FairWooney

Fernandes deal now complete but clearence not recieved enough to play today. Johnson fuckin injured again. team for today is: Tim Howard, Tony Hibbert, Phil Jagielka, Joleon Lescott, Jorge Nuno Valente, Mikel Arteta, Lee Carsley, Phil Neville, James McFadden, Tim Cahill, Victor Anichebe Subs: Stefan Wessels, Leighton Baines, Thomas Gravesen, James Vaughan, Alan Stubbs

based on the article on the offical site it seems like were keen to sell if Birmingham offer a decent price. Do you think we need a replacement striker at the moment, McFadden has generally been played in midfield which to be honest has recently been more of an issue than for strikers and probably leaves more of an opening there even though we have Fernandes coming in. so do you think we should be getting a replacement this month if we sell him and if so who or what position should that player be?

what would you say if it had been yakubu or Yobo? He shouldn't have been sent off anyway and most people, even a lot of Everton fans would agree with that. I thought it looked bad at first but after a few viewings it's not that bad despite catching him, he hasn't gone in 2 footed and prior to this season he definately wouldn't have been sent off. I can understand from the ref's view and the speed at which it happend as well as the way his foot caught neville it looked very bad but it's not a non contact sport and rules are getting too hard and playing into the hands of the play actors, especially people like ronaldo who it is very difficult to get a tackle against because of his speed and trickery yet one false move and one fall to the floor and your off. and so far as the actual suspension goes, that's the same as when a players injured, it never makes any difference weather they are able to play the games or not the suspension is ALWAYS for a set period.

i'll take a pick n mix of 5 of them to strengthen the squad. Eduardo might make the bench when one our youngsters is injured!

they spend millions and yet are still are hugely average club and think they should be top 5 because they had 1 or 2 good seasons a while back with Kegan they go through managers so quickly it's rediculous. maybe they need to look at what happend to us when we hung on to a manager through a bad patch and stuck with Moyes. we went through way too many managers in the 90's and there was no stability but when we stuck with moyes despite a lot of disgruntled fans at certain points he was able to mould the team how he wanted it and it's worked. money is spent better and players stay longer. Newcastle have spent so long enticing big names with big money then getting annoyed when it doesn't go right for them. I'm sure Sam will get himself a decent new job, if he wants join another supposedly book club that aren't achieving what the fans want and spending millions on shite maybe he should come down our road and pop his name in the hat for a job with the red shites!

not too confidence about this one i'm afraid. think it will be a tough game and while I don't think we'll lose it'll be a tough one to win. 1-0 probably if we do win however my prediction is 1-1 with a goal from Cahill. I don't think Fernandes will start if he does join in time, might get on the bench if fully fit, as our centre mid choice on the bench would be between him and Gravesson I think he'd probably get 20 minutes.

Can I just ask that all those of you that will be at his first game for us don't go too crazy when they announce his name. lets remember that this is a player that pretty much stitched us up on a transfer where he was 90% ours. the contract was there, he'd agreed to join, he was in the City and he fucked right off to Spain where it appears they didn't really want him that much anyway. I'm glad to have him back as what I saw of him he looked like a good player for our side, but I want to see him prove himself again before I wank over posters of him. And yes like Yakubu has I want to see Fernandes moulded into the Everton way, getting stuck into challenges and working hard all over the field as well as doing what we already know he can. Hopefully we've agreed a fee like we did with Arteta and Pienaar so we can get him in the summer if we want him at a decent price. I don't sound too impressed but I am very pleased to see us getting another centre mid espcially with our current shortage in midfield.

i think we were by far outclassed until the sending off. we came back into it well but never had the quality to create much. i think arteta it would have been a different story as we just had no one there to make the most of their 10 men. a mixture of their quality and are weakness let them back in in the last 10 minutes. unfortunately the goal looked like it was coming. Lescott didn't deserve that to happen as he'd had a brilliant game but it was his fault. howard could have come and looked tempted for a second but i don't think he would have easily made it had he come. either way by the time the balls above his head lescott should have been jumping for it and even a late jump would have stopped little Shaun. Moyes loves his excuses and i heard someone else mention a foul on lescott by SWP, BULLSHIT. watch it again there was nothing, Lescott justified or not though howard was going to claim it and never jumped. Felt sorry for lescott with that chance at the end, a bad first touch saw the ball skip up on to his right knee just stopping him getting a decent shot out and it was well defended by the keeper. dissapointing result, i'd have accepted 2-1 as an acceptable result before the match but after how close we came to a draw if not a win against 10 men that late goal is a bitter blow. not out of it though but obviously it means we must win at Goodison.

so there a league one side, that's what happens in the FA Cup. They got one good goal clung on for dear life and we coudn't manage to score, maybe not our day, as Louis says were still in 2 knockout tournaments and doing well in the league. I'm dissapointed but no need to be too heart broken about it. josh i have no interest in us going out 4th round instead of third, unless were going to make the semi final or more then it makes no odds when we go out. Oldham are on fine form away from home and came to us with a lot of confidence, for us it wasn't the most important game of the week, we've got players out and we can't say the stars didn't play as we finished with 5 strikers including johnson and Yak, I pressume cahill wasn't fully fit and i'd rather have him fully fit for the Chelsea game than semi fit having played at the weekend.

is VDM fit yet? according to the offical site he's still injured.

