£60m seems fantastic, until you just for a moment think what a brilliant sight a full flight Lukaku would be with another years prem experience behind him, oh and the right tactics and players around him.
Can we keep him........I doubt it.
I'm not Martinezs' bigest fan, but going for the lad was a brilliant bit of business.......or maybe it was luck.
Know one thing, West Ham aren't looking forward to the beast running out in Blue.
Didn't we all think that after the Naismith hattrick against Chelsea we had found Lukakus strike partner, you would think 3 goals against Chelsea would be greater achievement than 3 against Sunerland.
Perhaps a nice position for Martinez, Kone or Naismith.
Spot on, this is why there will be huge money offered for the lad.Breaks my heart that we will probably never see the best of him here at Everton.
The type of player he is, he was always going to take time to learn his trade.Sure the odd ball bounced off his shin, yep he didn't chase every lost cause in a usless system that we were playing, he didn't win every header...what was the point there was no one to flick it onto without a strike partner.
The phrase 'unplayable' will probably fit in a short time, thoguh he needs the correct service and the right tactics deployed.
Get a winger sorted out, the right strike partner and Barkley running onto his lay offs and flicks and we could cause mayhem......trouble is we need to keep them out at the other end.
Let's not get too excited about the Sunderland game, we nearlly got embarrased by them early on, BUT Lukaku does look the beast we know he is, if Kone can keep fit, going forward suddenly looks pretty good.
Thought the Chelsea boss was going to cry at his post match interview, trying so hard not to say the ref cheated them, seems Lucas should have walked, but the ref let it go........now, just who was that ref!!!
There's not a lot to say about our performance yesterday, so I'll keep it short. It was shit and gutless.
There's also no point going through every players performance either because I'll just be repeating myself over and over, and I can't be arsed with that, so I'll just pick a few out.
Howard - Loves diving the wrong way, doesn't he?!
Coleman - Can someone please get this lad a footballing brain for Christmas? On two occasions he charged after a ball he was never going to win and inevitably lost out. Did he learn? Nope, he proceeded to do it again and it led directly to us conceding the opener. At least he was bothering to put challenges in though I suppose.
Naismith - Please, please, please stop playing him out wide. Especially not on Galloway's side. My sanity is suffering.
Lukaku - The only player to come out of yesterday with any praise. He was a one man team from start to finish. He put himself about and bullied Smalling and Jones to within an inch of their lives. Smalling in particular was shat on repeatedly. He couldn't handle him at all. Be that on the floor or in the air, Rom won the duel 9 times out of 10. Unfortunately, we didn't get any players around him to work off his excellent work. Our only game plan was to just hit long to him and hope something came off because our midfield were sat in the dressing room for yesterday's game... My bad, they were actually out there, it was just that each and every one of them was absolutely shite .
matches like this where i wonder what purpose mccarthy and barry serve. no defensive help, shredded by uniteds midfield and offered nothing in attack to where ross was dropping farther back than barry due to he and james not offering anything there.
try a different formation RM, get subs on earlier. FFS do something.
I thought it was a very weird game tbh. Because, while I didn't think we played all that well, particularly in the first half, and they probably showed more quality in their play throughout the game, I felt that we had the better chances in the game and I came away disappointed to only get a point.
I spent much of the first half just feeling anxious. Part of that was simply down to it being the Derby, but most of it was because we were giving them far too much time on the ball. We just let them have it and dictate play instead of getting close to them. In comparison, as soon as we got the ball they were on us straight away, putting us under pressure, and we gave the ball away a lot. The shite were incredible off the ball; their work rate was far superior to our own. Our young full-backs were targeted to great effect (our wide midfielders did a crappy job of protecting them as well), and they got round the back of us time after time. Fortunately we often recovered and blocked the majority of balls that were getting played into the box. But this led to us conceding a fair few corners, which had me worried as we are shocking at defending corners. I was right to be worried because we conceded the goal from one of these corners, and it was pretty much a carbon copy of the second goal by WBA, which is the most disappointing aspect of the goal. Up until that point our good defensive recoveries had meant that we'd actually had the best chances in the game - the Naismith header and McCarthy pile driver were both stopped with great saves. Why couldn't Mignolet have carried on being shit?! It looked like we were going to go in at half-time behind but Deulofeu finally remembered he can put a wicked ball into the box and it caused havoc in their poor defence - Lukaku was lucky the ball fell to him but there was nothing lucky about his finish, it was instinctual and a peach.
In the second half we were better in our play but it was more a case of us doing a lot of huffing and puffing, without creating much. And we ran out of ideas fairly quickly, and we started to look extremely tired. I felt at that point that if any side was going to get a winner it'd be the shite, but that it was more likely that the game would just peter out into a draw. We were resorting to just punting the ball up the pitch by then, and Lukaku was absolutely fucked and even if he did manage to get on the end of those balls there was rarely anyone around him to help him out. However, right at the very end of the game we found a second wind and it was us that were really pushing for a winner. There was so many occasions that left with me with my hands on my head. Sadly, we just couldn't get that golden opportunity and it was mostly a case of half chances and we only took a point.
All in all, it wasn't a Derby that was blessed with quality but a point for us still leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.
