adziom

Joel Robles

Yawn...

The substitutions were poor today, no two ways about it. Sticking Kone and Osman on the pitch when you've got Mirallas on the bench is beyond comprehending - these are two players who can keep possession for us, not explosive types who will produce a moment of quality to break down a stubborn defence.

In general yes we could play more direct at home and in general, as this suits your wingers, Ross and Rom much better but I was mainly referring to the "drawing teams on" comment. You could bring your sleeping bags and a flask of hot chocolate and sit around a campfire in your own box, a Pulis team away from home will still not come and attack you, especially if they've gone up 1-0.

Not particularly arguing with you about having a plan B but obviously you've never heard of 1) the Goodison crowd and 2) Tony Pulis if you think that you can get this West Brom team to come onto the front foot when 1-0 up away from home, and do so without the home crowd losing their shit.

Horrible result against a tedious side with a shithouse manager. Poor from us second half, just pass the ball around until we win a corner, watch the corner get headed away by the first man EVERY FUCKING TIME, retrieve the ball, rinse and repeat. Terrible. Lukaku needs benching for a while, not for Kone though (what was he doing on the pitch when we had Mirallas and Deulofeu on the bench!?). Hopefully this Niasse actually gets his clearance and doesn't become another "actually, sorry, we didn't really sign him" Leroy Fer case.

Like it or not, Martinez is 99% sure going to be around for a while. BK wouldn't have sacked him and the new owners are extremely unlikely to sack him in the early stages of their tenure lest they look reckless. I'm sure things will pick up anyway.

Like I said, give it until the end of the season instead of booting him out now, having a caretaker in to take over his side for a few weeks and then have to scrape the barrel of the management market to find a replacement. What will we gain by sacking him now? There'll be a transition period anyway so it won't actually improve our chances of scraping a top 6 finish or winning the FA cup. If anything it's more likely to disrupt our players who have a good relationship with him.

I agree with this. Some people criticised the Bill/Moyes relationship because while it provided stability for the club, the pair of them appeared to be content with getting 6th place every year and there was no pressure in either direction to be more ambitious. Bill has seemed to take the stance with Martinez that he can have all this time to sort things out because he's good for PR and he's got us playing 'sexy' football. I'm not saying I want Roberto sacked but there needs to be pressure from the board to force him to find solutions and ramp up the amount of progress we are making as a team and a club, just like there needs to be pressure from Roberto on the players to learn quickly from their mistakes, and arguably pressure from the players on each other too. At the moment everyone from top to bottom at the club is far too content with the fact we've been a mid table club for 18 months but it's okay because we have a manager who is developing and players who are young and developing. That's fine to an extent but you do want to see that pressure and that ambition to make improvements as quickly as possible. Perhaps this is something the prospective new owners can inject a bit of into the club.

Amazing the backlash at Martinez here. We just lost 4-3 to City over two legs and were leading 90% into the tie before getting shafted by another shambolic refereeing decision. Do we seriously expect with our resources and players to be good enough to beat a team with Aguero, Silva, Toure etc over two legs when the officials decide to intervene on their behalf as well? We put in a good effort, we rode our luck to be in that leading position and the players and manager could have done better but everyone's acting like we've just been beaten at home by Brentford. All I'm saying is that if you want Martinez out, fair enough, but using tonight, of all our failings this season, as a last straw doesn't make sense for me. Personally I think if things don't improve by the end of the season, get rid of him then, there isn't much to be gained by booting him out at this stage.

Bottom line is that we as a fanbase have never been happy. When Moyes was here it was yah boo sucks because we were so "negative" and couldn't buy a win away from home against big teams because we'd bottle it, and he'd never drop his favourites. Now we complain because we have a manager willing to give games to young players, trusting creative types to express themselves and go after matches away from home to the point where we expect so much we're slitting our wrists about a draw at Stamford Bridge in a match where we'd earned a fair victory. Results wise, Moyes finished 17th in his second season and even after that, it wasn't an irregular position for us to be sat in mid table at this time of year. For me, there's very little difference in the pairs' results aside from the fact that under Roberto I'd expect us to hit higher heights but also more disappointing lows. For example, under Moyes we'd never win at Old Trafford but we'd also never get slammed 4-0 at Anfield, we'd never have seen us field a striker like Lukaku capable of scoring 30 goals in a league season, but we'd also never concede 7 goals at home against Leicester and Stoke in the space of a week. The reality is though, Moyes was our manager for a decade, we won no trophies and we finished 4th once to be rewarded with a single two-legged Champions League qualifying tie. For all the areas in which Moyes may be better than Martinez, if you look back at that with positive nostalgia and label it "getting results", I'm a little bit worried for you.

This is exactly it. The situation feels worse than it is because our ceiling is so high. Sure, we could change manager and shore things up at the back. But would the new manager get the likes of Barkley, Lukaku and Deulofeu buying into his style of play and the club's direction? 'Fraid not. I've thought since he started that he's a few tweaks from being something special, the concern is whether he's willing to make those tweaks.