fuck there's some bad attitude on here. arsenal cheating cunts....arteta dives, piennar dives as do many of the Arsenal players. hand balls i don't think it was really deliberate. we threw the game away, by not scoring a second goal in the first half we were always going to be up against it as they always play much better in the second half if they've struggled in the first. Eduado is an outstanding striker and i'd say potentially one of the top 5 finishers in the league, i've not actually seen him miss a shot yet since i've seen him play! regarding fabregas little broken face fall, unfortunately i think Arteta would have done exactly the same, sad but true it's just those players way and it's what ruins the game. I think if Howard hadn't fucked up to give them the third goal, definately seemed like his communication saying he had it based on Yobo's reaction, then I think we would have got an equaliser as we were piling the pressure and crosses onto them. once that went in it didn't matter weather arteta went off or not we weren't going to score 2 goals. It's very annoying that we seem to play brilliantly against the top sides and yet don't get anything out of them and can't beat anyone in the top 10. it's something that's got to be sorted. At times we played very well today, we soaked up the pressure in the first half then turned the game around brilliantly and took the lead. the second half we were pulled apart a bit and struggled to get any major possession until the sending off. another tough game out the way, bring on a new years day win

very honest of a footballer to admit to cheating sometimes! good interview, seems like a nice guy, and very sensible, his interests being learning languages you don't see him ever causing any trouble off the field!

to be honest he did look ashamed with himself. i'm sure it was just an istinctive reaction to getting skinned to try and make the challenge other way after going the wrong way, big mistake but you could see the way he was looking, head down shaking his head after that he knew he'd blown it for us. I think Pienaar really likes playing for us as is his desire to sign up as soon as possible and to go away for African nations for the minimal time and he's done brilliantly for us since arriving. it's an unfortunate mistake but alas no one will remember the lovely cross he put in for Cahill in the first half. Well played by us, hard game we faught hard to get a result and bar the above error we were there. we soaked up a lot of pressure but when we did get forward united did look a bit shakey at the back. they were definately beatable and we were unfortunate not to get something.

tomorrow after the chelsea v liverpool game.

yeah, if we named the same team that played yesterday our odds to win would be about the same as AZ but it's highly unlikely they'll all play. don't think it'll be as changed a side as i'd like to see but i'm sure yak, arteta and cahill at least will get a break. not a lot of choice in defence to give yobo and lescott a break but it would be good to rest one of them if possible.

fair do's Jamie! I was only in Bangkok for 3 nights and saw nothing though I didn't see anything of Everton in Phuket or Khao Lak either. even worse the speed boat i went on to Phi Phi Islands and all the other ones had the shites embelem on. good to see there is stuff around but we could definately do with having a tour over there in the summer with a few friendly's and a bit of marketing drive.

i was in Thailand last week and I was appalled at how poorly everton have made use of having a Thai sponsor. We have Thailands second biggest Beer on our shirts yet most Thai people don't know anything about us. It made me cringe when i got in a taxi and said i was from England and the first thing he said was "ahh Liverpool!!!" I saw West Ham shirts on stalls as well as the usual shite but no Everton stuff anywhere. We did the same when we wasted our opportunity to take on one of the biggest populations in the world when we had Chinese sponsors and never went there. admitedly it was initally put off because of SARS but we should have rescheduled later on. The whole yellow thing really had me baffled at first, i just noticed everyone in Bangkok seemed to be wearing yellow polo shirts but didn't know why, it was only when i saw something on the news that I understood what it was about!

according to offical site Arteta is struggling with an injury. hopefully he gets over it to play, I don't fancy are chances without Arteta to hold the ball a bit and create something. i've put a couple of quid on Everton 2-1 with Cahill scoring first goal, 220/1! though really I think it will be 2-1 Chelsea, as long as Arteta is playing. I think we can score against them but the mix of their ability and our occasional silly mistakes will probably cost us a couple of goals.

mikeo i read that one, sounded from the write up as though he was pretty involved and had a decent game. though obviously a player of his skill should bea ble to look very good against reserve teams! I'd like to see him given a game at some point weather it be league, carling up or europe. At least if we can beat Nurenberg we'll be pretty safe so we can always rest the odd player in the final too games. Maybe he'll be keen to find his way to Alkaamar to prove to the dutch fans he's not doing shite in England! give him a chance to catch up with his mates (not at coffee shop or bars please Andy!).

Vaughan hasn't travelled as he's out injured with a thigh strain. Johnson's fitness has been put back after someone stood on his foot! Baines has late fitness test. none of those great news but Anichebe has proved himself well so far in Europe and Yakubu is looking better and better.

as with most other i'm going with 2-1. If you look at their league table they've not had any trouble scoring goals but have conceeded a lot. also most of our clean sheets have come when Stubbs has been playing and he makes an important difference especially in a game where we may get to attack quite a bit if we outplay them.

hopefully he doesn't do what he did after signing a new contract with Palace. Contracts don't mean much apart from increased pay for the player, doesn't benefit the club unless they can wangle the conditions to be better for them in some way or if the player has little time left on the contract.

hopefully the AZ game won't be of any sugnificance so we can rest a few players. need to make sure we win the next one at least, ideally both! going to be tough with that many games though

is that yakubu's first full 90 minutes? I'm pretty sure he's been taken off every game up until now.

3-1!!!!! Vaughan is back!!!