2021/22 Rafael Benitez

[mikel_88]

Antonio is better than Rondon

Soucek and Rice as a pairing are better than Doucoure and Allan

Behrama / Bowen are better than Iwobi and Gordon

Their defence is better bar Mina + Digne although on form Cresswell is better than Digne this season.

Their entire bench is stronger than ours with the likes of Vlasic and Yarmolenko and they haven't had an injury crisis to deal with.

So basically only Gray, Townsend, Pickford and possibly Doucoure I would have as upgrades on them man for man today (ironically two of the four are Benitez signings) - but apparently we should be beating them easily...

Dont agree with the cm shout we had nothing to aim for today was no hold up play at all to bring the cm into the game. Was a tough game today hopefully in jan we csn bring in more to add depth to the squad

 

[Earwigjoe]

Ye got to agree with most I liked moyes ,but he brought cahill and so forth in, this fella only brought a couple in surely you've got to agree our bench today was poor, gonna give him the benefit of the doubt no ones perfect especially him

Hi mate dont think it mattered who was on our bench 1 sub 10 mins to go, nothing was working today and his stubborness wouldnt allow him to try and change it. A full goodison supporting a kid up front wouldnt have been worse than sticking with Rondon, fans knew dcl and ritchie were out - trying to change it even if it didnt work fans wouldnt have complained, he could even have threw Mina up top for 10mins, nothing was going to be worse than Rondon. I hope you're good - big few weeks coming up for you, talk for another thread though?.

 

[gwladysnight]

Antonio is better than Rondon

Soucek and Rice as a pairing are better than Doucoure and Allan

Behrama / Bowen are better than Iwobi and Gordon

Their defence is better bar Mina + Digne although on form Cresswell is better than Digne this season.

Their entire bench is stronger than ours with the likes of Vlasic and Yarmolenko and they haven't had an injury crisis to deal with.

So basically only Gray, Townsend, Pickford and possibly Doucoure I would have as upgrades on them man for man today (ironically two of the four are Benitez signings) - but apparently we should be beating them easily...

It isn't about beating them easily.

No one has said that.

However, having 31% possession in the first half at home to West Ham is unacceptable. The way you are going on you would think we were playing Brazil 70.

 

[Zatara]

Zonal marking, we’ve been here before under Silva, bar Gadfrey exactly the same players!

Its really weird how we looked so good at set pieces under Ancelotti and yet Benitez comes in, changes it and we now look awful.

Surely he can see that...

Also having Godfrey and Digne in the back 4 and keeping them back defending makes no sense to me either.

Those 2 are built to play on the front foot, higher up the pitch.

Mina wasn’t missing, he was on the bench and not selected.

Couldent play under Covid rules ...... Had to keep his distance from the other substitutes he had traveled back from a Covid Red flag country ......

He was on the bench hahaha

bed for you Joey, it’s been a long day

He was sat away from the other subs because he came from a 'red list' country.

However, he was still in the dressing room and was an option to play.

No idea what the purpose of the rule is thst he had to sit away from other subs.

 

[Zatara]

I was surprised how defensive he was especially first half with like 20% possession. We had enough good players to do better, but maybe he felt had we gone toe to toe we would have been in trouble.

He definitely can’t play like that next week, v Watford he has to be on the front foot more. Looking more to the future, again you need more possession to get in the top 6/4. You can’t rely on 30/40 % every week.

How do we do it. For me we need a world class number 10, basically James with power and speed. Ok that will cost Money, but if he’s going to keep, gray, Townsend, Richarlison, Gordon as our wide players. They aren’t the type to dominate the ball. Add DCL to that.

So it will need to come from
The midfield, again Doucoure & Allan are good players but not great on the ball, both give the ball away as much as they find a blue shirt. RB obviously and 2 CB. Mina I think is very good on the ball and the best of our CB’s.

So a RB, CB, CM. Number 10. Just to get us more possession.

As were asking front foot players like Godfrey and Digne to stay back then are we going to sign a defensive right back...then just rely on quick counter attacks by the front 4 ?

Not really getting the best out of our players bar Keane.

14 points from 8 games is currently on target for a 66/67 point season. Wouldn't you have taken that before the season starts? Before a ball was kicked, how many points would you have expected by this point in the season?

I expected the same number of points aside from the 1pt lost against West Ham.

So, 15pts. I was expecting 24pts after 13 games as per the below post.

Beat Norwich (not guaranteed) and we'll be on 13pts after 6 games -- I expected 14pts.

Then we have:

United
West Ham
Watford
Wolves
Spurs
City
Brentford

That takes us to 13 games and 1/3 of the season.

Id expect us to be sat on 24pts after 13 games.

We then face Liverpool

Although it may seem a high figure, we need points on the board as im pretty pessimistic about the final games of the season. We dont have the squad depth.

Looking at other teams in the league and their european adventures, I think we should be competing for 5th position before a drop off.

