It is now time to switch to a new Money AM football blog as the world cup is now over and we all look to the future.....World cup 2010 is over, Bravo Espana, and Forlan, once again and bring on the new season !.....I never expected the last thread to be such a success...thanks all.... so this new one might go on for years without the need to edit the title...we shall see...

Stoke 2-2 Man Utd

MU struggled a bit against Stoke and spoilt their clean sheet on opposition goals.

At the time, I didn't quite get why Mourinho wouldn't/didn't shake the Stoke manager's hand at the end of the game and yet did shake with all the rest of their management team.

Woeful Blues make a mockery of top-six ambitions
BY LYNDON LLOYD 10/09/2017 21 COMMENTS [Jump to last] SHARE:

EVERTON 0 - 3 TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR

It was only a few weeks ago that Everton’s impressive transfer business was being heralded by a usually ambivalent national media and the Blues were being talked about in terms of being genuine top-four contenders.

The return of Wayne Rooney, admittedly past the peak of his powers but a world-famous name nonetheless, gave the show of ambition an added layer of legitimacy and Evertonians waited for the two or three additions to the squad that would top of an excellent transfer window.

Those signings never came, of course. Romelu Lukaku, the source of football’s most important currency — goals — departed for huge money but wasn’t replaced; 32-year-old Leighton Baines (not to mention the rest of a defence boasting a 35-year-old Phil Jagielka and Ashley Williams, also 32) was left without cover; and if there was any desire on the part of the management to add pace and/or genuine creativity to the side, there was precious little evidence of it.

The product of this largely one-dimensional approach to recruitment this summer has been Everton’s uninspiring start to the new season, one which has, over the past two games, lurched from concerning into the realm of deeply demoralising.

Worse, the team looks like a collection of acquired individuals bereft of a plan, an identity, or any consistent attacking threat which means that when the wheels come off defensively you get the kind of humbling Everton suffered today at the hands of Tottenham Hotspur.

Seldom, if ever in the Premier League era, has a Spurs side enjoyed such an easy ride at Goodison Park, a venue that had become a veritable fortress for Ronald Koeman’s side since the turn of the year. By the same token, it’s hard to recall the Blues so lacking in desire or spirit in a home game against highly-fancied opposition in recent years other than the 3-0 reverse against Chelsea at the tail end of last season, the only defeat at Goodison in 2017 before today.

For the first time in the league this season Koeman abandoned the five-man defensive line he had been using, perhaps to keep one of his experienced centre halves in reserve with an eye on the upcoming trip to Italy in the Europa League or perhaps because he identified something in Tottenham’s makeup that was better tackled with a flat back four.

Cuco Martina made his first Premier League start in an Everton jersey — many will hope, probably in vain, that it’s his last — while Davy Klaassen and Morgan Schneiderlin returned to the side and Sandro Ramirez was preferred to Dominic Calvert-Lewin alongside Rooney in attack.

The opening exchanges didn’t offer much hint of the debacle to follow from the home side as Rooney and Martina combined well down the right and the latter found Sandro in the middle but the Spaniard couldn’t guide the ball on goal from a difficult position.

Gylfi Sigurdsson, making his Goodison debut, had a couple of early but unproductive set-piece opportunities, Williams was booked for pulling Harry Kane back while both Eric Dier and Christian Eriksen escaped yellow cards from erratic referee Graham Scott shortly afterwards.

The warning signs for the Blues came before the match was a quarter of an hour old. Twice Ben Davies took advantage of far too much space afforded him by Martina to whip in dangerous crosses from the Spurs right. Dele Alli chested down the first and teed up Eriksen but the Dane hooked a first-time effort uncharacteristically wide; the second fell to Moussa Sissoko whose goal-bound effort was blocked well by Williams

The opening goal would come from the other flank, though, and in annoyingly unfortunate circumstances. A corner on side eventually ended up on the Tottenham right where Kane tried to swing in a cross but ended up drifting his centre over Jordan Pickford and under the crossbar to make it 1-0 with 27 minutes gone.

Sandro saw one snapshot at the other end cannon off Toby Alderweireld’s head from close range after good work by Rooney but it was a rare opening for Everton that was swiftly followed by a second goal for the visitors.

Sucked into his six-yard box, Martina waved a leg at a cross that had been flighted over everybody in the middle which left Davies in space to force Pickford into a save but he could only push it out to Eriksen who converted the rebound from close range.

Alli should have buried Everton in stoppage time but, completely unmarked in the middle, he mis-kicked yet another delivery from wide on Tottenham’s left before Martina gifted the ball to Kane and the striker dragged his shot wide.

Kane made no mistake less than a minute into the second half, though. Laying the ball out to Davies with Martina badly exposed again, he continued his run untracked by Schneiderlin and calmly side-footed a first-time finish past Pickford to make it 3-0.

