Ian C

5.5m rising to 7m.

Not entirely sure if the west coast of Ireland is still there tbh.

Incredible interview. Just so well done. I could listen to Roberto for hours.
 
 
As an aside, Alan Myers is playing a blinder at the moment. Between this interview and the tea party he's brought the fans onside in a way that was just unthinkable under Ross.

Incredible interview. Just so well done. I could listen to Roberto for hours.
 
 
As an aside, Alan Myers is playing a blinder at the moment. Between this interview and the tea party he's brought the fans onside in a way that was just unthinkable under Ross.

Incredible interview. Just so well done. I could listen to Roberto for hours.
 
 
As an aside, Alan Myers is playing a blinder at the moment. Between this interview and the tea party he's brought the fans onside in a way that was just unthinkable under Ross.

Couldn't have said it any better than Mark.
 
 
Get well soon, Mike.

Working and done

I think QPR could be a great move for him, playing in the Championship would do wonders for his confidence and they'll be up next season with himself as first-choice striker.
 
 
Whether the Championship would be considered a good enough level for his own World Cup ambitions I'm not sure.
 
 
Also, as an aside, I've been so impressed with how Roberto has been handling our transfer business. Everything is out in the clear and open and we seem genuinely to be trying to do best by our players. Even players who are clearly not in his plans, like Heitinga, have been kept onside and there's been no fuss or disruption.
 
I thinking benching/getting rid of players with the personality, reputation and pedigree of Heitinga and Jelavic without a negative word said in public is a sign of true class from everyone at the club, especially Roberto and BK.

Really good three points given the state of the squad.

Really good three points given the state of the squad.

Really good three points given the state of the squad.

http://www.sportsvibe.co.uk/news/football/everton-go-head-on-with-inter-milan-for-xhaka-28624/?
 
Just in case anyone is slow on the uptake, clicking the link will take you to an article linking us with the player named in the title.
 
Knock yourselves out.

just writing here to say how our great club has gone stale.
 
firstly id like to talk about the atmosphere round goodison or lack of its like a library our new song is we only sing when were winning. secondly the new badge what a disgrace we had a great neon sign outside the ground which has been replaced with a cartoon cardboad cut out they have even took the scoreboard down from the park end . thirdly i want to to talk about the way we treat away suporters with so much distane we sick them away in the corner whod wana pay 40 quid and get whiplash for the privalage havin to look round a post every 2 seconds. lastly what team phones up sky sports news at 10.55 on deadline day just to let the everton fans know that the macarthey deal was nothing to do with Fellaini being sold what a joke say no more

Jimmy Eat World UK Tour 2013
 
If you're near a show this week, fucking go. The Dublin show last night was easily the best gig I've been at in years. And I saw The xx a month ago

The way i see it we look strong all over the park now after selling two players, one of which was never going to cement a first team place. After letting go of Hitzlsperger and mucha and neville retiring, we needed cover desperately. At first, the mad dash for 3 wigan players made that desperation look transparent. But when you look at the squad and where everyone can play, we are in a stronger position than a lot of teams in terms of quality:
 
Keepers: Howard, Joel, Springthorpe
 
Springthorpe probably wont get a game but Joel and Howard give us 2 strong keepers for the season, necessary in my opinion to create the competition needed to maintain top end performances. Joel's age also gives us a future prospect of some potential, whilst Howard is still holding his own at the tail end of his career.
 
Defenders: Coleman, Stones, Hibbert, Browning, Jagielka, Distin, Heitinga, Alcaraz, Duffy, Baines, Oviedo, Garbutt
 
Defensively this season, I think we're going to be fine. I don't see the whole expanisve style means shipping goals ethos being applied here. Everton had one of the best defensive records last season and you don't just forget how to defend overnight. Alcaraz will prove important in terms of depth, and Stones coming through means we don't have to stress too much about the possibility of selling Heitinga. Distin isn't getting any younger but by the looks of things he can handle it for at least another season. Keeping Baines meanswe still have europes best left back.
 
Midfielders: Delofeu, Mirallas, Naismith, Gibson, Osman, Barkley, McCarthy, Barry, Pienaar, Kennedy
 
The emergence of Ross Barkley has been like a new signing anyway, Martinez faith in his maturity paying dividends so far, but the most important player we acquired was Barry IMO. He has experience that Gibson and Osman simply don't, and his all round game will add a calmness and assurance to our game. In Mccarthy, we've signed the much touted replacement for Fellaini, for a similar fee for when we took Fellaini from Liege. The key difference being Mccarthy has worked with Martinez for a few years, there is an understanding there, and he also has Premier League experience. All round he is better than Fellaini when he first arrived, and I think he will progress quicker. We could still do with selling naismith and buying a left sided winger but overall we have a stronger midfield now without Fellaini than we did with him.
 
Strikers: Jelavic, Kone, Lukaku, Vellios
 
Vellios was our young player of the year in his breakthrough season and I think he will benefit from seeing another young player in Lukaku taking his chance. I think Vellios might see a handful of games and get himself one or two goals. Obviously Jelavic is lacking in confidence but we know he is a first time finisher and a poacher. If he starts scoring again, I don't think he'll stop. But just in case, we have Kone, who notched 11 last season and again, if he can find form, will be another striker who could bag us more than we bargained for. Finally, Lukaku's 17 last season was an indication that he, like Benteke, deserves to be a first choice striker. the fact that Chelsea bought Samuel Eto'o for a year means I think mourinho didn't trust Lukaku under the pressure that is now on Chelsea to win the big prizes. He scored 17 fo West Brom, but that's West Brom. Chelsea will be expected to win the league and having also signed Atsu and Schurrle and having a plethora of attacking midfielders, I can easily see why they plumped to loan him out again. luckily, we were perfectly posied as we are a step above West brom in terms of quality and expectation, and I imagine he'll start every game he's fit enough to play in. Lukaku will bring us much needed goals and to swap that for Victor makes it even sweeter.
 
