Everton Banter Archive December 02 2014

02 Dec 2014 08:16:28
free agents in summer

Andriy Yarmolenko
schar

delph
ayew
Yevhen Konoplyanka
Sebastian Giovinco
kherdia
kaboul
milner
gignac
vlarr
de jong
4. Klaas-Jan Huntelaar
alves
carrick
terry
Ignazio Abate, AC Milan
Emmanuel Adebayor, Tottenham Hotspur
Luiz Adriano, Shakhtar Donetsk
Mikel Arteta, Arsenal
Khouma Babacar, Fiorentina
Yoann Gourcuff, Lyon
Glen Johnson, Liverpool
Stephane Mbia, Sevilla
Niklas Moisander, Ajax
Goran Pandev, Galatasaray
Alexandre Pato, Sao Paulo
Maxi Pereira, Benfica
Jeremy Toulalan, Monaco
Mathieu Flamini, Arsenal
Mark Noble, West Ham
Winston Reid, West Ham
Adama Traore, Barcelona B
Rafael van der Vaart, Hamburg
Connor Wickham, Sunderland

Andriy Yarmolenko schar delph ayew reid and luiz adriando could all improve are squad

02 Dec 2014 18:26:46
Id take yarmalenko and traore (whch won't happen as he will not be free in the summer so that's bozwollox) and I wouldn't touch the rest if you paid me

A good few duffers in that list bretto and a good test of your spelling. Good research though.

02 Dec 2014 19:11:50
I went to the game on Sunday and it as so Everton, so predictable. We started well and scored a great goal but from then on, we were just happy to play tippy-tappy football that was going nowhere. Spurs were definitely there for the taking but we backed off and allowed them to get in to the game. I was sitting with Spurs supporters and they were expecting us to trounce them. They were telling me what a good team we were and how poor they were. After they scored their first goal, it was all over as a contest.

Of course, we kept playing our possession game but we never looked threatening. We would work our way up one flank with Coleman or Baines, and then come all the way back again to Jagielka, then Distin etc etc. To be honest, I was bored with our play.

We have no real pace in the side and no-one who is prepared to really go at a defence. Maybe Mirallas when he is fully fit, but who else?

I think we have developed a robotic mind-set where we just have certain patterns of play. If they are not working, we have no plan B.

I'm not depressed, more disappointed but, realistically, I don't think we have any chance of winning anything this year.if we finish 6/8' I'll be happy but I think the Europa Cup is way beyond us.

At the end of Sunday's game, the Spurs fans were very gracious. They said that was the best their team had played all season, and the worst they had seen us play. I think we are ok, but not much more on present form. I think we need two essential ingredients to be brought in to the team - pace and leadership. I saw no-one on Sunday who looked anything like a leader. Can you imagine Peter Reid allowing a few fancy-dans to run rings round our midfield. no chance!

{Ed025's Note - a good read that pips, and more than a grain of truth in it mate..

02 Dec 2014 21:44:42
Very honest opinion pips? My mates a Spuds fan an he was convinced we would win. He felt they grew into the game because we let them, and felt at one nil we had the chance to kill them off but didn't. Think he's right there. Cost me a meal in the local then free drinks on the boat all night. Bugger.

Good post by Pips.
That's quite a few posters who've commented on our failure to capitalise on what should have been a winning lead against a vulnerable team with doubting/fickle fans that would have got on the opposition's backs. Until we get that "big club" winning mentality amongst our players, then I doubt that we can win trophies - let alone truly compete for them.

I watched the game wb and your mate was right.we did well but instead of killing them off we let them get into the game and they played very well imo. They were more hungry for the ball and deserved there win

03 Dec 2014 19:21:15
It will be interesting to see how many of these players are still free transfers come the summer window, and how many will sign new contracts with their prospective clubs to either prolong their career (and their existing clubs value their worth to their respective squads) or the club does not want to lose out on a selling on fee so attempt to tie up the player on a new contract to then sell him on for a fee. My guess will be 5-7 of that list will leave on a free, the rest will sign new contracts with their existing clubs.

02 Dec 2014 03:50:46
As much as we mock the man, and make fun of him, I can't help but feel that last years success was partly, and just to be clear I said "partly " down to Moyes. Last year we seemed to have more of a balance in defense and attack, and we weren't so injury struck all the time. We all know Moyes was regimental and didn't get too pally with the squad, and even though we didn't always play on the ball, our off the ball set up was much better than it is now.

