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...

5 or 6 teams all with a shout this season of Title.

I have no time for the eye gouger.

There is a season - gurn, gurn, gurn.

Don't worry, media masturbation over Klopp and Pep is unlikely to stop.

Cardiff going for back to back wins tonight , not happened since March so here's hoping.

Is this Ludogorets Razad....or whatever it's called some sort of throat sweet...?....or is a dodgy dice board game ? ......Gunners well on top tonight....Man City as usual getting wacked.....

Cardiff failed but did get draw. Remain in relegation zone despite picking up 4 points in Warnocks first two games in charge.

2-1 win at Forest today and a last minute penalty by Forest made the score line look a lot closer than it really was. Should have won by a 3 goal margin at least.

Sky man of the match went to every English supporters favourite Cardiff player .... Iceland captain Aaron Gunnarson :-)

John Stones £48 mill tee hee!

£89 mill for Paul P.

Special Once been found out.

Pogba did sod all at the Euro's too.

What a waste of money.

Fergie no fool when he let him go it would appear.

I hear there was some booing at Man city .maybe money going to players heads .

Pogba sulks when the going gets tough, hopefully it will be drilled out of him. His contract was up, Manchester United offered a good deal, he wanted first team football, Ferguson wanted to bring him in slowly - bit here, bit there, Pogba didn't want to wait - the last straw being players played out of position starting instead of him, and of course his new agent had a word. Making it sound like no effort was made to retain him suits the media.

On the game, too many players playing badly and being mentally weak at the same time. It's maddening because they have shown they can be strong. It isn't a Manchester United exclusive and such games happen. The crime is smiling, laughing afterwards - they should be fined two weeks wages.

This season continues to show the vast majority of defences in the Premier League are garbage.

Cheers,
KidA

Carlos Alberto the great Brazilian captain from the magnificent 1970 national side has passed away......that fourth goal ! in the final against Italy !.....fantastic build-up.....one of the best goals ever...ever...scored....that side is probably the best national side that ever graced the earth.....though it is difficult to compare club sides and national sides because they never meet, but in my humble opinion the Ajax of the early seventies just pips them as a best ever footballing team.......strange that these two teams were around almost at the same time.....there are others...Real Madrid...Barcelona...Milan....the great Liverpool sides..and national sides that never won anything ; Brazil 1982..Holland 1974....Hungary 1954...but the two former mentioned are the best I reckon....

The Brazil 1970 team had 5 forwards to nail any team. England only lost 1-0 to them whilst everyone else got a good beating. The FIFA World Cup film of that year is worth a watch.

Saw that world cup on tv as a kid......England came close to beating them.....several shots missed by a whisker !......

Agree with rf about Brazil and Ajax but the Dutch team of 74-78 were a close second to Brazil. They would and should have won the 78 WC but Argentina got a game thrown to qualify when they had to win 6-0 and did. We're also unlucky to lose to the Germans in 74 where Scotland were the only team to go home unbeaten.

Yes for some reason the 1970 world cup stays in mind as the best i've seen
and the host country of Mexico when watch on the tv gave you the impression
it was on another planet...

First time I've seen Everon in a live TV game this season and Trashley Williams lived up to my expectations.

Average on a good day , yesterday wasn't a good day.

Chelsea were awesome, Everton were shite end of! Koeman has to take the blame for the set up in first half, it was a suicide note. Unless the Jan window can produce, which seems unlikely his only option is to blood a few youngsters. Either way mid table is best we can hope for in his first season. Three year plan and a new stadium, if Koeman succeeds happy days for manager and club.

Fireworks are all Chelsea's as Everton are destroyed at Stamford Bridge
BY LYNDON LLOYD

“Remember, remember the 5th of November…” but after watching a horror show almost as bad as anything served up last season — the margin of defeat may not have been as big at Anfield in April but nothing could be worse than Everton’s utter capitulation in the last Merseyside derby — every Evertonian will want to forget this match as quickly possible. You’re left hoping though that it will come to represent a painful but important marker in the story of this season that we’ll look back on in the future as some sort of turning point.

