Sibdane

Duffy has a point. Our defence has been shite, daft set piece goals conceded. The lad has arial ability above any other defender in the squad. There have been opportunities to play him and he hasn't been used.
 
21 is a good age to be playing first team football, Ferdinand was an £18m player at 21/22. Ratcliffe was everton captain at 23... He's proven his ability in the cameos I've seen.

We can all dream of this...
 
http://fourfourtwo.com/blogs/fourfourtwoview/archive/2013/03/28/premier-league-prediction-2012-13.aspx
 
Written by an Evertonian?

This one has to be up there:
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s0xBeSaSWI
 
Still remember it all quite clearly
 
Can see myself in the video as well

No need for any cover, we have Stones and Oviedo to cover the fullbacks.

How can he do the talking on the pitch when he isnt getting game time?
 
We dont even play him in the cup games against lower league opposition. He shouldnt be expecting to start week in week out but given them cup games and given how CB's have been leaking goals through parts of the season, I think I would be starting to get a bit frustrated as well. Not to mention, Moyes making noises about him being ready to start games and then nothing.
 
In todays game 21 isnt that young, even for a CB.

Because Vellios has looked very confident and assured in most of the games he's played in, scored the odd goal too. Victor on the other hand has taken the best part of four years to actually start to show he might have some worth, he's lucky he still wears the blue shirt, most managers would probably have moved him on by now.

Yes, like most Spanish club sides. The Spanish national football team tend to play without a striker and I agree they lack urgency in attack. 
Not regularly switching up the tactics according to who we play isn't one of my gripes with Moyes btw and I don't want it from a new manager either. We should play our game and have the other team adjust to that. Keeping possession and controlling the tempo is winning football.
 
I'd always line up 4-3-3 with the midfield triangle pointing down. We need to buy someone for the defensive midfield position, someone athletic, mobile and with skill on the ball, that can slip in between the central defenders when we have the ball so we always have 3 men back. Capoue from Toulouse fits the bill for me. Have the left and right back stretch the pitch up field when we have possession. One other midfielder needs to be a very good passer, also capable of tracking back, Gibson for example, I also like McCarthy from Wigan if we could get him as Gibson has proven to be injury prone. I think Lundstram is that type of player as well. The other needs to have a bit more dribbling abiiity: Pienaar or Osman and Barkley should be getting minutes in that position as well.
 
If we lose the ball everyone should immediately push up and try to regain it as quick and as high up the pitch as possible.

Training matches and pre-season friendlies are no indicator of whether or not someone is good enough imo. The youngsters need first team action, even if it's only 20 mins at the end of each game or playing in cup matches. 
Prime example would be when Barkley came in at the start of last season and did'nt look quite ready, which is why i always feel sorry for Vellios as i feel he has shown he is ready imo.

yeah i'd agree..size seems less important than it did 5-10 years ago..maybe why osman has become more and more effective over time

For me its not the problem that he comes off its the fact that Naismith replaces him. Generally when we need pace and directness we sub him off and bring on the plodder. Its literally the perfect opportunity to bring Oviedo on!

He doesnt really need to change the line up, just swap Osman and Fellaini around. Job done.
 
To be honest, we could probably do with Fellaini further back against Wigan tomorrow anyway to support the defence.

We need WHOLESALE changes to get the average of the squad down. Will Davey do that? If he signs on then he has to. For me we complain the squad isnt big enough but surely Lundstram,Garbutt etc need to be given squad numbers and integrate them and call younger players into what was the reserve league but is now an under 21 league. Ive got a horrible feeling the good football we played in the first half of the season was Davey thinking "Fuck it its my last season" hoping it would get him a bigger job however if he doesnt and he signs back will it revert back to normal? Seriously how easy is the oppostion managers team talk against us? "Right lads they play 4-5-1 as usual weve watched the tapes, wind Felliani up and double up down our right hand side". Id just love a manager that changes as the game goes on not just wingers swapping sides. I would take a couple of mid table finishes if it meant we were buying young,quick footballers that can counter attack and play without fear. If we sell Felli and get £25 mill and maybe get shut of Naismith for a couple of mill we should be looking at the likes of Lallana,Lukaku,McCarthy,Gudetti,Weissman,Wanyama,Capoue,Marin that could change our team dramatically not buying 30 somethings that are on big wages that their best days are behind them like Lescott

He's got too much flair at the moment, give moyesy and his coaching staff (collection of defenders and goally) a chance to work with him a little more and he will soon be pointing and chipping lob wedges into the channels.
 
