Everton v Bournemouth

Da Judge wrote:the rumours are Everton will dealt with over the summer as we have only 1 charge to defend. The gossip in London is something between 6 and 15 points will be deducted at the start,

The haste is driven by the fact that the FA wants to be seen as regulating as opposed to doing nothing and being forced to accept an independent external regulator. So just like Oumar Niasse was the only striker to be retrospectively punished in the "diving clampdown" mandated by the FA; we will be the sacrificial lambs once more. As a team facing an ADDITIONAL 120+ cases of transgression spins it out.

Fish rot from the head

A big points deduction would be a killer blow we might not recover from.
We will still be under FFP limits for the years following the 3 years of covid? So transfers will be limited. A mid-table slot is all we can hope for, but for a big points deduction to then kick in, would dump us into a worse scenario than a relegation today.
I don't trust the FA one bit, and like you say, they'll make us a scapegoat as before.

Tonteau wrote:

Rotterdam 1985 wrote:

Armchair wrote:

Armchair wrote:I'm going to be on a train travelling through France tomorrow afternoon. Which is probably the best place to be.

Quite pleased I could only read the text updates. Surprisingly not too stressful.

So how do we stop this happening again (again)?

The difference between now and 12 months ago is that we have a gaffer who appears to know what he's doing. Dyche hasn't got everything right since he came in (selecting Keane over Mina for a while was particularly weird) but he's still worked something of a miracle in keeping us up.

Bizarrely there is some (admittedly low-level) debate on Everton twitter over whether he should remain or not. But what do Evertonians want, say, over the next five years? We aren't dreamers, we don't demand top 4 during that time. We simply want some stability, normality and respectability. Mid-table boredom. To that end, it's nice to think that we might have a manager in place who will see us through those five years.

So, to stop it happening again, we give him some players - a squad - that he can make use of, simple as that. Dyche likes to have three or four strikers he can rotate. Three or four strikers? I know, right?! And we are in need of some serious surgery to the back four.

There will be a lot of talk now from fans and the media about the board. Although I'd very much like to see the back of most of them, in the short-term I think that's incidental. I'm more interested in who we can bring in to strengthen the team. We recruited pretty well last summer - Onana, McNeill, Tarko and Garner were very good signings. Coady did a job on loan, played his part. Maupay was the only dud we wasted money on. Vinagre, I don't think even exists, that must be some kind of tax fiddle.

We need the same and more this summer. We need to ship some players out and bring in (conservative estimate) 7 or 8 new faces, of whom a couple can be squaddies but the rest need to be starting PL calibre. We can't afford too many Maupay-level duds. That's all that matters. I'll pay attention to the board rumblings but it will be background noise, for me, compared to what we do with the squad.

I'm actually looking forward to being able to look to the future. With a degree of trepidation, of course - there is no guarantee right now that we'll reach our mid-table nirvana next season - but with hope as well. I haven't wanted to do this in recent months but I might put together a squad review in the next few days, to analyse where we need improvement. Which I think is basically everywhere apart from GK and centre mid.

Not really the time for this but I can’t sleep at the moment. Looking at the table, seven teams have worse defensive records than us but only wolves scored fewer than us (they also conceded more than us, keep an eye on them for the drop next season). We won 5 games under Dyche, four of them 1-0. So we have the foundations of a decent side but my goodness we need some goals. We need to add two proper centre forwards a left back and a right back as a minimum. Leicester scored 17 more goals than us, Leeds 14 more and they both went down so our defensive solidity is a great base to build from.

Word for James Garner today, maybe didn’t catch the headlines but for a kid thrown in at the deep end he’s got some real composure. Could be a player for us, got a proper ‘Moyes bargain buy’ feel about him.

He was fucking brilliant. Already our best full back.

Seriously, to play that well, that faultlessly, when out of position and in a game of that magnitude...I've lauded him in the past for being a footballer with brains but he's got balls as well. He never remotely looked out of place at wing-back today. I was concerned when I saw the formation, I worried that although I love him as a player, he only had to switch off once and forget to track his man back and we could have been done for.

