Everton v Crystal Palace. 7th Dec at 20:00.

[Saint Domingo]

The 'goals' i am talking about include one 3 minutes after extra time had finished and the literally hitting of the wood work or the double figures of corners we had. It isnt to suit my agenda at all, any other week any of our chances goes in, hell wickhams header goes in any other week. It was bad luck, same as Bournemouth was bad luck.

But what i do see is a winger with 7 assists sol far, 6 for the striker. I see a striker who is already on 13-14 goals so far this year. I see a young attacking midfielder with however many assists and 7 goals (after being slagged off at the start for not scoring double figures from pundits). Hell our back up strikers have scored at least 5 goals each so far. So i personally have a lot of confidence in this Everton team to do well, when our luck changes we will achieve good things.

I think your 'agenda' doesn't factor in such a difficult start to the season, expecting us to hit the ground running and when we cant beat the best defense in the league, or get beat by a team who started off beating everyone and so on, it suddenly is a bench mark for us being average?

Of course the attacking football is brilliant, we've effectively abandoned defending completely. 2 at home to Sunderland, 3 v Bournemouth, 2 to West Brom, 2 to Barnsley, 2 to Watford, 3 at home to United, 2 at home to City,

Quite simply we have s champions league attack and a championship defence which is why we're ninth. Goals conceded stat doesn't show the full picture. City will get walloped for four on an off day but then grind out clean sheets for scruffy wins. Our defence systematically leaks one or two goals per game always at crucial times. It gets to the point where if you're 0-0 or 1 up at 80 mins you cannot trust our defence to see out ten mins of football at Goodison. A far far less talented side in 04/05 would go one up and both teams knew it would be difficult for the opposition to score. Not so now, any team of any standard home or away knows that they can score a goal at any minute as we're weak through the middle, weak down the flanks, don't close down shots, don't clear our area well, don't defend set pieces, and have a comedy keeper. These are not signs of a top team and it is why we've not beaten any top ten sides. Some people on here might be happy with the abandonment of that dirty word 'defence', but if we continue we will only end up in one place, exactly where we are now. This magical 'click' moment everyone talks about is not arriving if we fail to defend any better. The attack looks great, is that going to get any better? No, in all likelihood injuries loss of form and bad luck could be found the corner for any of our forward players. Are our defence going to suddenly magically tighten up to accommodate for this? No. If anything teams like United are more likely to click as their forwards come into form and fitness but they have retained their defensive solidity. This allows you to rattle of the wins needed to get top 4 rather than playing gung Ho football that looks like Barcelona for 45 mins then Brentwood for 45 mins. No consistency = midtable, and that is not down to 'young inexperienced players', it's down to an incomprehension of how to defend for 90 minutes at the highest level.

 

[Joey66]

I scratch my head with Delaney, he is 34 years of age now and can't get anywhere the republic of ireland set up Internationally, considering Paul McShane gets a place in the squad I find it baffling.Proper defender.

A complete ball winner and he has the muscle as great as Stones is he l;acks upper body strength in the air, never seen him win many headed duels from corners - sa for the corner was Lukarku back picking up the opposition? I can't remember it was so simple the way Dann got his clear run, but our keeper should at least dive for a ball down the centre of the goal?

 

[Ashtonian]

At the half way point, who hasn't played those sides? You are citing failures to beat the likes of Bournemouth, Swansea and Palace as successes. West Ham have beaten most of the sides you speak of, but they get a dismissive 'Hit and miss' description, but Everton get an 'Actually brilliant' description.

The 'stick' that I am alleged to be beating the team with is not full of negativity mate, it's full of realism, and has to be used in order to counter the massive delusion that is taking place. People are having to rely on a list of weak excuses in attempt to substantiate their delusions, the reason they need to do this is because the league table fails to substantiate the delusion of 'Actual brilliance'.

Are you really using an injury time equaliser as some kind of excuse, in a game in which we also scored in injury time? Just how biased do you want to be mate?

We scored within the alloted time, they didn't. Two completely different thing.

