RandoEFC

Hate to be that guy that's probably being annoying but a few things: 1) many people would argue that the first vote wasn't democratic because the winning side broke electoral law. 2) people being able to change their mind is a pretty massive part of democracy. It's why we have elections every 4 years (typically). 3) the MPs campaigning for Remain threw tantrums because they were trying to get facts across while their Leave-campaigning colleagues were coming out with lies and fantasy (which we can now see) and not being held accountable by the media. 4) my personal view is that if you have a vote you should use it to vote for what you think is best for the country rather than withhold it out of some sort of principle because you don't like how they acted. God knows it won't be them that face the consequences of something bad happening to Britain because loads of people didn't vote the way they thought they should for the same reasons you're suggesting. It will be your friends, children and grandchildren who bear the brunt of it. And 5) I think we're all sick of hearing about Brexit in the news. However, in a democracy it is important for all of us to be educated to some extent and vote for what we believe is best for the nation when we get the opportunity. The best way to stop hearing about Brexit is to have it overturned in a second referendum if that's what the majority of people want because if we leave the EU we will be hearing about the fallout for decades to come, especially if it is a no deal Brexit, it will be in the news every day regardless of whether things go as badly as people say they will or not.

I watched the first episode tonight. Let me know when you've caught up, it was alright though. Pretty standard TWD.

I think the praise has been very vocal because we had to sit through 3 years of Walsh's incompetence so Brands coming in and doing a not shit job to us was like being able to wank again after having a broken arm in a cast for several weeks.

Look I apologise if you feel like I'm overlooking your arguments, but the bottom line is I find odd to be criticising Brands when he's one of the only people at the club who has done generally positive work over the past few years. I've made my points about what he's inherited and the fees he's managed to scrape together for the swathes of senior players of ours that aren't good enough to play for the first team. As for the players he's brought in, Digne for under £20m is an obvious good deal, Bernard was free, Mina was about £30m and the one where the jury is still out but he has been one of our better players so far this season. Not saying much perhaps but he cant be labelled a flop yet. Gomes, Iwobi, Gbamin all came for £25m-£30m which adds up, yes, but I'm afraid when the Koeman/Walsh era leaves you with so many first team players needed to replace the shit and the 31 year olds, you're not going to plug many of those gaps for less than that price. Delph was under £10m for an experienced body, Richarlison the big one at £45m which is a heft fee but he's 22, was our top scorer last season and is a regular for Brazil's national team. Moise Kean was just under £30m but he's 19 so its unreasonable to use that one as an investment that hasn't justified the outlay yet. If you look at it objectively it's hard to really find a crap bit of business in there. He's walked away from all of the proper panic buy deals like Zaha and Rojo even if it left us short handed at the back. Nearly all of the players he has signed as far as I'm concerned are at least decent and haven't been too expensive individually. The individual quality is there, just need them to get their fingers out and the manager to start getting the best out of them again. The reason we've spent so much is because Koeman and Walsh left such a pile of AIDs behind them. Going back to your point about Gueye, I think most people would consider £30m for a player the wrong side of 30 who wants to leave to be sensible business and I'm sure you'd see things the same way if it was your club, even if we are missing him on the pitch. Hopefully that answers all of your points. 4231 with two defensive midfielders just makes us too easy to shut down. Especially if the midfield two are Schneiderlin and Delph like the last few weeks who dont offer any attacking threat. Last season it was better with Gueye and Gomes because Gueye covers more ground defensively and Gomes can carry the ball forward and force an opposition's defensive midfielder or full back have to close him down and create space for someone else. I seem to remember him doing this particularly well in the Anfield derby at times. Lining up with Schneiderlin and Delph against teams like Liverpool or Man City makes sense but when we line up that way against Sheffield United at home it gets people pretty triggered and fair enough. It makes more sense in those games to leave Delph deep and play say Davies and Sigurdsson as two midfielders who can support the attack. Our last four managers wont change from this system, and when both Baines and Coleman would bomb forward to support the attack it was fine, but Digne, as good as he is in the final third, doesn't have the same pace as Baines had in his prime and Coleman's final ball has always been average, and now he also has less pace to commit to runs beyond the winger and be able to get back, so we need more from the midfield.