Not a chance. He belongs in our first XI whichever position he plays. Give me as many intelligent, composed footballers as you can throw at me.

I also thought Mina, Gueye and McNeil were outstanding. Mina's positional sense is so good, as is his nose for danger. For the last time, I will lament just how infrequently he has been fit while with us. McNeil was an enforcer today, he turned into Roy Keane, how many times did he use his body to protect or win the ball and send an opponent flying? Idrissa, like Garner, was virtually flawless, exactly the sort of performance you need from your most experienced player in that kind of game.

Yankthattoffee wrote:

Da Judge wrote:the rumours are Everton will dealt with over the summer as we have only 1 charge to defend. The gossip in London is something between 6 and 15 points will be deducted at the start,

The haste is driven by the fact that the FA wants to be seen as regulating as opposed to doing nothing and being forced to accept an independent external regulator. So just like Oumar Niasse was the only striker to be retrospectively punished in the "diving clampdown" mandated by the FA; we will be the sacrificial lambs once more. As a team facing an ADDITIONAL 120+ cases of transgression spins it out.

Fish rot from the head

A big points deduction would be a killer blow we might not recover from.
We will still be under FFP limits for the years following the 3 years of covid? So transfers will be limited. A mid-table slot is all we can hope for, but for a big points deduction to then kick in, would dump us into a worse scenario than a relegation today.
I don't trust the FA one bit, and like you say, they'll make us a scapegoat as before.

I'm not thinking about this stuff today, and probably not for a while. It's too soon, and I want a break from Everton stress.

We may well get fucked over. We'll just have to deal with it when it happens. I'm sure I'll start feeling concerned/angry about this later in the summer. For the moment I'm going to revel in the relief of survival.

Rotterdam 1985 wrote:

Yankthattoffee wrote:

Da Judge wrote:the rumours are Everton will dealt with over the summer as we have only 1 charge to defend. The gossip in London is something between 6 and 15 points will be deducted at the start,

The haste is driven by the fact that the FA wants to be seen as regulating as opposed to doing nothing and being forced to accept an independent external regulator. So just like Oumar Niasse was the only striker to be retrospectively punished in the "diving clampdown" mandated by the FA; we will be the sacrificial lambs once more. As a team facing an ADDITIONAL 120+ cases of transgression spins it out.

Fish rot from the head

A big points deduction would be a killer blow we might not recover from.
We will still be under FFP limits for the years following the 3 years of covid? So transfers will be limited. A mid-table slot is all we can hope for, but for a big points deduction to then kick in, would dump us into a worse scenario than a relegation today.
I don't trust the FA one bit, and like you say, they'll make us a scapegoat as before.

I'm not thinking about this stuff today, and probably not for a while. It's too soon, and I want a break from Everton stress.

We may well get fucked over. We'll just have to deal with it when it happens. I'm sure I'll start feeling concerned/angry about this later in the summer. For the moment I'm going to revel in the relief of survival.

Have a good old revel.
I recall a guy in the Top House last year, speaking loudly about "the sheer joy of surviving a catastrophic event."
"Liverpool come second and their season is a failure, yet our survival gives us such a rush." Existentialism in a pub full of rowdy drunks is a rush too.
....and now for the ashes.

Thank fuck for that. A huge relief but a very different feeling from last season’s Palace game.

I’m also quite sure they will make an example of us with the FPP debacle. We’ll be used as scapegoats for City, Chelsea, Utd etc.. Que será, será. Like most of us I feel burnt out after the last two seasons. I’m just looking forward to not having to think about Everton for a couple of months now.

Da Judge wrote:the rumours are Everton will dealt with over the summer as we have only 1 charge to defend. The gossip in London is something between 6 and 15 points will be deducted at the start,

The haste is driven by the fact that the FA wants to be seen as regulating as opposed to doing nothing and being forced to accept an independent external regulator. So just like Oumar Niasse was the only striker to be retrospectively punished in the "diving clampdown" mandated by the FA; we will be the sacrificial lambs once more. As a team facing an ADDITIONAL 120+ cases of transgression spins it out.

