He has been our best player all season by a country mile. As you say, we would be in the Championship without him but also, how many points this season would we have without Sarr's contribution? Sarr has a brilliant attitude and has been nothing short of brilliant for us, and he is one of only a few players whose attitude has been right this season up until yesterday. I have seen a few people say that Sarr was poor yesterday, but I beg to differ. I thought it was a clear instruction to let him drift inside into the holes to get him on the ball and stop Everton from marking him out of the game. I thought he was causing Everton plenty of problems with his positioning and running with the ball. He should have had an assist when he skimmed Lucas Digne (who rarely gets beat like that) and put the ball on a plate for Josh King.
Well said. I will also point out that we got exactly what we deserved out of last week and this weekend. Against Liverpool we acted like they were miles better than us from kick off (which, yes they are) but to show no fight at all and throw in the towel from kick off was pathetic. We only began to play when they went 4-0 up and by then they were in 4th gear and still managed another goal at the death. It was the hiding our performances have been leading up to, and one I think we needed as much as it hurt. Yesterday was the complete polar opposite in performance, attitude and game management. Whatever Claudio said after the Liverpool game and leading up to Everton certainly hit all the right nerves. I do not see him coming across as a raise his voice sort of manager but one that puts in a stern word and critiques when needed. I really hope we can build on this, and not do what we did after Villa and Norwich, which was to totally throw away any good vibes built up with a totally abject performance. You do feel however, that Claudio will not accept that next weekend and will work hard all this week again.
One of the funniest things is that in his tweet celebrating the result, the first picture Cucho chose to include was him surrounded by Everton players being held back whilst getting into a fight with Tom Davies:
I have yet another one of my favoruite things from the ever present @reids : stats for this Season. (Though this I think was before the Everton game) Pretty much matches the eye test; a goal threat and wins a lot of fouls. The biggest thing in terms of downside is how lazy he is off the ball. One of the worst, if not the worst in the league for pressuring the opposition. Despite his considerable talent and goal / assist total so far, if he doesn't learn to press and work harder he will never be a top talent as he is not good enough to build a team around and mitigate in the Premier League, whilst in the Championship he could get away with it.
Wow, even based on the eye test I'm surprised by quite how bad that is - aside from the natural inclination, that has to massively be an issue of coaching (or lack of it) and indulgence up to this point.
Cardiff away, 2018/19. Deulofeu hat trick too that game. The coach ride on the way in was the worst I've known!
Why does that first picture look like a bunch of kids in a playground with Cucho being bullied for his lunch money by a load of Scouse thugs?
If you don't mind me summarising this excellent video Smudger: "S***s, f***ing disgrace, s***bags, cowards, fakers, hiders, garbage, Iwobi curse of death, get rid, collapse, worried, f***ing mess". I believe the Toffees and their Grand Old Team are a little upset after yesterday. Just to console them a little...
Yes Ranieri did OK and King was alright, but surely the credit for this win should go to Pearson and Shakespeare who set all this up?
I do love JP but unless I have missed something I don't remember that pass being anything special. Any professional footballer should be able to weight a pass around the corner into space like that.
That's very odd. I always considered the work he did off the ball as excellent, especially last season. I wonder if he's just burned out?
Love him. Right little street fighter. He also knows how to beat the first man at a corner which 100+ players in the last 9 years have been allergic to
I'm still enjoying the collective angst on the Everton forums. We are so bad, so tinpot that we don't deserve to be in this league and have the temerity to humiliate one of the proudest biggest clubs in the history of the universe. However, there have been some sanguine posts including this gem: "The fact of the matter is that Everton are now a nothing club in the league. We won’t get relegated, we won’t challenge for Europe. We will finish mid table. We will win some, lose some, and draw some. We will go completely unnoticed for the rest of the season, because we have nothing special about us, either good or bad. We are that kid in the class whom nobody knows their name. It hurts but it is what it is." And this: "We lost 5-2 at home to Watford. F u ck you Everton. Has to be thee single worst defeat in my 30 years supporting the club. An absolute disaster. I'll say it again. F u ck you Everton." He-he-he-he-He-he-he-he-He-he-he-he-He-he-he-he-He-he-he-he-He-he-he-he
Well they haven’t won or even look like winning anything since 1995. One final and 2 semis in the FA cup since. They really are the typical mid table mediocrity club ! Unlike other clubs with some money they don’t even spend it that well. Their most dangerous players have been free transfers , a lad from the youth system and 2 players from us !
Love that from Cucho. Exactly the type of character you need, especially when you're fighting to stay up! I think Ranieri could get the best out of him.
Typically, the first game this season I've not watched as I was out for my birthday, but what a fantastic win. I've only seen the 10 minute highlights, but King looked brilliant, and not just for his goals. I always said I think he'll get 10-12 league goals for us this season and I stand by that. He has a bit of everything, and now he's got those goals his confidence is going to be sky high, which will hopefully bring even more goals. We definitely do have some exciting attacking players and a lot of options going forward. Dennis has been a great signing, too. If we can stop shipping quite so many goals then we might have a decent chance of staying up, especially now that we've got a proper manager. Nkoulou and Sierralta could and likely will help with that. Cathcart still needs to disappear.
The bottom line is if we win 8 more games we'll stay up. We seem to have 3 goalscoring attackers which is amazing after suffering misfiring Deeney's graveyard years. We may be able to add JP to that too. In the PL it's hard to predict who you're gonna beat but when a team fooks up like Everton and Villa you have to take the opportunity and win the game if u want to stay up. Despite our shambolic start to the season we've won the same number of games as the bottom 5 combined. There's a long way to go but if we beat Southampton we'll have a 40% win rate this season. I've always felt if we had a really good manager and a system that allows the players to perform effectively we'll stay up. We can do this. 8 wins to go!!
I managed to watch most of it live, but missed the last few minutes for similar reasons! Left the house at 3-2, just hoped we could hang on, 5-2 was dreamland! Nkoulou available a little earlier than expected, and if we can keep up the form we showed from when he entered the pitch, I think he'd have to go down as one of the greatest signings ever!
I am not sure, it wasn't anything to get a boner about in my opinion. I would expect most players to be able to successfully complete that pass.
I agree, it wasn't a difficult ball to play. The defender stood off him giving him time and what made it a great pass was the run from Dennis.
No, Liverpool need at least two more goals to overtake what they gave us last weekend, then we lose that tag. Tbh, even we weren't that bad at HT.
If you took away his 3 goals, I would still rate King as Man of the Match. His overall contribution was terrific.
It’s not as if in a quarter of a season we have the same points than Derby got in a season Or we put 5 past Everton in response This will all be about how good Liverpool and Salah is. Because UTD. Last week it was us just being **** but this week it’s Liverpool playing well. And we are unfashionable and change our head coach who was clearly out of his depth
