Hafnia

Blimey, not too sure what Moyes's intention is with this, the reason Yak scores so many is that his priority is to get in and around where the ball is going to be and where he can score from. Does he want Yak to turn into AJ and make runs down the right with little else to show?

This really doesn't bode well for the type of football we should be seeing by now, and in saying that I mean we now have 3 strikers who should be vying for 2 positions in the team in a 4-4-2 formation with two wingers in Pienaar and Billy supplying balls in with a central partnership of Rodders and Arteta running the show and doing the work. Is it because we don't have the service players fit at the moment that he is saying this? Which pretty much means lack of strength in the squad which concerned me only two weeks ago beforer Neville and Pienaar got injured.

I really don't understand where he is coming from. Yak does a great job coming deep a little, holding the ball up, releasing it and getting forward for the return ball. We have all felt sorry for our forward players over the years for feeding on scraps and this is another reason. Give Yak the opportunity to link up with Louis and there will be goals. Look at Sunderland with Bent and Jones, Spurs with Keane and Defoe - they are bagging goals. We can't keep relying on one striker up front as much as Saha is excelling, Moyes fondness for tryers as opposed to doers is a worry.

Essien came into the prem and bossed the games straight from the off, as did sissoko for Liverpool before injury, as did Diarra, Palacios, Makelele etc etc. These were players who had come from slower tempo teams.

It's just that they have high levels of mobility which means they can adapt. Wenger got rid of one of the best central midfielders in Patrick Viera when he seen his legs were on the way out. Without mobility in the premiership you need to be a very technical player to remain in the midfield and compete (Alonso - still covered 11 km most games though)

When arteta is back, we will have one of the best partnerships in Rodwell and Spud. I just don't see a starting role for Fellaini.

I'm sure it was £2m. Anyway, I think I reserved judgement on him as I remembered how he could finish. The first thing that impressed me was that he is an athlete in the true sense, secondly his technique is almost perfect. People go on about Owen being a great signing? Saha would have finished all the chances Owen has missed and I bet SAF would have him ahead of Berbatov to partner Rooney.

I am due apologies to two players if they have proved me wrong, one is Fellaini, and the other is Heitinga. It may be a personal preference of mine but mobility is a must in this league in order to prosper and those boys do not seem to have it.

I here what your saying and if it was just a cse of Pompey hounding us down and winning the ball I would agree with you but it was more a case of us needlessley giving the ball back to them under no real pressure at all. That happened on countless occasions as it did at Fulham

 

I agree its far too early to write off any of the new signings ( altough using Felli as an example to prove your point may back fire because he isnt exactly pulling up trees at the moment!) butpeople are right to say that what we have seen so far from Johnny H has been poor and if Tony Hibbert had played like that people would be screaming for his head

 

As you say its taking the points home that counts but if we continue to play like we have done away from home so far this season then we will certainly lose more than we win

Agree 100% with this. Players should not be judged on reputation, it is what they do that counts. Heitinga was poor on Saturday (seems very slow), and to say the Fellaini is now some sort of benchmark for new players is wide of the mark. Fellaini's lack of pace and mobility means he will always be second to most balls, against midfielders like Gerrrard and Essien he will be chasing shadows and we will be punished. It's not his fault he cost £15m and for me at full strength he is a sqaud player at best. We need to hope that he manages to make improvements to his game that will strengthed the team, at the moment his game looks more suited to the italian league.

A bad performance is a bad performance, forget the 3 points, there is an indication that a bad loss is on the horizon with displays like that, when that happens everyone will be on the site going banana's about it, let's address the concerns we can see now.

One of my previous posts emphasised the importance of not looking at what we have at the minute, it's a case of looking at what can happen if things remain. The club in general seems to be very reactive rather than proactive.

I have raised concerns about the fact that we are 2 injuries away from disaster, 1 of them has happened in pienaar which means Osman (invisible man) will replace him, another injury to a key player will have our team looking like very weak indeed, the only source of creativity at the moment appears to be Billy and he shouldn't have to be thrown in at this stage. In two matches we have seen Neville and Pienaar injured, it's not a good sign, especially with Arteta and Jags out with Yak probably 4 weeks away from match fitness.