Fish rot from the head

Hmmmm, well, that's not a good read, is it!? I would assume it wouldn't help then if we were to sell some players to balance the books better? Gordon was sold for £45M, I believe, and Richie went for around £50M before that, and with it being a 3-year rolling balance, maybe this will help us some.

Even a single point deduction could be fatal.

Wow. What a day. After a horrible week assuming the worst and a permanent feeling of anxiety the day finally arrived. The day we were finally relegated.
A shit squad, a shitload of injuries, no strikers and playing a team who have already beaten us twice.
Dusted off the '84 Cup final shirt and headed out with my lad.
You could cut the tension with a knife at the ground but the atmosphere slowly built up. Team news!! Brilliant, no Keane or Mopey so at least we have a chance. Downed a final pint and settled in for the action.
Gueye misses a sitter, fucking Leicester score, Gray misses a sitter, fucking Leicester score again. Fuck, we're finished, wont score if we play for a year.
THEN!!! Duke you fucking life saving beauty!!! What a goal, screamer up there with Horne and Farrelly. We fucking scored!!!
So, just have to hold out now. Battle and scrape our way to 90 mins with no really serious alarms. Tension high but manageable, nearly tjere. TEN CUNTING MINUTES!!!!! Are you winding me up?? Where the fuck did 10 mins come from??? Last 10 was horrible, was barely looking when Pickford saved. Bournemouth permanently had the bloody ball. Then, finally, RELIEF!!! Hugged everyone, shouted till I was hoarse and watched the madness on the pitch. Jeez, how did we pull that off?
Dyche is a genius. We would have been relegated weeks ago with Lamps. (Only slight caveat is why the fuck did he keep playing Keane?)
No iidea if we can survive the points deduction we are likely to get and whether we can sort ourselves out in the summer, but we battle on for another season. GET THE FUCK IN THERE!! COYB!!!!

One of the gloomy thoughts I had before the game yesterday was that we might lose Pickford if we go down.

He's been our best player this season by quite a wide margin, I think. It's possible that he'd have stayed loyal to us after relegation. Much more likely that the club would have wanted to (or needed to) cash in. He's at the peak of his career and saved us God knows how many points this season. And he's still wildly underrated by the media. I've just read the review of the season in the Guardian, in which all of their footy contributors named their team of the season. I have no particular issue with anyone putting Allison in goal ahead of Pickford but four of them nominated Nick Pope, which I think is just embarrassing.

As an aside to that, it's quite a list of key England players who are likely to be sold this summer. Kane, Bellingham, Mount, Rice. They'll go for quite a few quid between them.

the FFP thing.
If we get a big points deduction, 2-3 transfer windows shut to us, and big fine, then the "independent" panel will be, in effect, making us fail and eventual fall into bankruptcy.
Is that what FFP was intended to do? The fact that we have utterly wasted half a billion quid should be seen as punishment enough
The panel will go for the Putin approach to finance.
You fall in line or we will destroy you.
Whatever it is we should fight it and join forces with the City legal team. Take a class action suit out against the FA for financial loss and potential loss of business.
Nice Trumpesque twist there huh.

With the FPP, I'm still confused as to why the PL said we were ok last season, but after a season of almost zero net transfer spend, we have suddenly broken the rules. Obviously as fans, we aren't privy to the details, but I suppose that will be the basis of the club's argument.

We must be spunking a shitload of money away in other areas. I understand that the new stadium costs don't count. Our physio and treatment room costs must be sky high. My mate's brother-in-law is an accountant at the club. He doesn't share any info but he has told him that the amount of money wasted on random projects, which have been started and never finished is frightening. Basically, terrible management at board level, which we all know.

Anyway, a 6 point deduction, a slap on the wrist and a takeover by a competent and well intentioned group of people, might be the best we can hope for.

Very different from last season - not much euphoria at the end of the game, just utter relief.  

Having said that, there was a fantastic atmosphere around Goodison before the game.  Lovely sunny day, everyone got there early, the streets were so crowded you could barely move.  Best moment for me was, as we were walking round the ground, I bumped into Mick Lyons and his daughter and shook his hand, told him it was lovely to see him there.  He seemed genuinely delighted by the attention he was getting - nobody was crowding around him or jostling him, it was all very respectful.

