Do you see captain potential? He's ready made for it imo. Also it's hardly like he'd be replacing a club legend or anything.
I’m sure he will be captain for next season. A few (reliable) people on the interweb have said he was promised captaincy.
I can't really agree. The overwhelming majority of teams have a tendency either to attack or defend, whether it's due to strategy, personnel or mindset, or a combination thereof. You can't really expect an attacking team to change its spots and suddenly become a stone wall when required. All those mid-table managers are what and where they are for a reason, they can tighten up a team in disarray and make them harder to beat but they don't have what it takes to get them any further. Mourinho is the only one who has managed to create real success with that style. Whether he really is "special" or just has vast resources is an argument that will go on indefinitely and I don't want to go into here. All I'm saying is that having someone like VvD should cut down on the mistakes, but the way we're set up to play will always have the emphasis on attack and will inevitably leave us open at times. Personally I'd much rather watch that than a Mourinho team all the time. Oh, and Pep seems to be doing ok with it too.
Thought ,in general, we were quite poor last night but i couldn't care less Though Robbo had by far his best game for us & clearly MOTM. Thought VVD was clearly rusty in 1st half ,see Bolaisse skinning him only for Robbo to deal with the problem , but grew as game went on. The Everton goal summed up my & others opinion that upgrading the defensive personnel will only go so far as our defensive frailities are also due to structural issues. Good that Lallana got some more game time towards fitness whilst we win & they lose.
He played well for about 3 months last season and then went missing for the rest of the season. Agree he’s rusty but he isn’t much better than what we saw last night.
I can see Lallana being moved on, once we have Keita in 1 of the midfield has to go Keita Wijnaldum Coutinho/replacement AOC Milner Lallana We don't need 6 players for 2 slots. Milner may well move on as well but he's good to have around imo as cover.
I don’t mind Lallana as a squad option but he’s almost 30, injury prone, big wages, and only a squad option.
Thats fair enough I really wanted sam to have a shot with England. Can see what you are saying but i think it is fair to say that the latger clubs in this country dont give the british managers a chance, thus leaving them with midclub teams at best. I was hoping that Everton were going to give Dyche a shot, and they still might. As it is they have given sam a shout and now sam has a budget so we will get to see what he can do. From what i saw last night, compared tothe league game Everton looked far more dangerous that cant be coincidence. Wewill see in time
It's an interesting question. I can't see beyond the fact that those managers aren't ever given those jobs. There can only be a couple of reasons for this - either experience shows that their style has a "ceiling" and the more ambitious owners want more, or said owners have some sort of unreasonable prejudice against that sort of manager. The latter makes no sense to me because owners want their clubs to be successful, and personalities wouldn't really be a selection criterion. It's a moot point, but I don't think Sam would have done any better with England than Hodgson did, tbh. He's another who can rescue a sinking ship, but is too tentative when the serious business starts. I know we've argued this before on here, but I believe (and backed it up) that attacking teams ultimately do rather better than defensive ones. To succeed where it really matters, you have to take risks. Safe isn't usually quite good enough.