Overall, when you look at our squad, we're maybe only one or two away from actually having a squad that can compete at the very highest level.
 
Barry is a free agent at the end of this year, which means we could simply sign him straight up if he has a good season for us, the option to resign Delofeu seems plausible and so we'll only really lose Lukaku at the end fo this season. However, dependent on Chelsea and our success this season, we might even be able to prize him off them if we're clever.
 
I'm extremely happy with the signings, and I honestly think ourselves, Liverpool and Chelsea have done the best business of the window. Tottenham's massive spending offset by bale wont backfire, but it could take too long to settle the team down for them to reap the rewards this season. Arsenal have signed a fantastic player in Ozil, but not solved the defensive problems, Man City have bought well but have a new manager who I feel will do better in the champs league than the league, and Man U under Moyes are an absolute joke, but the players there should not be written off.
 
The top 7 this year will be Chelsea, Man City, Tottenham, Everton, Arsenal, Liverpool and Man United, but the order is so far up in the air, I don't think we'll have an idea of where people will end up until at least February. If we can maintain our solid if uninspiring start and utilise our new look squad properly, I see no reason why we can't be in the mix.and rightfully, given that all the loan players could just leave and not return at the end of this spell, we need to maximise their input and use it to get as much from this season as we can.
 
A trophy would gaurantee us Europa League next season, whilst a consistent season could easily see us pushing for 4th.
 
After all that, it would be interesting to see if Martinez still thinks the transfer window should have shut a month ago

An improvement on Hitzlsperger as midfield cover.

1 goal scored, a good one denied, a penno not given against a team full of rich talent.... i'm liking what I am seeing.
 
For me it's not the result, its the manner of the result. We had a good go at them. For me conceding goals is a part of football, try to minimise the amount you concede and maximise the opportunities to score.
 
Under Moyes would we have conceded less? I don't think necessarily so, but we would have been set up to contain them rather than trouble them. For me that approach has not done us any favours in the past against pure footballing teams (Arsenal hidings etc).
 
This isn't Moyes versus Martinez, this for me is the realisation that we do not need to be a pragmatic "try and score and hold on" team. We have talent within our team to trouble any side in the world, changing our midset from "if we don't concede we stand a chance of winning" to "if we score we have a chance of winning" means we will cause the opposition concern.
 
I know one thing from what I have seen, we aren't going to have bored fans at goodison. I know several people who packed in their season tickets over the past couple of years, big Evertonians. The reason wasnt that they don't love the club, it was just purely the fact that they couldn't stomach any more negativite tactics. Based on average attendances etc, they weren't the only ones. Its all about value. I know fans who turned down free tickets!
 
How often have we had to try and defend our brand of football? We were to a point at a stage of denial. "No we don't hoof it to fellaini, we've got baines and pienaar playing great stuff" - the reality was that when we ran out of ideas that was our solution. I think under martinez we may lose a few more, but we will win more and draw less. We will have the occasions where we absolutely destroy teams - we will see a few 6-1 wins. We will have the odd 4-3 loss. We will have less bored fans who will want to go to goodison. We will see more youngsters given a chance, we will see less favouritism to the old guard, we will see the players compete for a place.
 
I've said it all along, the good times are back under this manager - a team playing football we can be 'proud of' (martinez's words) - read into that what you will but I know exactly where he was coming from.

Card-carrying member of the Irish Labour Party, thank you very much.
 
 
The idea that having had bad experiences with some people who happen to be women can lead you to 'hate' women (and not just those particular women, but all women) is a bit, strange, isn't it? And you don't find the idea that you can 'hate' women and not be a misogynist to be odd?
 
What if you had bad experiences with some people who happened to be black? Would you hate all black people? Would you make threads online about how you hate black people? Could you somehow reconcile that with not being a racist, too?

Got to say, I was very impressed. I thought the first 20 mins or so we were all over them. Considering the team have been learning two new systems for only a month I'm blown over to be honest.
 
I'm liking Fellaini and Gibson as a partnership. Neither set the world on fire today, but they also didn't really let the Juve players do much either. I'm more than happy for both of these to be anonymous in every game this season if it keeps the opposition at bay and let's the other players have the freedom to attack.
 
Mirallas seems to be growing even more, scoring goals and causing all kinds of trouble to what is a well drilled Italian title holder.
 
Stones is really staking a claim, I've seen a few people mention Duffy dropping down the pecking order. I think there might be a few more centre halfs at Everton worrying about this kid. In the last two games he's really looked the part. I hope we get Madrid and he keeps his place. See how he handles them. The future is bright for this lad.
 
I'm turning into a fully paid up member of Haf's Martinez Appreciation Society. With every game we play I'm getting more and more excited about the future. I can't wait until the weekend for another game, I just want to watch us play. We will be one of the most exciting teams to see play in the premier league next season.
 
Also, we've not even seen the Spanish boy wonder yet!

He's leaving. Someone's put a bid in and the injury is just a cover story!
 
That's how things work right?

Well played, sir.

You are so utterly entertaining. Please never, ever change.

Probably through the fear of spelling them wrong!

I know it's only pre-season, but I'm just in a really good mood right now.

I know it's only pre-season, but I'm just in a really good mood right now.