The Regulator

I'm joining in on the maths puns....just Cos.

"Then I got the call to say it was agreed and I could come in. I was sat here finalising things when, all of a sudden, James McCarthy walks through the door. We were both watching the television and it was great news when they said Lukaku had been done as well, though obviously he was not here as he's away with Belgium. You want to be joining a team that's improving rather than going in the opposite direction and Everton have definitely strengthened. Obviously there are some fantastic teams out there who have spent a lot of money but there is no reason, when you look at this squad, why Everton cannot compete for fourth."
 
I like Barry already. And I honestly don't miss Fellaini.

We did superbly in the transfer window.
 
Mucha OUT Joel IN
Neville OUT Alcaraz IN
Anichebe OUT Kone IN
Hitzlsperger OUT Barry IN (Albeit a loan, but he's on a free, and if he plays well, I can easily see him getting a contract)
Fellaini OUT McCarthy IN
Lukaku IN (Loan)
Delofeu IN (Loan)
 
Add the fact that Martinez is actually playing our most promising talent and Stones and Oviedo actually look like getting games, I can't understand any argument to say that we're not on track. Every single player above is an improvement. You could argue Fellaini but honestly, I don't care. He had 5 years here, and now we've got someone younger to build up while selling a player we had already improved for a £10mil profit. That and we're still unbeaten ffs

We did superbly in the transfer window.
 
Mucha OUT Joel IN
Neville OUT Alcaraz IN
Anichebe OUT Kone IN
Hitzlsperger OUT Barry IN (Albeit a loan, but he's on a free, and if he plays well, I can easily see him getting a contract)
Fellaini OUT McCarthy IN
Lukaku IN (Loan)
Delofeu IN (Loan)
 
Add the fact that Martinez is actually playing our most promising talent and Stones and Oviedo actually look like getting games, I can't understand any argument to say that we're not on track. Every single player above is an improvement. You could argue Fellaini but honestly, I don't care. He had 5 years here, and now we've got someone younger to build up while selling a player we had already improved for a £10mil profit. That and we're still unbeaten ffs

Spirit, Hunger, Desire, Determination, Impetus, Passion....sorry just reading excert's from Alan Hansen's Football Dictionary.
 
Heart, Courage, Grit....

Regulator got a gold star .

We did superbly in the transfer window.
 
Mucha OUT Joel IN
Neville OUT Alcaraz IN
Anichebe OUT Kone IN
Hitzlsperger OUT Barry IN (Albeit a loan, but he's on a free, and if he plays well, I can easily see him getting a contract)
Fellaini OUT McCarthy IN
Lukaku IN (Loan)
Delofeu IN (Loan)
 
Add the fact that Martinez is actually playing our most promising talent and Stones and Oviedo actually look like getting games, I can't understand any argument to say that we're not on track. Every single player above is an improvement. You could argue Fellaini but honestly, I don't care. He had 5 years here, and now we've got someone younger to build up while selling a player we had already improved for a £10mil profit. That and we're still unbeaten ffs

We did superbly in the transfer window.
 
Mucha OUT Joel IN
Neville OUT Alcaraz IN
Anichebe OUT Kone IN
Hitzlsperger OUT Barry IN (Albeit a loan, but he's on a free, and if he plays well, I can easily see him getting a contract)
Fellaini OUT McCarthy IN
Lukaku IN (Loan)
Delofeu IN (Loan)
 
Add the fact that Martinez is actually playing our most promising talent and Stones and Oviedo actually look like getting games, I can't understand any argument to say that we're not on track. Every single player above is an improvement. You could argue Fellaini but honestly, I don't care. He had 5 years here, and now we've got someone younger to build up while selling a player we had already improved for a £10mil profit. That and we're still unbeaten ffs

Right, thought I'd throw my 2 pennies in since I was actually at the game, but I'm acutely aware that people may not read my sometimes overlong laboured posts. So I'll keep it to the players that played and how I thought they did:
 
Howard - Solid game, never really challenged too much by Cardiff but never really looked like being beaten.
 
Coleman - Good performance in an average game. Spent most of his time in the opposition half and made some half decent runs, but was stifled by our inherent lack of directness.
 
Jagileka - Great game. Played well, found a man with almost every pass, pushed forward when he could and looked calm on the ball. Certainly seems comfortable adopting to RM's methods.
 
Distin - Saved himself with some important defensive work but he was awful positionally. Read the game wrong at times and had to rely on his pace and power to save his errors. Not teh strongest performance by him but made up for it with his usual effort.
 
