Swansea City Vs. Everton - CO Cup 3rd Round - Tuesday 23rd Sept - 19:45 KO

[steven]

Anyone done slamming Roberto and ready to do some player analysis for people like me who could not watch the match?

In my opinion....i thought we looked ok until the swansea goal and could have scored ourselves then went downhill fast.
. Garbutt looked decent and deliveries were good
. Besic was neat and tidy alongside gibson (apart from a tendency to overplay)...i think he is the kind of player that needs a run of games...
. Hibbert was terrorised all night by their left winger...felt embarassed for him at times...all the guy did all game was turn and run and hibbo, and usually went past him.
. Atsu is a downgrade on deulofeu in my opinion...doesn't offer enough for me. Same goes for mcgeady...if we are ever serious about top 4 then we need better widemen than those two.
. Distin has seen better days without a doubt. Alcaraz was solid enough.
. Oviedo was rusty...

I can see martinez playing gibson or besic in the derby, with naismith mirallas and lukaku as the front three. Stones has to be a starting centre back for me moving forward as well.


All in all a pretty rubbish cold night in south wales!

 

[meagher94]

I think we are missing the point somewhat though. We talk about this being the best squad we have had in years etc, so in reality making 7 changes should not be harming us that much, well not as much as it did tonight anyway. The players who came in were mostly internationals/experienced PL players and who could/should be able to get into the first team, so why put in a performance like that?

There were over 1500 Everton fans who made the journey and regardless of the rest of us, they deserved a lot better than they got.

People say they are not interested in the COC, well i am and so should the players. They are professionals and should be going out to win every game they play in, not just turning up for a run around. We are Everton and we deserve better, starting Saturday at 1245pm!!

I think we have our best squad in terms of we have really good individuals who can come in when one, two, three players are injured say. But it's something else throwing in 7 rotation options at once. I think there's only a few teams who can do that and still be quality and those are teams that have invested megabucks in their squad.

We were away to an in form side at virtually full strength, if we wanted a result we probably would have needed to be at nearly full strength ourselves. Given that we weren't, I can only gather that a result would have been a bonus for Martinez tonight. I realise a lot of blues don't agree with that, but I suppose we can't really know what's going through Roberto's head.

 

[ah11984]

Anyone done slamming Roberto and ready to do some player analysis for people like me who could not watch the match?

Howard - Does not save any shot on target..
Hibbert - ripped part, he was dreadful
Garbutt - Respectable debut. Bright future.
Distin - Terrible defending for the second goal, looks over the hill.
Alcaraz - Didn't do anything particularly bad.

Besic - Gave the ball away....a lot. Deserves time.
Gibson - First start in a long time, passing not up to usual standard
Oviedo - Nice to see him back. Excused.
Atsu - Frustrating. Not as quick as I thought he was.
McGeady - Dire. Tried to make things happen but did them dreadfully.

Eto'o - Ok.

Subs
Lukaku - First touch still awful. No service.
McCarthy - Didn't really notice him.
Osman - Martinez decide to troll us for last 10 mins.

 

[argietoffee]

PM me your bank details and I'll sort it mate.

for a small administration fee paid to me in advance, I am sure we can arrange something that in the long term will be highñly beneficial for you financially,

 

[marty mcfly]

In my opinion....i thought we looked ok until the swansea goal and could have scored ourselves then went downhill fast.
. Garbutt looked decent and deliveries were good
. Besic was neat and tidy alongside gibson (apart from a tendency to overplay)...i think he is the kind of player that needs a run of games...
. Hibbert was terrorised all night by their left winger...felt embarassed for him at times...all the guy did all game was turn and run and hibbo, and usually went past him.
. Atsu is a downgrade on deulofeu in my opinion...doesn't offer enough for me. Same goes for mcgeady...if we are ever serious about top 4 then we need better widemen than those two.
. Distin has seen better days without a doubt. Alcaraz was solid enough.
. Oviedo was rusty...

I can see martinez playing gibson or besic in the derby, with naismith mirallas and lukaku as the front three. Stones has to be a starting centre back for me moving forward as well.


