chicagoblue

Looked a foul there by Distin

Pm'd you

It's 7 am here and I'm rather hungover, but here we go! COYB!!

More than one have said it, but I really think Ossie might be done. Doesn't seem to have it this season, looked a couple yards off the pace all game. If we have any money we need to find someone to give Gibson competition or to jump in front of him. Most everywhere else we're fine, but we really, really need someone with composure, passing range and a bit of mobility in the middle of the park in order to play Martinez's game. Fairly certain Barkley will be starting most every game and we'll benefit from that. Also thought Mirallas was quite poor today. Didn't look interested and his touch never seemed to lose the defender. He'll come good, but his work rate needs to improve for me.

Everyone playing well with Barkley and Pienaar excelling so far. Couple nice touch from Jelly, but again we're not getting the ball into him where he can get a shot away. Too many passes around the top of the area, going to need to take a few shots or work it side to side faster. Norwich are sitting deep and despite our possession we're not really troubling them. Osman's been poor for me, not really offering anything, I'd just as soon have him off, stick Pienaar in the middle and bring Deolefeu or Oviedo on to really stretch both wings with pace.

My stream is absolute shite this morning, but from what I can see we've started well.

We like value. 6 million euro is probably a bargain. Boy can run for days and will be in both boxes in the 9th and 90th minutes. Plus, he's not ex-Wigan

Well we looked bagged or clueless or hungover. Nothing much too cheer about there. Joel looked solid, especially coming off his line to challenge, that's about it though.

Delay working brilliant on this end, was 30 minutes late out of work.

Timmy Ho Ho to the rescue. Roll on.

Fair enough, but why not bring on Kone and Jelly to take kicks as well?

Strange substitution

Terrible goal to give away there. Osman's touch has been off since he came on and that one (plus Pienaar's) has cost us.

Really surprised we haven't seen anyone else introduced.

Think we could use a sub for Vic and maybe another two. Looking very leggy.

Beauty from Mirallas. Great track back from Vic to start it off.

Changes needed

Basically dominating. My stream is poor, but looks like a back 3 with Stones on the right to me. Encouraging signs from pretty much everyone.

Beauty. Great quality stream.

No chance we're spending that much money on a central midfielder, unless other players are already as good as out the door. Someone to cover Gibbo definitely makes sense, but we're not a club that spends 13.5 million on cover. Besides which, Mail reports we already failed with a 12m bid and as already pointed out, we've not heard squat from Whelan and he'd be all over this.

Cheers for that, look forward to watching over breakfast.

Hope I can find a link. Would like to see the match, but not at all convinced EvertonTV is worth a dime, let alone the $6.27(₤3.99 in CDN) they want. $6.27 for a pre-season friendly, with in house commentators and shit camera work to boot. I pay $22 a month for every Premier League, FA Cup, Europa and Champions league game plus internationals and can watch 4 of them at once. $6.27, ridiculous.

What is it with our over the hills defenders heading to Turkey? Wages and weather? That said, the Daily Mail article is about the flimsiest pretense for a rumour I've seen in some time. Really wish Johnny boy had put in a performance or two this season to drum up some interest, because right now I just don't see anyone doing more than taking him off our books for a nominal fee. Hope I'm wrong.

Don't always agree with you, but here you are spot on. Way too much money going to a bunch of kids who don't really need it. Seriously doubt the quality of football would suffer much even if the cap was 5,000 a week. The fact that we allow sportsmen to be paid more per year than most workers will see in their lives to simply chase a ball beggars belief. Course, problem is how do you get everyone to play ball in a global market? Wish I knew.

Whole team unsurprisingly looked out of shape, but if you saw the interview Martinez gave a couple of days ago you would have predicted as much. Apart from Joel looking the business I don't think there was much to take away from today's performance. Just a first run out to get the boys to realize that the season is approaching. I'll be much more interested to see what happens when the head stateside.