FairWooney

Interesting that in the press conference Dunc really doesn't put himself forward for the permanent job siting the fact that he doesn't have much experience. He also says it's his dream to manage Everton one day. If he believes both of those things then surely it's within his gift to get himself a managerial role somewhere and get a bit of experience so that he can come back. I like his smile at the words on playing against Stevie G. He's well up for that fight!

"put a team together of analysts, coaching team, fitness and sports scientists that are on the cutting edge of developments to put us ahead of the competition" For me this part should be a job for a DOF though I know some managers are more interested in these things than others and have a better understanding of the roles that different people play. Whilst I can understand managers bringing in coaches that they like working with I think a club should have key coaching staff who are the clubs own and won't leave at every manager change who are top professionals working how we want to see things develop. Whilst i'm sure it is improving over time I doubt that most managers have a strong sports science knowledge and whilst ex players have a good knowledge of what has gone on for them at a top level club level they are just told what to do and most wouldn't have understood everything. This is why I would ensure that we have that good set of staff in place, if a manager disagrees with the people we put in places opinions then he needs to have good reasoning for it.

exactly, he's adding more money by taking more shares so less people have a say and getting some comms in to shut try to counter the stick he's getting across the fan base.

Believe it when I see it. If the names that have come up as "being interviewed" are true then I'm not seeing any particular strategy thus far. While in the past I wans't particularly fussed by the DOF position I think it is something we really need someone in now and someone that can be strong enough to ensure that he gets his views across and is able to properly manage the football side of the "business". The way I see a good director of football working. The board/CEO will give the DOF their vision for the club and then allow the DOF to push that through. That should be form the ground up ideally getting a clear footballing identity that should be implemented from the youth team up by hiring coaches that match that idea (ie like Barcelona have done for years), through the scouting network who he should over see to look for players that match those ideas and attitudes and through being involved in manager hiring to ensure that whoever is signed can meet that ideal and work in the way that we want to go forward. It is through this that you can avoid constant clear outs of players every time you change manager and the team trying to completely change how they play. Whether Brands tried and failed to do this I don't know but someone needs to be allowed to do that job

Moshiri buys who he wants anyway, he'll prob get a couple more in with no manager!

I posted a while back something about him being a good potential manager after listening to him on Carragher's podcast. Not only does he have a real passion for the club but from listening to him on there I could see how passionate he is about watching the game, understanding tactics and performances and always looking to improve. If he had some managerial experience with some success behind him I'd be all for him.

The Spaniard reportedly feels that Everton are a ‘dysfunctional’ club and their owner, Farhad Moshiri, ‘takes too much heed of agent talk, both in terms of recruitment and tactics, and there are too many moving parts amongst the hierarchy’. The report further goes on to say that Benitez privately feels that some Everton stars don’t perform at Goodison Park because of the expectations of the home crowd, which causes them to buckle under the pressure. I don't disagree with either of the things Benitez has raised there. Moshiri seems too involved all round and needs to take heed of experts who can advise him within the club and not media/agents etc. They could really do with an external expert to put some structure into the Everton management (I thought they already tried to do this to be honest!). On the second point I do feel that our fans are often guilty of slating every player very easily and there is too much negativity around the ground at times. The place can be like a library unless the fans have something to get angry about. It feels great when the crowd get going because of a big tackle or unjust decision from the ref but when they are quietly muttering their discontent throughout a game or booing players as they come on to the pitch it's really not helpful. I guess the same could be said around the rotating door on managers, the fans want success and expect that every new manager can "return us to where we should be". I do sometimes feel were starting to sound like Newcastle where we feel like we deserve success through our own ego. We may have a great history but that's all it is now and we need a prolonged period of getting things right in order to get thought of as a top club again.

I wonder the same. Ferguson is pretty much the only first team front line member of staff that hasn't changed in all this time! I get the thing of having a respected ex player around but is he actually providing a positive influence or not? Is he providing much input on the training ground or just giving DCL a bit of heading advice and carrying the balls around? We are unlikely to find out such a thing but the only people to have the answer really would be previous managers and the players.