The game itself was painful of course, but we got away with it again.  I was surprised the team didn't come out to thank the fans, but that was probably due to the excessive security concerns.  Plenty of knobheads invaded the pitch, though I've never seen the police cheered for arresting someone before in Liverpool.  This one fella just wouldn't go quietly - it took half a dozen rozzers about fifteen minutes to subdue the cunt, in the end they had to put leg restraints on him and carry him away.

Anyway, that's my match report: met Mick Lyons, spent 100 minutes shitting myself, wasted 15 minutes waiting for the players to come out while watching a knobhead being arrested on the pitch, went for a pint afterwards in a pub full of Evertonians except for a pair of arse-faced Kopites sneering "what are you celebrating for, have you won something?". We just sang louder.

James Garner and Dwight McNeil are the future of the club, we need to sign another half dozen like them this summer.

Oh yes, just remembered one more thing: as we were coming into the ground, the turnstile operator was blessing each fan that passed through. Fucking hilarious.... only at Everton.

I would very much like to bump into Mick Lyons myself one day. Lyons, Latchford, McKenzie, Andy King. They're the four names that dominate my earliest Everton memories.

Rotterdam 1985 wrote:I would very much like to bump into Mick Lyons myself one day. Lyons, Latchford, McKenzie, Andy King. They're the four names that dominate my earliest Everton memories.

I was very lucky (actually way more than that) in that I got to know a lot of the 70s/80s/90s players really well.

Still bump into Graham Stuart around Ainsdale/Birkdale

What was always noticeable to me was that each of them - all of them fell so deeply about the club. They are careful not to be overly critical of fellow professionals but they did not hold back on some managerial appointments!

Da Judge wrote:

Rotterdam 1985 wrote:I would very much like to bump into Mick Lyons myself one day. Lyons, Latchford, McKenzie, Andy King. They're the four names that dominate my earliest Everton memories.

I was very lucky (actually way more than that) in that I got to know a lot of the 70s/80s/90s players really well.

Still bump into Graham Stuart around Ainsdale/Birkdale

What was always noticeable to me was that each of them - all of them fell so deeply about the club. They are careful not to be overly critical of fellow professionals but they did not hold back on some managerial appointments!

The cameras showed a good few of them at the game yesterday. Stuart was sat between Reidy and Joe Royle. Reid now looks 87 years old. But then he looked 50 when he played for us.

More than once I made myself sound like a twat at GP by shouting "get in there Bobby lad" etc. Bobby was his apparently his Chelsea nickname and a Chelsea-supporting mate always referred to him as Bobby. He joined us and we nicknamed him "Diamond" of course, but it never stuck with me for some reason. Possibly because it's quite a crap nickname. I assume the rest of the crowd around me just thought I didn't have a fucking clue what I was talking about.

https://www.premierleague.com/news/3494636

Interesting analysis of our tactics, and a good example of why Dyche is just what we needed. He's a smart tactician, and pragmatic. There was that famous "masterclass" video of him explaining how he set up Burnley to beat the RS, and this another game that he seems to have planned perfectly. He himself admits that, however much you prepare, you rely on everything going exactly to plan and the opposition not having a moment of brilliance or doing something unexpected, but I think Sunday was a Dyche masterclass again.

hairy cataract wrote:https://www.premierleague.com/news/3494636

Interesting analysis of our tactics, and a good example of why Dyche is just what we needed.  He's a smart tactician, and pragmatic.  There was that famous "masterclass" video of him explaining how he set up Burnley to beat the RS, and this another game that he seems to have planned perfectly.  He himself admits that, however much you prepare, you rely on everything going exactly to plan and the opposition not having a moment of brilliance or doing something unexpected, but I think Sunday was a Dyche masterclass again.

This is very true, although I would argue that you do make some of your own luck here. You need to ensure that your plan isn't confusing to the players, is tailored to what the available players are actually capable of, and is drilled into them via hard graft on the training field during the week. Also you need to select players with the character required to implement your plan to the letter. Total concentration for 90 (100) minutes is hard (which is partly why I was rather blown away by Garner's performance. He had to implement a precise game plan in a vital game while playing an alien position. So fucking impressive.)