That goal ripped up whatever plan Koeman had had for the second period having thrown on Tom Davies and Calvert-Lewin for Klaassen and Sandro and for the next 20 minutes, all the chances were created by Spurs.

Kane and Eriksen combined impressively in the 53rd minute for the latter to volley towards the far corner but Pickford was equal to it. They carved their hosts open again a minute later but Alli’s attempted cross came off Schneiderlin’s heel and Pickford saved again to deny Kane.

Sissoko then tried to get in on the act as Kieran Trippier picked him out in a laughable amount of space in the middle but he made a hash of the free header which went well wide.

Lloris nearly made it mildly interesting by tying himself into all sorts of knots trying to play it out from the back and passed it straight to Idrissa Gueye but the Senegal international failed to bother his goal with a first-time shot aiming for the empty net.

Everton sputtered into a bit of life too late in the proceedings as the game ticked through the last 10 minutes after Nikola Vlasic had come on for his debut following his deadline-day move from Hajduk Split. It was a cameo that featured some neat touches and confident running that ensured he would walk off at the end as one of a very small number of Blues players to emerge with any credit from a pitiful performance.

Meanwhile, Baines despatched a fine cross to Rooney that the veteran air-kicked badly and both Calvert-Lewin and Sigurdsson had shots charged down before Rooney headed disappointingly over. In the final reckoning, Everton had just one shot on target and failed to trouble Lloris with a shot all game… as damning a statistic as you can imagine for a team supposedly challenging today’s opponents for a place in the top four.

Let’s get the supposedly mitigating circumstances out the way first. Yes, this is a team featuring a number of new faces, some of them who are new to the Premier League, who will take time to bed in and gel. And, yes, Everton were handed a brutal start to the new league season — few fans were wild with expectation over the number of points that might be gleaned from a run of games against four of last season’s top six in the first five fixtures.

It’s not the fact that we have picked up a solitary point from those difficult games so far that is the problem, however. It’s how poor, how toothless and how utterly directionless they have looked in all but the game at Manchester City when there at least appeared to be a game plan and they wanted to have a go. Two shots on target in that match, zero at Chelsea and just one today… obviously you can’t hope to win football matches like that.

Koeman, a man steeped in the Total Football of Holland’s finest era and a Barcelona legend in his own right, is presiding over some awful yard-dog football that is, on the evidence of today, marrying the worst elements of his three predecessors’ reigns: the striker-less days of Walter Smith, the defensive and cowing disposition of some of David Moyes’s teams, and the spineless and defensively shambolic performances in the worst days under Roberto Martinez.

Tactically, he looks to be a novice despite his lengthy CV. His team has no width, no pace, no creativity and too many like-minded players stuffed into the same line-up. Sigurdsson, deployed out on the left, might as well have sat on the bench and only come on to take set-pieces such was has anonymity on the day. Klaassen, clearly an intelligent player who could be a great asset in a functioning team, played a similar role to the Icelandic international but offered little when the side was crying out for a consistent link between midfield and attack.

So, too, Gueye and Schneiderlin — the Frenchman was abysmal, it has to be said — who perform the same disruptive function in front of the back four but leave Everton short when defence turns to attack. That left Sandro once again chasing lost causes, not helped by Rooney’s lacklustre (bordering on disinterested) distribution in forward areas, and Martina to take the wooden spoon as a glaringly ill-considered addition to a supposedly top-seven team full stop, let alone a starter ahead of Mason Holgate who, playing as a makeshift fullback, at least has the positional awareness to do it justice even if it’s clearly not his best position. Moreover, it’s hard to see how even an inexperienced Jonjoe Kenny could have been any worse.

If those early forays into Europe could be chalked up to pre-season rustiness and a lack of peak fitness, what can explain away the abject displays at Stamford Bridge and at Goodison this afternoon? Performances characterised by aimless hit-and-hope fare that was epitomised by the kick-off to the second half: Everton restarted the match with a backwards pass and a hopeful punt forward to a hopelessly out-matched Rooney and less than 60 seconds later, Tottenham scored their third. School of Science it most definitely wasn’t.

Everton under Koeman have no answer to the high press, they go backwards far too often and they have no focal point up front which means the ball keeps coming back. Again, this isn’t just a question of us having played last season’s top three and lost; we look lost at the moment and it’s difficult to see where the progress has been made with an outlay of £140m on new players.

There is plenty of time, of course, and it was only a few short months ago that this looked like an Everton team that could go places if it could just work out how to win away from home. Time for the manager to really earn his abundant corn and figure out a way to get his side playing basic football again or this is going to be a very long, frustrating season.