I hate being what could be perceived as negative, I would say I am realistic. A fit Mikel Arteta is vital for our team, never more was that highlighted on Saturday, we had no one looking after the ball, and long ball after long ball seen pompey come right back at us. It's no coincidence that Cahill has his best games when Arteta is fit.

Howard without a shadow of a doubt, I really couldn't award it to anyone else.

Howard: 9/10 - awesome reaction saves, saved us from being punished in the way our perfromance deserved.

Baines: 7/10 - not bad, looked to get forward, needs to improve on his set pieces, nearpost again, lessons from Billy

Distin: 6/10 - looked a bit off it, didn't get clsoe enough to his man to mark and allwoed one to turn a shoot a couple of times

Yobo: 7/10 - defensively our best player

Heitinga: 5/10 - don't really want to criticise new player but looks very slow and has a bit of a sunday league mentality, good ball for saha's gola, that's it.

Osman: 5/10 - only memorable thing was a cross for fellaini, really does need to get involved for a full 90 mins, wants to look at Pienaar for an example.

Rodwell: 6/10 - can do better, still looked for ball and never went missing

Fellaini: 6/10 - lack of mobility is a major concern, allows players past far to easily. Great in the air, could do with Darren Campbell working on him.

Pienaar: 7/10 - works for the team , had little support

Cahill: 6/10 - seems to play best whenb arteta is fit, seems to miss him

Saha: 8/10 - class act, silkiest centre forward I have seen in a blue shirt.

Below standard performance, not much to take from that apart from the points. Against a better team we will have been battered. Fellaini i'm sorry is not good enough for centre of the park. Two minutes into stoppage time they broke from defence and he jogged while the defender breezed past him and they nearly scored. He has no sense of urgency in general, his lack of mobility gives opponents a chance to get past him and open us up.

I've got an hour to make my subs for fantasy footy, I have Rodwell and Pienaar, i'm going to put Billy in but need to know if he's gonna play. Might have the king up front......

I think we will end up going back for Victor Moses, which I hope we do - type of forward we need. City are unlikely to let Jo leave for less than £10m, especially after the lescott saga. £10m for Jo? Not sure as yet. If we are to play 442 and he prospers in that role then maybe, but at this moment in time I think £10m+ could be better used towards moutino or van der vaart as we need a creative central midfielder option to cover arteta.

Nev is a great pro, and i for one am happy that he is at our club, he no doubt brings things to the squad that the average pro doesn't. However that doesn't mean we shouldn't look at how the team performs without him. For me is certainly isn't the first name on the team sheet, he isn't in the first 11 if heitinga proves himself at right back. I feel that his role going forward may be to steady the team when holding on to a narrow lead. We have attacking options in midfield that justify dropping him, they way rodwell is playing makes him nailed on for the holding role. It's evolution, it's what happens, the same thing is happening to his brother. Being captain doesn't warrant auto selection. Liverpool will soon be looking at carragher as being dropped, crazy how fast the years go by for these lads.

Front page of the daily mirror says 'england ace in knife raid terror'. Which generally irritates me. Jags as great as he is a player, isn't an england regular yet. The fact is that the editor does not deem everton as worthy of a front page association with a player. If it was torres would they have said spanish ace? No probably not. Mostly you will get them mentioning spurs, man u, liverpool. Etc. It's a petty rant considering what jags has been through, but it has got my back up none the less.

Duncan was an enigma, but our enigma, he was kindered spirit with the fans and on his day a frightening sight for any defender. One great game for Dunc was worth 10 in the memory than for any other player for the fact that he alone epitomised everything an Everton fan that they felt they would be on the pitch if they had that chance.