"Potter - another nice man, but a pass from me. Too big a job for him." Quite patronising for a well respected manager who has done great things in his previous jobs. What does Lampard have that Potter doesn't? He's shown a lot more knowledge and ability as a manager than Lampard. I'll leave Ferguson and Rooney out as they are the former players you want. I don't dispute former players being an attractive option but equally I wouldn't pick them just because they're former players. I wouldn't be against either or both of those 2

Keane's big issue for me is the way he loses his confidence more than his lack of ability. He can on his day be a great centre back but I feel that with a few bad games and especially such as now when the team are not performing and the atmosphere is awful around the ground his head drops and he makes mistakes or attempts things he shouldn't be doing. Not ideal in any player but I wouldn't be surprised to see him playing better again under a new manager with the crowd fully behind the team.

Does Ferguson really want to be permanent manager? I can't help but think if he really wanted a job as a full time manager he'd have left and tried his hand at a lower league club by now to try to earn his way into a job. He's worked under a lot of managers now so I'm sure has learnt plenty both good and bad from an array of different managers but we really don't know how much he's taken on board and how good a job he does day to day. He does seem quite content to sit and watch the man next to him struggle along from season to season. The only thing we know really is that given a few games a couple of times he's done a good job. Not to put his work down but going from the toxic atmosphere that we tend to have prior to the departure of a manager and the fervent support the crowd gives following the departure to Dunc (or Unsworth on his brief outing) it's very easy to earn yourself a few good results as players bounce off the better atmosphere and a manager telling them to go out and give the fans something to cheer about. Martinez Has he improved as a manger since he left us? Or did he just get a gig with a hugely talented bunch of players (who he hasn't made a final with let alone win). He certainly gave us something to get excited about in his first season but the second season brought on possession possession and endless sideways passes. Perhaps are players weren't up to performing how he wanted them to but he never had a plan B and towards the end of his time we were seeing players hoof it forward under pressure from the crowd to get it forward. Even if you do like him for the job, is he a risky appointment in our current position given that he would likely want that tactical change which may take some time to take fruition and would likely as it did previously lead to more mistakes as players used to Rafa's more direct play start passing it around at the back. A manager with his defensive frailties also seems a risk given that Rafa and generally defensively sound manager had us looking poor at the back. Potter Would be my pick if he wanted it. Whether he wants it depends really on whether he wants to take on our terrible position, a club that chop managers every year, don't have huge funds but our a bigger club than he's currently at and have ambition (or delusions maybe!) of getting to the top. If he feels that he's gone as far as he can with Brighton and the wage increase and potential achievement is worth the trip up North then he could come. I liked this read on Potter's values - https://thebootroom.thefa.com/resources/interviews/graham-potter/my-five-leadership-values I think he comes across very well, I like that he is flexible with his formations and tactics and doesn't seem to be stubborn like a lot of managers and while he'd like to get them working from the back and playing possession football it wouldn't be something forced on the team like I'd expect Martinez to do.

I'd be disappointed in Rooney if he ditched Derby at this point in the season. He's doing a good job under tough circumstances and while he may relish the opportunity to come to Everton I think he should be seeing out the season and trying to save Derby.

Well Gbamin got a late run-out at the weekend! Must be ready at last! Surely no truth in this.

Gordon and Gray unsurprisingly were the 2 players who always looked like they could make the difference. Gray took man of the match for me with his constant threat late on though I did feel he should probably have dine better with one or two of them. Allan had a great game also. I actually thought Rondon did quite well, involved in quite a lot of play, played the right ball for others a few times but still provided 0 threat himself.

Hopefully the Newcastle interest helps increase his price, surely he wants Champions League not Championship and so if Chelsea are interested then he would much rather go there. That is if he would be first choice. As Chilwell was doing well until his injury he may have concerns about being a short term replacement.