Is this the game where they scored in injury time to make it 3-3? There goes the argument about a goal in injury time causing more injury time.

I'm with him on that one. He even admitted we should have managed the game better at 2-0. One thing saying it though and another actually doing it.

Some context on what happens when you can't hold onto a lead: Since we threw away that Bournemouth win (after leading twice), we led Norwich and drew, led Stoke and lost, led Spurs and drew, then led Chelsea twice today and drew. This is all within the space of 8 league games. We have won one of these 8 games having led six of them (the win at Newcastle in addition to the aforementioned matches) and thrown away a total of 7 leading positions if you count both 2-0 and 3-2 leads over Bournemouth and Chelsea. Instead of 15 points for 5 wins, we have 4 points from those 5 matches. Had we held on to each of those leads, we'd be sitting on 40 points in 4th place right now, 3 points from the top of the table.

A lot of good performances tonight, but John Stones has taken a bit of flack lately and I thought he didn't put a foot wrong tonight so I voted for him.

Really pleased with our line up, if I'm being picky I might have stuck Lennon on the right to help with the defensive side with Gerry on the right but to be fair, Cleverley will be about as good defensively. I just hope Coleman doesn't end up ganged up on by De Bruyne and Clichy. COYB!

That's probably more of a promising sign for Roberto because the people who comment on Facebook and like other people's comments are quite often complete numpties, to put it politely. I wouldn't make a judgement based on what you see on Facebook about how much of the fan base are still on his side. The atmosphere at Goodison has been tetchy lately but that's nothing new. The fans need to sod off with having a go at our own players in the middle of a match though. Fair enough if someone's wandering around scratching their balls but if it's Howard trying (even if he's being shit) to catch a cross or a 21 year old lad trying to follow the manager's tactics just a little bit too much to the letter, it's not exactly going to help having the crowd on their back. As for the "top 4 vs a cup" comments, the actual quote I've seen is that the club have a better chance of keeping your Lukakus and Stones' if we finish in the top 4 than if we win the League Cup, and anyone who disagrees with that needs their head checking because all these players seem to care about these days is moving to a Champions League side so that they can play in 4-6 underwhelming ties against FC Basel, Ludogorets and the occasional Barcelona or Bayern Munich each season.

So apparently away goals do count in this tie but only after extra time? I.E. If we draw 2-2 at home, then draw 1-1 away, it will go to extra time but if there's no more goals, City will win instead of it going to penalties. Am I the only one who finds this a really weird rule? If anything, possibly it plays into our hands because we have 120 minutes to score away goals if the tie is level and they only get 90... I'm just confused though really, don't see any reason to work it that way.

We'll just see if Spurs can actually keep it up. I don't like them and I would love nothing more than to see them slide from December/January's flavour of the month 'title contenders' to not even finishing in the top four for something like the third time in five years. I'm not quite sure why people are even more miserable with Martinez after that match though. It was an okay result and our defence played pretty well. Although they bossed the possession in the first half they barely tested Howard. It's only one game of course but it's an improvement. Our team has the potential to get better results in the second half of the season by tightening up the defence. Several teams ahead of us - Palace, West Ham, Watford, Stoke and yes, Leicester - are playing at their absolute best with (in my opinion) next to no chance of emulating these results in the second half of the season, let alone having the same scope for improvement as we do. Liverpool are also a sack of shite with currently perhaps two or three players good enough to get into our team. We are 6 points behind Man Utd who are in 5th place and we're in a cup semi final. This could still be a very good season for us. I think the main reason people are so frustrated with this season is that we know where we COULD (should?) be - probably about 4th or 5th. I maintain that we only require minor tweaks to turn draws and narrow defeats into wins and while the last 8-10 games have seen us piss away a ton of points, we should take encouragement from the fact that we're putting ourselves into winning positions and have such a strong side that it's considered a manager-threatening disappointment to be 6 points away from the top 5.

Strangely confident about this tie. I'm not really sure whether the pressure is on or off for City here but either way I think them being favourites can play to our advantage. We are the 'nothing to lose' side in this semi-final and I want to see us go hell for leather. There's a good chance Stoke can do the Shite in the other SF and then slide out of their purple patch just in time for us to stuff them at Wembley. This is our best route into Europe. Side note time: A lot of people probably fancy a Merseyside derby for the final. You can keep your "great for the city" spiel, not worth the 95% risk of us getting shafted by a dodgy referee or probably ourselves to hand that shower of shite average Liverpool side a trophy. Anyway, back to the semi final. If we go to City without a lead, we'll be seriously on the back foot. Especially if they've chalked up an away goal or two. This first leg is a must win to get us into the tie, though a 0-0 wouldn't be disastrous, it still wouldn't be ideal. Hopefully we play a side that will take the game by the scruff of the neck: Robles Coleman Jagielka FunesMori Baines Besic Barry Deulofeu Barkley Lennon Lukaku

I think the back four were doing a better job today up until that goal which was totally soft from our point of view. Midfield and attack getting battled out of the game overall. Cleverley and Lennon are getting bullied a bit.