We need 10pts from the next 5 games to get back to where i expected

After watching Salomón Rondón stand there for 90 minutes and have NO impact on the game, we still have “fans” defending the decision

What a gang of nobs

Any one of us could have done the same as Rondon in the games so far.

Could have probably smoked a pack of cigs on the pitch waddling around like he did.

 

[RB4EV]

The team really need Richarlison or DCL back fast as the lack of cutting edge was apparent. Otherwise, I don't see a lot wrong with the team structure yesterday.

 

[gorgeousgeorgeEFC]

We’ve been poor lately. Not sure how we’re on the same points as 6th-placed Man Utd.

R.A.F.A. inherited an awful squad and wasn’t allowed to spend anything to improve it due to the financial fair play rules. Meanwhile, Man City, who have spent around £3bn on transfer fees, were allowed to splash out £100million on one player! Inexplicable!

As an aside I was bitterly disappointed in the crowd today. We’re called supporters and we’re there to support our players, but I heard abusive language and even booing directed at Everton players. It was only a small minority of idiots but that sort of thing is not welcome at our club and only serves to help the opposition. By all means abuse them if they’re just strolling around and not trying, but they’re doing their best. They’re just not good enough.

We miss Richarlison and Dominic Calvert-Lewin desperately. Take the two best players of the RS out of their team for six weeks and they’d struggle also.

 

[Leylo]

Hi mate dont think it mattered who was on our bench 1 sub 10 mins to go, nothing was working today and his stubborness wouldnt allow him to try and change it. A full goodison supporting a kid up front wouldnt have been worse than sticking with Rondon, fans knew dcl and ritchie were out - trying to change it even if it didnt work fans wouldnt have complained, he could even have threw Mina up top for 10mins, nothing was going to be worse than Rondon. I hope you're good - big few weeks coming up for you, talk for another thread though?.

I know thanks joe

 

[Dario Terracotta]

Don't really know why he didn't try throwing Mina up front last ten minutes, not ideal granted,but he is a unit and we could have slung a few balls in their box and got Gray close to him for anything that may have dropped.

 

[Barnfred 55]

The FSW was given an education by Moyes today . We were totally out classed in every department. The FSW negative , limited tactics (sit deep and try to find Gray on the counter ) have already been found out and he has no plan B. Of the team's who are meant to competing with us for European place , we have been comprehensively beaten in both (villa and whu).
Dropping Gordon who grew into the game against United for the utterly useless Iwobi was ridiculous.

I don't have a problem with his plan A tactics on the whole. I think it suits our group of players. Mina plays yesterday I reckon we don't lose that game. DCL plays and we win it. But you're right there is no plan B. Which is why the decision to get rid of James at all cost after the window closed and we weren't able to replace him in the squad, was absolutely ridiculous. It could very easily cost us a euro slot

 

[NilSatisOptimum]

As an aside I was bitterly disappointed in the crowd today. We’re called supporters and we’re there to support our players, but I heard abusive language and even booing directed at Everton players. It was only a small minority of idiots but that sort of thing is not welcome at our club and only serves to help the opposition. By all means abuse them if they’re just strolling around and not trying, but they’re doing their best. They’re just not good enough.

Been evident at all home matches, the appointment was always going to cause controversy, no-one can be surprised and won't take much for that decent to be spread round Goodison in full voice very quickly. The argument this was pragmatic appointment was always nonsense. Biggest gamble on a manager I believe since I grew up with Kendall at the helm.

 

[Nymzee]

Before they scored I think I saw we’d had 10 attempts, 1 on target. It wasn’t working. Why after they scored he didn’t change what already wasn’t working just baffled me.

 

[ToffeeTim]

We’ve been poor lately. Not sure how we’re on the same points as 6th-placed Man Utd.

R.A.F.A. inherited an awful squad and wasn’t allowed to spend anything to improve it due to the financial fair play rules. Meanwhile, Man City, who have spent around £3bn on transfer fees, were allowed to splash out £100million on one player! Inexplicable!

As an aside I was bitterly disappointed in the crowd today. We’re called supporters and we’re there to support our players, but I heard abusive language and even booing directed at Everton players. It was only a small minority of idiots but that sort of thing is not welcome at our club and only serves to help the opposition. By all means abuse them if they’re just strolling around and not trying, but they’re doing their best. They’re just not good enough.

We miss Richarlison and Dominic Calvert-Lewin desperately. Take the two best players of the RS out of their team for six weeks and they’d struggle also.

It was absolutely nothing to do with the crowd yesterday. I'm not totally sure they were 100% committed yesterday either. I think we lacked intensity and several players could have done much better.

 

[Thomasc]

West Ham are better than us, we also were technically playing with 9 men, so I can’t get too upset about yesterday.

It’s going to be a long, long dull season, get used to it.

 

[UptheTofees]

Tough loss

let’s see if things get better