I like him as a player, similar style to Mirallas - has got bottle to take the game to the other team.
 
Welease Bwian!!!

Yeah but we keep seeing a nice jacket and some knob head over the road goes and buys it.

It's hard to tell whether he's a decent player or just having a good run of form. Up until recently I've not been a fan of Victor at all, I'd have happily sold him to raise funds for other players but there is no doubt that at the moment he deserves a start in our first-team, I just hope that he can carry this form into next season and cement himself as a regular for us.
 
It's like Gareth Bale, for me he's not a world-class player he's just having some good form, I just hope Vic can maintain the standard he's showing now.

U21's are beating Villa 1-0. Mcaleny with his 7th in 8 games, surely deserves some time off the bench in the near future?

What the fuck do I have to do with anything, and apart from the opening Hafnia article, where is the relevance to William Dean is any of this ?
 
Mind you, it was brought to attention on the first of March that it was (at the time) the 33rd year passing of our greatest team player and that just passed by without any acknowledgment until I felt it fair to give the player a mention, so is it really that much of a surprise.
 
Matthew started a statistics page with good intent, there was no malice involved, and it's right in saying that it warranted it's own space after past statistics were put in other threads that I agree may have been unsuitable. A seperate page or corner was the right - and only - thing to do. What's the problem with it.
 
Incidentally while we're at it, the said statistics page, has now fallen off the sports index page so maybe Louis, or whoever has the capabilities, can bring it back and it can be updated again at random times, but I decided in the end it wasn't worth putting on every day, and eventually, just participated sporadically. If people liked it or appreciated it, fair enough. If they turned up their noses or decided on fucking favorites, then fair enough also. It was merely to give recognition of past events but I did in the end, kind of lose interest. But once again, if it's possible to raise it back to the sports index for future participation it would be appreciated.
 
Maybe the author was trying to initiate a statistics piece of his own, but I don't think that was his true intention, but as there's already one in existence it has to be brought to the fore. Maybe some good came out of this to clear up any misunderstandings, I don't know.

so we don't have to read it

Just heard before on talksport that on this day in 1925 a certain William Ralph Dean made his debut for Everton versus Arsenal - we lost 3-1 and dean had a goal disallowed.
 
He scored at Goodison a week later in a 2-0 win against Aston Villa.
 
(Thought it would be a nice nostaligia thread)

I don't actually think he's trolling, he made a point and everyone has gone on the defensive!

i'm not sure you know where babies come from mate

You play like the best team in Europe against us again, give us a hiding, and yet you still won't make the top four? What is wrong with your team? Admittedly I don't watch Everton much but every time you play us, you play off the planet. Yet I will see you play Stoke or Wigan, and you are utter garbage!!

Hardly. Or at least that's not my view.
 
I'd like him to utilise his squad, not necessarily use the kids, it just so happens that a lot of the squad happens to be kids. It'd have been nice to bring some of them on when games are dead and buried. The Brentford game springs to mind when we were 4-1 up and it was the likes of Naismith and Hitz came on while Vellios and Barkley twiddled their thumbs instead of getting first team experience. I'd also have liked a couple of first teamers to have been dropped in favour of others for a game or two when it was clear they needed a rest or were badly out of form. It does no good to run these players into the ground.

Any chance they can leave him there?

“Would I rather be here than anywhere else on a day like this? Well, if you’d asked me that when I made a substitution that didn’t seem that popular [like Steven Naismith for Mirallas] even though I felt it was right to keep us in the game, then there’s a wee element of that as well!

“I felt I was being questioned at that moment, but maybe people are now big enough to turn around and concede that we perhaps got it right after all. I’ve definitely given Everton the respect with my work here and I hope that’s mutual."
 
What an egotistical dick head Moyes is. It was an awful substitute and he's trying to make out he's a genius and the mere fan knows fuck all. What did Naismith contribute before a short pass in stoppage time when the game was already wrapped up anyway? Because all I can remember is a shit pass when we were on the counter and a poor corner.