Baines - Fantastic game from him. True professionala nd convinced me in 90 minutes that there was no way he was leaving. Crossing hasn't been spot on but he can't be perfect every game.
 
Mirallas - Very, very poor. Had several opportunities to run into space and neglected to do so. Chose the wrong option on several occasions and not even a hint of a barnstorming run ala stoke being made. Needs to up his game.
 
Osman - Please for the love god let the arrival of McCarthy and Barry mean he doesn't start anymore. No sort of impact whatsoever.
 
Fellaini - Basically played as a defender. Showed a complete lack of motivation and made it obvious that his time with us was over.
 
Barkley - No idea why he made man of the match. Seriously. A good performance in parts, including some great incisive runs, but teh amount of times he tried to do too much, lost the ball and we ended up chasing back was ridiculous. Seriously guys, how anyone can say that this performance deserved man of the match is beyond me. Granted he was losing the ball in their final third as opposed to ours which is a big imporvement, but he was still trying far too hard. He looked a lot better distributing the ball and acting as a playmaker than as an attacker. Although his ability to create chances was hindered by the inferior quality of the rest of our midfield, barring one...
 
Pienaar - Man of the match. By far. First half saw a few moments of individual brilliance but he couldn't link up well enough to create a solid threat. Second half though he and Baines looked like they always used to, overlaps and underlaps, Pienaar would burst in and out of pockets of space allowing runs from 2 or 3 of our players. Everything good about us going forward involved at least one key pass from pienaar, if not a sudden burst of movement. I was in the ninian stand and second half he was in fornt of me the whole time. Everytime he got on the ball he lokoked a threat and more than once cardiff fans had to say "fair play" as he was a class above the opposition.
 
Jelavic - FFS sums up his performance.
 
Delofeu - How is he not starting? 5 minutes and gave us more threat than we had for the other 85. Superb player on the looks of it, direct skillful and put in a few crosses one of which had every cardiff fans heart in their mouth. Seriously, should start the next game ahead of Mirallas. Or at least get a good 25-30 to show what he can do. We've got a player here.
 
Kone - leave the poor bastard alone!! Kone came on and then it looked like we actually had a striker playing!!! Good first touch, good link up play, and at least he took a fucking shot!!! Jelavic on his current form is a good few steps behind Kone. Kone will score for us, he looked like Saha when fit and firing for the short time he was on. Again, I'd say he should start against Chelsea. I think we underestimate this guy.
 
 
In summary, although it was a lacklustre, uncreative and scrappy draw, there were elements and passing movements that suggest we will be playing very good football and winning games by good margins before too long. And if nothing else, Pienaar and Kone are getting way more flak than they deserve.
 
Anyway I rambled again. Yeah....sorry bouth that

We did superbly in the transfer window.
 
Mucha OUT Joel IN
Neville OUT Alcaraz IN
Anichebe OUT Kone IN
Hitzlsperger OUT Barry IN (Albeit a loan, but he's on a free, and if he plays well, I can easily see him getting a contract)
Fellaini OUT McCarthy IN
Lukaku IN (Loan)
Delofeu IN (Loan)
 
Add the fact that Martinez is actually playing our most promising talent and Stones and Oviedo actually look like getting games, I can't understand any argument to say that we're not on track. Every single player above is an improvement. You could argue Fellaini but honestly, I don't care. He had 5 years here, and now we've got someone younger to build up while selling a player we had already improved for a £10mil profit. That and we're still unbeaten ffs

We did superbly in the transfer window.
 
Mucha OUT Joel IN
Neville OUT Alcaraz IN
Anichebe OUT Kone IN
Hitzlsperger OUT Barry IN (Albeit a loan, but he's on a free, and if he plays well, I can easily see him getting a contract)
Fellaini OUT McCarthy IN
Lukaku IN (Loan)
Delofeu IN (Loan)
 
Add the fact that Martinez is actually playing our most promising talent and Stones and Oviedo actually look like getting games, I can't understand any argument to say that we're not on track. Every single player above is an improvement. You could argue Fellaini but honestly, I don't care. He had 5 years here, and now we've got someone younger to build up while selling a player we had already improved for a £10mil profit. That and we're still unbeaten ffs

Or we should make Lukaku 17 and have him in a prime position?

Does that mean that McCarthy and Barry will be playing square?

