Johnsy

Agree wholeheartedly with Pete0 - Everton are stuck between a rock and a hard place. We need specific type of players who have the talent to be in a champions league squad but not the profile (as champs league teams will pick them up).
 
And CornishSteve - Anyway, I have a totally different perspective on this. As a team without a billionaire looking to waste money (thank goodness!), we must have a different strategy. Why not invest half of our available funds in exciting new talent that will come through in two or three years time?
 
I have many pet peeves in this world but none larger than complaining for complaining's sake. This board is full of it. We don't have a billionaire owner and we don't pay crazy wages. That immediately eliminates a large number of names available in the transfer market. Everton has been and will continue to be successful if they focus on youth development and finding the right budget-conscious transfers. Our biggest transfers are Lukaku, Felli, McCarthy, Yakubu, Bily, A Johnson. That is hardly a ringing endorsement to spend big.
 
Whether or not you want Barry/Osman/Pienaar/Hibbert on the team is a completely different conversation from they need replacing. You can't replace them until they leave! Once again we aren't in Champs league we cannot afford to have a 35 man squad. As long as those older players are on the roster stop talking about replacing them. They will be replaced when we dont have to pay them anymore.
 
The argument that you shouldnt focus on youth development because there is no guarantee they take the next step is LUDICROUS!! The benefits far outweigh the risks and that has been proven time and time again. The youngsters understand the club, the atmosphere and most importantly what it means to pull on that blue shirt. Sure 8-9 out of 10 don't make it at this level but you save more money and perform more consistently going about it this way than failing with 5-6/10 transfers.
 
Perhaps im naive or stupid or ignorant or all 3 but as far as I'm concerned Chelsea can keep their titles, Liverpool can keep sucking and spending gobs of money, Man City can keep their titles. I like the way Everton do things. I like that it's a family club built on tradition and hard work. I certainly haven't been a fan as long as most but for me achieving CL football would be the highest of highs. To accomplish that with the way football works today would be an achievement of epic proportions. And i believe it will happen. Maybe not this year but in the next three and I'm willing to be patient.

Should get a retrospecive 3 game ban really, not that that helps us now.

Don't think Eto would be my first choice - but as it looks very much like he is coming, I am only going to dwell on the positives -
 
- Although he will still be on a decent wedge - he will definately be taking a substanical pay cut to come and play for Everton. So he is coming for football reasons and not a final pay off reasons. He could have had an easier life/bigger money offer elsewhere, I have no doubt.
- His name signing will take considerable pressure off Lukaku, which will not be a bad thing for 12 to 18 months,
- His presence will also give some quality competition to Lukaku, again a positive,
- Having his experience as one of the world top striker can only help improve Lukaku over the next 18 months, expecially playing in Europe.
- Playing away games in eastern europe will be like water off a ducks back to Eto, have been out in Russia for a number of years. He has great expericene all over the continent at the highest level. He could make a massive difference for us in Europa this year, small advantages make the difference in knockout football.
- He was still scoring goals at the highest level last season. Roughly 1 in 2.
- High wages but no transfer fee and only a two year contract. If it doesn't quite work, it will not to be the worst bit of busness ever done.
- A slightly risky signing, but a calculated one. If it pays off and he gets anything near 1 in 2 again this year, then its the free signing of the season.
 
Depending on playing time, if he gets +12 goals, then I would see he was a decent signing
 
Finger crossed on this one me thinks!

Defences step up in every game in every league in every week; sometimes they get the timing wrong but they don't expect their star midfielder to fuck up and lay the ball on a plate to the opposition. Gerrard's fault, nobody elses.

This has come up a few times this season and it usually boils down to "Your loanee players worked out better than ours, it's not fair".

If you judge naismith in his preferred role then you can't fail to be impressed. The shite that lad gets and he just keeps doingbtge business. Appreciate him for what he is, a true squad player. Chuffed for the lad.

I think I'd rather live in Rome myself!

Just got in from the game. I'm not up to a Romey style player-by-player analysis, but I thought I'd share a few observations:
 
Robles - his distribution was terrible in the first 30 mins or so (then he stopped trying to be clever), and it looked to me like he should have done better for their second goal (but it was quite far away so I couldn't see too well!) Other than that he didn't really have much to do.
 
Stones - looked solid. I don't remember him doing too much wrong, and I remember one great pass he pinged out to Oviedo on the left. I think he's going to be a good player for us, will definitely be able to step up when (if?!) Distin retires.
 
Oviedo - I really want to like Bryan, but he just seemed a bit scared to run with the ball whenever he got it, even if he had space, and just seemed to pass it backwards. I was particularly disappointed in injury time when a Fulham player over-ran it on the right & I thought Oviedo would easily get it & get the ball back up their end again, but he just seemed to run over the ball & off the pitch & let the Fulham player go on!
 
Deulofeu - Looked like a world beater in the first half, but during the second he just seemed to run out of ideas when he got surrounded, plus he is really selfish. I do think he will get better as the season goes on & be class for us though.
 
Naismith - Again, I want to like him and I've refrained from slagging him off, but.....I don't want to compare him to Cahill (because I loved Tim & think he's a legend), but he reminds me of a rubbish version of him, in that he tries really hard and pops up with goals(albeit not so many), but contributes little else to the team.
 
Lukaku - I took my girlfriend to her first game tonight & before the match I told her he was "awesome". She doesn't know much about football, but she doesn't agree! I was disappointed tbh - I expected him to beast Fulham, but though he was strong on the ball, I thought his first touch was generally poor & he didn't have a great game. Considering how he changed the game at West Ham I'm hoping that's a one off though, and I'd like to see him start at Newcastle (I know he came off the bench a lot for West Brom last year, so hopefully he's not only effective from the bench....?).
 
 
I thought the subs were a bit weird - I can see why Barry came on for Gibson, but as we were chasing the game & crying out for some creativity in midfield I would have thought that instead of Jags for Heitinga & going 3 at the back we would have been better off just bringing on Barkley to play behind Lukaku with Barry & McCarthy sitting. I think it goes without saying that Mirallas should have been on for Naismith much earlier than he was too.
 
Ah well, I don't get to see many games live, so I still had a decent evening out. Proud to sit in the completely full away end & look at the thousands of empty seats in the home sections of the ground too. Best fans in the league!

Looking forward to read Dalziels summary of other peoples posts.

Mirallas playing much better up top than on the wing....

Mirallas playing much better up top than on the wing....

Heard a rumour that Pienaar is out....if it's true, I hope Deulofeu gets a game instead of Naismith!

^^ What is the point of this post??!
 

^^ What is the point of this post??!