Who will finish higher..Watford or Everton

Gonna err on the side of caution on this one and say Everton. Which isn’t a disrespect to us. I reckon we’ll be there or thereabouts. I would expect Koeman to get sacked if they finish any lower than 7th - and I’d expect them too come sniffing around Silva if we took that spot from them. But my answer is down to the fact that although I think we have a very highly skilled attacking unit backed up by a strong central midfield, all of whom are capable of keeping these high standards all season...our defence is the issue. They’ve done well so far, but there have also been the usual errors (I’ll freely admit that injuries haven’t helped). But our defence is very average and I’m not sure it’s good enough to get us in the top 8 if it isn’t reinforced in January.

Plus, it’s pretty dangerous to make any kind of end-of-season predictions when you are 6 games in and a Watford fan.

 

They have no pace, we have loads .... Koeman has his work cut out to even stay in the top half.

 

Probably Everton, though they need to find a striker who fits in with their system from one of their squad. If that doesn't happen we can run them close.

But before the season started I'd have said Everton all day long. We are on an upward curve at the minute and it feels good.

 

Everton will finish higher than us I believe.

Although I fancy our chances of beating them

 

Just watched Everton tonight. Horrible. One paced, no imagination, dull.

 

We need Koeman to do a good job though. Silva is exactly the sort of manager Everton fans will want if they sack him. The good news is, Everton don't care what their fans want and will hire Rafa.

 

Imagine how many pacey wingers Silva would need to acquire if he did go to Everton. Would probably be straight on the phone to Richarlison and Carrillo.

 

Seems Burnley are going to finish higher than us both!

 

Watching the match this afternoon, I'll be pretty upset if Everton come anywhere near us. They're playing like Mazzari is their manager. Just looking in the eyes of the players as they come out for the 2nd half tells me they're not up for it.

Koeman, dead man walking imho.

 

I doubt Everton will get into the top half based on what I've seen over the last couple of weeks

We will comfortably finish higher than them as will half a dozen others

 

Clueless would be kind to them on this showing.
I've never heard Goodison so quiet either.

 

Surprised how high up the table Burnley are, they are an incredibly limited team delivering football garbage somehow getting the rub of the green

They are like a innocuous West Brom

 

Scored a great goal today; Burnley play much better football than most give credit for. They also had a very tough start on paper.

Think they'll need to get lucky with injuries to finish top half, but they stay up easily IMO.

 

I have. Can We Help You Sing A Song comes to mind

 

If they buy a Good Goal Scoring Striker in January, They will probably finish higher.

If not, We finish higher than them no worries.

 

Don't wish Everton too much harm because oitusde of the top 6 , they are the only side I could see Silva leaving us for .

 

You say that but there's some very big clubs on the continent that will see him as attainable if we do well.

 

Please, Everton, don't sack Koeman. The only Prem clubs who can sack their managers without frightening us are Bournemouth and Huddersfield (too small) and Palace (unbalanced and not very good squad).

 

Everton rumoured to be in contact with Mazzari

 

I think, if you look at, for example, the comments Koeman made about Niasse last season, there is not a place in the game the way it is today for managers like him. Some people like to praise his 'tells it like is his' approach, some don't, but either way, you can't really say it gets results. He doesn't have a great record over the length of his career, and it appears that the way he treats players is part of it. Once upon a time that might have worked, but coming out openly and saying "If he wants to play football, he should leave" and "I hope he scores hat tricks for the u23s every week" is so counterproductive it's bordering on parody, the way that players operate mentally in the modern game.

It's always odd when a manager decides to totally ostracise a player, even more so when they're not doing it as the result of an incident of bad behaviour or a bust-up with the coach. It's so incredibly disrespectful as an act, especially the way Koeman did it, literally in the national press/media, and for what? Amusingly enough, Niasse ended up going on loan to Marco and showed that, whilst he's no Lukaku, he isn't even the crock that Ronald felt justified to refuse to allow even a chance to play whilst simultaneously slagging him off very publicly.