"Then I got the call to say it was agreed and I could come in. I was sat here finalising things when, all of a sudden, James McCarthy walks through the door. We were both watching the television and it was great news when they said Lukaku had been done as well, though obviously he was not here as he's away with Belgium. You want to be joining a team that's improving rather than going in the opposite direction and Everton have definitely strengthened. Obviously there are some fantastic teams out there who have spent a lot of money but there is no reason, when you look at this squad, why Everton cannot compete for fourth."
 
I like Barry already. And I honestly don't miss Fellaini.

We did superbly in the transfer window.
 
Mucha OUT Joel IN
Neville OUT Alcaraz IN
Anichebe OUT Kone IN
Hitzlsperger OUT Barry IN (Albeit a loan, but he's on a free, and if he plays well, I can easily see him getting a contract)
Fellaini OUT McCarthy IN
Lukaku IN (Loan)
Delofeu IN (Loan)
 
Add the fact that Martinez is actually playing our most promising talent and Stones and Oviedo actually look like getting games, I can't understand any argument to say that we're not on track. Every single player above is an improvement. You could argue Fellaini but honestly, I don't care. He had 5 years here, and now we've got someone younger to build up while selling a player we had already improved for a £10mil profit. That and we're still unbeaten ffs

We did superbly in the transfer window.
 
Mucha OUT Joel IN
Neville OUT Alcaraz IN
Anichebe OUT Kone IN
Hitzlsperger OUT Barry IN (Albeit a loan, but he's on a free, and if he plays well, I can easily see him getting a contract)
Fellaini OUT McCarthy IN
Lukaku IN (Loan)
Delofeu IN (Loan)
 
Add the fact that Martinez is actually playing our most promising talent and Stones and Oviedo actually look like getting games, I can't understand any argument to say that we're not on track. Every single player above is an improvement. You could argue Fellaini but honestly, I don't care. He had 5 years here, and now we've got someone younger to build up while selling a player we had already improved for a £10mil profit. That and we're still unbeaten ffs

I like Vincent.

Lets see at xmas when we are in the bottom 3

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

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

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

Right, thought I'd throw my 2 pennies in since I was actually at the game, but I'm acutely aware that people may not read my sometimes overlong laboured posts. So I'll keep it to the players that played and how I thought they did:
 
Howard - Solid game, never really challenged too much by Cardiff but never really looked like being beaten.
 
Coleman - Good performance in an average game. Spent most of his time in the opposition half and made some half decent runs, but was stifled by our inherent lack of directness.
 
Jagileka - Great game. Played well, found a man with almost every pass, pushed forward when he could and looked calm on the ball. Certainly seems comfortable adopting to RM's methods.
 
Distin - Saved himself with some important defensive work but he was awful positionally. Read the game wrong at times and had to rely on his pace and power to save his errors. Not teh strongest performance by him but made up for it with his usual effort.
 
Baines - Fantastic game from him. True professionala nd convinced me in 90 minutes that there was no way he was leaving. Crossing hasn't been spot on but he can't be perfect every game.
 
Mirallas - Very, very poor. Had several opportunities to run into space and neglected to do so. Chose the wrong option on several occasions and not even a hint of a barnstorming run ala stoke being made. Needs to up his game.
 
Osman - Please for the love god let the arrival of McCarthy and Barry mean he doesn't start anymore. No sort of impact whatsoever.
 
Fellaini - Basically played as a defender. Showed a complete lack of motivation and made it obvious that his time with us was over.
 
Barkley - No idea why he made man of the match. Seriously. A good performance in parts, including some great incisive runs, but teh amount of times he tried to do too much, lost the ball and we ended up chasing back was ridiculous. Seriously guys, how anyone can say that this performance deserved man of the match is beyond me. Granted he was losing the ball in their final third as opposed to ours which is a big imporvement, but he was still trying far too hard. He looked a lot better distributing the ball and acting as a playmaker than as an attacker. Although his ability to create chances was hindered by the inferior quality of the rest of our midfield, barring one...
 
Pienaar - Man of the match. By far. First half saw a few moments of individual brilliance but he couldn't link up well enough to create a solid threat. Second half though he and Baines looked like they always used to, overlaps and underlaps, Pienaar would burst in and out of pockets of space allowing runs from 2 or 3 of our players. Everything good about us going forward involved at least one key pass from pienaar, if not a sudden burst of movement. I was in the ninian stand and second half he was in fornt of me the whole time. Everytime he got on the ball he lokoked a threat and more than once cardiff fans had to say "fair play" as he was a class above the opposition.
 
Jelavic - FFS sums up his performance.
 