They are all valid criticisms except I would criticise the players more for the zonal marking issues because in the second half of last season they proved they could actually do it properly, didn't concede a set piece goal from February onwards and kept more clean sheets than everyone apart from Liverpool and City. It must be infuriating for Silva to have coached it into them properly only for it to go tits up again so far this season. The 4231 is a pile of wank and I wish we'd go 433 which was apparently his preferred formation at Watford. The 4231 was pretty much needed with Gueye and Sigurdsson two of the first names on the team sheet last season, but now we have a load of midfielders who would fall into the category of being decent in all departments that could play in a midfield three better than playing a specific DM or AM role, Gbamin, Gomes, Delph and Davies all fall into this category and I dont see why Sigurdsson couldn't do a job in a more flexible three man midfield. The substitutions I find hard to defend, I cant really remember him making real game changing substitutions. Usually he just makes straight swaps without changing a system that hasn't worked for 70 minutes. So yeah it sounds like I'd agree with them.

I can't believe either of you think it's a credible argument to claim that "Everton fans have elevated Marcel Brands to godlike status" when the only evidence you've provided is that there's a Godfather banner with his face on it at Goodison Park. I've even met you halfway by outlining the reasons that he is highly rated by Everton fans and acknowledging the one fuck up he's made with regards to building this squad at centre half. I dont get how I'm being touchy at all, you're making a criticism of an entire fanbase off a banner ffs. And maybe I'm overreacting but at least when people say shite about Liverpool theres like 6 of you to argue about it. When people come out with unfounded nonsense about my club I'm the only one here to try and set people straight, I try to be reasoned at all times but it gets difficult when the actions and words of other Everton fans that don't even post here get used against you whilst whenever I say anything remotely debatable or with blue-tinted glasses on I have an army of Reds descending upon me kicking off about it. So yeah maybe I get irritable about it at times but christ almighty, how dare our fans demonstrate support for the new Director of Football with a banner and a few twitter accounts with his face as their profile picture before he's delivered the title and the Champions League? Tin pot stuff.

What point even is this? You lot are constantly on about our shite atmosphere and our fans being miserable twats (which is true) and how are fans will turn on Brands because Evertonians are good at that, but then we have limbs in the away end for winning in the cup you laugh because "it's Lincoln though, look at them hur hur hur" and now you think we shouldn't have a banner for a club employee because 'he hasn't done enough to earn it yet'. And these are all things that have been said on this forum too, not things that other Liverpool fans have said on Twitter or something that I'm projecting onto you. Its genuinely confusing, the thing I dont understand is how you lads dont comprehend the hypocrisy to the extent that you think I'm being touchy for pointing it out.

You lot are properly impossible. I laid out a very reasoned argument about why Brands is rated highly by our fans including his biggest mistake this summer. I give one dig back and I'm "touchy". Whatever you say lads. There aren't any Everton fans on here giving Brands god like status and if the best evidence you can provide is that there's a godfather banner for him at Goodison Park then I'm afraid you're going to have to do better than that. I'm sure there are Everton fans elsewhere that have given it large about how good he is but if that's the case and you want to debate that, go and debate it with them, not me. I'm not being unreasonable, as usual, and just because there's about 6 of you on this forum and you go around upvoting each other's posts because you share the same Liverpool-tinted opinions doesn't actually make you automatically correct. All it does is make it incredibly tedious to try and debate with some of you on any matter where either of us has a vested interest. I actually don't know why I still bother sometimes.

Ooooh a banner for someone at the club. Criminal. Does that mean everyone who has a banner in the stands has been elevated to "God-like status"? Weren't you crying about us having those plastic flags a few weeks ago instead of having a bunch of different flags or banners instead? Make your mind up pal. Like seriously, we're in the relegation zone, our fans are rabid over sacking over another manager and the best you can come up with is having a dig at the Godfather banner we have for the Director of Football . We've been shite my entire lifetime. How much more practice do you need before you can take the piss out of us properly ffs?