AND we seemed to almost never give to ball away cheaply because the players knew DM would give em a rollicking.

Not having a dig at RM, but this is his second season. In the first there was still some Moyes tactics involved within the squad, but now that RM has been here for his 2nd year, he's obvs most likely put his own print to all things.

I hope you all see what i'm getting at. Imo, I reckon RM should cut down on the fancy pansy build up play, and play some down the wings footy, and for gods sake practice set peices. they win games they do.

QB I would go even further than what you are saying. I know this will wind up certain quarters, but the team/squad consists of players: Howard, Hibbert, Coleman, Distin, Stones, Jags, Baines, Oviedo, Garbutt, Gibson, Mirallas, Osman, Pienaar, Barkley and Naismith. That is 15 players brought in by or nurtured by Moyes. The quality speaks for itself. Lukaku, Barry, McCarthy and Eto'o were brought in by RM. All proven quality. McGeady, Robles, Kone, Atsu, Besic and Alcaraz were all brought in and in my opinion have not improved the squad quality. Further to this, we used to score many goals from set pieces such as corners. Now we hardly ever do so. When we switched to the pass across the back four, I was taken aback and very impressed. We have a full house for almost every game so something must be right. However, I do feel we need to mix it up a bit at times. We just seem too predictable.

02 Dec 2014 18:24:46
Yes because david moye never made any bad signings did he

03 Dec 2014 01:27:31
Degsy, i'd be happy with most of the players fitted into the 'squad improvement list' apart from besic, who I think can offer us a different option to barry if played alongside j mc. As for the style of our play although I agree we need to mix up the play sk we are not so predictable, I also believe we need to speed up our ordinary passing game. The purpose of the 1st style is to create space either in the middle of the park for ross, j mc and barry to move forwards with the ball or open space wide on the flanks for baines, coleman and the wingers to do damage, but because our play between jags, distan, barry and to an extent coleman and bainesis so slow we do not create the opening to move forwards, hence the sideways passing so often. You watch quality teams play from the back, it's all 1 touch football, they also create triangles of players to single out 1 or 2 opposing players to move past them which then in turn creates the space to attack, this triangle lies with the same group of players aforementioned which is not happening enough, barry being the main culprit as he drops so deep between the 2 centre backs to receive the ball and play as a so called quarterback, if he played a little higher up the pitch it would create the triangle for distan and jags to play quick 1 2's with him for the centre backs to move forward with the ball, much like stones was doing earlier this and last season. I just wonder if he does not believe in either of the centrebacks ability to move forwards and pass the ball sucessfully like stones and this is why he doesn't do it, or if the orders come from martinez, how soon til stones is back to replace distan? Anyone? Finally I feel we need much more movement from the front 4 and it needs to be while the centre backs have the ball, to an extent this happens when they feel like it, but run I a certain area, rather than mixing their positions to confuse defenders to decide whether to stay with their player man on man, or pass the player on to another player to mark when they are pulled out of position. Lukaku always looks for the ball in behind the defense or comes so short he plays as another midfielder later in the game if he is not getting any service. Mirallas and naismith seem to be the only players who are happy and able to assist in build up play and do not stick rigidly to their position on paper. Barkley seriously needs to improve this side of his game for the good of his development, if you look at other quality number 10's they drop deep to collect the ball on the 1/2 turn to drive forwards at opposition defenses, because he stays so high up the field he receives the ball in such tight spaces that he struggles to create openings to thread a ball through to other attacking players or have a clear shot at goal himself. Enough of ranting and nit picking, but this is the sort of criticism and feedback the team needs to develop (and the sort of stuff I would hope martinez gives to the team after such a lacklustre performance), otherwise we are likely to keep seeing what we have done most of this season of pass the ball until all the opposition have everyone behind the ball.

