[Archived] Everton Preview

[Bobby G]

Feeling confident about the look of our team, especially with the emergence of Jones, Olsson and the re-emergence of MGP. Sam was right to say it would have cost 6 million to replace him. That is why we signed him up to a 4 year deal. He is very important to the new look Rovers. If we have a little more potency to create more opportunities for the striker/s, then we may be a surprise package cause our defence is beginning to look as solid as Sam's old Bolton side, which was a very difficult side to beat.

[jim mk2]

. Not much more you could ask for.

Except you giving your bete noire Pedersen a pat on the back for his man of the match performance ?

[Hughesy]

The MGP arguement is simple....

If he had gone...then we would need an attacking midfielder, a striker and a left winger.

Also today Andrews would have come on when Dunny went off..........The thought is just scary!!

[greco]

right up until we scored, the team got stuck in and stressed a really good everton side.

after the goal, we slowly but surely retreated more and more.

everton had alot of posession, but wasnt really able to create anything, until late in the game.

it wasnt pretty, but thats how opening games are at times.

MoM salgado

[SamTheShrew]

Greart performance, defence was really solid today, and Everton were successfully nullified.

Apart from the final save, Robinson had nothing to do.

As much as it pains me to say it, I thought the original Diouf was motm today, he seemed to try really hard - his cross for N'zonzi was first rate.

Jones also oozed class in an unfamiliar position aswell - hopefully the takeover will give us greater strength in resisting the big boys.

Happy days at a sunny Ewood!

also, one more thing - the guy in the blue and white halved full body suit entertaining the Riverside was hilarious! Keep up the good work that man. Is it somebody off here?

[brfcshabba]

also, one more thing - the guy in the blue and white halved full body suit entertaining the Riverside was hilarious! Keep up the good work that man. Is it somebody off here?

Think it might be Vinjay

[Nelsta]

wooohooo i can watch match of the day tonight.

[Exiled_Rover]

Took a few snaps of the view from my new ST seat during the game. Delighted with it!

What a solid performance! Pedersen was excellent and got stuck in and it was a master-stroke to play Phil Jones as the anchor man. Well done to the poster yesterday who wanted to see him play in midfield. Overall we fully deserved the win.

The only sour part of the match were a few Evertonians a couple of rows in front who couldn't contain themselves when Jack Rodwell came on the pitch. Anyway, no harm (apart from a bit of infuriation felt) and their money is in our coffers

Well done Rovers.

Very similar view to the one I had for the past decade. Good seats, if you can stand the lack of atmosphere.

[Brandeburg]

Great 3 points (3 more than we got against Everton last season) and that is a really good interview given by Sam.

PS I now know Mame is pronounced Mammy but then Sam calls the other Diouf "alledge" so that might not be the most reliable guide!

His name was pronounced Mamm during his years in Norway, can't guarantee it's correct, but Norwegian journalists are pretty accurate when it comes to "exotic" names.

[philipl]

My goodness, I felt physically ill looking at that shirt colour. Reminds me of a particularly foul tasting viscous cough medicine I was occasionally given on prescription when I was about 7.

Great photos by the way.

[USABlue]

i did forget tomention a couple of things.

Phil Dowd is homophobic he kept whistling at the pink shirts.

Allardyce set his team up to counteract Everton and to a man they did their job.

Those advocating it wasnt pretty, I think your being harsh. The football was far better at times. How effective was Evertons tippy tappy sideways football ? Truth is it wasnt effective as until the 88th minute Robbo was unemployed. The Rovers passing at time was crisp and effective. The effort was on show from the players, there was a will to win and a work ethic. You dont just play pretty football first of all you do what you have to do to win the game. Rovers nullified Everton, and took their chance when it came along, when we were on the back foot the team defended and defended well. Thats all we can ask for. We were NOT playing muppets we were polaying a very effective and well drilled football team, its just we were far more effective at our job than they were at theirs.

So please give a bit of credit where its due.

That shirt ranks alongisde the canary yellow of Newcastle, its truly girly awful.

Well said that man. I am amazed at some of the negative comments I read here. I enjoyed the game, we look solid at the back. I think M Diouf is going to be a good addition but I think he needs some help up front. 3 points in the bag against a difficult team.

[OsloRover]

His name was pronounced Mamm during his years in Norway, can't guarantee it's correct, but Norwegian journalists are pretty accurate when it comes to "exotic" names.

If he comes from a french-speaking country, which Senegal is, then "Mamm" should be correct

[brian_gallagher85]

Ye the "e" should be silent.

[booth]

also, one more thing - the guy in the blue and white halved full body suit entertaining the Riverside was hilarious! Keep up the good work that man. Is it somebody off here?

He was an absolute superstar.

Got told there was another one in a different body suit strutting around as well.

[Hughesy]

wooohooo i can watch match of the day tonight.

