oldtype

One thing's for sure, our approach to transfers isn't going to change any time soon (and rightly so in many regards), so with the mega cash bonanza next season he'll be able to claw that back much more quickly than up to this point. If we stay up. I'm with you on the transfers, i think we go about it the right way to an extent. But you mustn't refuse to buy to the detriment of the team, like we did in the summer. I think this is where their lack of football knowledge kicks in, any fool knew we needed more players, all we got was some nonsense about purple players. Such non football speak from non football men. I'm hoping they learn from each mistake. Every plane crash stops a hundred more, to steal a strange fact that floats about in my brain. It's not "lack of football knowledge." Just a different set of priorities.

Thankfully not even bothered.

I'm not even worried about transfers. It's who we'll actually appoint that scares me shitless. This board's record with appointing actual managers is, in order, Kevin Keegan, Joe Kinnear, Alan Shearer, and Alan Pardew. There are few things I fear more than letting them pick another manager.

Time for people to think of alternatives as there's every chance we'll get nothing at Norwich either. I'd like Martinez, but I don't see us spending much so I've already given a cheap alternative in the other thread. Who else is a candidate? I don't know the foreign market very well. Realistically we're looking at the list of unattached managers. We won't spend money for a manager and based on track record and the board's personality I highly doubt we'd go foreign. People like Mark Hughes, Shearer(), Owen Coyle, Alan Curbishley, Roberto Di Matteo, Gordon Strachan...

My head still says it's the wrong decision, but I really just can't take it anymore. He has the next match and that's it as far as I'm concerned. Not that my opinion matters.

Embarrassing shit. I'm normally rational to a fault but I don't know how much of this I can take to be honest.

Blaming Pardew is much more productive than turning against Sammy for playing badly at age 20 in a struggling team.

The admins here are evil

There's a great deal of complex thinking and preparation that goes into a match of professional football. Go read a book or something. Have you played? You can tell me to read all the books you like, pouring too much thought into other teams and their tactics and worrying about what they are going to do is not a good thing imo. Don't get me wrong, preparation is key. Vital in fact, but it has to be preparation to play to YOUR strengths. This is what I mean, it's a simple game it really is, don't spend days worrying about opposition. I agree. I think you've got to know the opposition, know how to exploit them and how to stifle them but do it in a positive, constructive manner which focuses on your own teams strengths. You've got to do both really, play to your strengths and stifle the opposition. You're teams "strengths" also don't exist in isolation, you need to analyze how they interact with the opposition's qualities so you can leverage them for maximum effect. Either way, in no way, shape, or form is top level football a "simple" game. That's honestly just something fans make up to slag off managers and players.

There's a great deal of complex thinking and preparation that goes into a match of professional football. Go read a book or something.

Nothing to do with Pardew, but this is one of the worst and most ignorant stereotypes about football at the top level.

Switching Cisse centrally would put Marveaux up front and then somebody who wouldn't normally be playing in the center. That's three players displaced from the formation they've been practicing all week. It didn't pay off but it's a somewhat understandable decision. We won't be having this problem again, at least. He could had played Bigi. Tiote and Anita in midfield. Right, like I said, that's three players (Bigi, Marveaux, Cisse) displaced from the positions they'd been drilling for all week. (Closer to two I suppose, since Bigi would have been preparing to play CM anway)

Switching Cisse centrally would put Marveaux up front and then somebody who wouldn't normally be playing in the center. That's three players displaced from the formation they've been practicing all week. It didn't pay off but it's a somewhat understandable decision. We won't be having this problem again, at least.

It's a shame because if we were only doing moderately badly and mid-table mediocrity was pretty much a foregone conclusion, we could put a lot of effort into the cups. As it is we're going to need to basically throw these matches and focus on the league until survival is likely.

Lots of teams have relied on long balls against us this year, probably because they've realized that we can't deal with them.

Is he injured? You'd think he'd be making the bench at least if not.

We'd probably be coping with this situation a lot better if we had figured out a way to keep Guthrie, come to think of it. Hopefully one of the lessons learned from the summer is the importance of trying to hold on to squad players like Guthrie and Best.

I know nothing about tactics but it is very hard to explain Shola central and Cisse wide. Best explanation I can come up with is that they had done match preparation in anticipation of playing Ba central, but had to switch at the last minute so he just slotted Shola in to minimize displacement.

We'll be too busy looking for a new manager to sign any players. Then we'll fail to find a manager and end up with Mark Hughes on January 30th. We all know what will happen. I've mentioned this before, but it's far more likely that Pardew will have a epiphany and improving as a manager rather than us actually appointing someone useful.

Marveaux and Obertan made reasonable attempts, Shola tried as well. The thing about Everton is they didn't need to rely on individuals trying to change a game on their own. Baines' 35 yard free kick was a bit of a game-changer surely? Yes it was, but they were tearing into us time after time anyway. It was practically inevitable. Correction: Martin Atkinson was tearing into us time after time. We were decent before the goal.

El Diego. It's fate.

Atkinson handed set piece after set piece to them on a fucking plate until they decided to score one. Ridiculous. Heads dropped leading to a pathetic performance after going 2-1 down but it wouldn't have got to the point if the ref wasn't wearing a blue shirt.

This is the most bent referee I've ever seen in two decades of watching football.

Every single loose ball falls to an Everton player. Every single one.

Belief has just gone. Too many sucker punches