I was going to start by saying it’s another tough game isn’t it?
But the sad fact is that whoever we face these days is a tough game.
It’s not like it was a few years back, where you could pretty much guarantee us beating certain lesser teams.
Everton were never one of those teams though and no matter how well we’ve been doing in the league, it seems from my memory at least, that they’ve always been able to take points off us; which is why I quite like this particular match.
You never know what you’re going to get and the outcome is quite often not what you thought it might be.
Roberto Martinez has Everton playing very steadily thank you, with 4 wins, 5 draws and 3 defeats from their games up to now.
They score a reasonable amount of goals and don’t concede too many, just as you’d expect from their ninth position in the table.
Whereas we don’t score enough and concede too many, meaning on paper, this ought to be a straightforward home win.
I really don’t want to discuss our form at all.
The difference this time though, being we have Garde on our side.
Obviously you can’t tell anything from one game, but against Man city, the vast majority of us thought the team had a better shape and looked like they had more of an idea about what they were supposed to do than of late.
Certainly Carles Gil alluded to that fact in a recent interview.
And while we were somewhat lucky in getting a point against the blue Mancs, what it boiled down too was that we got that point, much against the odds.
Maybe it was just new manager syndrome, where you often see an immediate boost to players who realise that they are under scrutiny, but I tend to think there was a bit more to it than that.
I’m not alone in thinking that our squad is better than where we lie in the table, but we just weren’t picking the right team and Garde having done just that seems to indicate that us fans were correct.
That in itself should improve us, but if the team are set up properly and know what they’re doing, you’d expect our results to improve.
Squad news then and Everton might have Baines, who’s a player I like immensely, back.
Likewise Tom Cleverley who hasn’t played in ages. What price he gets one against us if he comes on?
The big news for us is of course Amavi being out, but Gestede and perhaps more interestingly, Gabby are both doubtful.
I have to be honest and can’t say I’m overly worried about the forwards not being available.
Gabby needs to seriously up his game or go and we don’t play to suit Gestede.
Which begs the question of where are our goals going to come from?
Everton have a pretty solid defence and I’m not convinced we have the firepower to get past them.
Whereas Everton put 6 past Sunderland and Lukaku is bang on form.
I don’t see Garde going gung-ho for this one and after recent comments, it seems like Grealish might not start, as the manager assessed him has not being good enough in his last few games; an assessment I 100% agree with.
So perhaps a bit less flair then and a bit more guts in the midfield.
Which all makes me think I don’t see many goals, as long as we can keep our flanks tight.
That’s where it’ll be interesting to see who plays at left back.
I know I might be hypocritical, as I don’t rate the player, but Richardson would be my choice. He does at least offer some solidity.
I don’t see many goals in this game and given that this, the most played fixture in English football, sees both teams having won 80 games and having drawn 58, I’m going to go for a draw.
Seeing that I see us struggling to score, I’ll make it a 0-0, with a 1-1 secondary.
If we can bag another one of those elusive points tomorrow, I’ll be ecstatic.
I’ve added a poll because I’m interested to see how confident we are.
[polldaddy poll=9191728]
we are shite
we are going down
we are worst team ever in pl
thank you randy lerner
thank you for killing my love of my club my club
i hope randy you lose your shirt you prick
That’s our goal difference FUCKed Tuesday night footy looking good.
Giddy lets pick another sport as this football malarky is not doing us any good…. Ladies badminton is my chosen new sport.
Tiddly winks we’d still miss the pot.
It’s that easy. they can take the players who have ripped us apart, off.
Netball for me.
You dirty old man, Bill.
NEW POST UP
The worrying thing to me bar amavi who are we actually missing I think this is as good as it gets.
This is my point Giddy.
We have some decent players, but they just don’t work as a team.
Mind you, I think we got the tactics wrong, but it all goes back to players for me.
We needed a target man up front, but Gestede is shit and we don’t have an option.
The commentators have just been talking about how Lerner opened his wallet in the summer.
Shows what they know about that.
But if he doesn’t spend big time in this window, we’re fucked.
And by that, I’m now thinking £40 mill on proven prem players.
We’re down then, because we all know that isn’t going to happen.
BADGER a January spend????not a chance REMI will be lucky to get 10 mil & that’s over estimating MATE.
Sherwood wanted proven premiership players to keep us up, and we know what happened there…. expect bugger all and the transition bullshit to be on the OS soon.
Hey, just thought Championship next year Birmingham, Coventry, Wolves, Derby, Nottingham, we can save travelling fees,
😀 well you can’t moan about that MATE
REMI must be thinking MERD what the FUCK was I thinking taking this job.
I won’t be writing a review for this one as it’d only be based around how obvious it is that we’re going down, after that utter rubbish.
Hopefully Oohah is going to put something up.
We’re shit and only Sunderland are on a par for me.
If we don’t beat Watford, we might as well give up.
And I don’t have much hope of beating them.
What a mess we’re in.
MATE the barcodes are pretty SHITE aswell but I can see a change of manager very soon there.
Just put a post up Badger
I rushed back to watch the match and made it in time for the send half. I turned of at 4 nil.
I can only guess what happened. Teribble defender, some sort of blunder from Guzan and no doubt 2 pointless shoots from outside the box from Westwood that nearly hit the corner flag. I’m so done with this shit now. Ok new manager needs time blah blah blah. It’s starting to wear very thin now.
Westwood and Sanchez our two best players
Good summing up from seeing about 10 mins of the match.!!!!!……..after 10 mins the other bin dipper “fans” were booing their own team…twats.