Everton Discussion

[LFCMadLad]

Fuck Everton and fuck Brands 

[LFCMike]

10 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

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.

You seem very hung up on the 'god like status' part of my first post. It was nothing more than a throw away comment. I've gone on to say however that there seems to be very little criticism of him and that focusing on the players he's got rid of while the players he's brought in are either failures or the jury is still out on is something I find strange. My thoughts aren't formed off only a banner, you seem to be focusing on that part of my post too much as well!  it was just an example. I've come to the conclusion that blues have bigged Brands up a bit too much from seeing stuff online, podcasts and speaking to mates

[Dr. Gonzo]

4 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

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.

If I recall, Sigurdsson plays deeper for Iceland than he does at Everton. And I'm pretty sure he's put in some big performances from them playing in that role... so I'd be confident that he is able to play a 433.

With the 4231, do you feel as though you're playing just too conservatively too frequently? With at deeper lying 2 in the midfield, do they just sit back very deep - or is one of the midfielders playing as a box to box midfielder, one is the set deep lying midfielder, and then I'm assuming it's Sigurdsson as that attacking central midfielder in the 3 behind the 1. Are you just giving up a load of space in the midfield?

When you played us last season, I'm not really sure how you lined up at all in either match... but I feel like it was around a 4231. But you fought very hard in the midfield in those matches. Is the system failing because of how important Gueye was?

Re: that banner... just because I think it's a bit weird that there's a banner for your Director of Football... doesn't mean I think there's anything necessarily wrong with it. Like I said, I have no idea how good or bad of a job Brands as done. And tbh, I'm inclined to take your word for how he's done and leave it at that. I'm not really fussed if they've made a banner for him, there's worse things in the world football fans could do.

[RandoEFC+]

7 minutes ago, LFCMike said:

You seem very hung up on the 'god like status' part of my first post. It was nothing more than a throw away comment. I've gone on to say however that there seems to be very little criticism of him and that focusing on the players he's got rid of while the players he's brought in are either failures or the jury is still out on is something I find strange. My thoughts aren't formed off only a banner, you seem to be focusing on that part of my post too much as well!  it was just an example. I've come to the conclusion that blues have bigged Brands up a bit too much from seeing stuff online, podcasts and speaking to mates

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.

13 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

With the 4231, do you feel as though you're playing just too conservatively too frequently? With at deeper lying 2 in the midfield, do they just sit back very deep - or is one of the midfielders playing as a box to box midfielder, one is the set deep lying midfielder, and then I'm assuming it's Sigurdsson as that attacking central midfielder in the 3 behind the 1. Are you just giving up a load of space in the midfield?

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.

[Dr. Gonzo]

2 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

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.

Nice one, pretty much sums up why every Evertonian I know seems to hate the 4231 (which tbh is a formation I've always liked, thanks to Rafa... and back when I used to play FM ). Gomes has been injured lately hasn't he? I imagine that's a pretty big loss for you as (imo) Gueye and Gomes were two of your more important players last season - and maybe the midfield will start looking a lot less shite once he's back in though.

Pretty much every Evertonian I know also thinks Gueye's missed pretty spectacularly this season. And my cousins talk about him like he was the glue holding the Everton midfield together (although I remember Gomes playing really fucking well against us too tbh) - they're all gutted he's gone.

But if Gomes has missed most of the season with injury and you've also lost a player fans think was the "glue" for your midfield... that's two really really important players for you that haven't taken to the pitch because of either injury or not being in the squad anymore. That's going to require the people left over to have to fill the fuck in for those big absences. Maybe we'll see Everton's midfield look a lot better when you're only needing a squad member to learn to replace Gueye and.. not both Gueye and Gomes?

I mean if you consider these big changes/absences at central midfield, which a lot of managers believe is the MOST important part of the pitch... doesn't that make Everton's struggles this season a bit more understandable? Granted, yeah if the old system isn't working with the current players... you'd hope your manager would be flexible and tweak the system until he finds something he did work. Tactical inflexibility and being too stubborn in the face of obvious areas that need adjustment... which I think both Brendan Rodgers & Roberto Martinez demonstrated at the end of their tenures with their respective Merseyside clubs... those are the most unforgiveable traits in a manager imo.

[LFCMike]

@RandoEFCDigne is the obvious success. He's been the most consistent player from what I've seen over the last year. I'm not having Mina. Positionally whenever I've seen him he's all over the place. Gomes is wildly inconsistent from what I've seen. He was the worst player on the pitch by some distance when I watched Everton away at Aston Villa. But then he obviously has a performance in him like the one at Anfield last season.

I guess my original point was that Brands was being over praised for getting good deals, as if he's unearthed a few unknown gems.when all he's really done is signed players from the benches of Barcelona, Arsenal and Juventus for big money. Anyway I'll leave it there

[RandoEFC+]

30 minutes ago, LFCMike said:

@RandoEFCDigne is the obvious success. He's been the most consistent player from what I've seen over the last year. I'm not having Mina. Positionally whenever I've seen him he's all over the place. Gomes is wildly inconsistent from what I've seen. He was the worst player on the pitch by some distance when I watched Everton away at Aston Villa. But then he obviously has a performance in him like the one at Anfield last season.

I guess my original point was that Brands was being over praised for getting good deals, as if he's unearthed a few unknown gems.when all he's really done is signed players from the benches of Barcelona, Arsenal and Juventus for big money. Anyway I'll leave it there

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.

[The Artful Dodger]

13 hours ago, LFCMadLad said:

Fuck Everton and fuck Brands 

Fuck Mobb Deep! Fuck Biggie!..We bad boy killas!

