Everton v Crystal Palace. 21st Sep at 16.00.

[Stonesy]

Eto'o and Naismith can certainly score goals, but you needed a striker that will basically guarantee you a minimum of around 15 goals per season. Lukaku in my opinion was actually worth more than 28 mill, look at his age for God's sakes. He should have been at least 35 mill in today's market. He's flexible, can play across all attacking midfield positions as well as a traditional striker role, he can hold up the play and get others involved and he could have a resale value in excess of 40mill in the future if he develops a bit further since he is still so damn young. 28 mill is so cheap.

Of course. If he scored 25 goals a season it'd be a great buy, but that would require not just matching last season but significantly bettering it. I saw no evidence that he had many more goals in him than we saw last year.


Actually, I've just seen your username and can only presume you're on a windup

 

[Stonesy]

That's not how football works. You can't just sign players on what you need at that moment. That's why we've signed players like Galloway. Lukaku would have gone somewhere else if we hadn't signed him, long term he'll get us 15+ goals for a decade, assuming he doesn't move.

Pure conjecture, which is my issue with the whole purchase. Will he get us 15+ minimum a year, every year because he'll be playing every game due to the fee? Naismith has already scored 3 goals from the 4 games he started. He fits the sytem. We didn't need a massive purchase upfront because we are quite capable of creating chances and scoring goals.

We can't afford to sign £28m's worth of potential. He needs to deliver at least a useful if not stellar standard to give us something to work with.

 

[COYB]

111 if your still like this

111 FFS

 

[McBain]

Oh Dear.

Handbags all over the shop here.

 

[LinekersLegs]

Is Hibbo injured? If not and he's not 2nd choice RB, why give him a new contract?

You don't rotate the CB pair when they are starting to form a partnership.

Big test in the next 2 games, can only see a point at best the way we are playing

According to physio room app he is injured but will be available for Swansea.

 

[JAYTALITY]

Reckon Petr Cech would join us, even on loan, in January if he's still not getting a look-in at Chelsea?

That's the thing about the clubs that win trophies, not only do they have a world class goally they have a good enough back up aswell. Howard is good but I don't know about world class. I know he plays for USA but well we are far from having two world class keepers. We were close when we had Ruddy.

 

[Stonesy]

How technically good, but oh so tedious and unfruitful, was that 20 minutes or so of pass-ball between taking and losing the lead? And some on here complain about the lack of atmosphere at GP. It's enough to stay awake never mind give vocal support!

In fairness when they needed us 2nd half when it was 1-2 and criticism would take us no further, we weren't exactly rousing. Think noise was just beginning to build when we give the 3rd one away. Still think we could have done more to gee them up second half, might have encouraged more attacking play.

There is nothing wrong with what we're doing, just how. Need less sideways passing from the defenders who are very easy to press into mistakes. That's what keeps the ball rolling about in our half for so long aimlessly. No-one wants to watch that, because it had no purpose. In their half however we played some quality intricate stuff as usual, and that's where there's almost no such thing as one pass too many. The short corners for example were brilliantly done, the Palace defence kept readying itself for a cross that didn't come and by the time Baines had 1-2 it with Mirallas we were in their 6 yard box, not sure if he picked anyone out. Atsu similarly, played a great overlap to Osman when all defenders were expecting a cross. I always love players making the extra/unusual/lateral pass. Baines and Pienaar are particularly great with it, especially together, which is what makes for that wonderful link-up. They'll shift it back and forward quickly until the half yard they need is created. That style of our play is excellent and far from lacking cutting egde, it's frequently carved teams up. We might have worst defence but we can't be far off best attack either

 

[Dozbik]

I can't believe we managed to lose this one ffs Kenwright out, burn Osman on the stakes, he needs to be punished for the pain he's been inflicting on us for the last decade,

 

[riddick]

I know they didnt have many other avenues but one thing that i recall being blinded by rage about today was in the 95th minute desperately needing a goal one of the defensemen STILL passed back to Howard. I mean.......come on.

 

[Springhettios]

I know they didnt have many other avenues but one thing that i recall being blinded by rage about today was in the 95th minute desperately needing a goal one of the defensemen STILL passed back to Howard. I mean.......come on.

Haha, I saw that. So dumb.

Let's recap this game.
-Dominated first 20 minutes and got a goal
-Howard and Stones got caught out which led to the penalty(Still think Howard touched the ball then the attacker ran into him.)
-Howard somehow misjudged and completely missed the ball and bounced off the attackers shoulder in. How the hell did that happen?
-Osman got pushed over like trash blowing in the wind and lost the ball midfield. Led directly to the third goal.
-We got a goal back but it was obvious we weren't getting a third.

I didn't have a problem with team selection but Eto'o did not look good out on the wing. Should have used Eto'o behind the striker and McGeady out wide. We made 3 horrible mistakes that led to the goals. That's pretty much it. I think the defense is improving but these stupid mistakes are really getting out of hand. Anyway, use a lot of U-21s for Swansea and let's beat the [Poor language removed]!

 

[deipnosophist]

It's 2pm on Monday afternoon in NZ. The game finished about 9 hours ago, and I am still mightily pissed off at that Everton performance. Very disheartening which is lending very little to the productivity of my day.

Lift your game Everton!

 

[Kiwi]

It's 2pm on Monday afternoon in NZ. The game finished about 9 hours ago, and I am still mightily pissed off at that Everton performance. Very disheartening which is lending very little to the productivity of my day.

Lift your game Everton!

I'm still fuming. Incredibly frustrating, especially seeing as we know how we can play, and we simply didn't meet any kinds of standards. Another day we'd see another result but these individual mistakes are killing us every time. The senior players need to stand up, refocus themselves and the team and grind out some clean sheets and wins.

 

[riddick]

You know, if you think about it, these are still the same comments we have been making regading Everton since Moyes was in charge too. Maybe you can only change the mindset of fragile players so much? I mean, we played some fantastic football with Moyes (in very limited instances). Its like Lukaku telling Jagielka 'this is a team that can do special things' and our captain laughing at him.

 

[deipnosophist]

I'm still fuming. Incredibly frustrating, especially seeing as we know how we can play, and we simply didn't meet any kinds of standards. Another day we'd see another result but these individual mistakes are killing us every time. The senior players need to stand up, refocus themselves and the team and grind out some clean sheets and wins.

100% agree mate. What has added to my fume is that I approached kick off feeling great having seen Spurs and United lose. But, as usual, despite the door opening for them to steal a march, Everton manage to slam it shut on themselves. There is a mental fragility in our team which is exasperating!

 

[Toffee-nerd]

100% agree mate. What has added to my fume is that I approached kick off feeling great having seen Spurs and United lose. But, as usual, despite the door opening for them to steal a march, Everton manage to slam it shut on themselves. There is a mental fragility in our team which is exasperating!

Definitely agree with you on the mental aspect, it seems more like complacency to me though. These are the same defenders who used to shut up shop for 90 minutes and not give opponents a sniff, we used to be so resiliant defensively and then have nothing up front to capitalise on a solid back line. It's the complete reverse now. We aren't concentrating for the full 90 minutes and its costing us badly. Everyone knows our first 11 and maybe that has bred some complacency, that and the fact that opponents know if they press us high and put pressure on Jags and Distin they are likely to make mistakes. It's no coincidence when Stones plays at CB we have a much better defensive performance, he has more ability in possession so we retain the ball better even when he's under pressure.