Match Day Thread Everton vs SAINTS - 4/4/15 - 15.00 K.O

They probably will win that one. And that'll be the only points they get between now and May.

You're right though, we've got nothing to moan about.

 

When your style of play is to feed it in to a central striker and for everyone to play off of him and feed from him then it is pretty important that that player is decent. I understand it is not as simple as just going "oh yeah, lets go buy a 20 goal striker" but when something isn't working then you have to change it. Our strikers this season have not been good enough and has been said loads of time this season that this is the reason between top 4 and not, and could be the reason we miss out on top 6. I like Long and can see what he offers to the side even without the goals so am fine with him being a part of the squad, Pelle offers virtually nothing. He doesn't hold the ball up well, he gives the ball away all the time and he obviously isn't scoring. If we really want to be a regular European place challenger in this league then we need to roll the dice again on another striker.

 

Did not understand why we put duricic (spelling) on and then started to kick everything way over midfield and pelle for that matter.

 

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Bit over the top dont you think!!

 

Ok, utter joke is probably over the top. First half we looked decent, we played well and everton were not worthy of a lead at all. But second half we just toothless and almost every time pelle got the ball it was given away, even the headers. I admit it isn't all his fault, and i am not one of those people at games that do nothing but moan, but he starting to get on my nerves.

 

I have often thought it would be a great idea if posters could keep their match comments on ice for a few hours [obviously impossible] so that they have time to consider.

We misfired today. I shall no doubt go back and look at the 90 minutes, if it is available, before I say anything detailed.

 

Assuming that the website I have just looked at is correct, then prior to today we've had 164 corners in the league so far this season. So that means we've now had 174 corners.

And yet only three goals come to mind - and only one of them was us heading in. Toby vs Palace, Lukaku OG vs Everton, and Morgan vs West Ham from a short corner where West Ham fell asleep.

And I suspect you can count on one hand how many times we've directly forced the opposition keeper into making a save, or had a defender clear off the line etc.

 

Been a few games where Pelle has totally hamstrung us but this just wasn't one of them.

The whole team were **** after the first 10 minutes, we gave the ball away through a bad touch or getting dispossessed thirty two times in the game (Pelle accounting for just 4 of them), compared to 16 times against Burnley against who we actually had more of the ball and who were pressing us very aggresively trying to win the ball for a lot of the game whilst Everton were fairly placid protecting their lead.

Pelle fed off of what could barely be considered scraps, and it still took an absolutely world class save to stop him from scoring.

The only way you could see Pelle having cost us that game is if that's what you wanted to see, which mystifyingly is what a decent proportion of our fans want.

 

Pelle has had some shockers recently. I don't believe that today was one of them though.

 

It has been over 1139 minutes, 13 starts and 1 sub appearance since Pelle scored in the league. This does not take any added time into account.

 

Pelle would have had a goal if not for a great save from howard

 

Going back to this, what was our worst performance this year do you guys reckon? Burnley Away? Gave it away 22 times. City? 17. Sheffield United in the cup? 22.

That's how bad we were as a team today. To blame it on Pelle is obscenely misguided.

 

I am not saying that he did cost us the game, I am talking about in general. I want Pelle to do well and would never boo a player or anything like that. I agree that today there were many factors why we lost, Pelle being one of them.

 

True, i guess i am just frustrated that we played poorly as a team today. I want pelle to get that goal as much as anyone.

 

We used virtually every attacking option we had today, and none of them were good enough. Really boggles my mind how everyone just singles out Pelle when he probably had the best chance of scoring.

We need to buy a striker in the summer for sure, but realistically we're not going to get a WC-type game-changer. So it's going to take more than that. Will probably have to bring in another creative player as well. And just generally revamp the whole offense somehow. What we have now clearly isn't working beyond just the fact that Pelle (not in this game) has missed on some good opportunities.

 

I still don't know why Mane didn't start. He played for Senegal a week ago. He didn't need to be rested. He's our best attacker and should always be starting. One week is enough to be fully rested. Koeman is taking the piss if he thinks that a two week rested Elia is a better option.

 

Agree with this, think that's one of the times Ron got it wrong and I always think it's an easy trap to fall into. The 3-1-1-5 or whatever formation is only worth trying if a team is too knackered to get out their own box or are so terrible they can't keep the ball with 10s of yards of wide open space left ahead of them. The only way we were going to realistically score at the end there was if we had them pinned so far back unable to get a grip of the ball that we would be able to bombard the box with crosses and maybe eventuallly it would bounce off someone's shoulder onto some elses arse and then in. Completely destroying our shape to bring Djuricic on only served to make us totally unable to recover second balls and gave Everton easy possession and opportunity to run into space where our defenders had to make desperate challenges to try and win the ball which resulted in several fouls which just killed the game. I'd be tempted to call it naive if it weren't a man of Ron's immense experience and nouse, but as it is I'll call it a totally unnecessary high-risk low-reward decision.

 

Yep, would of been interesting to see what we could of

Yeah I know,It was meant a bit tongue in cheek, I'm just frustrated to be honest! However, it seemed to exclusively be his game plan from the first second he came on.

 

ehh. Putting in Djuricic was worth a shot, IMO. It's not like we were even remotely threatening Everton with what we had. I had no real hope that it was going to work, but I didn't have a problem with it either.

 

Is he shagging your missus or something? Jesus christ.