Freak goal and I felt for Young - did really well on Mitoma today so I can understand leaving him on.
I thought we competed well today, imposed our game on Brighton and they struggled at times.
Other take home for me is the defense are becoming rock solid, our last three performences at the back have been superb and I’ve enjoyed watching them, turning into a serious unit.
If we are annoyed with two wins, progression to a cup quarter final and a draw in 6 days, then he’s doing a good job.
When you objectively look at the first 11 today and the types of other clubs that would buy them:
Pickford: extremely good keeper, could play for anyone in prem
Young: bottom half of prem utility player
Tarkowski: bottom half of prem defender
Branthwaite: top half prem player
Mykolenko: bottom half of prem defender
Gueye: bottom half of prem midfielder
Garner: bottom half of prem midfielder
McNeil: bottom half winger
Harrison: bottom half winger
Doucoure: bottom half midfielder
Calvert Lewin: top half striker
Some fans are doing the age old Everton fan thing of overrating players just because they won a few games recently and now we should be sweeping teams aside with our great football.
The truth is that without Onana in that team there’s only two outfield players anyone in the top half of the prem would be remotely interested in and even then they might only make the bench of those teams. They’re the ones in the starting line up as well. Not many top half teams will be kicking our door down for Dobbin Beto Chermiti or Keane either.
Some of the Everton players we think have been really good recently like Tarkowski Garner Doucoure McNeil Harrison are just average players playing better than the absolute dire dross they’ve been serving up last few seasons. If they were playing in the championship probably only Garner would stand out a bit. Yes it’s better than the non football under Lampard and Benitez when players were walking around but these are not players of the calibre of the likes of Arteta Cahill Pienaar Osman Baines Lescott Jagielka Yakubu Gravesen Mirallas Lukaku Stones etc. when we could outplay a lot of premier league teams.
It’s still an extremely average group of players with a few decent players down the spine in Pickford Branthwaite Onana. Dyche is getting the best he can out of them in my view. I just can’t understand fans who can see these players in the line up, have witnessed what some of them have produced in their Everton careers and then expect us to sweep aside PL teams with ease playing front foot possession football. It’s not going to happen.
