Match Day Thread Everton v Southampton 02/01/17 3pm

What about Austin and Redmond ?

 

He was forced into that change in fairness as Pelle got injured and Long hit his best run of form. But yeah I take your point.

The board have a decision to make here - they either back their choice in Puel with some decent expenditure in January, or they get rid.

The third choice is do nothing....which might also work, but it might also mean a bit of a sticky six months or so.

 

We will lose to Swansea - it is so obvious.

 

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not putting all the blame at his door at all. Absolutely, first and foremost the issue is (and always was, from day one!!) not replacing Mane and Pelle.

I'm just saying that I can't see him still being here next season, if we haven't turned our season around by then. I'm not even sure that winning the League Cup (however unlikely that likes right now) would save him. But if the board back him this month, and spend money where it is needed, then he will have the tools to turn it around. (And if he still can't, well then he probably still goes, albeit without much argument as to whether or not it is right/fair).

 

I don't know why anyone says Redmond for Mane, pretty sure Boufal was Mane replacement.

Sort of.

Liverpool will be playing a youth team vs Plymouth and I don't want to see any of Virgil, Romeu & Bertrand at Norwich at the least.

 

If there's no business in January, it won't be Puel's choice. Managers just use "I like our team and don't think we need additions" to give the higher-ups cover while trying to motivate the current squad, because "we suck but the board won't budge" tends not to go over well.

 

By that logic we'll tonk Liverpool?

I'll take that if offered

 

If and it's a possible if.....we lose to Norwich(FA Cup)
Liverpool (League Cup)
Burnley (Prem)

Does the board deal with this slide or do they think oh well we're little old Saints?

 

Up until three games ago, this defence had the third best defensive record in the league. Does that mean the defence is bad, or just the last three games was an issue? Genuine question.

 

Which is why I keep saying, over to the board now...

 

We always used to beat them away when they were good, we should definitely be beating them now they're ****!

 

Yeah the last three games. Hopefully it's an energy thing, but a big part of me thinks it's the over-rotation.

 

Talk about starting the year as you mean to go on! Another utterly depressing result and very difficult to swallow. Slow motion clips of Koeman celebrating the Everton goals got me annoyed in a way I haven't experienced that often. Felt like I was turning into the Hulk. Hard to see where an upturn in our performances is going to come from, Tadic has been off the boil, we don't have an in-form striker, Boufal hasn't really impressed in his performances on the whole, Romeu's early season form seems to have dried up. Forster was a lot better today I thought, unlucky for the first after a great save to deny Lukaku, no chance with the other two, Yoshida was amazing today until he gave away the penalty and we typically self-destructed again. It really feels as though our season is just going to peter out. I haven't got much hope of us progressing past Liverpool in the cup and if we finish in the bottom half of the table and lose a couple of players again then it really will start to feel like we have had our time. We messed up our Europa League venture and game by game it looks more and more unlikely that we will be in Europe again. I could just be writing because I'm f***ed off about the match today, but we are in a bad place and will be going into these cup games in as poor form as anybody. Football can be a bitch.

 

I'd happily see Bertrand rested because I have total faith in McQueen. Don't think I'd be leaving Virgil and Romeu out though. We need a win, for confidence sakes, and preferably a clean sheet.

 

I'd have been inclined to agree with you this morning. But if Bertrand doesn't play against Norwich he'll go into the Liverpool game having played just once in a month (10 day rest before Spurs, two week rest after). He'd have had enough rest for everyone else haha.

 

To some extent that's fair but we've chased a few games this season and the collapses are a relatively recent thing. I don't know that applies today in particular. I might put the third goal down to chasing the game but the second was just an unnecessary tackle from Yoshida.

Today was definitely a bit different to most of our games. We did create several decent chances but we didn't take them.

 

Jack Cork to score a worldy it is then. I can actually see that being a really frustrating 0-0 (even though I have that down as a win for us)

 

No, I expect they'll all drive to Beach Head and throw themselves off

 

I feel sorry for our players. Puel sucks the life out of me when he speaks, god only knows how drained our lads are listening to him droan on day in and day out.

And don't give me the "he's a different person with the players than the media". I bet he isn't. His sidekick, Eric Black, isn't inspiring either.

 

Well it's basically the same nucleus that finished 6th in the league last season, we definately need 3 top quality players, a striker attacking midfielder and A.N. other.

football can change very quickly with a couple of positive results, it's not as if we have never lost 3 in a row before.