You’ve got to believe that our heaviest defeat since the 6-1 humiliation at home to Arsenal in 2009 marks an early nadir for Ronald Koeman’s tenure; an evening when the Toffees came up against a Chelsea team at the very top of its game, and in full flow following four successive victories won with 11 unanswered goals; an occasion where both teams got exactly what they deserved and Koeman will have learned an awful lot about what he’s got and what he still needs.

Make no mistake, Chelsea were excellent — genuine-title-contenders excellent — to the point where you found yourself wondering which was more frightening: just how much better Chelsea were in every department or just how badly Everton played. For as good as the home side were, Everton were atrocious in the context of the strong start they made under Koeman, the money he has spent and his European aspirations.

A solitary effort on goal in the entire 90 minutes was the sum total of Everton’s attacking efforts which, even allowing for Chelsea’s superiority and dominance, is fairly damning. Ross Barkley, seemingly rejuvenated by his performance against West Ham, was occasionally involved but largely ineffective; a couple of early forays apart Yannick Bolasie, the Blues’ chief supplier in recent weeks, was anonymous until he was substituted for Aaron Lennon who wasn’t much better; Tom Cleverley was mobile and willing but offered a pale imitation of the suspended Idrissa Gueye; and Kevin Mirallas, a 36th-minute introduction in place of Bryan Oviedo as Koeman ditched his three-man defence, showed brief promise before lapsing into an all-too familiar lack of end product.

And then there was Romelu Lukaku who shared the pre-match limelight with Diego Costa as the press billed a clash between two of the Premier League’s star strikers but was ultimately and completely eclipsed by the Spanish international. The contrast between the two in terms of style, role in the team and effectiveness was stark in a game in which the Belgian’s touch, when he wasn’t vainly chasing shadows, largely deserted him and he looked clumsy and isolated.

Costa, on the other hand, recovered from a heavy Seamus Coleman tackle that drew blood through his sock to lead Chelsea’s line with purpose and drive, setting up the first goal, scoring the third, forcing a decent save from Maarten Stekelenburg, driving another effort into the side netting, and nearly making it 6-0 before Ashley Williams denied him with a terrific last-ditch tackle.

That last moment was indicative of what was a chequered outing for Williams who, like Phil Jagielka and Ramiro Funes Mori, looked all at sea trying to adjust to the 3-5-2 formation Koeman seemed to have deployed. The Welsh skipper looked consummate cart-horse centre-half (with all the speed and grace of one) for spells but was in others the only defender who really seemed to be carrying out his duties. Jagielka, sadly, followed up on his faltering displays at the Etihad and Turf Moor with more worrying evidence that he has "done", in the Osman, Pienaar and Howard sense of the word.

That confusion over positioning was certainly evident for Chelsea’s first goal though as Eden Hazard picked up Costa’s pass into the left channel just as the retreating Coleman tried to switch places with Williams and cut the Belgian midfielder off at the byline. It was all the invitation Hazard needed to cut inside onto his right foot and aim a shot at the far corner. Stekelenburg should have saved it but was slow to get his arms down, the ball flew under them and inside the upright.

Unforgivably, Everton lost the ball at the restart and 24 seconds later, the ball was in the back of Stekelenburg’s net again. Hazard was the beneficiary, picking it up in the centre circle, sliding a pass between Funes Mori and Oviedo to Pedro who centred it first time where Marco Alonso arrived to side-foot through the goalkeeper’s legs.

That double-blow made it 2-0 with just 20 minutes gone and there was no way back for Everton with Antonio Conte’s men in this kind of mood. It was almost 3-0 11 minutes before the break when Alonso’s chipped cross picked out Victor Moses but the reborn Nigerian slammed a first-time shot off the outside of the post. The inevitable arrived eight minutes later, however, when all of the practice defending set-pieces that Koeman said had been a focus this week at Finch Farm was unravelled by a near-post flick-on by Nemanja Matic that ended at the feet of Costa, unmarked at the back of the area. Slow to react, Lukaku just waved his foot meekly in front of the Brazilian-born striker as he buried a first-time shot into the vacant net behind him.

