14 - Beto

Rotterdam 1985 wrote:

fourdoors wrote:

I always wanted to play there because of the city, the derby and everything. I think the fans at Everton are a little bit more of a step up than the other fans so I am excited to play in front of them.

What, us?

He spoke to Deulofeu, and Gerry told him how great we were as fans. I strongly suspect that's because we had a song for Gerry (also Gerry had the good fortune to leave us before we reacquainted ourselves with relegation battles).

So my theory is, having a song sung in your name during rare moments of joy is more than enough to offset everything else the GP crowd shouts at you, including "SHITHOUSE", "NOT FIT TO WEAR THE SHIRT", "COULDN'T HIT A COW'S ARSE WITH A BANJO" and "FUCK OFF YER CUNT".

If we'd made more of an effort to sing this at Lukaku, he might still be playing for us. Instead we spent too much time moaning about his first touch. Sigh...

fourdoors wrote:

I always wanted to play there because of the city, the derby and everything. I think the fans at Everton are a little bit more of a step up than the other fans so I am excited to play in front of them.

What, us?

Rotterdam 1985 wrote:

hairy cataract wrote:

fourdoors wrote:

I always wanted to play there because of the city, the derby and everything. I think the fans at Everton are a little bit more of a step up than the other fans so I am excited to play in front of them.

What, us?

I don't know why I bother watching the official interviews, they literally have only one script about what incredible fans we are, and how Everton are a big club with a big history, and they're excited by the project, and they will bring maximum effort to the role because that's their strength, and they can't wait to play in front of us at Goodison blah fucking blah.

Be honest for a fucking change:

Interviewer:  what made you decide to join Everton?
Beto:  obviously, money first and foremost, the wages are insane in England.  Then the chance to play in the Premier League against the best players in the world, that's really exciting, even if it's probably only for one season until Everton get relegated.  But then hopefully I'll have done enough to get sold to another Premier League club, maybe in the south where it doesn't rain so much and it's nearer London where a lot of Brazilians and Portuguese live, who speak my language and eat decent food rather than chips and curry sauce every night.
Interviewer:  Are you looking forward to working with Sean Dyche?
Beto: yeah well, he's a bit meat and potatoes for me, and I don't like the idea of training til I vomit, and what's with that weird croaky voice?  But, yeah, it'll be fine.
Interviewer:  What are you looking forward to most?
Beto:  Well, getting a really nice house out near Manchester, and the women in the nightclubs go crazy for footballers, so that will be good.  
Interviewer:  What do you know about the history of the club?
Beto:  I think Everton won something once, although not in my lifetime, but they're in the same city as Liverpool who have won fuckloads and I'll get to play against them which will be exciting.
Interviewer: What about the fans?
Beto: I hope they don't hurl racist abuse at me, or chase me down the street shouting at me to fight for the fucking shirt.  I hear they moan a lot, and sing songs about weird stuff like blowing candles out, but I'll be living near Manchester so I won't have to see too much of them hopefully.  Is Doris still the tea lady?

This builds on a theory I've long held - that we should get our scientists to develop some kind of truth serum that is proven to work, and which would then be mandated to be used by anyone in the public sphere. Honesty is a good thing, but it would also be more fun.

Interviewer: "So Prime Minister, what's this "oven-ready" Brexit deal all about then?"
Boris: "Fucked if I know. Honestly, I've never really got my head around this Brexit thing since the referendum, I only voted leave to piss Cameron off. Can't be arsed, it's really boring. I just got some juniors and interns in the Cabinet Office to whack some random shit together, hope that the EU agree to it, and job done. Obviously we'll not follow any of the rules in the deal though, fuck that."

Interviewer: "Sean, Doncaster away in the Carabao tomorrow, what are your thoughts?"
Dyche: "Well obviously we should batter them. Like, we're really shit, but they're bottom of League Two right now. If we can't win this then I might start bad-mouthing the chairman so that he sacks me and I get full compo for getting binned off and then I can go and manage someone like Bradford for an easier life. I might start Maupay for this one, would be hilarious if he didn't score against Donny. If he did, it will be like when Hibbo scored in that testimonial. That'll be something to keep the fans happy because, quite frankly, they're getting on my tits right now with all their moaning."

Jonathan Agnew: "So where do you think England's women have the edge here then, Tuffers, in this crunch T20 game against the Aussies?"
Phil Tufnell: "Arses. They've generally got nicer arses than the Aussies, who all look a bit masculine to me Jonathan, if I'm honest. Why are we even here by the way? I had to get up at 5 this morning to drive to Leicester for a game of fucking women's cricket."

Yankthattoffee wrote:I just had a look on the official website.
We've still got Gomes and Gbamin on our books!

hairy cataract wrote:I hope your lad is right. If he’s wrong, give him kick in the bollocks from me.