Even Carra, who is a red but is starting to talk more and more like the blue he originally was, as he gets older, was in panic mode at half time, suggesting that Dyche should make immediate changes. His theory was to take off either one of the CBs or centre mids, can't remember which, and put Simms or Maupay on. Which, you know, might have worked if luck went our way (we'll never know) but was absolutely not guaranteed to work and could easily have been counter-productive. If you have faith in your plan then you stick with it for longer than 45 minutes if nothing has gone badly wrong with it. I think it was left to Roy Keane to say "nah, I wouldn't make any changes yet, they're fine" or words to that effect.

The article in the link is a good read, although he talks about Dyche's plan being 100% about nullifying Bournemouth and doesn't mention that Dyche really had no choice but to switch to a 3 CB formation due to who was available. So it was almost certainly a bit of both. I had mentioned about their vulnerability to crosses though, and Sky put one or two graphics up during the game to underline that. If a guesswork amateur like me can be aware of such available data then it's no surprise that a manager with some tactical nous would be also....

...not that there's any guarantee that Lamps would have been. And in my opinion, Doucoure stands as the difference between Dyche and Frank at the end of the season, and probably the difference between staying up and going down. We will never know if Duke had some sort of attitude problem under Lampard but he strikes me as being a really nice, professional bloke, who just enjoys playing football, yet the previous manager sent him to train with the kids. Dyche brings him back and suddenly the fella hits a run of scoring a goal every three games - without his goals we were obviously gone.

A manager's job is to maximise what he has available to him. Lamps obviously didn't know how to use Duke effectively. But to then apparently fall out with a player who, to us, seems so mild-mannered and inoffensive, well, you can only wonder what the fuck was going on.

I just found the Carra link - yeah, take a CB off and put Maupay or Simms on at half time. As I said, we'll never know if that would have worked or not (I think personally it could have been disastrous) but such a decision would have reeked of panic, of abandonment of the game plan with half the game still to go. Dyche's plan was working, 0-0 at HT was probably part of that plan. This was a change to be made if we were 1-0 down at HT, maybe. And this, I would posit, could explain why Carra has never been a manager! Personally I wouldn't have even made that change after 60 minutes. 70 or 75, perhaps. We simply could not afford to go one down though.

One final thing, about the game plan - if I could implement the perfect plan on how to win a relegation survival game 1-0 then I think scoring around the 60 minute mark would be pretty much what I'd want. You obviously wouldn't say no to an early goal, but the problem there is that you then have longer to have to defend the lead, inviting the opposition on, sitting deeper and deeper, becoming more reluctant to commit bodies to the counter attack. Any later than the hour mark and you run the risk of panic setting in, and of having to force the issue by making changes that (with the players we had available) probably wouldn't have worked.

Incredible, that Dyche said to them "score after an hour" and they did. Brilliant management.

Fair points Rotts.

So, in summary, Dyche did well, but only because he listened to you, Carra is clueless, and Lampard caught Duke shagging his missus.

hairy cataract wrote:Fair points Rotts.  

So, in summary, Dyche did well, but only because he listened to you, Carra is clueless, and Lampard caught Duke shagging his missus.

Yes. I want to know which user name Dyche is using on this board as a burner account. He has clearly read my posts.

Speaking of Dyche - somewhere on social media over the weekend, someone described him as a human scotch egg, and I couldn't help laughing at this line throughout his post-match interview.

As for Carra - well he clearly didn't read my posts. His HT thoughts brought to mind the scene in Airplane when the stewardess asks if anyone can fly a plane and all the passengers flip. And what's even funnier is that, below the line in immediate response to that clip being posted on Twitter (at HT during the game I presume) everyone is agreeing with Carra but in a condescending "no shit Sherlock" and "oh, brilliant, can I be a pundit too?" sort of way.