Successful managers just don't have that kind of relationship with their players these days. Even a manager like Mourinho, who often seems to take pleasure in being a massive bell, fosters an extremely strong relationship with his own players. Look at the way players like Drogba and Terry talk about him. It carries on to this day at Utd and the players there, even those, like Mata, who he has previously sold! It only starts to go the Koeman way when he hits his legendary 3rd season and starts losing the plot. And what is one of the major symptoms of that 3rd Jose season? That's right, losing the dressing room and publicly blaming/falling out with players.

The counter to this can be seen with us at the moment. It's crazy to see after last season, but look at that celebration on Saturday with Rich. He runs straight to the bench, and not only the whole team, not even only bench players/reserves, but even multiple members of the coaching staff all ran to each other to celebrate, jumping into the mass of bodies and generally going wild. That kind of atmosphere and mentality is directly evident on the pitch, and is a good part of why we scored that last, last, last minute goal in the first place.

I think the way that Koeman operates is bad business practice in his chosen field, as it is in its modern incarnation, and is quite unprofessional to boot. It doesn't seem that surprising to me when you look at it from that angle that Everton are struggling. Of course, it's also compounded by their summer recruitment, which was abysmal. To lose Lukaku, replace him with no one and shoe horn a Rooney who is an utterly spent force into the slowest attack in the West seems careless in the extreme. I have no idea how people were suggesting they had made the signings to push into challenging for the Champions League.

 

Evertons recruitment was quite simply baffling to me - They started off pretty well, triggering Sandro Ramirezs release clause for €6m. He's a good player and probably around our level, pretty sure I posted that we should be making him one of our main targets before Everton swooped.

Pickford, whilst an expensive buy had a great season for a team constantly up against it - giving him chance to shine. Young with bags of potential. Could see why they were willing to take a punt.

Schneiderlin - Would make a good DM option along Gueye, decent enough buy.

Michael Keane, pretty much the same as Pickford. Their last "good" buy.

Rooney was an odd purchase - Nowhere near good enough to play as a striker (which they needed) anymore - could still do a job as an attacking midfielder though imo, although his wages (150k a week) are far too expensive.

Sigurðsson - Another odd buy. He's not the creative midfielder that Everton I presume were after - a majority of his creative contributions last season (assists and chances created) were from set-pieces - which would be fine if Everton still had a target man. But they don't. Rooney is essentially the same sort of player if you play him deeper and has delivery of set-pieces to match - baffling.

Klassen - Remains to be seen, was very highly rated a few years ago but Ajax fans say he wasn't that good last season (despite scoring 14 goals from CM!) - I haven't seen him play enough to comment.


So recruitment has been pretty much hot and cold, some good buys that you can see the reasons why, compared to random hugely expensive gambles that I can't see paying off. Coupled with a horrible few opening fixtures (after 7 games played they've had to face Tottenham, Chelsea, Man City, and Man Utd...). They'll soon come good and whilst I do think they'll finish above us, I don't think it'll be by much.

 

everton's demise is just karma finally catching up with them for their grotesque cheating in 1984.

Hopefully they are well on their way to going down when we play them in february and we can give them a nice little shove in that direction.

 

T'was a perfectly good goal.

 

Will we finish higher than Everton?



I think so, haha

 

Brighton leading Everton with just a few minutes to go.

 

Then up steps 'Wazza'.

 

Could be 10 points clear after the game on Saturday.

This one will really massively suit us.

I said in the Stoke thread that we may not have the creativity to score against a team that will park the bus like Stoke. And we didn't.

Everton will come at us - At home. Need a win. Will expect a win vs itsonlywatford. Fans will demand it.

Plays to our strengths. Fast paced counter attacking.

Not saying we will win of course. But we should score. So should they.

I expect a highly entertaining and high scoring game.

Still be last on motd2!

 

Another great performance from the Toffees today.

I think we might finish above them you know.

 

They have still got Barkley but we still have Grover

 

Of course Everton will .... they are MASSIVE!


However in the non bell-end charts, we will

 

Should the thread now be re titled "Who will finish higher Crystal Palace or Everton?"