To answer your question, Swan (and I assume it is a question) . yes of course Moyes made bad signings. Quite a few I remember. But so far RM has only managed to sign 3 players who are regulars in the team (although with McGeady you could say 4. but I think that is a negative anyway). The 3 being Lukaku, Barry and McCarthy. During Moyes' time the wheeling and dealing of the club ended with a big pot of money, most of which was blown on Lukaku and McCarthy. Both excellent signings in my humble opinion. Barry was grabbed at the last minute as a "free". but then we had to pay a couple of million due to a silly contract we had signed to secure him on a "free". I don't want to get in yet another argument with you, so I am trying to keep this as polite as possible and just let you see my opinion for what it is worth. Please do not respond with one line rude comments or you might find I respond to your posts in the same fashion. My main point was that RM has done an excellent job in our attacking play, but Moyes put the foundation of the squad there. I think even Moyes would have made 2 or 3 excellent signings had he remained at the club and had the bumper transfer kitty that RM inherited. A total of: est. 50 million pounds. Lukaku 28 million, McCarthy 13 million, Kone 6 million, Barry 2-3million? Plus a few million for McGeady, Joel, Besic etc. Yes I know Moyes is in the past. Yes I know you hate him more than the devil himself. No I do not love him. This is just my observation. That RM has had a bigger bagful of money that Moyes ever had. Think of 60k for Seamus. 1.5 million for John Stones. 4 million for Baines. 4 million for Mirallas. 4million for Jags. 4 million for Howard. Moyes assembled a squad on a shoestring and from what I can see, RM is struggling to add to this squad in a positive way. I will leave it at that. I welcome positive responses, but one line abuse stuff. I do not welcome. Fair enough?

03 Dec 2014 14:16:10
Thats fair enough degsy, don't forget eto'o, also the reason martinez had money is because he sold fellaini (to moyes, and fellaini hasn't shown to be worth it) when moyes had money he wasted it (beattie, yakubu, johnson, billy, kroldrup and jelavic to name a few). i'm not saying he didn't make some great signings like kev, baines, jags and distin. He also brought in some bargains like coleman and stones (who he didn't play, btw) and oviedo (again someone he didn't play). He also flopped when it.came to some young bargains like gueye (lol), vellios (mars bar) and abdulleyev . To say he nurtured barkley is ridiculous, what by playing him against qpr then locking him in the reserves for 9 months before he puts in a motm performance against arsrnal only to be out the team for 3 months before coming on in the 90th minute against fulham. he's mearly 21 now right. Its also pointless saying he laid the foumdations, was martinez supposed to sell everyone at the club and start from scratch? Mourinho didn't buy hazard so why is he playing him? Ancelotti didn't buy ronaldo so why doesn't he sell him and start again, why? Because that is, thankfully not how football has to work, it may do in your eyes, but not in everyone elses. Also martinez's 'bad signings' cost a combined 11.5m, that's what moyes spent on bilyaletdinov, mcgeady is tosh, 500k? Do you expect the new sheedy?, kone hasn't played at all as he has been injured so again can you judge him? Joel despite being dodgy is young and hasn't actually cost us a goal due to a mistake from him (cough cough great moyes signing howard). Besic has barely played and clearly has ability, alcaraz cost nothing and was basically a swap for heitinga but on less wages and is a better player (heitinga, 9m on another moyes signing who slid in on someone in 2011 and got bullied the rest of his time here, another top quality signing by the moyesiah). I also love the mention of barry's fee trying to make him look not worth it, brilliant. How long was moyes here? 10 years? We won? Exactly

Swan, that's a much more polite answer than I get from you usually. Thanks for that at least. I really don't see things the way you do. Everything to you is so black and white. Moyes was the devil and RM is Christ re-incarnated. Similarly with Osman and other spats we have had. I will try and explain. I see Fellaini as a great signing for us who did a great job and scored some very important goals for us. Then after a few seasons we moved him on and almost doubled our money. I see that as great business by Moyes. followed by RM also doing great business. You obviously see it as a crap signing by Moyes and thank goodness RM came in and sold him to bring in 28 million. Well done RM. I could go through all of your contradictions of my post and come up with individual opposing views from mine to yours. I see Fellaini scored for Utd again at the weekend and they have now won 4 on the trot and are in the top 4. That surprises me with crap players like Fellaini. I also don't see how you can say Moyes flopped with young signings such as Gueye? Surely the player showed promise but never quite made the grade? Another example is you were very critical of Barkley recently. Now you are saying Moyes held him back? The other day you were saying he doesn't deserve a place in the team? Make your mind up. Like I say, I could counter every one of your points, but I guess it is a pointless exercise because you see black and I see white. Why don't we both try and see Blue eh?

03 Dec 2014 22:25:54
You know what degsy? I could reply and keep this going on but I really cannot be bothered, we are awful NOW, that's what matters, good luck to moyes at sociedad and well done utd getting in the top four but i'm more worried about everton tbh