Carabao Cup 4th Round

Silver lining – we would have got Liverpool.

Fulham v RS. Don't feel so bad now

Well I for one am glad we don’t have to play that horrible shower over 2 legs as I couldn’t have dealt with the false hope, the stress then disappointment as let’s face it we are way behind them at the moment in terms of quality and strength in depth … maybe a home tie but over 2 legs, doubtful

They’ll get past Fulham and hopefully Chelsea will beat them in the final

Let’s concentrate on the league now

Oh, we would have got Liverpool..!? Okay then, we would have just gone to the games, with some nice cakes and lovely biccys; maybe a thermos or two of tea and coffee (Alan McG, no not Calvados!), and just wave 'them' thru...

Get a Life!!

As David (Non-TWer as far as I know?) 'allegedly' found out, the bigger they are, the bigger they fall! I am not calling the rs 'big', they have just spent more than most (and slightly more wisely).

May I humbly suggest, you go and give your heads a very gentle wobble.

Simon we couldn't even beat a shite Fulham side when full of confidence under the lights with a full house and yet they've just swept aside West Ham 5 - 1 with players who can't even get a regular game

I'm an optimist and neither the fans, the players or the manager would have rolled over but it would have been a tall order, maybe in a couple of years when hopefully we are stronger, have much better players and more importantly we have a bloody decent striker who can score goals.

Simon.

You never seen us play Liverpool in the last 20 years then?

Simon,

I always give doom-mongers the benefit of the doubt and assume they're tempting providence hoping to be proven wrong.

Barry Rathbone's occasional joyful posts are an example of this, lol!

Fulham got Liverpool. Silva must hate that black cat.

All the best fellow blues. Here's to another blue miracle v Spuds.

Kieran K- Hahaha, that is beautiful logic (..?) I think! Though as you say, doubt should be given in some cases.

However, is it not about time, as a fanbase, we collectively give up our 'old' notions and ideas about the club.

I'm just sick of the same old 'fallacies' being rolled out time after time, especially the 'reverse' Gambler's Fallacy; I'm going to heavily edit this, but keep it as true as it's originally meant:

The gambler's fallacy

Your logical fallacy is the gambler's fallacy.

You said that ‘runs' occur to statistically independent phenomena such as roulette wheel spins (or never being able to beat a certain football team or teams.)

This commonly believed fallacy can be said to have helped create an entire city in the desert of Nevada, USA.
Though the overall odds of a 'big run' happening may be low, each spin of the wheel (or each individual game of football) is itself entirely independent from the last.

So, whilst there may be a very small chance that heads (or a win) will come up 20 times in a row if you flip a coin, the chances of heads coming up on each individual flip remain 50/50 (or a little more nuanced) and aren't influenced by what happened before.

Example: Red (Liverpool) had come up six times in a row on the roulette wheel, so Greg knew that it was close to certain that black would be next up. (An Everton win!) Suffering an economic form of natural selection with this thinking, he soon lost all of his savings (and hope!).

The thing to remember, including nuances, is that there is always a chance no matter how small, that an unexpected result will occur. Once it has occurred once, it is not possible to say that it won't happen again! Also, remember everything is cyclical, at one point in their history, Liverpool couldn't buy a win against us. So why should we say that won't happen again?

It only changed because Shankly was obsessed with beating us, much like Ferguson was obsessed with over-taking Liverpool for the record number of 1st Division and Premier League titles.

They both just worked every 'footballing' hour to those purposes. If you didn't fit that purpose, you weren't part of their scheme for long!

Maybe we could lobby Sean to just work to being able to get a side together that can always compete with and usually beat Liverpool?

By doing so, it would invariably give us a better chance of being successful, full-stop! Oh, and obviously avoiding relegation unless there are 18 teams in the league that are better than us and them!

As an aside Kieran;

Please could I ask Kieran are you UK/Europe based, or US based? My heads gone and I can't quite recall.

'Tis of no real import, I'm just curious. If you don't mind.

ps: Kieran, with your name and surname, if I had to hazard a guess, you're of Irish stock?

Simon,

I'm English of Irish stock but now live in America. To your other point I think it was Joe earlier saying it's hopeless against the RS. But I seem to recall prior to Klopp the RS greatest ever era (60s onwards) came to an end with a 4-4 draw in the FA Cup followed by a 1-0 Evertonwin, Dalglish quitting and 30 years of no title for the RS.

