[Archived] Everton V Blackburn Preview

[Bobby G]

And if he's chucking them as far as he can? Whose fault then?

if it was reaching someone then Id say fair enough but he sucks at it more than his corners. He always hits the first man. He is utterly tiresome.

[RibbleValleyRover]

Yep,lets drop our best players for this Banana skin of a cup tie and lets see the feathers fly on here if matters go tits up eh!!

So we should stick with the same eleven today? Sam's pick from a more or less fully fit squad and hope they come good?

I'm not calling for a complete overhaul but i believe there needs to be several players that should be dropped, doing so hopefully will give them the kick up the backside they quite frankly need.

The three players I want to see dropped for the Forest game and the next league game are:

Andrews

Roberts

Pedersen

[Bobby G]

Id overhaul the lineup against Forest but irrespective of the performance Id drop the above three players next weekend.

[herbergeehh]

Appalling.

Even Moyes looked embarrassed, our defending was actually that bad. Eight year olds defend better than we do in our own box, the 1st goal was particularly awful. Going forward? We didn't. Unlucky not to score, twice, and then we conceded a minute later on both occasions.

Dunn did ok, as did Diouf. Hoilett lively again - PLAY HIM. Roberts, Gamst Pedersen and our two central midfielders - invisible.

It's not all their fault, because the midfield was never in the game - and Roberts was all alone up front. Allardyce should take a good, hard look in the mirror after this one, we were never in it. Salgado didn't have a single good involvement, let's hope it's lack of match fitness - playing him instead of Jacobsen was a big mistake today, all the same.

Looking forward to seeing Hoilett, Kalinic, Di Santo, Emerton and Benni McCarthy against Forest. As many of them as possible, anyway..

[imy9]

The players need to take a long hard at themselves, that is now 7 away defeats.

I am happy to hear that players will be dropped, we need to play 4-4-2 and inject some pace into the side.

[beerwins]

What really bugs me the most is the what sam said about about dunny making his striker selection hard because he is attacking well, if your going to play grella who tends to sit back why the hell not start with 4.4.2.

Having dunny pushing up with 2 strikers would be far more attack minded than starting with 4.5.1 , if i was an opposing manager seeing 4.5.1 its says to me that we can attack and go for the early goal which against rovers is a killer because we have no plan b.

To me sam has it all wrong we should be starting 4.4.2 to give the right impression with dunny on the bench and if we go a goal down then bring dunny on and then we can push on that bit more, once we go a goal down i feel that there is no chance back.

With the rate we are scoring at the mo every one our strikers should be getting a game to prove their worth, 1 goal from givet, a tap in from dunny, a chestscraper from roberts and a dubious nutmeg from diouf, we need strikers on the pitch having shots not this pooped out defensive minded 4.5.1 , if we had messi and ronaldo on the wings fair enough but mgp and ehd arent enough threat and nor is roberts on his jack.

Sort is out Sam before the boo boys rip you to shreds, its on your head not the players, unfortunately they cant be sacked.

[herbergeehh]

AND - a 4-5-1 is only effective if we can put pressure on our opponents. Win the ball, preferably on their half, and then burst forward. Nine men behind the ball can be both entertaining and effective, but not if Everton are allowed to pass the ball around and combine in our half, that will end in them scoring goals at some point. Everton never looked dangerous, but Blackburn made them dangerous.

[beerwins]

Another worrying thing is that our midfield has been dog turd for so long now and with the loss of tugay it got worse yet sam seems to think that is were the goals are going to come from, i dont want to second guess sam but to me even if we had 6 midfielders its not as effective as 2 up front.

Its not often that a team playing 4.5.1 gets beat by 3 goals, stoke seem to know how to play it and use it very effectively but im afraid it doesnt seem to suit our players or our fans.

[Quack]

It gets better and better

[Hughesy]

It gets better and better

Pathetic = showed it on motd - he didnt do anything wrong.

1st goal - Andrews should of stopped cross and Selgado shouldof stick with his man

2nd goal - Diouf was left marking Saha - the whole defende at fault

3rd goal - Nelsen at major fault.

[bazza]

I know why we were rubbish today!

It was the lousy away strip. White shirts, red shorts and socks.

Bring back the good old red and black halves.

[sambo]

As a result of cancelled trains and arkwardness, just returned from that horror show of a match

Fans were great, made some good noise and chanted for the majority of the game. The team, on the other hand, were absolutely pathetic.