Spurs fans seem very confident. They shouldn't be but that's Spurs for you. Hopefully we send them packing. That team isn't our strongest in my opinion but if they turn up they're more than capable of winning this match.

So we're sat here with one win in the last 6 matches. In the five matches we didn't win, we led three of them (Bournemouth twice, Norwich and Stoke), whilst against Palace we were utterly dominant and ended up scraping a draw. As Roberto would say, it is phenomenal and incredible that we have one win from these matches when we could conceivably have had all of them. Anyway, focusing on today... Tim Howard - appears to have totally lost it. His interaction with the Gwladys end after flapping at a ball was worrying, even if I think the fans are ridiculous for sarcastically cheering him for clapping the ball. He needs a few games on the sideline because he's struggling. He doesn't need booing off, he doesn't need to be exiled to the MLS, he's a first team player who's out of form, he just needs a break. Please tell me I'm not mad on this next bit because I'm getting dogs abuse for saying this on Reddit - but Tim was really poorly at fault for their equaliser. If the goalkeeper comes off his line and misses the ball like he did, it leaves an open net for the opposition which Stoke duly exploited for their third goal. I thought this was an obvious criticism so thoughts on this would be appreciated. Seamus Coleman - tenacious but increasingly seems to be exploited defensively. He offers something going forward as an extra pass but little more these days. I'm not really sure where his best has gone - I'm not saying he's been poor but he could do with some competition. Brendan Galloway - looked good as always in one to one battles but their first two goals both came about by him letting Shaqiri get on the wrong side of him. Obviously Baines was rotated out today because Brendan has had a good season with some mistakes, I'd like to see how he could get on in his actual position of center half though now is clearly not the time to take that chance. John Stones - Unlucky with the penalty but was extremely poor today with his distribution and mindlessly ran wildly out of position for their first goal which I thought was schoolboy defending. He could do with some time off as well and in the long run needs to be playing alongside an experienced defender. He and Funes Mori have not looked at all reliable together. Ramiro Funes Mori - Looks a good player but like I say, him and Stones don't work together. He needs to be settling into this league alongside an experienced Premiership defender. Maybe we let Distin go a season early? Probably not but we could do with a calm, experienced center back for when Jags is out. Gareth Barry - had a quiet game but I thought he played fairly well. James McCarthy - great assist, it was mentioned on my stream for those criticising Roberto for playing a "clearly injured" McCarthy, that today's injury was a groin strain, unrelated to the previous hip injury. Tom Cleverley - also got a great assist, I was a bit confused about why he came off, hopefully he doesn't have another injury. Looks like we've signed a good squad player here at least. Ross Barkley - had a quiet game but I thought he played well and showed his attacking qualities as well as a solid job in a deeper role for the last 20 minutes or so. I think a lot of people still expect a bit too much of him, for him to run games every week, he's not quite at that stage yet. Steven Naismith - got himself into one good position and worked hard as always but had a limited impact on the game overall. Arouna Kone - His hold up play is excellent, he links up well, but recently he's been shitting the bed in the final third. A good player to have on the pitch in a neutral situation or one where we're looking to close a game out by keeping the ball and killing the tempo. He's shown his worth this season as a first team player but this doesn't mean he has to start every match or stay on for 90 minutes when a bit more blood and thunder in the shape of Lennon or Mirallas would suit us better. Gerard Deulofeu - Decent effort, couldn't miss his goal but you have to get in the right positions so credit there. I do like how he can hit the ball in such a way that his cross beats his man for him (if that makes sense?) but I'd also like to see him run at his full back as much as he used to as well rather than relying too much on the early cross. Romelu Lukaku - He's been everything we've wanted him to be this season, a fantastic goalscoring return and much better all round. He's busting a gut for the team as well at one stage winning the ball today in the right back position. Hopefully the rest of the team can start to follow suit sooner rather than later because he'll be gone in the summer if we can't give him a reason to stay. Onto the next one I suppose....

Ranieri is a very experienced manager though and Leicester's season has been a fluke, not in the sense that they don't deserve to be where they are, because the league table doesn't lie, but in the sense that the chances of them having all of their players fit and in their best form all season as well as catching opponents at the right time and getting the rub of the green in close matches like when they played us, were minimal. Not that I want to take anything away from them, their players and manager have done fantastic, but the way the league has been this season has made them look even better than they are. Martinez has built a very good side that aren't getting the results they deserve. I was floored by what we saw today but as long as we have Stones (a Moyes signing but a Martinez player), Barkley (substitute to England international under Martinez), Lukaku (brought to the club by Martinez on loan then permanently), Deulofeu (another Roberto player) in this side, we're only a bit of luck and a few changes away from success. As horrible is it is to watch this side with such talent throw away points, the reason for it is that he's put together such an exciting side in the first place. And they're a young side too, inconsistency is to be expected. That's not to excuse the problems though, persisting with out of form players and failing to manage football matches. While I believe we are only small tweaks away from being a force to be reckoned with, those tweaks still have to happen or the potential comes to nothing.