Yes he had injuries, punched players, got sent off, but the sight of him intimidating players who were supposedly hard men, or supposedly cultured defenders gave us fans an opprtunity to have someone on the pitch who stuck two fingers up to the fact that we weren't a great team, but we had someone there who at least carried some of the spirit of the great team of 84 where it was "if you wanna fight, we'll fight, if you wanna play, let's play hard"

As a player I feel it is difficult to judge his ability as he was unfortunately injured more than he was fit, at the start of the 1996-97 season when he was fit - he looked unreal - after 2 goals against Man United followed a knee injury that required surgery. To your point MikeO, Ferguson never got to play many matches with Kanchelskis as Andre dislocated his shoulder and his return coincided with injuries for Duncan. You can't really expect someone to receive wing service from hinchcliffe when he wasn't a winger, yes a corner taker but not a winger like Billy. Another point is Limpar played only 2 games in the 96-97 season.

Apart from that he was a true gent off the pitch and never forgot about the importance he had to the fans - i'm not going into testimony's because everyone seems to have one to support this.

On his day a great player - potential unfulfilled admittedly, but we got more memories from a dark period in one player than we did with many others combined.

Didn't the thieves know it was Lescott that went and doubled his wages!

In all seriousness this is getting worse, most players have families. They need to have their houses loike fort knox nowadays.

I did notice that Lescott got out of jail last night, dived in for a header, missed it and the player turned and went in on goal but messed up. I felt really gutted for Joleon.

I don't know for sure but this is the first time in ages we have had someone who can deliver a proper ball into the box. "Proper" meaning it comes in from high and leaves the keeper in two minds whether to stand or come out for it. Dunc would have had 30 a season if we had him in 95/96!

We can do some serious damage with this lad, as soon as he starts a prem game, i'm putting him in my fantasy footy team. Got a feeling he may have a few direct free kicks coming his way too...

Man Utd have sold Beckham, Ronaldo, Ince, Van Nistelrooy etc. No one player is bigger than the club, would you rather we had Rooney and were playing in the Championship? We all want more money, we all know that with a little more investment we could potentially be serious challengers for the top 2 or 3 but we don't all want just any old millionaire taking over the club as some of them don't actually put any of their money into the club they just put the club further into debt and then leave them high and dry when they walk away. Peter Johnson was a rich man, what did he do for Everton? I believe that Kenwright is waiting for the right investor and at the moment, with the ground the way it is etc it may just be that the right investor is not interested in us. We're moving forward every season, I for one am happy with that.

The above mentioned players for United had either had past their sell by date with Sir Alex, and he deemed them surplus to requirements, or they had achieved all there was to achieve in the premiership. Not one of them was sold to a Premiership rival and all were sold for a major profit. None of our players could leave stating that they need a fresh challenge after achieving all the trophies they could at Everton (I would love it if that was the case).

Seeing Rooney sign for Man U was arguably one of the toughest things I have had to stomach as an Evertonian, when someone becomes the saviour of a team, it's usually because they great things on the pitch, Rooney unfortunately was the saviour for Everton because he was sold to ease our debts. I want to see the day when we have a team consisting of Arteta, Rodwell, Jagielka, Gosling, Baxter (and Billy) lifting the Premier league trophy, the only way that will happen is if we have a different financial model, because as they get better, the big boys will come knocking.

I totally agree that there are chairmen out there who have rolls of cash with no intention of spending money, however I also know that there are chairmen out there who's hunger and desire not to mention the all important EGO that made them successful in business wants to be played on on a bigger stage, and none are bigger than the premier league. The reason Lerner bought Villa was to compete with the Glazers, some of these people have more money than they will ever need and are generally bored, but the satisfaction that they can gain from turning a club having to operate shrewdly into a major player must be enormous.

I agree, on the pitch things are looking good, it's the ominous feeling generated by those at a higher level that causes us fans to question every piece of information that we are fed. The proof is in the pudding, we seem to be getting decent gates, the fan base is there, we achieve solid league placings, FA cup finals, excellent transfer turnovers, a great manager - yet...................

On a refreshing note it's nice to hear the the red s&^*te will have to suffice with a £20m transfer budget p.a for the next 5 years. Hopefully Man City, Spurs and Arsenal can keep them out of the top 4 and mess up their budget further (£30m per year based on champions league)

Without being analytical to the point of using google we are running a sell to buy business. The major saleable assets we have now are ones that would form part of a first team of a title contending team. Taking two or three steps forward without taking one back is what we need. If we had strength in depth we would have had champions league football. We have been hindered by our weak right hand side and inabilty to cover injuries. By the way as an fyi, we were on the decline in 89 as we had sold our title winning players of 85 to the likes of rangers, marseille etc as they had european cup aspirations. 20 years, 24 years whatever. Nil satis nisi optimum looks a nice bit of latin, it's what it means that we need to remember.