I would like to pretend that I was the only one, apart from Dyche, to hold his nerve. But the reality is (and this is true BTW) that around half time the stress manifested itself in crippling stomach cramps. My belly had been turning over since about two hours before kickoff anyway. So if I was in Dyche's position I'd have held my nerve by worrying about my guts more than the actual game. Or, I'd have panicked and put Maupay on. It's rather different, being actually responsible for an entire club's future, rather than being an innocuous waffler on social media. That's why they're paid the big bucks, I suppose.

By the way, I'm still watching vids of the game. Haven't done a second's work yet this morning.

Rotterdam 1985 wrote:

hairy cataract wrote:Fair points Rotts.  

So, in summary, Dyche did well, but only because he listened to you, Carra is clueless, and Lampard caught Duke shagging his missus.

Yes. I want to know which user name Dyche is using on this board as a burner account. He has clearly read my posts.

Speaking of Dyche - somewhere on social media over the weekend, someone described him as a human scotch egg, and I couldn't help laughing at this line throughout his post-match interview.

As for Carra - well he clearly didn't read my posts. His HT thoughts brought to mind the scene in Airplane when the stewardess asks if anyone can fly a plane and all the passengers flip. And what's even funnier is that, below the line in immediate response to that clip being posted on Twitter (at HT during the game I presume) everyone is agreeing with Carra but in a condescending "no shit Sherlock" and "oh, brilliant, can I be a pundit too?" sort of way.

I would like to pretend that I was the only one, apart from Dyche, to hold his nerve. But the reality is (and this is true BTW) that around half time the stress manifested itself in crippling stomach cramps. My belly had been turning over since about two hours before kickoff anyway. So if I was in Dyche's position I'd have held my nerve by worrying about my guts more than the actual game. Or, I'd have panicked and put Maupay on. It's rather different, being actually responsible for an entire club's future, rather than being an innocuous waffler on social media. That's why they're paid the big bucks, I suppose.

By the way, I'm still watching vids of the game. Haven't done a second's work yet this morning.

Yes, I'm waiting for the "from all angles" video of Duke's goal on the OS before I even think about doing any work.

hairy cataract wrote:

Rotterdam 1985 wrote:

hairy cataract wrote:Fair points Rotts.  

So, in summary, Dyche did well, but only because he listened to you, Carra is clueless, and Lampard caught Duke shagging his missus.

Yes. I want to know which user name Dyche is using on this board as a burner account. He has clearly read my posts.

Speaking of Dyche - somewhere on social media over the weekend, someone described him as a human scotch egg, and I couldn't help laughing at this line throughout his post-match interview.

As for Carra - well he clearly didn't read my posts. His HT thoughts brought to mind the scene in Airplane when the stewardess asks if anyone can fly a plane and all the passengers flip. And what's even funnier is that, below the line in immediate response to that clip being posted on Twitter (at HT during the game I presume) everyone is agreeing with Carra but in a condescending "no shit Sherlock" and "oh, brilliant, can I be a pundit too?" sort of way.

I would like to pretend that I was the only one, apart from Dyche, to hold his nerve. But the reality is (and this is true BTW) that around half time the stress manifested itself in crippling stomach cramps. My belly had been turning over since about two hours before kickoff anyway. So if I was in Dyche's position I'd have held my nerve by worrying about my guts more than the actual game. Or, I'd have panicked and put Maupay on. It's rather different, being actually responsible for an entire club's future, rather than being an innocuous waffler on social media. That's why they're paid the big bucks, I suppose.

By the way, I'm still watching vids of the game. Haven't done a second's work yet this morning.

Yes, I'm waiting for the "from all angles" video of Duke's goal on the OS before I even think about doing any work.

This is a good one. However many times you play this on a loop, it will never get boring.

Rotterdam 1985 wrote:

hairy cataract wrote:

Rotterdam 1985 wrote:

hairy cataract wrote:Fair points Rotts.  

So, in summary, Dyche did well, but only because he listened to you, Carra is clueless, and Lampard caught Duke shagging his missus.

Yes. I want to know which user name Dyche is using on this board as a burner account. He has clearly read my posts.

Speaking of Dyche - somewhere on social media over the weekend, someone described him as a human scotch egg, and I couldn't help laughing at this line throughout his post-match interview.