So yes, we haven't beaten those teams, but now the league actually opens up to us as the games spread out. We aren't going to have runs like liverpool/united/arsenal consecutively, we are going to get teams who we should be beating and probably will. If come january we are still dropping points then you were spot on mate, but i can see us actually putting a good run together, getting points that we should be getting and Hitting the final few months with both momentum and confidence. Last night was a snippet of how good we can be, i mean jesus luakaku spun 2 defenders and left the keeper stood there when he hit the post, same as when he hit the bar. Lukaku will score well over 20 goals this year and some of those goals will actually win us points and games, and maybe even a cup along the way. Barkley will be scoring double figures this year for a young midfielder is fantastic, del will be assisting into double figures easy, again fantastic for him. On top of all that, we have our most creative player coming back into the team! the guy who racks up assists into double figures himself.

and even away from all of that, We are scoring goals without set pieces, without penalties, just from being a bloody good team.

 

[Ashtonian]

Of course the attacking football is brilliant, we've effectively abandoned defending completely. 2 at home to Sunderland, 3 v Bournemouth, 2 to West Brom, 2 to Barnsley, 2 to Watford, 3 at home to United, 2 at home to City,

Quite simply we have s champions league attack and a championship defence which is why we're ninth. Goals conceded stat doesn't show the full picture. City will get walloped for four on an off day but then grind out clean sheets for scruffy wins. Our defence systematically leaks one or two goals per game always at crucial times. It gets to the point where if you're 0-0 or 1 up at 80 mins you cannot trust our defence to see out ten mins of football at Goodison. A far far less talented side in 04/05 would go one up and both teams knew it would be difficult for the opposition to score. Not so now, any team of any standard home or away knows that they can score a goal at any minute as we're weak through the middle, weak down the flanks, don't close down shots, don't clear our area well, don't defend set pieces, and have a comedy keeper. These are not signs of a top team and it is why we've not beaten any top ten sides. Some people on here might be happy with the abandonment of that dirty word 'defence', but if we continue we will only end up in one place, exactly where we are now. This magical 'click' moment everyone talks about is not arriving if we fail to defend any better. The attack looks great, is that going to get any better? No, in all likelihood injuries loss of form and bad luck could be found the corner for any of our forward players. Are our defence going to suddenly magically tighten up to accommodate for this? No. If anything teams like United are more likely to click as their forwards come into form and fitness but they have retained their defensive solidity. This allows you to rattle of the wins needed to get top 4 rather than playing gung Ho football that looks like Barcelona for 45 mins then Brentwood for 45 mins. No consistency = midtable, and that is not down to 'young inexperienced players', it's down to an incomprehension of how to defend for 90 minutes at the highest level.

Very true.

we are missing our captain in the heart of that, and have missed our senior full back, choosing to play a very young centre half with no top flight experience. Our other centre half has flew half way across the world to a new league and on the basis of that has more than surpassed my expectations of him so far for this season. We weren't leaking goals when jags was in there, only when he was injured on a consistent basis. Martinez's weakness is defence, was true at wigan and even now, but considering half our first choice defence is out, something has to give, and sadly it has been silly goals at times.

 

[Saint Domingo]

We scored within the alloted time, they didn't. Two completely different thing.

So yes, we haven't beaten those teams, but now the league actually opens up to us as the games spread out. We aren't going to have runs like liverpool/united/arsenal consecutively, we are going to get teams who we should be beating and probably will. If come january we are still dropping points then you were spot on mate, but i can see us actually putting a good run together, getting points that we should be getting and Hitting the final few months with both momentum and confidence. Last night was a snippet of how good we can be, i mean jesus luakaku spun 2 defenders and left the keeper stood there when he hit the post, same as when he hit the bar. Lukaku will score well over 20 goals this year and some of those goals will actually win us points and games, and maybe even a cup along the way. Barkley will be scoring double figures this year for a young midfielder is fantastic, del will be assisting into double figures easy, again fantastic for him. On top of all that, we have our most creative player coming back into the team! the guy who racks up assists into double figures himself.

and even away from all of that, We are scoring goals without set pieces, without penalties, just from being a bloody good team.

We're not that good because we're ninth and was 12th last season. So over a near 50 game spread we're crushingly average. Just this season alone we're average. How big does the sample need to be before people start to admit we're not the next coming?

Effectively this site breaks down into people who believe we should have done better already and people who believe we will do better for the rest of the season. With every game that passes though the case for the former grows. We're out of our 'hardest start of anyone in a league ever' and have now had a run of games v Sunderland Swansea Aston Villa, West Ham, Bournemouth and Crystal Palace. 6 games with 4 sides in the bottom 5. We won 2 of them and drew 4. No ifs or buts they are the facts. Sure we have another set of what looks like winnable games but why would you predict we'll suddenly put 6 wins together when we haven't won back to back games in ages?