This quite frankly is rubbish. Liverpool finished in the top 4, have a huge worldwide fanbase and only had a net spend of about 5 million and they only have one decent recognised striker - Torres. If he gets injured they're in big trouble. They have virtually no depth anywhere, they have a brilliant first eleven but a rubbish squad, hence why they most likely won't win the league again. United have definitely weakened however you look at it, Villa didn't spend much and lost their best player etc.

 

You mention about selling Rodwell in the future, we all hope this won't happen but if it's for the good of the club (like Lescott and Rooney) then what is the problem? Selling Lescott and Rooney has not weakened our club, it isn't making us go backwards, it's giving us the finances to help Moyes take us that next step into the top 4 and has had substantial benefits for the club already.

 

 

Quite frankly rubbish? Tell me a team that has broken into the top 4 by selling their best/world class players without having a ready made equal or better successor bedded into the club?

 

Henry left Arsenal, replaced by Adebuyor, Viera left Arsenal replaced by Fabregas. Beckham left Man Utd, replaced by Ronaldo, so on and so on.

 

 

Everton - Rooney left, replaced by Marcus Bent and Tim Cahill. Lescott left, replaced by a v.good player admittedly - however has 2 years at top left. Selling Rooney and Lescott generated somewhere in the region of £45m. The money from Rooney was basically used to keep our heads above water, the money from Lescott was used to cover two extra postions that were evidently weak, that if we had addressed earlier (given finance) we may have won the FA Cup.

 

Now please let me know how you think selling Rodwell could be for the good of the club?

Whilst we are quite unable to beat other teams to signings when they express an interest in the likes of Rasmus Elm and Kyle Naughton, do you honestly think we are going to get someone in who can fill Rodwells boots?, cos if there was someone, they would be getting offered far more money by the likes of Aston Villa, Spurs, let alone the top 4.

 

It all depends on your contentment to accept what is happening at our club, if you are happy with a Doug Ellis type Aston Villa, then enjoy what we have now before the likes of Arteta, Rodwell, and Jags seek Champions league football and the whole cycle of bargain buying continues again (probably without the stewardship of Moyes who will by then be off to a different club). Villa have had a resurgence under Randy lerner that makes the Villa of old (John Fashanu, Steve Staunton, Ron atkinson, John Gregory, bloated Ginola) a distant memory.

 

If you are happy to let Moyes achievements give the current ownership then fine. I for one am amazed by what Moyes has done for this club and I am really proud of the team we have and hope that we can challenge the top 6 this season. However the potential of this team with a couple more class signings is that of a league challenge, Under the current board, do you think we will get the support to do that? Please don't ask me to look at figures, I do this day in day out for my job - we are fans of the club, we are not and should not be expected to be accountants and feel sympathy for those that do not have the financial muscle to run it in the way it should.

Osman captain?!

If I was Mr Osman I would be worried, it's a bit like getting the dreaded vote of confidence. I like Leon and feel he's been a tremendous servant, I hope he can progress to the level where the team are hopefully heading otherwise I feel he will be a sub going forward. Maybe this is Moyes method of trying to get him to show a bit more ownership on the pitch.

Would like to see 2 strikers tonight with a view of how we play with balls coming in from the byline from Billy and Pienaar.

Interesting read btw - http://www.newsnow.co.uk/A/372445263?-11192

Beat me to it. Eloquently written, highlights many of the points that have driven me insane. Expect it to be removed from the feed at some stage if one of his points are true!

Intelligent post, pity it will be lost on some!

I think alot of people on here are intelligent, sometimes intelligence can be overlooked when your heart is totally in full support of the club in every aspect, and it does smart a little when you see people being critical of someone who has put alot of energy into the club and been to an extent a figure head so I understand people support of Bill and Elstone.