As for Carra - well he clearly didn't read my posts. His HT thoughts brought to mind the scene in Airplane when the stewardess asks if anyone can fly a plane and all the passengers flip. And what's even funnier is that, below the line in immediate response to that clip being posted on Twitter (at HT during the game I presume) everyone is agreeing with Carra but in a condescending "no shit Sherlock" and "oh, brilliant, can I be a pundit too?" sort of way.

I would like to pretend that I was the only one, apart from Dyche, to hold his nerve. But the reality is (and this is true BTW) that around half time the stress manifested itself in crippling stomach cramps. My belly had been turning over since about two hours before kickoff anyway. So if I was in Dyche's position I'd have held my nerve by worrying about my guts more than the actual game. Or, I'd have panicked and put Maupay on. It's rather different, being actually responsible for an entire club's future, rather than being an innocuous waffler on social media. That's why they're paid the big bucks, I suppose.

By the way, I'm still watching vids of the game. Haven't done a second's work yet this morning.

Yes, I'm waiting for the "from all angles" video of Duke's goal on the OS before I even think about doing any work.

This is a good one. However many times you play this on a loop, it will never get boring.

https://twitter.com/TacticallyMatt/status/1663213889029324805

Brilliant. I was trying to see the reaction of the people in the corporate boxes - particularly the first box on the left, which is Pickford's family and friends, and the third box from the left, which is Seamus Coleman's. Pickfords goes nuts, they seem a bit more restrained in Seamus's, though it looks like one of his daughters on the left of the box is going nuts. Not sure, I'll probably have to watch it another six times....

When I watch these goal replays on a loop I like to look at the reaction of each individual player. Well, it's a justifcation for watching it on a loop, eh?

Usually, you'll see a few lads sprinting to get to the goalscorer. A couple more might just stand there with their arms in the air, or just jog gently towards the celebration, or sink to their knees etc.

On this occasion, Tarko goes off to celebrate with Pickford, but literally everyone else proper sprints towards Duke. The burst from Iwobi and McNeil to get over there from the opposite side of the pitch has me retrospectively worrying for their hamstrings.

It's lovely, this. I'm just enjoying talking about Everton with a light heart for the first time in months. So excuse the word vomit from me in the coming weeks. You wait till my squad review lands. If nothing else, it beats working.

Rotterdam 1985 wrote:When I watch these goal replays on a loop I like to look at the reaction of each individual player. Well, it's a justifcation for watching it on a loop, eh?

Usually, you'll see a few lads sprinting to get to the goalscorer. A couple more might just stand there with their arms in the air, or just jog gently towards the celebration, or sink to their knees etc.

On this occasion, Tarko goes off to celebrate with Pickford, but literally everyone else proper sprints towards Duke. The burst from Iwobi and McNeil to get over there from the opposite side of the pitch has me retrospectively worrying for their hamstrings.

It's lovely, this. I'm just enjoying talking about Everton with a light heart for the first time in months. So excuse the word vomit from me in the coming weeks. You wait till my squad review lands. If nothing else, it beats working.

It's on those moments "playing for the shirt" becomes apparent.
Do some players play for the wage only? Maybe, but when the game truly matters, you see who is committed to the cause, and who is buying into the manager's plan. Again, those pecky Bournemouth party poopers, decided to kick the wrong way and deny a Gladwys nuthouse reaction.
With the Duke, could it have been the last 2 minutes on the Wolves game, when Lamps throws everyone forward without a care in the world and we shit the bed? The team was never the same under FL from that moment on. No belief in the man. Maybe there was some dressing room descent?
Coady was an unexpected choice on Sunday, but his reaction was just as you would expect. I hope we keep him for the price he's available at.
Mina another one. Ambushed on camera by the hordes just a couple for months ago, but playing out of his skin for the past few games. Sadly he's gone, and for nothing, and still only 28.
Big Mosh had better make some proper decisions, not the show pony kind, but 2.0 reboot, with a plan. Have a plan FFS!
He could have had Howe but he went for Benitez. Don't do it again.
At one seminar many years ago, the motto was enjoy YOLO but be HAPPY (Have a plan you idiot)