Match Thread Stoke City vs Everton, 6th Feb 2016

[The Mighty Quint]

you still believe that Howard is 'injured'...bless.

Yeah I aint buying it either, to save Howard's blushes and to keep the media from stirring it up it's being reported as an injury.

 

[BlueToff]

Keeping this formation, Barkley could only drop back to centre midfield at the expense of Barry or McCarthy. Which one should he replace? And we would then run the risk of Deulofeu giving the ball away in attacking midfield and Barkley giving it away in centre midfield.

Deulofeu does work hard when he plays, and offers a good alternative to Lennon. Mirallas, however, is poor at tracking back. And McGeady is no more.

But Carlisle, Newcastle and Stoke have posed very few challenges to our defence. West Brom have won none of their last seven Premier League away trips (W0 D3 L4), and have failed to score in three of their last four games in the Premier League. Perhaps we could be a little more adventurous against them.

Same team for me Stanley, purely down to your first point about McCarthy or Barry dropping out....

Can't understand how some people can't see the impact McCarthy coming back has done for our confidence. Didn't have his best game yesterday but he's always in the right place at the right time, and was really unlucky not to score yesterday as well.

 

[bring the ghost on]

What I'm liking now is Martinez is rewarding players for performing well, and dropping others who are not.

Not before time mate, lets hope Howard doesn't walk back into the squad.

 

[royalblue66]

Yeah I aint buying it either, to save Howard's blushes and to keep the media from stirring it up it's being reported as an injury.

And maybe Stones ?

 

[TGW89]

Will 84 points be enough for the title this year?

Because it's really not on!

Not sure about 84 for the title, but I think 72 points will deffo be enough for third and automatic CL group stage qualification.... Bah humbug!

 

[Jeff Jones]

noticed this the other night and it's the same again today

Why do commentators call our keeper Joel (Jo-el) and not Robles? why are they using his first name or am I missing something here?

It probably has something to do with what's on the back of his jersey.

 

[Dozbik]

I honestly have no idea how we can be sitting at 8th, we've been so poor this season in the league in terms of our points tally and now we've won two games and we're back in, maybe we actually do have something to play for this season leaguewise.

 

[Darth Vader]

I honestly have no idea how we can be sitting at 8th, we've been so poor this season in the league in terms of our points tally and now we've won two games and we're back in, maybe we actually do have something to play for this season leaguewise.

We haven't been beaten often though

Just lots and lots of draws

 

[CahillsCornerFlag]

Keeping this formation, Barkley could only drop back to centre midfield at the expense of Barry or McCarthy. Which one should he replace? And we would then run the risk of Deulofeu giving the ball away in attacking midfield and Barkley giving it away in centre midfield.

Deulofeu does work hard when he plays, and offers a good alternative to Lennon. Mirallas, however, is poor at tracking back. And McGeady is no more.

But Carlisle, Newcastle and Stoke have posed very few challenges to our defence. West Brom have won none of their last seven Premier League away trips (W0 D3 L4), and have failed to score in three of their last four games in the Premier League. Perhaps we could be a little more adventurous against them.

He could replace either if we're playing lesser teams at home. We show too much respect to some teams at home, and the likes of Barry/McCarthy can hardly be considered creative types. Perfect for away games when we play on the counter though.

 

[Logans run]

Yesterday erased the terrible display of last season, we should stay with this team and style of play until we lose again, to be there was an absolute joy.
I can not believe we paid only £4 mil for Cleverly and Lennon
Lennon was incredible while Cleverly was involved in every move.
That's not forgetting the outstanding contribution of all our team

 

[Number_25]

Very good performance from us.

 

[cjuk87]

Yesterday was a joy to watch. The difference when Everton win is amazing, the birds are singing, the sun in shining, i'm bidding passers by a good day and tipping my hat to them.

Can't we do this more often? I don't think i've ever been as wet in my life as that yesterday, yet from start to finish i was smiling.

Great at the back, great in the middle, great in attack. GREAT.

The highlight for me was Lennon tracking back constantly and numerous times zipping in out of nowhere to put the ball out. We turned up to win yesterday, every player was in the mood!

Love Everton when they're like this. 5 points off 5th!

 

[Jeff Jones]

My commentator had just said....."all this achieved without the likes of John Stones and......TIM HOWARD".......

Yeah, I heard that, WTF!

 

[degsy]

Yesterday was a joy to watch. The difference when Everton win is amazing, the birds are singing, the sun in shining, i'm bidding passers by a good day and tipping my hat to them.

Can't we do this more often? I don't think i've ever been as wet in my life as that yesterday, yet from start to finish i was smiling.

Great at the back, great in the middle, great in attack. GREAT.

The highlight for me was Lennon tracking back constantly and numerous times zipping in out of nowhere to put the ball out. We turned up to win yesterday, every player was in the mood!

Love Everton when they're like this. 5 points off 5th!

All the more annoying is all those points butchered since Bournemouth, put 10 points on our total and see happy you could be...add another 2 for Improved performance/confidence coming from those 10... 1 or 3 Vs Leicester....yeah yeah I know all a bit rs alternate league but in our case not beyond the bounds of probability if the Road to Damascus moment came in Nov.

 

[james2805]

Stoke announced that Imbula as their man of the match, was it just me that thought he was utterly terrible?