Unfortunately history tells us that to make an assault on the top 4 you need to be extremely lucky with some bargain buys (arteta, lescott, jags) or you need some serious financial backing. We will need backing just to ensure we do not lose our top talent alone.

Don't believe you are using such a plainly ridiculous post to indulge in yet another (yawn) BK bashing rant. Never an opportunity missed eh ?

Mike, whilst Moyes is doing a fantastic job at coaching the team and getting results on the pitch any weaknesses displayed by the board need to be aimed at the person who represents them. Whether he bleeds blue blood or cries at the emotion of being a true blue he is answerable for what goes on at the club at boardroom level. And there are many questions...

Refusing to answer a shareholders question when asked how much the club is 'valued at' out of "boredom" is awful. Things are very grey to say the least at board level, and the fact that we are all left guessing and analysing snippets of information from Elstone, and linking it to Moyes's evident annoyance at the budget only confirmns that there is something wrong.

Before Lescott was sold, we were told that our transfer plans were 'exciting'.

Selling one of our best players and spending the money we got (on quality give moyes dues) from him didn't excite me to be honest. Transfers like getting Kanchelskis and Yak did.

The wheeling and dealing Moyes has done has been outstanding without him where would we be, answer is the championship - does that mean this is what it will always be like? i.e selling proven quality to buy potential quality.

Yes is the answer unless things change at the top. Elstone who I admire is being honest to a point, the real message is - that despite enjoying a cup run, running a lean squad, finishing 5th we are skint.

Things are unlikely to get much better financially unless we are sold. Does anyone actually believe that we wanted to keep Lescott when we knew that there was a potential £20m big ones on the table? I for one think it was great business although it further reinforced the fact that all our players have a price, Moyes does not have the financial backing to be able to refuse such big offers, both from a business sense and a reinvestment sense. If we had a budget that didn't rely on selling our players it would be a different scenario.

I'm not a Bill Kenwright basher, I am a fan who sees that unless things change quickly then the massive potential that this team has is not going to be realised. We have the likes of Arteta and Rodwell who could form the best midfield partnership since Reid and Bracewell - indeed one of the best in the prem, and whilst we are under the current ownership these players are at risk of being sold.

4th place has been there for the taking the past 2 years and I now fear that we have missed the best opportunity to get into the lucrative group stages of the champions league and the added kudos in terms attraction that it brings. Would we have struggled for a buyer if we managed that? - highly unlikely, and the more clubs that are being bought makes me think that we are not going to be sold until the Kirby decision is announced which is when the most profit will realised for the current owners.

That's a 572 man squad

the 5 and the 2 are close together!!! sausage fingers!!!

I think it's not the case of who spent how much - it's a case of how much did they need to spend to strengthen their squad adequately.

Man u NO - Sold Ronaldo and lost Tevez, bought in Valencia, Owen, Obertan and already have a massive squad - 52 players per position at least with Hargreaves coming back.

Arsenal NO - Sold Adebuyor and Toure - bought in Vermaelen and have an outragous number of youngsters coming through

Chelsea NO - big squad already, borught in zhirkov - £18m

Liverpool NO - lost alonso - brought in Johnson and Aquilaini to add to an already decent sized squad.

Everton: Struggled through last season having to play the same players with little rest. Injuries meant threadbare squad relied on youngsters with little or no premier league expreience sitting on the bench. Lost Valente, Castillo, Jacobsen and Lescott as senior players. Brought in: Billy, Heitinga, Distin and under the realisation that we are still threadbare Lucas Neill.

Yes we have strengthened in quality a little maybe, the damning fact remains is that our nearest rivals such as Villa and Spurs have strengthened what were already stronger squads than us.

If we are to continue to look to improve we need to get strength in depth. We are always 2 injuries away from a disaster - our first 11 is great, how often do the first 11 stay fit?

I applaud those who continue to look at the glass being half full - I wish I could. Fact is history has a way of repeating itself at this club. The only thing that keeps it positive is the work that Moyes and the boys do. We are being let down at a higher level.

Burning question: "How much is Everton up for sale for?"

I heard Kenwright took it down, he wanted to change it from "The peoples club" to "Bill Kenwrights club"