Everton v Newcastle. 30th Sep @ 20.00.

[BigBlueConk]

The performance reminded me very much of Villa away last season. Do the damage early on and play like footballing gods. Only to then fall asleep 2nd half and let the opposition have their way with us.

Still a lot of work to do. We can not continue to let 2 goals in per game.
When it's good it's good!

 

[davek]

Too early Dave, 7 games (3 wins, 3 Draws and 1 loss). I expected him to have a bad Sept after the first 3 games but he bounced back with the new players which saved us.

I thought the barcodes tactics were spot on in the 2nd half, they targerted jags lack of pace and went down the seam after him. We could see more teams go that way against us which is why he has to pick up the tempo and put the games to bed early on. If Jags or the mikman get injured we are in trouble becuase as good as John Stones is he is not ready to play week in and week out.

So in summary, poor Aug, great sept...what will oct bring? consolidation or set backs.

Good points, mate.

I'm pleasantly surprised at how well things are going, but it is WAY too early to start declaring we've picked a manager who is taking us places. As I've stated in the past, the end of the season is the time to be making judgements - he needs plenty of time...something many on here seemed to be denying him. Still think 7th/8th is more likely than where we are right now...and I'd argue that'd be perfectly acceptable for his first year...even a little ahead of schedule given the bedding in you could expect to take a while to happen.

Agree about Jagielka - he's off the pace at the moment.

 

[billycopper]

Looking at the stats we had 50% possession and 7 shots on target compared to their 6. Overall we were good but I thought that our forwards played too far apart and we still lacked movement off the ball. Lukaku is great when he's facing the goal but a lot of his lay offs when he had his back to the opposition went astray.

Cabaye's was a wonder goal, although maybe Barkley could have closed down quicker. Could Martinez have gone more defensive at 3-1? It looked like Mirallas was signalling that he wanted to come off at half time. We could have moved Barkley out to the right and put Osman or Heitinga in the centre to try and regain control of the midfield.

I think that Distin was at fault for their second goal. He allowed the ball to drop in our box rather than putting his foot through it and clearing it.

We can't complain too much though. I'll take three straight wins and being fourth in the table.

 

[billycopper]

Good points, mate.

I'm pleasantly surprised at how well things are going, but it is WAY too early to start declaring we've picked a manager who is taking us places. As I've stated in the past, the end of the season is the time to be making judgements - he needs plenty of time...something many on here seemed to be denying him. Still think 7th/8th is more likely than where we are right now...and I'd argue that'd be perfectly acceptable for his first year...even a little ahead of schedule given the bedding in you could expect to take a while to happen.

Agree about Jagielka - he's off the pace at the moment.

I thought we defended very well in the first half and I wouldn't necessarily blame Jags for either goal. Where has his pinpoint long range passing suddenly come from?!

 

[davek]

I thought we defended very well in the first half and I wouldn't necessarily blame Jags for either goal. Where has his pinpoint long range passing suddenly come from?!

He should have dealt with that knock down that Remy converted; and he was the real culprit at West Ham for the move that got them their penalty.

Pretty scruffy couple of games for our England CB, IMO. He's still class, of course.

 

[Foot Long Hot Dog]

Looking at the stats we had 50% possession and 7 shots on target compared to their 6. Overall we were good but I thought that our forwards played too far apart and we still lacked movement off the ball. Lukaku is great when he's facing the goal but a lot of his lay offs when he had his back to the opposition went astray.

Cabaye's was a wonder goal, although maybe Barkley could have closed down quicker. Could Martinez have gone more defensive at 3-1? It looked like Mirallas was signalling that he wanted to come off at half time. We could have moved Barkley out to the right and put Osman or Heitinga in the centre to try and regain control of the midfield.

I think that Distin was at fault for their second goal. He allowed the ball to drop in our box rather than putting his foot through it and clearing it.

We can't complain too much though. I'll take three straight wins and being fourth in the table.

It was McCarthy not Barkley mate & yes he could, as well as not turning his back on it, but it was a great strike nonetheless.

The stats were somewhat misleading, as the game was only a contest for the opening 4 minutes & the last minute plus injury time. The period in between was split into us bossing them off the park & then us smoking a collective cigar as they huffed & puffed to try & regain some pride.

