2021/22 Lucas Digne

[davek]

For the first time in many years, I'm beginning to agree with Davek !! Think I might need one of them gambling site type time outs !!

It's just common sense you're backing mate.

 

[Gilbert..]

He owes us nothing, he’s an employee, he’s give a good few years. It’s not football as it was no more where clubs are proper clubs, fighting to get by. So what if he wants the best deal for him self the whole game is full of mercenaries, from owners all the way down to youth team players.

Loyalty and the game we loved is gone.

It’s a franchise now love it or hate it that’s what it is.

Why would he do a favour to a club that charges hard working mums and dads 80 quid to buy their 5 year old kid a kit to watch their team. Sorry mate but no.

Afraid this is true. I still think there are a few who give a lot regardless of money. And clearly it depends on managers. You dont see going through the motion players under guardiola or klopp. We've got the worst of the worst in iwobi. But digne can and has had his moments of strolling through a game. I think he's just gone stale here for the past year. Get as much as we can. And move on.

 

[BlueToff]

The players are THE problem here...they have been for years...,and WE ALL agreed on that before Benitez came along. Let's not forget that.

Hand Benitez another 18 months and he'll rid of this lot and put in a group of cheaper and harder working journeymen.

And I'd take that over these cowards assembled for half a billion any day.

err, I didn't agree. I was in the camp that the players are half the problem and the manager is half the issue - for me they are not exclusive. Last season , from Jan onwards, me and @ForeverBlue92 and a few others were fairly critical of Ancelotti. I didn't want him gone, I thought he could do better. I also did know we needed better players. Arguably, if he had a player like Gray last season, that would have probably been enough to get us into Europe, given we had no wingers for most of the season.

These players aren't all bad players so no, I don't agree with you. And I never agreed in the first place that the players were the entire problem, that's never been my outlook at all, I'm not in the ToffeeTV group think in that regard (not saying you are).

Every manager that has been sacked since and including Bobby M, deserved to be sacked. Koeman, Allardyce and Silva. Ancelotti left of his own accord, and did not deserve to be sacked but did ultimately underwhelm.

However, while last season underwhelmed, we'd need to take 40 points from the last 60 on offer to match that points total. That's how far back we've gone.

 

[TommyDavo]

The players are THE problem here...they have been for years...,and WE ALL agreed on that before Benitez came along. Let's not forget that.

Hand Benitez another 18 months and he'll rid of this lot and put in a group of cheaper and harder working journeymen.

And I'd take that over these cowards assembled for half a billion any day.

Working journeymen? 11 Rondon’s can’t wait

 

[steven]

I’d swap any one of our squad to be honest, possible exception of DCL - don’t think I’ve ever felt as disengaged from an Everton squad.

I actually don’t mind Benitez’s approach - what I do mind is the fact we are in a relegation battle with him. If we were sitting safe in 10th then by all means dice the squad up and play the big boss. I just think he’s fighting too many fires at once here - poor results, relegation form, dof leaving, January transfer window, unhappy players…

 

[davek]

err, I didn't agree. I was in the camp that the players are half the problem and the manager is half the issue - for me they are not exclusive. Last season , from Jan onwards, me and @ForeverBlue92 and a few others were fairly critical of Ancelotti. I didn't want him gone, I thought he could do better. I also did know we needed better players. Arguably, if he had a player like Gray last season, that would have probably been enough to get us into Europe, given we had no wingers for most of the season.

These players aren't all bad players so no, I don't agree with you. And I never agreed in the first place that the players were the entire problem, that's never been my outlook at all, I'm not in the ToffeeTV group think in that regard (not saying you are).

Every manager that has been sacked since and including Bobby M, deserved to be sacked. Koeman, Allardyce and Silva. Ancelotti left of his own accord, and did not deserve to be sacked but did ultimately underwhelm.

However, while last season underwhelmed, we'd need to take 40 points from the last 60 on offer to match that points total. That's how far back we've gone.

I think if you take a step back and take a deep breath (and you;lre honest with yourself rather than grinding any aes) you'd have to rethink the Digne issue and say that Benitez is well within his rights to call him out as a piss taker.

This isn't manager v player / Benitez v Digne. This is Everton v player...a player who wants out.

 

[BlueToff]

Afraid this is true. I still think there are a few who give a lot regardless of money. And clearly it depends on managers. You dont see going through the motion players under guardiola or klopp. We've got the worst of the worst in iwobi. But digne can and has had his moments of strolling through a game. I think he's just gone stale here for the past year. Get as much as we can. And move on.

Thing is Evertonians are doing what they've done with Lukaku, Stones etc

"He's crap anyway"

I'm happy to acknowledge Digne hasn't played well a lot this season. He's been disappointing. The system hasn't helped and he's not played well in it.

He hasn't been poor for 12 months, he hasn't been poor for 18 months and he certainly hasn't been poor for two years. But that's now the sooper bloo/Tony Scott Rafael boys fan club narrative, despite loads of evidence to go against it.

