not good enough

[SuitsBlue]

it took lescott surging forward and pressurising with possession to give us the impetus to score tonight.

johnson should have taken the penalty
artetas free kick was unlucky
as was carsley to see his shot rebound into open play

that is the culmination of evertons efforts tonight

zenit were far superior, even at 10 men they passed to feet, ran into space, ran markers into each other, pressure and create opportunities.

jagielka tonight was woeful, it got so bad cars and arteta ended up sat around the CB position trying to distribute.

it should have been 4-5-1 from the off, mcfadden was poor, johnson wasnt much better.

they are all still on dreamland after the sunderland game. time for a shock to the system - because much more of this just wont do.

piss poor.

 

[Dom1878]

it took lescott surging forward and pressurising with possession to give us the impetus to score tonight.

johnson should have taken the penalty
artetas free kick was unlucky
as was carsley to see his shot rebound into open play

that is the culmination of evertons efforts tonight

zenit were far superior, even at 10 men they passed to feet, ran into space, ran markers into each other, pressure and create opportunities.

jagielka tonight was woeful, it got so bad cars and arteta ended up sat around the CB position trying to distribute.

it should have been 4-5-1 from the off, mcfadden was poor, johnson wasnt much better.

they are all still on dreamland after the sunderland game. time for a shock to the system - because much more of this just wont do.

piss poor.

Again agreed, however i dont think johnson shouldve taken the penalty, arteta is great at them ,and it was only narrowly over.

I didnt think jagielka was terrible, he didnt have the best of matches though...i though pienaar was quite poor tbh, his passing was good, but he didnt make any runs down the wing for baines or anything!! and Mcfadden proving why he doesnt even make the bench most matches - he should wear the scotland shirt underneath the everrton one...

 

[Namdrater]

I dont know, I think you're being a bit harsh. We certainly didnt have much cutting edge, but we kept the pressure on and made some good moves and at the end it paid off.

A bit too much of giving the ball away to easily and also sketchy defending, but against the champions of Russia, I'm happy with how we performed. (even if they were down to 10 men, it doesnt always make a massive difference).

 

[SuitsBlue]

johnson cant avoid the 'everest' of penaltys forever.

get him a penalty, let him park it in the net, its over, the longer it goes on the more of a stigma it becomes.

unfortunately now, arteta is in a position where he needs exorcise the demons.

anyone notice that after the penalty miss artetas dead ball execution improved (very very slight improvement)

where was osman? why not 4-5-1 with gravs?

• Tim Howard..............solid and composed - 8
• Phil Neville (c)..........two scoops of [Poor language removed] - 5
• Joleon Lescott..........strength and quality - 8
• Leighton Baines.........uneasy and off the game - 5
• Lee Carsley..............there to harry and hustle but passing is too damn slow - 6
• Phil Jagielka.............atrocious, other players covering his duties - 4
• Steven Pienaar.........struggled, off his game - 5
• Tim Cahill.................put himself about to no effect but for 10 seconds - 6
• Mikel Arteta.............will the real mikel arteta please stand up - 5
• Andrew Johnson.......cant win headers down the middle, tried to open the game on the channels but no support, needs games and sharpness - 6
• James McFadden......tries too hard, needs to learn to release the ball, even if its an easy pass - 5

vaughan.........................put himself about, made a few passes - 6
anichebe.........................gave them a problem, bit of fight, bit of strength, was unlucky not to get the run of the ball when he had bounded through a couple of defenders - 7

 

[GrandOldTeam]

zenit were far superior, even at 10 men they passed to feet, ran into space, ran markers into each other, pressure and create opportunities.

Really over the top suits.

 

[SuitsBlue]

they put passes together - at ten men - where was our man advantage? they showed what pass and move can do - it was shocking.

(admittedly im not overly happy at being denied lager in the ground - stupid rule)


they made the best chances tonight from open play, they defended well and restricted our paltry creativity.

hopefully its just a bad day at the office, but its two games on the bounce since the elation of sunderland.

i dont expect a good performance against lowly fulham on saturday, i demand a good performance.

 

[GrandOldTeam]

they put passes together - at ten men - where was our man advantage? they showed what pass and move can do - it was shocking.

(admittedly im not overly happy at being denied lager in the ground - stupid rule)


they made the best chances tonight from open play, they defended well and restricted our paltry creativity.

Suits your saying they outclassed us? they had the best chances? hang on? what!? They had one shot on target all game (and 2 off target) compared to our 5 on target, 8 off target... we hit the inside of the post, had a penalty, hit the bar, shot off the line, mcfadden/aj chance.

We had 14 corners, they had 1.

Our passing success was 80%, theirs 69%. Our possession 58, theirs 42.

Yet they outclassed us?

Behave.