Can't think of many positives, apart from Robinson ( who came over to the away end at the game, pointed to the fans in a more poignant way than he normally does and clapped - maybe he shares our pain?).

Don't want to go into too much detail, but you know it's bad when our fans are singing "we're so ###### its unbelievable".

Depressed, very worried about the season, and we are desperately looking up at that scum down the road. What an anti-climax this season has been, no positives to come from it.

Btw - how ###### is Jason Roberts?

[herbergeehh]

Another worrying thing is that our midfield has been dog turd for so long now and with the loss of tugay it got worse yet sam seems to think that is were the goals are going to come from, i dont want to second guess sam but to me even if we had 6 midfielders its not as effective as 2 up front.

Its not often that a team playing 4.5.1 gets beat by 3 goals, stoke seem to know how to play it and use it very effectively but im afraid it doesnt seem to suit our players or our fans.

We just beat Wolves 3-0 playing 4-5-1 though, which kind of steps on your point. In any case, I would like to see two strikers up front against Villa - mainly because we don't have any strikers suited for the lonesome role up front.

[bazza]

It gets better and better

Absolutely ridiculous. This country is becoming pathetic.

Even Craig Bellamy is being accused of "assault" on a pitch-invading fan. All he did was shove him in the face.

Perhaps he should have taken a cane to his backside.

[RibbleValleyRover]

Can't think of many positives, apart from Robinson ( who came over to the away end at the game, pointed to the fans in a more poignant way than he normally does and clapped - maybe he shares our pain?).

Wouldn't surprise me if he wasn't happy the defence this season so far have been poor, especially today. Stats wise it doesn't reflect on how well he played. You look at Robbo and you see 3 goals conceded but there was nothing much he could do with any of the goals and without some top class saves it could have been 5 or 6-0.

Overall i've been impressed with Robbo this season but what can you do when they make schoolboy errors in front of you?

[Hughesy]

Absolutely ridiculous. This country is becoming pathetic.

Even Craig Bellamy is being accused of "assault" on a pitch-invading fan. All he did was shove him in the face.

Perhaps he should have taken a cane to his backside.

What would of happened if the fan raised his hand to Bellamy though? Bellamy should get done for it.

[JAL]

After only seeing MOTD 2, the only player who looked like he was earning his money was Paul Robinson the rest, who are they, were were they.

Grella and Andrews got to be the prems worst midfielders, one cant run whilst the other cant do anything but run. cheers Mr.Paul Ince.

Its time for Mr. John Williams to start to get his and the clubs act together. Come the January window another half a dozen players need to be released from this current first team squad.

[beerwins]

We just beat Wolves 3-0 playing 4-5-1 though, which kind of steps on your point. In any case, I would like to see two strikers up front against Villa - mainly because we don't have any strikers suited for the lonesome role up front.

Nah not really, just look at the goals not one of the goals were made because of us having 5 in midfiled and wolves were turd, 1 goal was a set piece, the other was a bad defensive error, and the other was a killer pass from peds that caught a bad defense flat on their heels (which roberts tried his best to miss).

We won that day because wolves were bad not because we had 5 in midfiled we could have had 3 in midfiled and still won, starting with 2 up front gives a message that you want to win, dunny was so far forward that he was basically a striker that game anyway.

I dont want to see rovers become a 1 dimensional team it doesnt take long to figure out how to beat a certain formation and sam has played 4.5.1 for years, we dont have the players to play in this manor.

[rebelmswar]

Grella and Andrews got to be the prems worst midfielders, one cant run whilst the other cant do anything but run. cheers Mr.Paul Ince.

The posts holding up the bar over Robinson did more work today than those two.

Andrews did clear a ball with his head that was going in, but whether the ball hit his head or vice versa I can not say.

He passed to our invisible 12th player at least twice.

I think the commentator said Grella's name once and that was to say that he hadn't seen him around much.

[Fraserkirky]

Grella was absolutely shocking, he is way to slow to play in this league. Did not win one header all afternoon.

MGP offers nothing should have been hooked before halt-time,totally lost it IMO.

Roberts couldn't hit a cows arse with a banjo.

Salago looks pointless unfortunatly.

442 please from now on.