[CaaC (John)+]

Everton's £25m summer signing Jean-Philippe Gbamin has been ruled out until January after having surgery on a thigh injury.

Gbamin, 24, has been out of action since August.

The Ivorian figured as a substitute against Crystal Palace on the Premier League's opening weekend then started the win against Watford on 17 August.

But he broke down in training before the 2-0 defeat at Aston Villa six days later.

The midfielder, signed from Mainz on 2 August, was back in light training before Everton's last league game, a 1-0 defeat at Burnley on 5 October, but suffered another setback and has now had an operation in France.

It is a significant setback for under-pressure Everton manager Marco Silva as well as the Ivory Coast international, who had been brought in to fill the gap left by Idrissa Gueye's departure to Paris St-Germain.

There were fears at Everton that Gbamin would need surgery when he initially suffered the injury but the club had hoped it would be avoided.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/50074905

[The Artful Dodger]

See Everton tried to save Bury, despite the two despicable Manc clubs being far closer. 

Everton are the Liverpudlian club.

[RandoEFC+]

Bernard out with a something grade 2 knee injury now. Hopefully means Richarlison will go left with DCL or Kean up top but will probably end up with Iwobi left and Sigurdsson back in number ten which is not what we want to see right now.

[Stan]

9 hours ago, RandoEFC said:

Bernard out with a something grade 2 knee injury now. Hopefully means Richarlison will go left with DCL or Kean up top but will probably end up with Iwobi left and Sigurdsson back in number ten which is not what we want to see right now.

How long is Bernard out for?

[LFCMadLad]

What's happened to Cannabis btw? Not seen owt from him in ages?

Or Sir Balon for that matter?

Edited October 29, 2019 by LFCMadLad

[RandoEFC+]

6 minutes ago, LFCMadLad said:

What's happened to Cannabis btw? Not seen owt from him in ages?

Or Sir Balon for that matter?

Cannabis asked his account to be deleted for some reason so you can all just gang up on me now.

@SirBalon is active again now but spends all of his time posting Remain propaganda in the Brexit thread if you need to find him. 

[LFCMadLad]

13 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

Cannabis asked his account to be deleted for some reason so you can all just gang up on me now.

@SirBalon is active again now but spends all of his time posting Remain propaganda in the Brexit thread if you need to find him. 

Ok cheers pal 

[Dr. Gonzo]

On 27/10/2019 at 16:16, RandoEFC said:

Bernard out with a something grade 2 knee injury now. Hopefully means Richarlison will go left with DCL or Kean up top but will probably end up with Iwobi left and Sigurdsson back in number ten which is not what we want to see right now.

Wait do you not want to see Iwobi starting? Or Sigurdsson back in at #10? Or both?

[RandoEFC+]

18 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Wait do you not want to see Iwobi starting? Or Sigurdsson back in at #10? Or both?

At the moment we look best with Iwobi at #10. Sigurdsson is a bit off colour and if he's not contributing many goals it becomes harder to ignore how much he sometimes slows the play down when we go forward.

[SirBalon]

55 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

Cannabis asked his account to be deleted for some reason so you can all just gang up on me now.

@SirBalon is active again now but spends all of his time posting Remain propaganda in the Brexit thread if you need to find him. 

Tbh I've got my plate full with work and campaigning in my local area when I'm not at work with also giving my family as much of the very little time I have remaining these days. Football has come a distant thing for me in recent times where I've even been giving my season ticket at Arsenal to colleagues at work to watch games. Hopefully I'll have more time after mid December, but for now it'll be sparse. 

[Stan]

I wish him the best in his recovery.

Devastatingly horrible injury to see.

 

[RandoEFC+]

That leaves us with Schneiderlin, Delph, Davies and Sigurdsson as our possible midfielders. Iwobi too if you count the number 10 role.

The thought of Schneiderlin and Delph playing in the same midfield is AIDs. I'd like us to give Sigurdsson, Delph and Davies a run as a midfield three. Davies is finally becoming a man with his last few performances, thought he stood out today.

[Stan]

9 hours ago, RandoEFC said:

That leaves us with Schneiderlin, Delph, Davies and Sigurdsson as our possible midfielders. Iwobi too if you count the number 10 role.

The thought of Schneiderlin and Delph playing in the same midfield is AIDs. I'd like us to give Sigurdsson, Delph and Davies a run as a midfield three. Davies is finally becoming a man with his last few performances, thought he stood out today.

Why does Sigurdsson not start many games any more?

He was/could still be one of your most dangerous players in that central midfield/attacking midfield position. 

[RandoEFC+]

57 minutes ago, Stan said:

Why does Sigurdsson not start many games any more?

He was/could still be one of your most dangerous players in that central midfield/attacking midfield position. 

Been average this season and slows down the attack too much when he gets the ball in the number 10 role. He is more than capable of playing a bit deeper though and I'd like to see it. I think Silva is worried about his mobility in a more box-to-box role.

[Stan]

Club have said surgery has gone well and he's expected to make a full recovery which is promising to hear.

[Stan]

Already out of hospital

 

 

[RandoEFC+]

It's a relief. Sounds like his ankle took the brunt of the damage, which is not as bad as if the break had occurred in his lower leg like Oviedo, Coleman, McCarthy all had.

I'm glad he will make a full recovery. We can't take it for granted that he'll be the player he used to be though. This is a guy who openly admits he struggled with mental health issues at Barcelona so it's easy to see him taking some more time to feel comfortable fully committing to every sprint and tackle when he's back on the pitch. This also isn't a given though, he could be no different to any other player in that sense.