 

[SuitsBlue]

our passing percentile is so high because howard arteta and carsley were playing passes to each other 10 yards out from our D

our corners were atrocious but for one - everytime they got possession, either at the corner of the respective box or the keeper.

they made howard work harder than we made their keeper work. (please - dispute that if you will)

they were down to ten men, they had 2 or 3 players on yellows and still they sucked up possession at will.

time and time again the players on the flanks were found out, neat little through balls causing problems to us.

lescott was immense tonight, he covered his position and he covered jagielka. he always made himself available. hes a stunner that kid, shows how much we miss yobs.

i'll will hold fire on jags, its his first or second game at CB, so perhaps he is acclimatising, because but for three or four headers he was very poor.

 

[GrandOldTeam]

they made howard work harder than we made their keeper work. (please - dispute that if you will)

Am going to leave that for someone else because am baffled...

Their keeper pulled off a few great saves tonight, one being the best i've seen all season from Artetas free kick.

Howard had one save to make, other than that all he had to do was bollock Jagielka once or twice.

 

[Latch]

Suits your saying they outclassed us? they had the best chances? hang on? what!? They had one shot on target all game (and 2 off target) compared to our 5 on target, 8 off target... we hit the inside of the post, had a penalty, hit the bar, shot off the line, mcfadden/aj chance.

We had 14 corners, they had 1.

Our passing success was 80%, theirs 69%. Our possession 58, theirs 42.

Yet they outclassed us?

Behave.

I was watching the same game as you Danny, i thought we played with a lot less fear tonight, compare this game and our two legs against Metalist, there is no comparrison.
It's blindingly obvious that our performances are improving with every euro game, we did not look out of place at all tonight, we were more than equal to a decent side, for me anyway, looking at us playing now in europe, we go out there with no fear at all.
Confidence is everything and right now it shows.

 

[monty]

Whilst our performance wasn't that good it was still good enough. It makes a pleasant change for us to have some luck as it was never handball and that lad should never have been sent off.

Suits, your assessments are the equivilent or someone wallowing in self induced pity. Yes, Zenit were a very good team, they are the Russian champions after all is said and done. The only player that didn't come up to an acceptable standard tonight was Jags, to have a go at Baines is wrong because he made some crosses of quality and some really good runs. Pienaar tried some really difficult passes, tonight they just didn't come off but he was still going on full throttle at the final whictle.

Be satisfied mate, we're through, we have won the group and lets worry about the next group. By the way you sound like some did in the 80's, we will be outclassed in Europe even though experts say we had the best team in Europe at that time. Enjoy it and don't pick holes were they don't exist, Jags a part

 

[SuitsBlue]

monts, we are not the best side in europe, and we arent winning the league this season like we did in the 80's.

in parts tonight, we were atrocious.

 

[monty]

monts, we are not the best side in europe, and we arent winning the league this season like we did in the 80's.

in parts tonight, we were atrocious.

I never said we were the best side in Europe as we were in the 80's, it was cited as a comparrison Suits but I will say most definitely that we were not atrocious tonight in any way. The fact that a team goes down to 10 men can inspire some, the stats of the match ridicule your claim mate in every way possible

 

[SuitsBlue]

let the stats ridicule - last time i checked games werent played on paper or a mathematicians calculator.

fancy that.

 

[toffeestillidie]

our passing percentile is so high because howard arteta and carsley were playing passes to each other 10 yards out from our D

our corners were atrocious but for one - everytime they got possession, either at the corner of the respective box or the keeper.

they made howard work harder than we made their keeper work. (please - dispute that if you will)

they were down to ten men, they had 2 or 3 players on yellows and still they sucked up possession at will.

time and time again the players on the flanks were found out, neat little through balls causing problems to us.

lescott was immense tonight, he covered his position and he covered jagielka. he always made himself available. hes a stunner that kid, shows how much we miss yobs.

i'll will hold fire on jags, its his first or second game at CB, so perhaps he is acclimatising, because but for three or four headers he was very poor.

we cut off angles, they didn't have a lot of good chances, even if they had decent penetration, they didn't score, thats the end of it. i wouldn't call picking up slow balls at the top of the box making tim howard work.

get off lescott's nuts mate, he covered his position and he pushed up front, except when he lost the ball up front and arteta had to break the length of the field to see the ball off to the end line. he seems to be the only player you weren't too critical of.

we won the game, it obviously wasn't our best performance but we got it done. i didn't see the whole game because my streaming software was messed up, but from what i saw we were fine. a bit unlucky at times, but we got the win, and we're through. what more do you want?

and this bollocks about AJ taking penalties??? are you out of your mind? the only times i've seen him attempt them for us are at watford last year, because he had been fouled with an obvious goal scoring opportunity, and of course the fiasco at metalist. Arteta takes our penalties, there's no need to change that, this is the first time i've seen Mikel miss, he converts nearly every time, don't be so hard on him for one miss.

when a game doesn't pose much of a challenge, some times we struggle to put teams away, which is fine as long as we get it done in the end. You can't expect a better result then a win, and obviously we'll step it up when we face tougher competition, so don't complain and be happy that we're undefeated 9 in a row!