[/b]I’m not pissed but I’m deffo depressed[/b] We need a good finisher desperately but the rest of the team is utter shit right now.

Knight of Thorgothshire wrote:

Yankthattoffee wrote:I just had a look on the official website.
We've still got Gomes and Gbamin on our books!

The Gomes purchase I understood, but I never understood the Gbamin purchase. I can't recall the game, but the opposition was passing the ball around him as if it were a practise session where one guy chases the ball and 6-7 keep it away from him. He was like a traffic rounding cone and was nowhere near the ball.

Rotterdam 1985 wrote:

Yankthattoffee wrote:

Knight of Thorgothshire wrote:

Yankthattoffee wrote:I just had a look on the official website.
We've still got Gomes and Gbamin on our books!

The Gomes purchase I understood, but I never understood the Gbamin purchase. I can't recall the game, but the opposition was passing the ball around him as if it were a practise session where one guy chases the ball and 6-7 keep it away from him. He was like a traffic rounding cone and was nowhere near the ball.

I recall it well. Lampard's era? Took him off at half time.
Like he didn't want to be there.

But wasn't this one of those deals that demonstrates that, to an extent, the transfer market is a bit of a crap shoot, especially when signing players from overseas? In that you don't actually know whether a signing will work out or not until he's in the team, with you having already spent the money? Far better players than Gbamin have given English football a go and not made it.

Me and my lad watched a bit of the Panathinaikos v Braga CL qualifier last night. And incidentally, one thing we agreed on was that we (Everton) are better than both of them, despite being shit ourselves. Braga won, although they only needed a draw, they were quite savvy in how they sat back and kept the Greeks at arms length. Panathinaikos were terrible, no quality or composure whatsoever. And yet if they'd won that game they'd have been in the CL group stages.

Anyway, once Braga scored late on to kill the tie off, we switched over to Salford v Leeds as it became apparent that penalties were looming in that one. We watched the last 10 minutes plus about 8 minutes injury time. Completely different game, almost a different sport, in terms of the tempo. We made allowances for the CL game being played in Athens in August, where the temperature would still have been about 28C. But it still rammed home the point that the English game remains a lot quicker than almost any other league.

This is what did for Gbamin. He was hopelessly adrift in our midfield, unable to come to terms with the speed of the PL. And didn't really have time to adjust before he got his injury (although I have serious doubts as to whether he would ever have adjusted anyway - as you say, he didn't look like he wanted to be there.) I saw a bit of this in some of Onana's early games, he gave away a goal once because he got caught in possession on the halfway line, thinking he had all the time in the world to pick a pass. Onana made the adjustment, most players from overseas leagues do. Those that don't or can't soon get shipped out as duds. Many of them then enjoy very nice careers in other leagues.

Rotterdam 1985 wrote:

hairy cataract wrote:

Rotterdam 1985 wrote:

Yankthattoffee wrote:

Knight of Thorgothshire wrote:

Yankthattoffee wrote:I just had a look on the official website.
We've still got Gomes and Gbamin on our books!

The Gomes purchase I understood, but I never understood the Gbamin purchase. I can't recall the game, but the opposition was passing the ball around him as if it were a practise session where one guy chases the ball and 6-7 keep it away from him. He was like a traffic rounding cone and was nowhere near the ball.

I recall it well. Lampard's era? Took him off at half time.
Like he didn't want to be there.

But wasn't this one of those deals that demonstrates that, to an extent, the transfer market is a bit of a crap shoot, especially when signing players from overseas? In that you don't actually know whether a signing will work out or not until he's in the team, with you having already spent the money? Far better players than Gbamin have given English football a go and not made it.

Me and my lad watched a bit of the Panathinaikos v Braga CL qualifier last night. And incidentally, one thing we agreed on was that we (Everton) are better than both of them, despite being shit ourselves. Braga won, although they only needed a draw, they were quite savvy in how they sat back and kept the Greeks at arms length. Panathinaikos were terrible, no quality or composure whatsoever. And yet if they'd won that game they'd have been in the CL group stages.

Anyway, once Braga scored late on to kill the tie off, we switched over to Salford v Leeds as it became apparent that penalties were looming in that one. We watched the last 10 minutes plus about 8 minutes injury time. Completely different game, almost a different sport, in terms of the tempo. We made allowances for the CL game being played in Athens in August, where the temperature would still have been about 28C. But it still rammed home the point that the English game remains a lot quicker than almost any other league.

