Zoo 2.0

I really don't understand the fascination with Zouma, he was OK for us IMO - nothing more, nothing less. There's a reason Chelsea are happy to let him go and that's because he's not (and won't be) good enough to play every single week for a European team. There's tons of players that would get ahead of him in a football team and for what it would take financially to bring him here, it just doesn't make sense for me.

The period of 20-45 minutes wasn't too bad at all, nice goal from DCL and good work from him to win the penalty (although should be bollocked for trying to take the penalty off Sigurdsson). Nice finish from the latter to make it 2-3. Not going to rant too much about the opening 10 minutes as I've said all I need to. Just hope we come out second half (expect the full team to change bar Pickford) and we take the win. At least a bit of positivity to carry into the Blackburn game. Lovely free kick from Gylfi makes it 3-3.

Penalty to Everton. Scored, Gylfi on target - 2-3.

Dom makes it 1-3. Can see myself losing all of the hair on my head this season, Branthwaite and Holgate looking equally as scared of the ball whenever it comes near them, an absolute calamity waiting to happen whenever we're under pressure. Pickford behind not exactly the calming influence for them either - there's more goals in this game and they ain't coming from us.

Hopefully this sends out a strong message upstairs that regardless of the pandemic, the squad we have is absolutely dogshite and needs to be stripped and replaced. Granted it's a friendly, but 3-0 down to League One opposition inside 12 minutes? Get to fuck. Shite. Would happily slap every one of them at half-time and tell them to find a new club. Shambles.

9 mins, 2-0 down. 11 mins, 3-0 down.

Holgate sleeping, we're 1-0 down inside 90 seconds.

Excited to see Jonjoe Kenny after his spell with Schalke, it is my hope that he is ready and capable to be our right-back this season. It's a real CTRL, ALT-DELETE for Moise Kean too, time to reset and to again. There are flashes of talent there, one of those players that I'm desperate for him to do well. A goal today, even though it's a pre-season fitness test would be a fantastic springboard to start the season with.

Before he moved to Stoke I would have taken Birmingham's arm off for him but not now. He was actually dropped for a spell after some horrendous mistakes and whereas he's earned his place back, the fact that nobody has taken a punt on him (even in the Championship) shows that he has very much found his level. He could have been so much more, so it's a shame really but signing Butland would only be a continuation of the problem we have now - Pickford is bulletproof as there's nobody to replace him. If we sign a goalkeeper, it needs to be someone at first-time level to at least replace Jordan when his form dips, IMO we should be looking on the continent.

Unless you have sat in a boardroom with Brands, Ancelotti and Moshiri/Kenwright then you cannot even start to guess who our transfer targets are. Every window (like most clubs) we are linked with quite literally hundreds of players and I'll guarantee that 90% of them are absolute bullshit. Have we missed out on any of our targets this summer? Perhaps, but I keep seeing people moaning on here about us missing out on players when there isn't a shred of evidence that we were ever in for them in the first place. Unless someone has bugged the meeting room at Finch Farm then it's all speculation and it feels like Groundhog Day when I make the same post each January/Summer when the same folk get up in arms that we haven't signed 16,428 new players.

Brazilians have a long history of heading to Portugal as it allows them to speak the same language (Brazilian being pretty much a dialect) and at the same time play in Europe. The Portuguese league is also the shop window for players to move from (Renato Sanches, Raul Jiminez, João Félix) so it makes sense in terms of his personal career although with the amount of noise surrounding him I had hoped that he would head straight to the Premier League or La Liga.

I had to send my home shirt back, nothing to do with Hummel but whoever had put on the Premier League badge had put it right up on the shoulder. I like the new home shirt, but it's so obvious that corners are being cut across the board. The Premier League badges used to be stiched into the shirt, yet are now stick on and the badge is the same. I get that companies want to get a product out as cheap as possible but the quality has got worse and the price has stayed the same. I'm part of the problem, as I can't help buying the home shirt every year (the wife treats me to one each season and I'm not breaking that tradition) but it's frustrating none the least.

Same.

Grealish will go for insane money, he's English and absolute quality - not to mention that he's young so is only going to get better. If we had an endless pot of money I'd take him in a heartbeat but unfortunately he will be snapped up by one of the Manchester clubs. Not that it's this thread but I'm worried about the Zaha rumours, I'll be absolutely mad up when he signs elsewhere because he's the biggest case of "big fish, small pond" I've seen. Not what we need, especially when he will carry a similar fee as Jack.

One of the more stupid comments I've seen reading through the board. The Moshiri era has been filled with managers using Everton as a promotion, as opposed to thinking that a job was not too hard for them or stepping down to come here as you've hinted. Silva was managing Watford, who are now in the Championship with his previous clubs being Hull City, Sporting and Olympiacos. Hardly on the level of us. Allardyce had a great tenure at Bolton, but had been bumbling around relegation fodder before coming to us - again, at the time that he joined us, we were like winning the lottery for him. Koeman was the same as Silva, did poorly with Valencia and was managing a Southampton side that was not on the same level as us. Ancelotti has been the only manager I'd describe as being an out of this world appointment. Moyes, Martinez, Koeman, Allardyce and Silva all stepped up from their current employers to come here. I'd honestly like to hear what reasoning you have for such a negative view, unless it was just having a moan for moanings sake?

Season ticket holders should get priority, there shouldn't be a general sale until they can accommodate all of the regular matchday group. Not allowing someone to go the game that goes every week, but allowing someone to go whenever the feel like it is completely the wrong way around, so hopefully common sense is used when the stadia is reopened. I'm pretty sure masks will be mandatory (and probably no bars open to reduce crowds) but that's fine by me.

Thank the heavens that I can drown my Everton sorrows with Formula One. George Russell qualifying in 12th (then bumped to 11th) made my day. I'm really hoping that if Mercedes replace Bottas they do so with young George. He looks every bit a future star. Ferrari continuing to be shite is a fantastic sight, as is McLaren being back where they belong at the front of the pack. Lando and Carlos have had a great start to the season. I just hope that Max can have reliability so that we can have the Mercedes/Red Bull battle that was robbed of us last season. King LH to win of course, on pole with an insane lap yesterday. 1.2 seconds ahead of the field which is remarkable, no matter how hard you try to knock it.

I've seen traffic cones deploy better offside traps than that.

Agreed, I didn't say that we should accept losing, simply that there is a clear difference between having something to play for and not. There is no battle, we won't make Europe and we won't go down. This is the perfect time to experiment in preparation for next season when we actually have something to play for - not to mention that we are playing every three days or so which is bound to take its toll against what is a wafer thin squad (quality wise).

I said way back when the league restarted that these games were nothing more but glorified friendlies for me, obviously want to win but it's the perfect time to try new players (Gordon, Branthwaite) and new formations. Europe is and always was a pipe dream and realistically we were never going to go down. We were set for mid-table and remain so, I'll reserve judgement on Carlo/Everton until we're into next season and actually playing for something.

That post has aged well mate.

Defensively we're OK, but the lack of quality in midfield is shocking which in turn makes the two up top totally insignificant. Signing two centre midfielders is an absolute priority this transfer window as it's been our obvious Achilles heel since the Premier League restarted. On another note, see a few people are already kicking off about Carlo. Cringe as fuck.

Jordan Pickford isn't the best thing since sliced bread and has a lot to improve on, but some of the criticism that he gets (unfortunately mostly from "Evertonians") is laughable in the extreme.

Kean/Bernard for Sigurdsson please.

Zzzzzzzzzz. Not been this bored watching a game of football in a long time, zero creativity from either side and that goal sums up the first 25 minutes.