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And Forster for third choice?

Yellow gold would work a la 2006 that was a nice kit even if it does remind me too much of Owen

I think Everton will now become the Aston Villa of 5-6 years ago, the Lambert years

I’ve seen Cannibaga mentioned a few times, but when I Google him nothing comes up? Who is he and who does he play for? Is it a nickname?

With hopefully Trippier starting

Not a happy home life.

But professionalism is.... and that's not what Mike Ashley wanted

Castore logo looks like Fred Perry one

Kluivert, I know we saw a poor version of him but loved the way he played

George Weah seemed overrated - maybe I was too young. But was he really better than Shearer in that title-winning year at Blackburn Rovers where he won Ballon D'or? (1995)

Batistuta doesn't get enough respect but he was a beast.

Micah Richards given he is everywhere as a pundit, perhaps is able to glorify and overrate his past a little. Because of his louder than life personality, he is seated with bona fide legends of the Premier League in Shearer, Lineker, Keane, Neville, Henry etc as peers, whereas he was only good a for a few seasons before Zabaleta ensured he never got a look in, again.

Legend obviously at Roma, one club man and all that but I never got the hype around Totti. Never really saw 'talismanic' performances from him, that I did from the likes of Del Piero, Zola et al.

They call him one of the best left-backs ever - but is Ashley Cole really on the same level as Maldini? Perhaps one of those ones I didn't appreciate enough during his playing career

https://youtu.be/5HodDLvr3Wk Not sure how you embed videos but don't think this has been put in here yet...

Wasn't Geremi captain for one season?

Batty finished in the PFA team of the year with us in 1997… after we finished 13th! He was genuinely awesome and obviously highly respected by his peers too. We’ve only ever had him, Given and Coloccini in that team whilst with us.

I agree that Shearer doesn't have the best footy opinions, I'm glad he didn't become a manager as no doubt he would have been a PFM, no better than a Roy Keane type. Even when I watch the MOTD Top 10 stuff that he does with Gary Lineker and Micah Richards, it's decent banter etc, but don't always agree with his thoughts. As a striker though, awesome, fearsome, top tier. Truly a couple of sliding doors moment if SBR had come after Keegan instead, and had he not got that horrible 1997 injury to see what those extra couple of seasons would have done for him here in his Blackburn form.

If you looked at them you’d never guess rangers v Frankfurt is the Europa league and higher calibre tournament whilst Roma v Feyenoord is the Conference League given the calibre of teams

I do sometimes think of an alternative universe where Graham Carr's top recommendations were all listened to and signed without Ashley's tightness, where could NUFC have ended up from that solid base of 5th season, even despite Pardew's limitations. We could have had Salah, directly from Egypt I believe (or maybe Basel). Aubemeyang from St Etienne. Varane before Real Madrid. Too many other big names to mention. Carr had one hell of an eye to be honest, even his flops (Marveaux, Yanga Mbiwa, Thauvin, Mbemba et al) were still decent players but poorly coached / managed here). Goes to show, you get the wrong manager to manage your precious human resources, you destroy progress and no level of decent recruitment will help nullify the rot.

Ba was a beast, strong, quick and could finish all types of goals - could take free kicks and penalties too. Actually a very underrated player over the course of his career as he scored everywhere he went, needed to stay in one place for long enough to leave a legacy in my opinion. But a great and very likeable guy too. Think he associates his time at NUFC as his peak and the time he enjoyed the most, ditto Cisse.

Hugely more influential in the middle, when Wood came on Joelinton started doing what he does best in the middle of the park and winning the ball back. I don’t like him up too or even on the left. Most clubs aren’t as weak as Norwich, so he’s merely average there whereas he’s almost world class in the middle enforcer role.

No one is a bigger Keegan fan than me but what I meant was their management career was on a par or better than their immense playing talent. Keegan was a great manager but for a short period and never won anything which placed him below top top tier unlike his playing career. Tbh the one I thought people would take exception to was Dalglish as he did actually win the PL with Blackburn and Div 1 with Liverpool as a manager but tanked here and Celtic… you can see I’ve never quite forgiven him for his terrible time here haha. SBR is a good shout but his management career perhaps was more impressive than his playing career, he was a decent player but only got 20 caps or so for England. Hoddle did show potential of matching his playing career in his early management days but then fell by the wayside with the fallout with the England comments and never quite recovered. Perhaps the other standout exception who were great at both (other than Guardiola who I’m happy to be corrected about) is Johan Cruyff.

Fair enough, to be fair I remember when we were linked to him under SBR being over the moon excited but I meant historically in terms of stature, perhaps he didn’t have the profile or reputation of the others. As others have said it might be down to being criminally underrated. I thought he was more like a Dechamps or Dunga reputationally who was a top player for his country and even captain but perhaps not the highest tier on the world stage for his generation, which many of the others were.

I’ve never understood why ex top players are so well revered and well recieved as PL football managers. A familiar name is ok but what do they actually have about them in terms of coaching? In business or in any other field, even in football, top players get that way through intense coaching and development over years, even decades. Many kids start in the academy at 7 and don’t peak until 27, daily training to get there. It’s not hard to see why Howe is excelling, he is the same age as Gerrard and Lampard but has 12-13 years experience in coaching, management, philosophy etc. even if it’s at a lower level, you still need to motivate a group of players to play out of their skin for you. When you have to do it with no money you have no choice but to find the best of the best ways to do it through sheer ingenuity and hard work, as you cannot buy your way out of problems. whereas for top players, when the going gets tough they don’t know how to adapt, it’s new territory. They haven’t experienced real difficulty. Thinking back, all the best players of their era had a lot of limitations as coaches. Which top player really matched their playing success as a manager? Gullit, Souness, Dalglish, Keane, Maradona, Barnes, Pearce, Bryan Robson, Rijkaard, Henry, even our very own Shearer and dare I say even Keegan to an extent. Guardiola was a good player but was never a top player of the previous lists ilk. And even so, has cherrypicked all his jobs. Zidane you could make a case for of course but I would argue we haven’t even seen enough of him to determine his skills as a top class coach. Conte was like Guardiola, a good not great player. the point here is that Howe has done his 10,000 hours away from the limelight and therefore is fully poised and ready to be entering his peak as a manager with us. And it’s very exciting! Wenger was another one who was a student of the game, had done a long stint elsewhere before entering his dynasty period with Arsenal. All of this also shows how silly Everton were to go for a big name over the proven meticulous Benitez, who I guarantee would have got them out of trouble this season.