This is what did for Gbamin. He was hopelessly adrift in our midfield, unable to come to terms with the speed of the PL. And didn't really have time to adjust before he got his injury (although I have serious doubts as to whether he would ever have adjusted anyway - as you say, he didn't look like he wanted to be there.) I saw a bit of this in some of Onana's early games, he gave away a goal once because he got caught in possession on the halfway line, thinking he had all the time in the world to pick a pass. Onana made the adjustment, most players from overseas leagues do. Those that don't or can't soon get shipped out as duds. Many of them then enjoy very nice careers in other leagues.

Lewis Dobbin was talking about this - saying how exciting it was to make his first Premier League start against Wolves, but how quick the opposition are to press and how little time you have.  This is a lad who has played a full season in the Championship, and has had some minutes in the PL already.  It's a fierce league to play in, very fast, very athletic, packed with top players from around the world.

But the job of the scouts and DoF is to work out which players will thrive in that environment.  Obviously, you can't be sure, but surely an expert can spot the necessary ingredients in a player before they shell out a billion quid on an eight year contract for him?

Yes, in a word. You can't ever remove the risk but you can minimise it by knowing what you're doing and what you're looking for. We bought Gbamin during our Viv Nicholson days. "If he doesn't work out, no matter, we'll just buy someone else." Like we're fucking City or Al-Ittihad or something.

All I would say about the Gbamin signing in mitigation (and I can't remember whose decision is was to sign him) is that we brought him in from the Bundesliga, the home of Gegenpress. The pace in Germany isn't at PL-levels but, of the major European leagues, it's the closest to the PL. But yeah, that's the job of the people paid to do the scouting and recruiting. The mitigation is minimal, it was just a shocker of a signing.

Rotterdam 1985 wrote:

hairy cataract wrote:Our defence is a fucking shambles though - Godfrey, Keane, Mykolenko and Patterson are all worse than useless, they're actually liabilities.  Our midfield lacks dynamism - Gana came on and tightened everything up but, despite Dyche praising him, I fail to see Onana's contribution, and Doucoure looks second rate despite his goal scoring heroism towards the end of last season.

Yeah, the only one of those defenders you name who still gets something of a pass from me is Patterson, who is young and (IMO) might be the wrong type of full back for a Dyche team. The other three, fucking hell. Mykolenko actually looked the better of the three but Jesus he's awful. Run ragged by a league two winger in the first half last night. And defending is supposed to be his strong suit. It would be in the best interests of Keane and Godfrey if they were to stay off Twitter this morning.

fourdoors wrote:

Rotterdam 1985 wrote:

hairy cataract wrote:Our defence is a fucking shambles though - Godfrey, Keane, Mykolenko and Patterson are all worse than useless, they're actually liabilities.  Our midfield lacks dynamism - Gana came on and tightened everything up but, despite Dyche praising him, I fail to see Onana's contribution, and Doucoure looks second rate despite his goal scoring heroism towards the end of last season.

Yeah, the only one of those defenders you name who still gets something of a pass from me is Patterson, who is young and (IMO) might be the wrong type of full back for a Dyche team. The other three, fucking hell. Mykolenko actually looked the better of the three but Jesus he's awful. Run ragged by a league two winger in the first half last night. And defending is supposed to be his strong suit. It would be in the best interests of Keane and Godfrey if they were to stay off Twitter this morning.

With the massive caveat that I didn't watch the game, I'll offer a defence of the defenders.
For a lone striker, or a play-maker just behind the forwards, or even a winger, it's the individual talent of the player that makes them successful, and everybody can see what they're doing. Your team might fail to score, but if you see your winger pinging in pin-point crosses only for Maupay to miss them all, then you blame Maupay, not the winger.

Being a defender is different. You're less of an individual, you're part of a unit. If there's a weak link, then the whole chain is weak. Unlike a chain, the defence doesn't necessarily break at the weakest point. So the chain analogy is a bit rubbish.

I used to play at right-back in a team with a slow left-back. He was so slow that I could run the length of the pitch backwards faster than he could run it forwards. He won every header that came near him, and opponents rarely dribbled past him, but if the ball did go past him, then he was toast.
The rest of the defence, therefore, had to be alert to that risk. Every time an opponent approached him with the ball, we'd all be taking a few steps towards him in case it was necessary to sprint across. And that meant we weren't as close to our own opponents as we needed to be, and would often have our backs to them.
Because of that, sometimes one of us would get caught out of position. When that happened, it looked like we weren't doing our jobs properly - and maybe we weren't. But in matches where our left-back was up against a slow opponent, or in matches where somebody else played at left-back, those kinds of mistakes didn't really happen.

I don't know if all the faults in our defence can be blamed on Keane. But if the other defenders are worrying about him more than their opponents, then they're going to make mistakes too.

Put it like this: if having Beto in the team can make Maupay look better than useless, then think how much a good CB could help the rest of our defence.