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Reader Comments (21)
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Mick Quirke
1 Posted 10/09/2017 at 08:14:31 Pretty damning that, Lyndon. We have to start picking up points quickly and deliver in the Europa League or the mood's gonna turn nasty.
And not just for Koeman. Lots of talk of £140 million but it was very little in net terms and would have been practically nothing if Barkley had gone to Chelsea.

We'd known Lukaku was leaving well before the end of last season and no-one came in. Was Giroud our only real option?

And the lack of pace! All top teams have pace to burn. Without Coutinho, it's all the Shite have, but it can be devastating. If our game plan against the top teams is principally to contain, how can you get any respite if you have no pace on the counter?

Two big games coming up and it's difficult to see us getting anything at Old Trafford.

David Johnson
2 Posted 10/09/2017 at 08:44:03 Most on here would have settled for a top half finish last season. We did a bit better than that and got seventh. We actually have a decent defence when pitted against the sides who finished below us, but age and a real lack of pace at the back is absolutely exploited by the top managers in the land time after time. The side Koeman inherited needed a huge overhaul and we shouldn't forget that. Some of his comments thus far seem to suggest that he was probably promised more than has been delivered in this respect. Would he have spread the signings more evenly throughout the team if he'd known or should he have known by now so is himself culpable, who knows. This is Everton after all and nothing is ever as it seems. There's been lots of talk about breaking the top 4/6 and transfer war chests and stadiums. Think we're probably all a bit more realistic this morning. If the project exists it is to develop youth so I expect we'll need a bit of patience.
Mike Davies
3 Posted 10/09/2017 at 08:57:53 Damning and mirrors my thoughts exactly. I can accept losing, even by a greater margin than against Spurs, if there were signs of progress, development or some kind of plan.
No width, no pace, all 5 midfielders are of 2 sorts: destructive, holding, defensive players with limited creativity, or slow No10s who need space and time to create, and in this team are rarely afforded either.

Due to the formation Gylfi is pushed out wide, which for me is the main reason why he failed at Spurs. He's a number 10!

I understand using Holgate (a centre back) at right back if we are going with a more defensive approach but surely if we are looking at using the full backs as an attacking outlet, Kenny is a better option for numerous reasons than Martina?

I hope there is a plan that our very well paid, vastly experienced manager is developing, and that as just a fan with no football qualifications, I just can't see it.

Tony Marsh
4 Posted 10/09/2017 at 08:57:55 Those of us who have watched Everton for a long time know the signs. We can smell the bullshit from the board and just instinctively know when a manager has lost it or just doesn't have it.
We have been brought up on disappointent and I'm afraid we are witnessing another David Moyes scenario but a lot earlier in Koemans tenure than even I thought possible. Koeman is a dead man walking.Well he would be at another club.

We are terrible. Koeman's signings and tactics are shocking. It's so painful to watch.

SOS Big Sam is all we can do right now to stave off a relegation scrap. Seriously, that's how serious this is.

Mark Hughes made not just one but two unsuccessful attempts to shake hands with Jose Mourinho after this spiky encounter on Saturday – even pursing the Manchester United manager to the dressing room, it has been revealed.

United had let it be known the initial snub had occurred because the Stoke manager had shoved his counterpart in the chest, before swearing at him and calling for his dismissal. Mourinho even walked out of a TV interview when asked for more details.

On Sunday, Stoke said that Hughes had later attempted a reconciliation outside the United dressing room. This second attempted handshake was again rebuffed.

Hughes is fiery but a man. Mourinho is moody and a tart.

Bang on - time the FA did something as that hardly portrays the right image for the game

reference to --- Mourinho is moody and a tart.

and a criminal also when coaching in Spain, attacking you from behind

De goer gone looks like Roy back , what a laugh .

Burnley very much second best against Palace yesterday who had loads of possession and chances but could not score.

To sack a manager after only four games is bonkers especially when they had just played so well.

Burnley up to seventh place with Liverpool away next.

That's a very honest assessment Stanley. I was listening to Talk Sport while stopped in a traffic jam near Stonehenge yesterday and they were arguing the same thing. So they are going to trade a goer for a gone.

10 managers in 10 years for Palace isn't IT.? absolutely barmy.

My old team mate Roystern to take over at Palace after this? http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/41229891

He must be barking or desperate 😂

Benteke best corner taker at Palace according Roy!!!

Handy with his elbows, the nasty piece of work.

How long is Heaton out for Stan ?

Looks like a couple of months according to Dyche Dil still Pope looks more then adequate from what I've seen, do need a proper back up though now.

Another football drunk? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-41236833

CL served up no surprises

When you see how Celtic have dominated Scottish football in recent years, the term big fish, little pond comes to mind. Rangers and Celtic really need to get out and play with the big boys.

They would only be an average championship team at best.

Correction: bigger boys.

"They would only be an average championship team at best." Leave your lot out of it 😃