And, I've got no issue with selling Digne, if that was the plan to get some money in for a sellable asset in the peak of his career, it's fine. But I don't think it was the plan until he challenged Benitez, then got dropped, and now wants to leave because he knows there is no way back with Benitez. There simply isn't.

Benitez would have dropped Ronaldo at Real Madrid if he could. He had to settle for James instead. He dropped Terry, for no reason, at Chelsea. Punted Alonso at Liverpool. He's like a bull in a China shop, and he can't help himself. But people are saying he's the man we need to take us forward and unite behind? Not going to happen.

 

[davek]

I’d swap any one of our squad to be honest, possible exception of DCL - don’t think I’ve ever felt as disengaged from an Everton squad.

I actually don’t mind Benitez’s approach - what I do mind is the fact we are in a relegation battle with him. If we were sitting safe in 10th then by all means dice the squad up and play the big boss. I just think he’s fighting too many fires at once here - poor results, relegation form, dof leaving, January transfer window, unhappy players…

...agree to a certain point.

However, this fight was forced on Benitez. Now.

 

[NathDogg]

James didn't like tapastits methods and style - he is a problem and didn't want to be at Everton (apparently) - he's gets punted.

Digne didn't like tapastits methods and style - he is a problem and doesn't want to be at Everton (apparently) - he is getting punted.

Who's next - how many more players who challenge this fraud are going to get the boot, for being "difficult" "selfish" "not putting the team first" or whatever excuse this gobshite comes up with?

Funny how James and Digne were never an issue ( senior pro and vice captain) before Benitez turned up isn't it?

 

[Neiler]

Really angers me the way he tried to use Peter Reid to deflect from his lies.

He really thinks fans are thick.

Drives me scatty when he tries to convey he’s one of us and project alliances “the fans know”, “what woukd Peter Reid do” - it’s all contrived and purposeful to protect his brand, thats all that matters to him.

Digne was thrown under the bus today by him. It’s a well trodden strategy at the club, cue lazy jourlisim and lads falling for it, its becoming a well trodden strategy by the club when they want to cash in on our sellable better players - Lookman, Vlasic, Kean, Jamo, now Digne - work it out. Excuses being rolled out to tarnish their reputations and being fed by the media and swallowed by the gullible, they will be called lazy, home sick, not committed, wanting out. It’s so transparent.

Well done Lucas, where there is wrong being done it needs to be called out, a victim of the managers ego and Everton are worse off for it, no winners here - not Lucas, the club, the only win is the managers brand remains in tact, he’s all about himself.

 

[MikeH72]

Working journeymen? 11 Rondon’s can’t wait

You implying Rondon works hard?

 

[TommyDavo]

You implying Rondon works hard?

My bad

 

[Cow kecks]

Dont sell yourself short.

Dont sell yourself short.

Just seen this, don't particularly think it's selling myself short, these days at my age I get more worried about getting caught short.

 

[BlueToff]

I think if you take a step back and take a deep breath (and you;lre honest with yourself rather than grinding any aes) you'd have to rethink the Digne issue and say that Benitez is well within his rights to call him out as a piss taker.

This isn't manager v player / Benitez v Digne. This is Everton v player...a player who wants out.

As I said, Dave. Why does the player want out? He was happy to sign a new deal last year (a lot can change, I know), he never made any noises all summer even when Ancelotti left and Benitez came in. Not one thing. Came back from the Euros early, got his head down like the rest of them.

Results tail off, he's clearly not been played fully to his strengths and he's clearly in a bad run of form. Probably feels the manager playing a system that constantly isolates him against wingers isn't ideal. All we know is Digne and Benitez were discussing his role for a few months on and off, and then Digne one day challenged him on the training ground. We don't know the details and maybe Digne overstepped the mark. He may well have done. But I find it hard to side with a manager who is this bad. And a manager who, to boot, has a track record of picking fights with no real reasoning.

So no, it's not Everton vs a player, it is Benitez vs a player, whichever one started it. Benitez is just as childish as any player throwing his toys out of the pram, and players who want to leave football clubs still regularly play for said football club, btw. It's just not all aired out in public, and the only person who has created public knowledge of it was Benitez by dropping Digne randomly for the Arsenal game.

That was his decision and prerogative, fair enough, but it created the issue. The Athletic article followed on from that, then the speculation, the continued omissions, then Benitez inferring that Digne had faked illness despite the current protocol of any player who shows signs of illness AT ALL not being allowed to visit the training ground, then signing Mykolenko, then the inclusion of Digne on the bench v Brighton,only to shove it in all of the fans' faces by not even bringing him on when the tactic was to lump crosses into Rondon and Dom, 3-2 down at home...

 

[kenada_blue]

Yeah I always thought that as I watched our left back run underneath a cross that led to a goal. Don't get me wrong even Baines was guilty of that lots of times, but managers have to build a team from the back. Howard did it, and Moyes(not my fav by any means) did it aswell.
I'd have a Pat Van any day over a Digne .

We have the 6th worst goal difference in the league and he's bought 2 inexperienced fullbacks to replace an international captain on his last legs, and an Ex-PSG/Barca and French international.

The Conquistador is sure going to seal that defence up right.