 

[Kantareller]

Jags was sloppy on the second goal. No hiding from that.

 

[billycopper]

He should have dealt with that knock down that Remy converted; and he was the real culprit at West Ham for the move that got them their penalty.

Pretty scruffy couple of games for our England CB, IMO. He's still class, of course.

I've watched it a few times. It looks like Jags tried to stretch to poke the ball away from Remy and (perhaps with some help from the Newcastle striker) ended up losing his balance and falling backwards though. I think that Distin is more to blame because he had loads of time to react to the knock down and he just kind of shuffled his feet and let it drop inside our six yard box.

On the whole I think we're defending well and nobody is carving us open. When we are making mistakes we're getting punished and the opposition have been fortunate with bobbles, mis-directed crosses and massive deflections.

 

[billycopper]

It was McCarthy not Barkley mate & yes he could, as well as not turning his back on it, but it was a great strike nonetheless.

The stats were somewhat misleading, as the game was only a contest for the opening 4 minutes & the last minute plus injury time. The period in between was split into us bossing them off the park & then us smoking a collective cigar as they huffed & puffed to try & regain some pride.

Did we convert something like 3 out of 5 shots on target in the first half? Some of our play was good but they were very poor and I don't think we'd have built up such a lead against a well-organised defence. I wouldn't say it was a case of us hammering them. Besides the goals I can name the chances that we had on one hand.

Strangely, I think that it was the game that was misleading rather than the statistics. We wouldn't normally convert such a large percentage of our chances and I think it gave the impression that we were more superior than we actually were. In the second half they were much more resolute. They were unlucky when Gourcuff hit the post and I think they had one or two other breaks where we were lucky not to get caught out. We found possession and control much harder to come by in the second half as much because Newcastle played well as us switching off.

 

[Clubber Lang]

Thought Osman had a good game, did a good job of playing as a defensive winger (an often thankless role). His industry allowed Barkley more space.

 

[Clubber Lang]

Also more goals than corners, which was a bit mad like.

 

[harry]

Looking at the stats we had 50% possession and 7 shots on target compared to their 6. Overall we were good but I thought that our forwards played too far apart and we still lacked movement off the ball. Lukaku is great when he's facing the goal but a lot of his lay offs when he had his back to the opposition went astray.

Cabaye's was a wonder goal, although maybe Barkley could have closed down quicker. Could Martinez have gone more defensive at 3-1? It looked like Mirallas was signalling that he wanted to come off at half time. We could have moved Barkley out to the right and put Osman or Heitinga in the centre to try and regain control of the midfield.

I think that Distin was at fault for their second goal. He allowed the ball to drop in our box rather than putting his foot through it and clearing it.

We can't complain too much though. I'll take three straight wins and being fourth in the table.

I thought after a shaky start to the second half we pretty much took control of the game then we got hit with a sloppy late goal and it was panic stations. Newcastle player much better but i still think we were the better side in the second half.

 

[Carlito]

I've decided to start blogging about Everton again, mainly to give myself something to do, so here's the link to my report on last night's game if anyone is interested: http://moutinhodelegation.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/everton-3-newcastle-united-2.html

 

[Duncan Disordely]

Just re-watching last nights game. If Ossie had stuck his chance away at 3-0 just after they had hit the post early second half, we could have quite conceivably gone on and won 5/6-0.

Also looking back I don't think we were as horrendous second half as I thought leaving Goodison. It's very rare that teams get totally outplayed for 90minutes the way NUFC were for the first half. They were always gonna be better after a rocket at half time, plus Pardew putting Williamson on sured up their defence no end.

We kind of stopped doing some of the really boss things we had first half, but we still kept on threatening. Mirallas going up top and Lukaku on the right didn't particularly help matters but I gather this was to ease Mirallas' workload due to his injury.

We conceded an unstoppable shot and a silly late goal that made it seem far more uncomfortable than it actually was

 

[Eggs]

...I posted that we'd need 3 to win but didn't expect it to happen like that. Lukaku will clearly make a huge difference and lots of talk on the radio today about Chelsea making a major gaff. Only concern last night was centre midfield failed to get a grip of the French boy after he came on. Other than that very encouraging.