Howard - Martinez goes on about how Howard's experience is vital and is why he's happy for him to be our number one for years yet. Well, yesterday showed how Howard is an experienced idiot and we as fans are experienced at his concrete feet costing us goals. Once again his inability to get off his line and command his area meant we conceded a goal. FFS, it wasn't like the ball was only in his 18 yard box, it was the 6 yard box! He should be all over that, the clown. All it needed to complete the image was one of his idiotic star jumps. Oh, and could he maybe stop giving our players the ball when they're going to be instantly pressurised seeing as he can see the whole fucking pitch in front of him?!
Browning - I'm really struggling to be impressed with anything he does in all honesty. His performance, again, was very meh. As bad as Geri was, this lad didn't help his cause whatsoever by often taking an age to pass him the ball, and often only when Geri was in an impossible situation. I'm not sure he has the footballing brain to work with a proper winger in front of him. I suppose he was ok when it came to defending. I've been a critic of Coleman but I cannot wait to have him back.
Jagielka - Superb showing from him. A captains performance back there when we were getting put under immense pressure during the first half. He was over helping Browning whenever the shite got round the back of us, throwing himself in the way of crosses and blocking them.
Funes Mori - I thought he maybe punted the ball long a bit too often but that was probably down to him just keeping it simple in such a big game, and the shite working extremely hard off the ball meant he was often under pressure when in possession. His defending though was brilliant throughout the game - he helped Galloway out by blocking crosses, and his aerial ability was on show. There weren't many headers he didn't win and that was invaluable to us. He certainly hasn't let the blunder against WBA get him down. We definitely have more than a squad player in him - if ever Jags or Stones have a dip in form I'd have no problem with him being first choice for weeks or months at a time.
Galloway - This lad is quite player isn't he? Playing in his first Derby at such a young age could have fazed him but going by the performance he put in that wasn't even close to being the case. He took it all in his stride and showed that with each game he's getting better and better. He had a lot of defensive work to do during the first half due to the non-existent protection in front of him but he kept his cool and did everything within his power to make sure he wouldn't be responsible for any goals conceded. His defending is so good, I can't wait to see him at CB whenever the opportunity comes his way. I think he'll go from strength to strength. He is limited in attack but he really had a good go and tried to make himself available as often as possible. I loved it when he got properly into the Derby spirit when he stood up for Barkley and got right in Emre Can(t)'s face.
Deulofeu - It was just one of those days for Geri yesterday. A very frustrating one; for him and us. Whenever he got the ball he tried to do too much with it and mostly fucked it up and lost the ball. I was a bit baffled that this was his game plan tbh; against WBA he had so much success because he got the ball into the box as early as possible. So I'm not sure why he wanted to fanny about with the ball. It was no coincidence that the one time he didn't try the fancy step overs and actually got the ball into the box that it led to us equalising! That being said his disappointing game wasn't all of his own doing, the way we played really didn't help him. We either didn't get the ball to him at all when he was in acres of space, or we moved the ball so slowly from one side of the pitch that by the time we got the ball to him he had two red shite players within a metre of him.
McCarthy - Did an excellent shut down job of shutting Coutinho down completely. He was like his shadow for the day, snapping at him whenever he received the ball. I did feel like this left us a little light in the middle but Martinez obviously felt that we could cope with whatever they threw at us despite only having one constant shield in front of the defence.
Barry - He was left a little exposed at times, and the shite did pressure him as soon as he received the ball, but I thought he generally coped well with the attention and more often than not found a way to wriggle free or win a free kick.
Naismith - Another game where I really appreciated his hard work and getting under the skin of their players, but he really struggled to actually add anything to our play. With him being so good in the air he probably should have done better with his chance in the first half too.
Barkley - On the ball he was superb again. Every time he got the ball I thought something could happen - he'd draw two or three of their players onto him as soon as he received the ball, which shows just how much of a threat they perceived him to be. Where we shut Coutinho down, they couldn't shut Ross down, he just accepted it and mostly managed to escape their attentions with his strength and skill, or won a free kick. Off the ball he really did wind me up though. He played a big part in us conceding the goal, again, and once again showed very little work rate when we didn't have the ball. He really needs to improve that aspect of his game.
Lukaku - He was absolutely unplayable for 80 minutes. He didn't have a hell of a lot of support but he worked his arse off up there. He won a decent number of headers but due to a lack of support we often couldn't take advantage of it. What I was most impressed with was just how much he bullied both of their CB's. He bulldozed them and they were absolutely terrified of him. And I mean that literally. It got to the point that whenever the ball went near him they were resorting to trying to manhandle him out of the game. And with Twatkinson giving him very little protection he was left to have to fight them, and fight them he did, coming out the winner 9 times out of 10. They'll have both known they were in a game when they woke up this morning. His goal was taken brilliantly too; the ball falls to him and bang, it's in the back of the net. In the last 10 minutes of the game he was unsurprisingly running on fumes, but it's not like he coasted through the rest of the game like his job was done; he kept at it and at them as much as he could. That was one of the best performances he's ever put in for us. My MOTM.
He received flak from some, but I have no issue. It does take time to adjust to this league, and he'll learn from Jagielka in particular. Of more concern is the immaturity of Browning.
Honestly, with Baines, Stones, and Coleman out, I'd say our defence have done a good job overall. Galloway, in particular, has really excelled.
Pretty shit for a lot of the game but he popped up with two vital goals to take his tally to 6 for the season, and grabbed an assist by showing good strength, control and intelligence.
Can we give this thread a rest now. He's our player - like it or not. Lets not judge his every bloody touch in every bloody match. Let him play and we'll see what happens. This is a very boring discussion now.
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