Enjoy our 60 seconds showing? Missing the Mamm chances out

[roversfan99]

When he had his shot saved i think he was offside so i can understand why they didnt include it, the length of our match was pathetic i agree Hughesy

[RibbleValleyRover]

There needs to be some perspective here. It was no question a brilliant result and some real resolute defending at times but if we play like we did today against a better side there is a great chance to come unstuck. First half especially after the goal we just kept launching the ball up field and giving it away time after time. We were lucky today that Everton didn't have the quality or the form to make use of that possession.

You think we could survive against Chelsea or United if they had 58% possession and allowed them 14 shots?

Great result, very good start to the season but let's not carried away here we will need to improve.

[RibbleValleyRover]

So you would be happy to give Chelsea and Man United almost 60% possession and 14 shots? Keep in mind 58% possesion was largely due to us lumping the ball forward and giving it away, it wasn't Everton taking the ball off us.

Please read the post i made, i gave credit, it was a great result and i am happy with it. But there is still room for improvement.

[Tom]

Did anyone see our line up according to the sky sports football app?

Reminded me of our opening day under Souness, who came up with that nonsense?

[roversfan99]

Good point RVR, one thing that annoyed Sam(as was apparent on the touch-line) was understandably the way everyone sat back. Defending starts at the front and Diouf wasnt really pressing, the midfield just kept going further and further back without trying to get out and thats why it got a bit nail-biting; they may have equalised further on in the season if Everton were at 100%.

I must say though that our defense(and goalkeeper) are rock-solid, much better than teams we are expected to compete with(basically everyone but the top 8). Sam has built from the back like youd expect from a manager of his experience. Robinsons confidence was shot when he arrived and under the shambles of Ince when we shipped goals i doubt it improved, but Allardyce seems to have gradually built it up again. Nelsen and Samba were already here but they seem united as they were under Hughes in their prime, Nelsen is getting on and has his critics(including me at times) but hes still an asset and Samba has grown in stature. Givet and Salgado have been shrewd additions and have added experience at the back, with both players now fans favorites. Sam has brought Jones in at the right time and he just gets better and better, and also Hanley got a taste of the Premiership last season. You can tell Sam was a defender, and even if our strikers are misfiring we know our defence gives us a chance.

[Scotty]

I've heard a few people now say that today's game was boring and that we didn't play well. I really don't know what these people want or expect to see. Everton clearly have better players than us. Moyes has built a fantastic squad over the years, spending more money than people think mind, and I'm sure they'll be challenging for the top 4 come May next year. Yet we contained them superbly today and restricted them to maybe one half chance at best.

Playing a flexible 4-1-4-1 formation with Jones as the holding midfielder proved a masterstroke. Everton had lots of possession, were allowed the ball up to the final third of the field, but were snuffed out every time they tried to thread a pass through the middle of our defence. They never got behind our defence the whole game. In addition, our centre-halves headed every cross away and our midfield blocked almost every shot. Robinson saved the only one that got through.

At the other end we could have scored after 3 minutes when Olsson was put through by Pedersen, we did score a few minutes later after a sharp Kalinic finish from Howard's howler, and should have wrapped the game up late in the second half when N'Zonzi missed a free header that seemed easier to score. If we'd have won 3-0 Everton couldn't have complained. And we did all this without our main attacking threat, Dunn, for most of the match.

Robinson only had one save to make and he made it well. His handling and distribution were excellent throughout. I've not rated him much since he signed, but I'm starting to get converted.

Our defence were superb throughout. Samba and Nelsen headed everything clear, Salgado and Givet stopped most of the crosses, and both Jones and N'Zonzi protected them well. Special mention for Jones who looks like he could be a superstar. He's still a bit raw, his distribution still needs work, but he's already an excellent defender and today he showed that he's also got good technique and ability when required.

I thought our more creative midfielders played really well today. Diouf mk1 regularly carried the ball from defence to attack, won free-kicks and throws when we needed to relieve pressure, and provided a couple of excellent crosses (particularly the one for N'Zonzi late in the game). Olsson's pace was a threat in the first kalf when he looked like he could get behind Everton's defence at will. In the second half he played deeper and concentrated more on defending, a job he did equally as well. And Pedersen was excellent, showing a good range of passing and providing a threat at set-pieces.

Up front Kalinic took his goal well, but then he started to frustrate me a little as the game wore on. Yes he was isolated (Dunn going off early didn't help), yes he had to feed off scraps most of the time, but when he had the opportunity to hold the ball and bring the midfield into play he more often than not tried to turn and run at the defence instead. Consequently we kept losing the ball. Diouf mk2 was much better at this, using his pace against a tiring defence to good effect by running the channels and keeping possession. A promising debut.

It's obviously very early days, one result doesn't really mean anything at this stage of the season, but there were genuine signs today that we could have another decent season. We looked very solid, we looked confident, and we carried a goal threat against a very good team. Let's see what we can do away from Ewood now.

