukaku's ability but imagine how dangerous we would have been with him in our current team (+ Gylfi).

Certainly looks promising. I would say one of the things he does need to work on is his decision making. Couple of times where we probably would have scored if he'd had his head up and made a better decision with the ball.. Of course one could say similar about Barkley or even Lukaku at times.

The game vs Split is far far more important to what we want to accomplish this season than Man City. We should certainly be playing our strongest possible team for that one.

Respectfully, I strongly disagree with your assessment. For one, we have bid 40m+ which is considerably more than Everton have ever bid for any player. This alone should prove we are willing to splash the cash. The idea that because we have significantly more money we should just pay whatever clubs want is a bit misguided in my opinion. If we get a reputation for being a club who is weak in negotiation we would regularly be taken advantage of. It can be frustrating to not get a player because of a few million but those millions we save are going to add up and help improve the club in the long run. Almost everyone agrees that Sig is being priced too high so I don't quite get the criticism when our management agrees and tries to get a better deal.