I've generally been on the side of giving him the chance, I wasn't big on him joining not because I have a big issue with him but he divides the crowd so much and so many don't want him here with a passion that when things go wrong he'll really get the anger of the crowd. Early on when we started well we could see his "defensive" and "negative" tactics weren't actually so bad, we were seeing good fast counter attacks producing goals. However with a few injuries that pace in attack seemed to disappear (apart from Gray) and there hasn't really been any other plan but adding more in defense. I've seen some saying "3 in defense doesn't work for us", well maybe it would IF there was any sign of it being 3 in defense! I would call Sundays team a flat back 5 with standard occasional runs forward from the 2 full backs like you'd see in any 4 man defense. Time and time again we've done better when a 3rd player has joined the midfield and yet he has chosen to ignore this apart from when it is clearly obvious in the second half of games. By adding the extra player in defense all you are doing is allowing the opposition to push on further towards goal and control things before relying on the defense to deal with things. Rafa bemoaned mistakes costing us and yes this is correct players have made mistakes that cost us in that game and many of the recent games but we have also been second best in most (if not all) of those games and mistakes that cost you goals are a lot more likely when the team is under pressure and doesn't have the ball all game. In the Brighton game you could see how well drilled they were, they attacked with intent and purpose compared to our side who didn't seemed to know what they were doing when they had the ball. Apart from Gray and Gordon who looked to be direct and create things around the box the others didn't seem to know what to do and even in the last 10 minutes when we were putting them under some pressure we had players lingering on the ball looking around unsure what to do with it. Digne being on the bench was an infuriatingly childish bit of gamesmanship , whether he was showing Digne or the fans that the player is fit and available but not going to be selected above others I don't know but ultimately if he has no intention of playing him he shouldn't be on the bench and it back fired on him somewhat when he got a huge applause from the crowd whilst warming up! Can Rafa recover things? I really don't see it, we may get some results and pull away from any relegation threat but i'm dubious he can win over fans, improve performance of the team or individual to any great extent or give performances that make people want to watch.

Considering we had so little of the ball Gordon really stood out for me. He took on the burden of the attacking responsibility (Iwobi could learn a thing or two). He never stopped running and really looked dangerous running at them with pace. Great cross for the goal too. Great effort from team all round though, first half we let them in behind us too often but apart from their goal they didn't really manage it second half. Fingers crossed they've staked their claim for more game time

Based on available players here's my team: Pickford Kenny Holgate Keane Godfrey (would rather have Digne but doubt it) Allan (hopefully) Doucoure Gomes Gray Rondon Gordon A subs bench containnig Iwobi, Tosun, Gbamin,Branthwaite and Simms! I wouldn't be surprised to see Rafa not play Kenny and switch Godfrey to right and play Delph left back. Surely a chance for kenny to get a game, he may prove to us why he never gets picked but surely got to be worth a game seeing as he's the only fit right back. Richarlison's injury awful timing with DCL not quite back.

How Rafa must just want to throw him on for the next game and hope his troubles are solved! One player doesn't make a team and I wouldn't say he's a worldie that you can everything on but we have no one else that can hold up like him or get themselves in the box in the right place. We saw early on how dangerous we could look playing to his strengths. Without that we've relied on counter attacks at pace that seem to have fallen away of late and Gray wonder strikes

I think the biggest issue for Digne this season has been not having DCL in the box to aim for. His best attribute is his crossing and DCL is the one player who would make sure he got himself into a good space in the box whenever there was a crossing opportunity. We saw at the start of the season how dangerous we looked feeding him in the box and no one has replaced him.

You can say that again!

Yes I’m still unbeaten when at Goodison! Richarlison for me, looked dead on his feet but never stopped running and chasing everything down. When we went 2-1 up after laying around a while he ran straight back to defend at kick off. Gray I didn’t think did massive amounts for large periods but that X factor to run at people and hit that kind of shot from outside the box is just what we need. Good to have Gomes back, looked a bit sloppy early on but he’s been out a while, really made a difference. Gordon I thought was really good as well, worked really hard winning the ball back, making some good runs

Never been to Goodson and seen us lose, I’ll be there on Monday so with the big news that our star striker is fit I expect nothing less than a Rondon winner!! If we don’t get something out of this I feel the crowd will be totally gone for Rafa and there will be little way back.

I agree, he did some really good defensive work keeping Robertson and Mane quiet, unfortunately everyone remembers errors. While the 3rd goal can be blamed on him he was given an awful ball to deal with. I was shouting for him to take out Salah for the red card though!