Brands is a board member not a scout. He has a say in who we sign in as much as he makes a judgement on the long term financial future of the club to decide what he wants for a player we want to sell and how much to spend on players we bring in. We've had to spend a lot of money on this squad because Koeman and Walsh pissed all that money up the wall on 27-30 year olds and shite like Sandro and Klaassen whilst also dishing out 5 year contracts to players like Schneiderlin, Walcott and Mirallas for £60k-£100k a week which we are still fighting against now. Brands has had two transfer windows where we've been active to try and deal with this and I won't be judging him on the 8 games we've played so far this season. So far he managed to bring in £10m for Rooney, recover half of the Klaassen fee spent by his predecessor, sell Gueye for £30m after he hit 30 years old, sold Lookman and Vlasic for a profit when their stock should really have fallen in their time with us, and managed to ship out a lot of the other shite like Robles, Funes Mori, Besic, McCarthy, Mirallas etc. Some for decent little fees too. And even then we've still got a bunch of players who were given unreasonably long contracts lying around which highlights just what a mess he inherited. Theres a group of players, Stekelenburg, Pennington, Niasse, Martina where I could barely tell you whether they left, got loaned out or are rotting in obscurity somewhere while still taking a wage off us. Yes we've spent big money on some of Richarlison, Kean, Iwobi but it's too early to judge whether the investment there has been good or bad due to the age of the players. The only glaring oversight was the haggling over Zouma with Chelsea when we had a Tomori loan agreed as a back up if we couldn't change their mind on Zouma which got ruined by unforeseen circumstances in David Luiz throwing his toys out of the pram and Chelsea having to keep both. We should have had an emergency deal lined up just in case and it has caused us a problem on the pitch this season. So to summarise, well done, for in a time you could have a pop at 95% of people employed by Everton football club without much argument from me, you still manage to identify one of the few people who is actually doing his job with some competence to try and criticise. Got a real knack for it .

Very predictable paper talk but I'll be amazed if Moyes returns under this current regime of Moshiri and Brands. I wouldn't rule it out though. I'm more inclined to believe that Marcel Brands is sniffing around Ten Hag or whatever his name is from Ajax. Bottom line, though, I still think Marco Silva can be a success at Everton in the long run. What we're seeing here though is a manager showing pretty poor form, enough to ask the question "will he be sacked" and the media piling on and on about it until the question becomes "when will he be sacked". Can't be arsed with it.

Sarcasm mate

Stop scaremongering. Boris will get a deal that works for this country. He said it so it must be true.

I think the game is okay. I still play Ultimate Team for the fun of packs and collecting players but the gameplay is still full of the usual hidden momentum and stuff that's been rife in it for years. Disgraceful about the career mode bugs and stuff though and the gameplay itself had a lot of weird quirks to it as if it was some sort of beta version. You'd think they could do better than that given that they barely change anything apart from player transfers each year. It's like they can't even be arsed testing the game at any length before release.

That midfield gets absolutely mugged off by any team with either decent physicality or a bit of guile for me. Henderson has to be in there. The back line is unconvincing as well. Pickford and Maguire have performed well at a major tournament so okay, even if they aren't top class. Alexander-Arnold is obviously up there. Gomez has a lot to prove for me. Both of those Liverpool lads have yet to emulate their club form for England on a regular basis as far as I can remember. Not that they've been bad, but not quite hitting their Liverpool heights. Chilwell is alright but ultimately has a lot to prove at a higher level, but certainly deserves a chance as I don't think Danny Rose is much better than average and he has had plenty of opportunity to convince us otherwise. Front three, absolutely on the money. Kane and Sterling are amongst the very best in their position and Sancho looks to be on his way into that bracket.