[grizfoot]

One thing which can almost be guaranteed on every opening day of a new football season is a fine sprinkling of August sunshine and I'm glad to say this year was no different. The pre-match line-up announcement did come as a bit of a surprise (I should have known better by now really), five defenders, three wingers and Nzonzi on the bench, what the hell is going on here? Thankfully I recalled Phil Jones playing in midfield during pre-season and slowly came to the conclusion that it must be our traditional 4-4-1-1 formation with Pedersen and Jones in central midfield, my conclusion was correct. All being said the team and indeed the tactics throughout the game where indeed no different to what we witnessed last season.

I haven't had the time to read through the entire collection of posts on here but I can safely guess they'll be two contrasting opinions, one saying we played mediocre football and if it wasn't for a poor mistake from Howard we wouldn't have won the game. Two, we worked hard, defended well and limited a very highly rated and talented Everton side to one meaningful effort on target in injury-time with a long-range shot from their centreback.

Myself I'd be more in the second camp. The "Big Sam way" of football was summed up totally in today's performance. The mentality of strong defensive play foremost complemented with direct play into the penalty area to try and cause as much havoc as possible. The law of averages say the more time you put the ball in dangerous areas the more likely you are to get a goal-scoring chance. Another obvious ploy is that when we do go 1-0 we very often try and defend and sit back on that lead. It has cost us a few times in the past but the large majority of the time you'll find it works very well (Dingles and Villa both away last season spring to mind immediately). We barely had a kick of the ball for the last 25 minutes of the match and even less so when we switched to 5-4-1, this is by no means entertaining to watch but it is effective. At times we did seem to drop too deep and invite pressure but I can see from watching the team under Big Sam that this is what they have been told to do. It's clear that we only but real pressure on the ball 30 yards or so from goal, there's no need to go chasing down defenders or central midfielders in their own half as this loses the shape and leaves spaces. It does annoy me when people start shouting push out which is exactly the sort of thing we don't really want to be doing especially when we are so poor at retaining the ball for any length of time. The only time Big Sam was gesturing for the team to push out was from Everton throw-ins in an attempt to try and box them in and win the ball back high up the pitch.

The most interesting aspect of the game for me was seeing Phil "The next John Terry" Jones playing in central midfield. Overall I thought he did a decent job, he's got the energy levels to get up and down the pitch he's also not afraid to get stuck in (something we lack in central midfield at times). Dare I say it he resembled a certain Mr. Savage during parts of his play today. My only worry about him playing in their long-term is that his passing is more centre-back than centre-mid, although you could argue he doesn't really need to be a great passer of the ball as we frequently go back to our favourite "long punt" forward.

The same long punts that Kalinic did very well to control, I noticed he looks a lot stronger physically than he did last season and he definitely gave Distin and Jagielka a hard time. His goal was well-taken despite the error, very good striker's instinct. It would be close between him and Givet, who I thought made a couple of key blocks and tackles and was generally his usual solid self, for my Man of the Match.

Overall we worked hard and also created a few other decent half-chances (Olsson's chip and Nzonzi's header), whilst Everton for all their possession had very little goal threat. Some would say it wasn't the most entertaining match but I'd say it was a well-deserved three points purely based on the fact we created the most chances and our sound defensive display totally nullified the Everton attack.

[roversfan99]

Dont know if its been mentioned but according to Football First the reason Nzonzi didnt start was that he was back late from international duty with Frances u21's.

I must say it is encouraging to know we have the versatility in our squad to cover for him and that Sam was willing to try Jones there instead of sticking with Andrews. Not only was Nzonzi not considered as a starter, you have to remember Grella was injured. Well i assume he is, i guess it dosent need to be said anymore.

[Hughesy]

1. So you would be happy to give Chelsea and Man United almost 60% possession and 14 shots?

2. Keep in mind 58% possesion was largely due to us lumping the ball forward and giving it away, it wasn't Everton taking the ball off us.

3. But there is still room for improvement.

1 - We could have had 100 shots from distance or whatever but whats the point if it isnt on target....forget the 14. They had 1 meaningful attempt. 1 save was required from Robbo, which he made with ease. We wouldnt allow better teams to keep the ball with that ease....we were happy to let them have the ball, we contained them, there was no space around the defence and it was going to take a 25 yard stunner to break us today.

2 - They had 58% because we were comfortable and disciplined. We basically said 'keep trying if you wish, because we are not getting pulled out of position, and we know if we dont do that, you wont score'.

3 - There is ALWAYS room for improvement.

Yet we contained them superbly today and restricted them to maybe one half chance at best.

Playing a flexible 4-1-4-1 formation with Jones as the holding midfielder proved a masterstroke. Everton had lots of possession, were allowed the ball up to the final third of the field, but were snuffed out every time they tried to thread a pass through the middle of our defence. They never got behind our defence the whole game.

Spot on.....excellent tactics, excellent defensive display & a very good Everton team were nullified.

[brian_gallagher85]

The way I'm looking at this RVR is simple. We tactically out played an Everton side who are almost always consistantly in the top 7 or 8, if we can play like we did today against the teams that are poorer than them and win, then I really don't care how we do against the big boys