I want to be positive but the reality is that if you build your house on sand you don't win anything. Anyone thinking our defence and keeper will not be exposed at some point over 2 legs by City or whoever is in the final or in the rest of the league games is naive. We have one world class striker, and a player very good at assisting him, we also have Barkley who will chip in with goals, after that there's not much anywhere in the team. This is nowhere near enough to try and do what Liverpool did in 13/14, which has been proven by our current league placing of ninth.

 

[Woolverhampton_Blue]

Thought we played brilliantly going forward and were a bit unlucky not to score more than one, although got to give Palace credit. Would have been a tough fought 1-0 win if we could defend corners. They had a few chances but generally we limited them and in my opinion the high line worked and we recycled possession brilliantly and never really allowed them to build much rhythm.

Major criticism is that the set piece shambles is nothing new and badly needs addressing.

 

[John2628]

Palace fan here, I don't think you should be moaning, you're playing well and on another day you would have had 6 points in the last 2 draws. Think you will do well this season, anyway good luck !

 

[Thomas69]

Could be worse. Could be a Chelsea supporter.

 

[The Hibbert Agenda]

I reckon we should try beat Norwich

 

[Haston]

Should have won that game, very unlucky with the efforts that hit the woodwork but it's another 2 points dropped. The league is wide open at the moment and we need to capitalise, 3 points on Saturday please

 

[Ashtonian]

We're not that good because we're ninth and was 12th last season. So over a near 50 game spread we're crushingly average. Just this season alone we're average. How big does the sample need to be before people start to admit we're not the next coming?

Effectively this site breaks down into people who believe we should have done better already and people who believe we will do better for the rest of the season. With every game that passes though the case for the former grows. We're out of our 'hardest start of anyone in a league ever' and have now had a run of games v Sunderland Swansea Aston Villa, West Ham, Bournemouth and Crystal Palace. 6 games with 4 sides in the bottom 5. We won 2 of them and drew 4. No ifs or buts they are the facts. Sure we have another set of what looks like winnable games but why would you predict we'll suddenly put 6 wins together when we haven't won back to back games in ages?

I want to be positive but the reality is that if you build your house on sand you don't win anything. Anyone thinking our defence and keeper will not be exposed at some point over 2 legs by City or whoever is in the final or in the rest of the league games is naive. We have one world class striker, and a player very good at assisting him, we also have Barkley who will chip in with goals, after that there's not much anywhere in the team. This is nowhere near enough to try and do what Liverpool did in 13/14, which has been proven by our current league placing of ninth.

Not going to disagree with most of your post mate but on the first part.

Last season we were terrible in every sense of the word. This season we are playing a hell of a lot better and playing a bit more consistently, even if its only at one end of the pitch lol We struggled scoring last season because we didn't create for lukaku, surely a striker who has 14 already and potentially has another what, 13-14 goals left to score if you go on his 1-2 average he literally has, we are going to win games.

Makes me wonder though, I was one who criticized martinez last season and people on here were quick to argue with anyone who did, and now you praise him people are all doom and gloom!

 

[Saint Domingo]

Not going to disagree with most of your post mate but on the first part.

Last season we were terrible in every sense of the word. This season we are playing a hell of a lot better and playing a bit more consistently, even if its only at one end of the pitch lol We struggled scoring last season because we didn't create for lukaku, surely a striker who has 14 already and potentially has another what, 13-14 goals left to score if you go on his 1-2 average he literally has, we are going to win games.

Makes me wonder though, I was one who criticized martinez last season and people on here were quick to argue with anyone who did, and now you praise him people are all doom and gloom!

I think it's a need for realism either way. We were not going down last season (although it looked dodgy at times) and Martinez deserved time. Equally this season we haven't invented football.

Lukaku is a goal machine, he was at West Brom even off the bench and last season playing mostly injured and in a team who couldn't create Jack all he got 20. It's no surprise to me that he's scoring regularly now. The question is is this because of the team or because he's just a class player? Whilst I want to give us credit for our attacking flair there is part of me that thinks if you pair Barkley Deulofeu and Lukaku together of course they'll score. Not matching it with a defensive balance is what makes it slightly more hollow.

 

[bunky]

Palace fan here, I don't think you should be moaning, you're playing well and on another day you would have had 6 points in the last 2 draws. Think you will do well this season, anyway good luck !

Exactly why we're moaning mate. Great game but another missed opportunity for us. All the best.

 

[bluebrotha77]

 

[navidson]

When do our 'easy' games start?