Everton Verdict Thread

[prawnking]

To be honest, none of the midfield played well. Too far away from each other all game and frequently giving the ball away. Neves doesn't have the excuse of playing on Thursday however. But we look lightweight and weak in the midfield in all honesty.

With Dendoncker and Saiss starting you'd have hoped for more solidity

 

[Tredman]

Yeah, thought he was ok, fk and ck aside.

 

[Alan]

Bore off. Your Neves agenda is spectacularly dull.

I'm sorry, should I not expect him to track late runs? Or beat the first man with his set pieces?

Dendoncker was no great shakes himself but neither is he the match of Neves in talent. Ruben isn't just off the pace overall, he's spectacularly short of HIS potential individually. If my frustrations with him bore you, you are welcome to ignore them.

He should be held to a higher standard. He is our flagship player in the Fosun era.

 

[playtheace]

Pint half full...
Draw against a top 6 team
Draw against a "will be up there" team
Draw against a niggly team we generally worry about.
Nearly drawed against another "up there" team whilst playing poorly.

 

[Alan]

Give the fact that having Traore and Vinagre offered no defensive cover and the defence themselves were actually worse than the midfield (who were all poor), don’t let that get in the way of your agenda.

Ah yes, my "agenda".

I will be over the moon if Ruben recaptures the form we know he can display. But if he's not performing, I'm going to call a spade a spade, no matter how favored he is here.

Calling out one player does not preclude the others from having had poor games.

 

[Carrotdude]

Thought Dendoncker looked especially tired in the second half which is all I saw today, I think playing the Europa as well has taken its toll on us mentally as much as physically. We’ll be fine but I expect our league form to be poor until the new year but we should be alright for mid table come the end of the season.

 

[Boozad]

Ah yes, my "agenda".

I will be over the moon if Ruben recaptures the form we know he can display. But if he's not performing, I'm going to call a spade a spade, no matter how favored he is here.

Calling out one player does not preclude the others from having had poor games.

It does by default. This was your fall back argument last time, “because I didn’t post it doesn’t mean I didn’t mean it”, and you wonder why people get fucked off with you. So, if you continually post how you think how bad Neves is while posting absolutely nothing else it becomes an agenda. You didn’t say how good his goal was against Man Utd (but said how shit he was) and failed to pick out anybody else today, just alluded to how shit Neves was. If you can’t see that that is an agenda or understand why people get pissed off with you then I’d suggest it’s you who need to ignore them, not the other way round.

 

[Papper]

We're a mid table comfortable side. Suspect this year will see Nuno identifying players that maybe overperformed last season and progressing the squad with new additions. The club is still on course but never a top six side.

 

[AndyWolves]

We're a mid table comfortable side. Suspect this year will see Nuno identifying players that maybe overperformed last season and progressing the squad with new additions. The club is still on course but never a top six side.

No we aren't, we're in a relegation battle at the moment.

The Europa league is clearly having an effect and will do up until Christmas at least

The last thing we should do is assume we're too good to go down. 4 games in and I don't see any evidence that our position in the table isn't fair

 

[jd1981]

Really weird game, on the face of it looked a very good game but it wasn’t just short burst of goals. I’d say 65 minutes of the game was poor.
Imo go back to the tried and trusted line up for Chelsea bar Boly, I’d be tempted to Saiss in at centre half for that.
Think today just proved Vinagre should be seen as second choice to Johnny, part of the problem today was having two wing backs who’s natural game is to get forward, left us heavily exposed and unbalanced at times. Think Everton found out quickly they’d get a lot of joy from our left hand side.

 

[Alan]

It does by default. This was your fall back argument last time, “because I didn’t post it doesn’t mean I didn’t mean it”, and you wonder why people get fucked off with you. So, if you continually post how you think how bad Neves is while posting absolutely nothing else it becomes an agenda. You didn’t say how good his goal was against Man Utd (but said how shit he was) and failed to pick out anybody else today, just alluded to how shit Neves was. If you can’t see that that is an agenda or understand why people get pissed off with you then I’d suggest it’s you who need to ignore them, not the other way round.

That's an absolutely ridiculous stance. Ruben is the one I'm most annoyed with and yet he seems to get a pass. That is why I call him out specifically.

His goal against United was papering over the cracks. And if you look back, I DID credit him for the strike. But that doesn't make the rest of that game any better for him.

 

[jd1981]

No we aren't, we're in a relegation battle at the moment.

The Europa league is clearly having an effect and will do up until Christmas at least

The last thing we should do is assume we're too good to go down. 4 games in and I don't see any evidence that our position in the table isn't fair

To early to be making those judgments if we’re still in this position come the start of November then I’d say we’re in a bit of trouble.
If that does occur I fully expect all efforts will the be put on getting out the shit and everything else will be secondary.