Robinson

Emerton Samba Givet Chimbonda

Diouf N'Zonzi Dunn Hoilett

McCarthy Kalanic/Di Santo

Everton looked like Barcelona yesterday.

[TimmyJimmy]

Had to wait for the cold light of day before I posted. 'Disappointing' only partially covers it doesn't it.

We've always known the midfield was really weak so it shouldn't come as too much of a shock that it hasn't got better. Sam is between a rock and a hard place whatever he does with them. Play them in front of the back four like he did a few weeks back and the complaint is no one gets up to support the lone striker, play them further up to support the attack and we get crunched at the back who have zippo protection. If they are good enough then they should play like it, but they don't so they aren't. Sam sees everything in training and isn't deliberately going to leave better players out of the side. Bad as it is this midfield may be the best he has available, horrible thought, but what do you do?

He knows like we all know that they were rubbish so he's dropping them, something he hasn't been able to do until now because the replacements were all the long term injured, now he can, so he will.

Hoilett needs signing up pdq, bugger the cost just do it. Emo and Reidy deserve a chance, even if they stink they can't be worse than this. I sympathise with players being asked to cover roles they aren't equipped to do but the professional world is cruel and ruthless and Andrews and Gella need a period on the sidelines to allow others to take the weight for a while. We need an improvement.

Major disappointments were Dalgado who I thought was a spectator and out of his depth (strange to say when I consider the legend I'm talking about), Andrews and Grella as already said above, Roberts cannot play that lone striker role, he's a battering ram who creates for others - end of - Givet/Nelson - both just had one of those days.

Plus points - well it was an away game so can't be too suicidal about the result, and they aren't exactly a roll over club like the Fulhams, Portsmouths, Hulls etc of the EPL.

What to do? Exactly what Sam is saying he will do. Drop the midfield and recall the injured and pray they have a blinder. If they don't, and the boo boys get on the teams back, confidence will evaporate and we will have real problems. Tough matches coming up. Don't expect too much except over Bumley. Good news is that we get most of the top six out of the way. Before the end of the season all the others will have to play the big boys so don't go all suicidal on us when we don't get many points from the next 4 or 5.

Unless Sam has seen nothing from him in training then Nzonzi deserves some game time and Special K needs a full game with a proper partner, Benny? Where is Benny anyway?

We need to get better and we will, home form will be the key, not matches like this.

[Iceman]

Despite his a horror show, a defence of Salgado, Givet, Samba and Chimbo should not be breached that easily. I still have issues with our midfield. Ive defended Andrews for quite some time now, but when you have Bert and Hoiliett then you just cannot allow Andrews to start. We really need to shake things up, and the old guard has got to make way for 1 or 2 games. Diouf to be replaced by Hoiliett, Bert to replace Andrews and either a combination of Kalinic/Di Santo, or Di Santo/McCarthy or McCarthy/Kalinic. Roberts i have no more words for. And Jacobsen for Salgado.

Robinson

Jacobsen Samba Givet Chimbo

Emerton

Hoiliett Dunn Pedersen

Benni Kalinic

Subs: Di Santo, Brown, Elrio, Salgado, Diouf, Nelsen, Roberts

[philipl]

In the cold light of day, what is hitting me most forcibly is just how awful those goals were.

1- freekick within ten yards of our area (needlessly conceded) and Saha (THEIR ONLY FORWARD) goes unmarked and unmolested with a chum behind him equally untroubled for a near post tap in.

2- Saha (THEIR ONLY FORWARD) rises above Diouf from the edge of the six yard box and within the width of the goals to plant the header. No other Everton player anywhere near.

3- Nelsen tees up Yobo perfectly on the six yard line

To concede one rank bad goal is bad enough, but three of them!!!

[Mr. E]

I don't think what happened before those goals has really been talked about much though. First goal - Diouf hit the top bar seconds before, the 2nd - their keeper somehow blocked two shots one after the other from well within their penalty area. Classic examples of "if you don't score they'll score", but it was wrapped up so perfectly for Everton it's almost hard to believe.

[Big Fat Sam]

Well what a thrilling day that was.

Not going to dwell on the negatives, but there is one major positive to come out of this, Junior is ready and will make a contribution.

Its High time both him and N;zonzi where brought in permantly. Both maybe young and lacking experience but we look much better when they play. Whatever the issue is with Benni, Sam its time you sorted it out because we need goals desperatly and he's the only one we've got.