Delofeu - How is he not starting? 5 minutes and gave us more threat than we had for the other 85. Superb player on the looks of it, direct skillful and put in a few crosses one of which had every cardiff fans heart in their mouth. Seriously, should start the next game ahead of Mirallas. Or at least get a good 25-30 to show what he can do. We've got a player here.
 
Kone - leave the poor bastard alone!! Kone came on and then it looked like we actually had a striker playing!!! Good first touch, good link up play, and at least he took a fucking shot!!! Jelavic on his current form is a good few steps behind Kone. Kone will score for us, he looked like Saha when fit and firing for the short time he was on. Again, I'd say he should start against Chelsea. I think we underestimate this guy.
 
 
In summary, although it was a lacklustre, uncreative and scrappy draw, there were elements and passing movements that suggest we will be playing very good football and winning games by good margins before too long. And if nothing else, Pienaar and Kone are getting way more flak than they deserve.
 
Anyway I rambled again. Yeah....sorry bouth that

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

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

Right, thought I'd throw my 2 pennies in since I was actually at the game, but I'm acutely aware that people may not read my sometimes overlong laboured posts. So I'll keep it to the players that played and how I thought they did:
 
Howard - Solid game, never really challenged too much by Cardiff but never really looked like being beaten.
 
Coleman - Good performance in an average game. Spent most of his time in the opposition half and made some half decent runs, but was stifled by our inherent lack of directness.
 
Jagileka - Great game. Played well, found a man with almost every pass, pushed forward when he could and looked calm on the ball. Certainly seems comfortable adopting to RM's methods.
 
Distin - Saved himself with some important defensive work but he was awful positionally. Read the game wrong at times and had to rely on his pace and power to save his errors. Not teh strongest performance by him but made up for it with his usual effort.
 
Baines - Fantastic game from him. True professionala nd convinced me in 90 minutes that there was no way he was leaving. Crossing hasn't been spot on but he can't be perfect every game.
 
Mirallas - Very, very poor. Had several opportunities to run into space and neglected to do so. Chose the wrong option on several occasions and not even a hint of a barnstorming run ala stoke being made. Needs to up his game.
 
Osman - Please for the love god let the arrival of McCarthy and Barry mean he doesn't start anymore. No sort of impact whatsoever.
 
Fellaini - Basically played as a defender. Showed a complete lack of motivation and made it obvious that his time with us was over.
 
Barkley - No idea why he made man of the match. Seriously. A good performance in parts, including some great incisive runs, but teh amount of times he tried to do too much, lost the ball and we ended up chasing back was ridiculous. Seriously guys, how anyone can say that this performance deserved man of the match is beyond me. Granted he was losing the ball in their final third as opposed to ours which is a big imporvement, but he was still trying far too hard. He looked a lot better distributing the ball and acting as a playmaker than as an attacker. Although his ability to create chances was hindered by the inferior quality of the rest of our midfield, barring one...
 
Pienaar - Man of the match. By far. First half saw a few moments of individual brilliance but he couldn't link up well enough to create a solid threat. Second half though he and Baines looked like they always used to, overlaps and underlaps, Pienaar would burst in and out of pockets of space allowing runs from 2 or 3 of our players. Everything good about us going forward involved at least one key pass from pienaar, if not a sudden burst of movement. I was in the ninian stand and second half he was in fornt of me the whole time. Everytime he got on the ball he lokoked a threat and more than once cardiff fans had to say "fair play" as he was a class above the opposition.
 
Jelavic - FFS sums up his performance.
 
Delofeu - How is he not starting? 5 minutes and gave us more threat than we had for the other 85. Superb player on the looks of it, direct skillful and put in a few crosses one of which had every cardiff fans heart in their mouth. Seriously, should start the next game ahead of Mirallas. Or at least get a good 25-30 to show what he can do. We've got a player here.
 
Kone - leave the poor bastard alone!! Kone came on and then it looked like we actually had a striker playing!!! Good first touch, good link up play, and at least he took a fucking shot!!! Jelavic on his current form is a good few steps behind Kone. Kone will score for us, he looked like Saha when fit and firing for the short time he was on. Again, I'd say he should start against Chelsea. I think we underestimate this guy.
 
 
In summary, although it was a lacklustre, uncreative and scrappy draw, there were elements and passing movements that suggest we will be playing very good football and winning games by good margins before too long. And if nothing else, Pienaar and Kone are getting way more flak than they deserve.
 
Anyway I rambled again. Yeah....sorry bouth that