 

[Boozad]

That's an absolutely ridiculous stance.

Oh the fucking irony.

 

[Alan]

Oh the fucking irony.

Is it ironic that I expect Ruben to post better than 70% pass accuracy? Is it ironic to want him to contribute in a more significant way defensively?

This is a player that we were talking about wanting nine figures for a year ago. Can you honestly tell me he's playing like he's worth anything near that?

 

[pavlosmacwolf]

we may have played more games than anyone else, but to me we are still in pre season. we have Cutrone and Neto but when and how we use them seems still to be a conundrum/ for me Neto for Jota, Cutrone for Raul, but is that the way it is? Traoare is brilliant but my mum can defend better, we are missing Doc, no question and we need him back, because without him the hold them and hit on the break first half plan, is worth shit.
No panic yet but i wanted the Everton win as i see them and Leicester as our rivals this season. ok on we go, but I too think Alan has an agenda with Neves, he is not the only fucker under par in the league so far, and that includes Diogo.

 

[Johnny75]

No we aren't, we're in a relegation battle at the moment.

The Europa league is clearly having an effect and will do up until Christmas at least

The last thing we should do is assume we're too good to go down. 4 games in and I don't see any evidence that our position in the table isn't fair

Utterly ridiculous statement. We've played 4 games, 4 FFS.

 

[MARKakaJIM]

Only saw bits flicking between F1 and the game but looked generally poor, as they have in what I've seen of the other league games so far.

To me it doesn't look so much like fatigue just outright poor performance. No-one ever seems to what to play the simple ball anymore, it all looks so much more direct than it did last year, it doesn't give time for anyone to get up close to the front two so invariably just results in losing the ball. It all just seems so rushed, I don't think any team have pressed to such a great extent to really force that sort of play but no-one seems happy to turn back, play it square across the backline and go again, that patience has been so prevelent previously.

Speaking of the front two, I find their performances odd so far, Jota in particular. Would've anticipated some jaded showings early on but both arrived with a bang in preseason, Jota on fire in Jimenez's absence, but seem subdued now in the league. Think at times we've seen both perhaps trying to do too much, certainly a few times today with Jimenez, maybe it's a bit of over confidence on the back of their fine form over last season. Though again, as with the team as a whole, I think they'd benefit from reverting to doing the simple things right first and foremost.

The goals conceded today were appalling, all 3 of them.

First is one of those that happens sometimes in football, bit of miscommunication between players and it gets fucked up. Don't take the chance when you're in your own 6 yard box though, just fuck it off it you're unsure. Was even a shit strike to rub salt into the wound.

Second is a complete failing of the defence. Looks like Vinagre got caught in too advanced a position, Boly sucked into press someone in a stupid area leaving a gaping chasm behind him and Sigurdsson duly obliged in drifting in there. From that point it's a firefighting mission, no-one close enough to pressure him because the two most likely candidates have already taken themselves out the game, Bennett and Coady man for man in the middle with no cover. Coady then drifts near post leaving Bennett last man standing two against one and unsurprisingly that ends up giving an Everton player an easy free header to score. Boly biggest offender for me, needless decision to come out to the ball and turned a nothing bit of possession into an overload in a more advanced position.

Third is a shocker again for the same man, pretty routine cross in but for some reason decides to play like Iorfa and attempt to block the attacker off rather than attack the ball himself. Comfortably beaten in the air as a result and another easy goal.

 

[jd1981]

Would have liked to have seen another replay of the second goal Sigurdsson looked very close to being offside

 

[Papper]

No we aren't, we're in a relegation battle at the moment.

The Europa league is clearly having an effect and will do up until Christmas at least

The last thing we should do is assume we're too good to go down. 4 games in and I don't see any evidence that our position in the table isn't fair

I've seen a few dodgy Wolves sides in the past, Andy ... and even at this stage I see us as having ' too much in the locker ' to fall and I am still ridiculously happy with Nuno. I would forget the League/FA Cups and focus the main squad on EPL and Europa Cup only. I still see an underlying progression and am totally prepared to discount the heady heights of last season as a bit frothy. Nuno will recruit wisely .. but lets keep our heads, enjoy players like Ruben and go with the flow.

 

[Alan]

It looked to me like our biggest issue defensively was that neither Boly nor Bennett trusted Vinagre and Traore, respectively. Boly has a tendency to get sucked out of position anyway, but Bennett uncharacteristically had the same issue today. Whether Everton planned to do it before they saw our team or not, they quickly identified that Bennett and Boly were coming further away from Coady than usual to assist Adama and Vinagre. Digne and Coleman were pushed so far up that they were constantly overloading those areas, and then we did not track late runs from the midfield properly.

Credit to Everton for exploiting a weakness, but they started doing it so early on and we didn't seem to adjust for it at any point.