You can't expect to have a 25 man squad made entirely of top class players. The bench and fringe players are barely worth debating when you're playing two games. Even at a full international tournament it isn't unusual to see 7 or 8 players from your 23 man squad go home without kicking a ball. England's biggest problem probably is at centre half. Maguire is good but not top class. Gomez is still learning his craft, Tomori looks a decent prospect, then you've got a bunch of Keane and Mings type players who are around their peak and are of a certain standard but clearly aren't going to carry you deep into a tournament if you're relying heavily on them. I also agree with midfield being an issue. You can rely on Henderson but Alli has gone off the radar for about 2 years and it's refreshing to see him finally dropped, Barkley manages to look average even in these qualifiers at times, Winks is okay and offers something most of our midfielders don't, Delph is useful in his adaptability but not good enough at any single position to stake a claim, so yeah a lack of quality again.

It says everything about this country right now that in the possible final month of this process, the Conservatives are having their party conference and telling everyone how they want to sort out Brexit without actually sorting out Brexit, while Jo Swinson will apparently refuse to back Corbyn as a temporary prime minister to stop no deal in the event that a no confidence movement against Boris is passed, even though the rest of the opposition parties are allegedly willing. Meanwhile the media are more interested in this thigh touching incident that may or may not have happened 20 years ago because it makes for a better soap opera than asking the government and parliament what the shit is supposed to be happening in less than 30 days. To be fair to Boris, it looks like they'll at least try to make a new proposal to Brussels before the end of the month, but the opposition parties and Irish leaders are not at all in support of his rumoured ideas. Maybe the Tories know this and are just doing it for show though, couldn't say. Boris simply has to ask for an extension, it was legally passed by the House of Commons. It's ridiculous that this will go on even longer but this is the result of the referendum failing to define what Brexit actually is all along.

Heh.

I'm giving serious thought to trying the vegan lifestyle for a week or something to see if I could hack it. I always thought I'd miss meat too much and that would override my desire to contribute to a better cause, but the number of people who say they don't miss it at all has me thinking more seriously.

Unfortunately this is all true. I saw that #SurrenderBill was trending on Twitter last night and clicked on it expecting to see a lot of people discussing the use of that sort of language in Parliament. Most of the tweets were actually people encouraging the use of that language and trying to get it trending, whilst laughing at how "triggered" the "Remoaner Snowflakes" in Parliament were by that use of language, also laughing off Boris' "humbug" comment towards Jo Cox and saying it was the Lib Dems/Labour MPs who were in the wrong for bringing her name into it. The list goes on of depressing things I read. I know people think a second referendum would overturn the whole thing but I wouldn't be that surprised if Leave won again. Just because we don't interact with them, that doesn't change the fact there are so many angry, brainwashed people out there who fully buy into Boris Johnson's strongman image and unashamedly revel in the fact that the prime minister is willing to lie and break the law in order to deliver them what they think they want. It's nothing more than a point of principle for them now and an excuse to get angry. The majority of them couldn't have given two fucks about the EU before the referendum was tabled and if they're being honest with themselves probably don't give a shit about it now. All they care about is being proven 'right' and being on the winning side of the referendum. The country will be toxic now whichever way we go with it. If we go through with Brexit the country will suffer for years, probably decades, and if it gets revoked or overturned through a second referendum there will probably be riots and violence encouraged through this exact use of language by the likes of Farage and Johnson continuing to call parliament 'traitors' and encouraging Brexiteers to 'take back control'. There will always be the question too of when we have a third referendum. Dark times ahead.

Boris has repeated the catch phrases "surrender bill", "get on with Brexit" and "17.4 million people" in response to literally any question tonight I'm surprised we haven't seen Jacob Rees-Mogg lean over and pull the string coming out of his back to charge him back up. All rhetoric and buzz words, no substance.

Been watching parliament for about an hour. Boris's strategy just seems to bluster, more bluster and throw in the term "surrender bill" as often as possible. Literally watching the man who illegally prorogued parliament stand there and claim he wants to work with parliament to vote through a Brexit deal. It's surreal that anyone is still buying him.

I know, it's hilarious.

No reason to believe Wan Bissaka, Maguire and James won't be good acquisitions to be fair, so he may be correct about this summer, but it's indefensible to act as if the massive fees splashed on Pogba, Lukaku, Fred, Sanchez (wages) etc. have been justified.