If there’s one thing that seems to have been lost in the transition between the Martinez and Koeman eras it’s Everton’s ability to pass and move the ball consistently. While the Catalan’s modus operandi was overkill possession, the Dutchman appears to have built the current team to counter-attack which means it’s no longer adept at keeping the ball for any sustained period.

Nonetheless, they made a pretty good fist of trying to settle things down in the first few minutes of the second half with some confidence-inspiring ball-retention, even if it didn’t get them close to the opposition goal. Then, as if to further illustrate the differences between the two teams, as soon as Chelsea got it back and mounted their first attack they almost scored, Williams snuffing out an opportunity for Costa after he had driven straight through the heart of the visitors’ midfield.

Where Everton searched in vain for space and willing runners, Conte’s team were all pace, movement and guile and they always seemed to have a man over. However grudgingly Evertonians admit it, their fourth goal was a thing of beauty. Hazard played a one-two with Pedro who back-heeled the ball back to him brilliantly and with Williams back on his heels, the diminutive Belgian cut across him and drilled a low shot inside the near post with Stekelenburg rooted to the spot.

By that stage it was merely a question of how many Chelsea would score. Lennon replaced Bolasie on the hour mark but little changed and more trickery from Hazard almost served up goal no.5 for Costa but though the striker connected with his chipped cross with a volley, Stekelenburg parried it over the bar.

Two minutes later it was 5-0. Lukaku was unable to bring in a return ball from Barry in the Chelsea half and when it was turned over back to the hosts, Costa hared off again towards the Toffees’ area and laid a pass off to Hazard once more. His shot was saved by Stekelenburg but the ball dropped straight to Pedro who had the simple task of tapping in from close range.

Surprisingly, that ended the scoring for Conte’s side but there would be nothing in the way of a consolation goal for the away fans to take back to Merseyside. Tom Davies came on for Barry following the latter’s booking a few minutes earlier for a frustrated late tackle on Pedro and came off the pitch at the final whistle as arguably Everton’s man of the match, doing his chances of replacing the suspended Barry against Swansea no harm at all.

He won the corner from which Mirallas narrowly missed with a glancing header that drifted inches over the angle of crossbar and post but asking more of an 18-year-old defensive midfielder was probably too much. Instead it was Chelsea who almost added to the scoreline, Luiz forcing an acrobatic finger-tip save from Stekelenburg and Moses then being denied by the Dutch ‘keeper in stoppage time.

International breaks have become painfully inconvenient and unwanted disruptions to the flow of the Premier League season but Everton will surely welcome this one as an opportunity to reset and refocus after an awful result. If Koeman does anything, he and his staff should study the tapes from Everton’s visits to Manchester City and Chelsea and analyse firstly, the difference between today’s porous calamity of a defence and the tenacious, space-defying back line that contained City so effectively last month; and, secondly, how those two opposition teams move the ball so effectively with speed and precision.

A home game against struggling Swansea will offer another chance to return to winning ways and regain some momentum but it’s days like today that underline in no uncertain terms just how far Everton have to go to match the likes of Chelsea in terms of quality. In that respect, Koeman has a long road ahead on what he has openly admitted has a two-year time horizon but in the meantime he has to do better at getting the most out of what he already has at his disposal. On this evidence, there is far more room for improvement than we realised.



Reader Comments
Succinct and clear piece, Lyndon. I
I was there and walked after the fourth, soul destroying and heart breaking in equal measure. Ashley Williams' head went down after the first went in and I got team feeling they were beat before they stepped on to the pitch, huge problem of attitude, belief and approach. One thing, suggesting "Koeman will have learnt" from this calamity is letting him off the hook slightly, with all his experience, it shouldn't be happening in the first place.

The result told us what we already know, we need to gut that squad. Some faithful servants are coming to the end, whilst we have a long list of players that need to be moved on that just aren't good enough.
The summer told us we needed a lot of new players, and this result proves it again. If you want a realistic tilt at top 4 and winning at these away grounds, than 4 or 5 of those played just don't feature at all. Hope Moyes sticks around to buy some of them...