All in all a pretty rubbish cold night in south wales!

Just think if we had of bought Tadic and Yedlin. Sometimes these forums should be listened to.

 

[LinekersLegs]

Anyone heard on if Eto'o is injured and if so how serious?

 

[mrb85]

Europa league is the easiest route into the Champions League.

Plus I don't think he doesn't car about the league. He just thought the team he put out would beat that Palace team at home and they should have. What's the point of having a big squad if they aren't played. If you where a professional footballer would you be happy never playing?

The point of a big squad is to allow you to take players out when they are either out of form, carrying an injury, or becoming tired. For me, you shouldn't be changing a side just to give others a game, not so early in the season certainly. Because by doing this you are by definition weakening your side and so risking your chances of victory. And if such risks are borne out you end up with what RM has just engineered for himself -- a lowly league position, an exit from a winnable competition, and, arguably the most serious for him, a rapid loss of confidence in him from amongst the support.

 

[LinekersLegs]

Just think if we had of bought Tadic and Yedlin. Sometimes these forums should be listened to.

Much as I would have liked Yedlin, he will be at Seattle until next summer so he wouldn't have helped us in the last two matches.

 

[Saaby]

Even with that team we should really be winning that game

 

[meagher94]

Anyone heard on if Eto'o is injured and if so how serious?

Customary injury before the Derby. He'd probably give them nightmares from the bench as well.

 

[Robertor]

Not got too many issues tonight. A team who prioritises this tournament against one that obviously doesn't. Imo 2 at maximum of those starting tonight will start on Saturday, and for some weird reason I'm quite confident, for the first time in an Anfield Derby since the 90s when I was too young to know what I was on about anyway. Alcaraz was decent tonight aswell I thought, I'm fed up of Distin so he should be moved up to third choice and given another chance or two to see how he gets on. Forza Antolin

 

[harris78]

I think we have our best squad in terms of we have really good individuals who can come in when one, two, three players are injured say. But it's something else throwing in 7 rotation options at once. I think there's only a few teams who can do that and still be quality and those are teams that have invested megabucks in their squad.

We were away to an in form side at virtually full strength, if we wanted a result we probably would have needed to be at nearly full strength ourselves. Given that we weren't, I can only gather that a result would have been a bonus for Martinez tonight. I realise a lot of blues don't agree with that, but I suppose we can't really know what's going through Roberto's head.

But i never understand the logic. Regardless of whether you change 1 or 7 players should be neither here nor there. These players train every day, they know how we setup etc, damn i'm even sure that 11 have played practice matches together. If we were putting out kids i could understand it but as i have said before these are PL experienced players and full internationals. In actual fact the only 'kid' out there, Garbutt, was the only shining light for me. Swansea are not world beaters and as for being one of the inform teams, they had lost their last two PL matches.

Like i have said i can accept losing as long as its in the right spirit. 3-0 with a performance like that is not and never will be good enough regardless of whether we 'want' to be in the competition or not.

 

[LinekersLegs]

Customary injury before the Derby. He'd probably give them nightmares from the bench as well.

Hoped we would at least escape injury free from the game but we don't have that sort of luck unfortunately.

 

[BlueToff]

Martinez' mistake was changing the side against Palace. The team was settled and the only changed that was needed was Stones to RB to cover Coleman, Distin in at CB. Instead, through naivety or whatever, he played players out of position and started Osman. Atsu would have been a lot better to bring on later after Naisy had tired the Palace defence out. We only got behind them once and we scored, but apart from that everything was in front of them. Then he made the weird subs, and since neither Kev or Nessi played tonight, why were they rested the other day?

But, it's the individual errors that cost us the most. Stupid, lazy mistakes. There's no confidence or cohesion to our play. The players need to take the blame for that. Distin, for all the good he's done us, has been sickening to watch these last few weeks. He really has been the worst of the lot.

 

[KevMirallas]

Having not seen this particular game, this is potentially a ridiculous claim to make...

But I think their heads went when they saw Barkley go down the day before the season started. Morale took a whack there, and every game since then it's taken another little hit leading us to the point we are at now.