Match Thread Everton v Southampton - Preview, Match Report and MotM poll

[Noisy noise annoys]

Repent all sinners!

Don't hold your breath

 

[Sassy Colombian]

Happy for our Blues and for the fans that were at Goodison today. Winning the first match at home was important and Benitez has passed his first test. Let’s hope this is the beginning of a good season.

 

[HokieToffee]

Abdoulaye Doucouré is MOTM

 

[jerseytoffee]

Great second half, they worked hard and wanted it!

Love an opening day win COYBs

 

[AmericasToffee]

Richarlison is MOTM but even that feels unfair to Doucoure. Both of them were excellent, excellent, excellent today.

 

[Encoder]

Still laughing at Doucoure's goal, I've never seen someone go from Tony Hibbert to Rivaldo in such a short period of time.

 

[BlueToff]

Absolutely need to strengthen ASAP

But very happy with 3 points week one and winning by 2 when behind at the break. Unusual for us

Yeah but also tactically (players and manager here) it needs to be better. I'm willing to give Rafael time of course, but it's simple stuff. Let's not be obsessed with long ball - that doesn't mean we need to be idiots playing around with it, but let's get players forward in stages and build our attacks. The second goal and third both came from doing just that.

 

[Nyhus]

I will never know why Benitez though playing Gray in the middle for the first half, but the team talk and changes in formation clearly made a difference. Good on him for correcting his mistake, but it was a weird mistake to make in the first place.

Good game management tho.

 

[Bob Latchford]

Iwobi has no left foot at all haha

he was laughing a bit himself to be fair. Knew it was a bit of a powderpuff effort

 

[Bedfordblue]

 

[PITA]

The headline on the BBC currently says ‘Everton lead’. Earlier it said ‘Southampton lead Benitez’s Everton’.

Poo stirring from the BBC.

 

[BlueToff]

The positive view is we conceded next to nothing Keane brain fart aside and we did ourselves create some very presentable chances even if we aren't going to score three times every week. I don't think it is a great way to play but DCL and Richarlison as a front two are probably just good enough at attacking things for this to work ok.

Just think a three gets the best out of all of our players yeah, but at least we showed something

 

[Blue_in_london]

Huge effort from the boys in blue second half...turned that one around! And a top goal from Doucore!!

 

[brownmola]

Huge equalizer by Richie. Took the pressure off the entire team.

 

[Twinkletoes123]

Great start, getttttt innnnn!!!!