Also, I seem to recall the likes of Dan Gosling and Andy Johnson slaying them. Even the returning golden boy Dalglish finished below Moyes.

So all these folks on here acting like spoilt kids refusing to play because it's “fixed” get on my nerves. I agree with you that kind of attitude is self-perpetuating.

Do we have any statistical experts? I'd be really surprised if simple probability rules apply to football games the way they do to flipping a coin or roulette wheels.

I don't think each game of football (between the same opponents) is actually entirely independent of the previous one(s).

I am equally doubtful that anyone could seriously back up the claim that Amadou Onana is ‘just a giant Tom Davies'.

Gutted, on the night, yes, absolutely. In reality, now I know who we'd have faced over two matches, perhaps we've dodged a bullet.

Let's be honest: we wouldn't have beaten that lot over two legs.

Unfortunately, no matter what form Everton are in, we always find a way to lose when the whole story is about winning, it's as though we have to read the book again and find out did we miss the part that involves losing.

The Onana penalty will baffle me for a long long time, not just that he took it like a 4-year-old kid playing in his back garden, but why on the planet he was ahead of our usual dead-ball taker, James Garner, and the skipper, James Tarkowski???

It is what it is.

I'll be more interested now to see how they all, Onana in particularly, reacts on Saturday from this setback; that will tell us more about him and the team than the actual daft-arse penalty.

Jim, unfortunately true. No way would we beat them over 2 legs, as we know they could play their reserves and still win. We all remember the 2012 semi-final, when we had it in the bag.

I'm hoping when we eventually get there, the new stadium may bring a new dawn.

We are all gutted, Jim. But we have important matches coming up and the FA Cup.

Stop the dodging-a-bullet talk and bring on 16 March. I don't fear Lucifer's Children. Never have. Never will.

The penalty and the League Cup is gone (for this season).

On to White Hart Lane.

Joe, stop it.

I'm never ever bowing down submissively to them or any other team for that matter.

And to me, they are just another team.

Jim & Joe. Agree with you both.

On balance, I suspect the psychological damage done by the almost inevitable defeat over 2 legs would be worse that going out because one of your team mates made a stupid decision in a penalty shootout.

Given our current predicament, staying in the EPL is the priority.

Danny,

I don't think Joe is entirely wrong however.

I think if we had got past Fulham then our only real hope would have been them drawing Chelsea in the other Semi and us Boro, maybe in a one-off match at Wembley on neutral territory we could have pulled off a surprise but over two legs I doubt.

We need more firepower really and with Doucs missing now for a while potentially we need to find a different way of playing or getting more goals from midfield while he's away.

We have missed and are going to miss Doucoure, Jim. He gets us goals and gives us energy.

I just can't buy into being submissive to the red cousins. Swear jar, but fuck them. We are Everton.

Starting last night and after our loss to Fulham, the banter has already started with family and friends.

Victims and Entitled versus Bitter Twisted Loud and Proud.

Tony,

When I was a teenager, 😂 I could never figure out how the Reds could compete with our 1963-64 team – we had by far the more talented footballers. As I got older and less biased I came to realise that it was down to the fitness and mentality that the manager we loved to hate instilled in them.

Having now digested my dinner-plate-sized serve of humble pie, I have to say our current manager is starting to remind me of him. I hope I am right.

Laurie,

Yes, Liverpool always competed against Everton under Shankly and Paisley.

Dyche even with a threadbare and sometimes injury-ridden squad has got the players believing they can win games, he's got them fitter and ready to battle for a win were once we caved in after going behind, in the last couple of games going to Goodison I have had more optimism that we were going to have a good chance of winning than I've had for quite a while, that's mostly down to Sean Dyche.

Tony 242] Have to agree.

Other than the blip (near-administration under Hicks/Gillette) the RS have rolled along for years as a hard-nosed professional outfit.

I mentioned on another thread a point about how successful they are in penalty shootouts (and how hopeless we are). I read an article recently reporting that Klopp they had brought in specialists to advise players on the approach to taking penalties.

Similarly there was a report a year or 2 ago that they had brought in specialist advice on taking throw ins.

Many may dismiss these initiatives, but it seems to me similar to the 'marginal gains' approach that Dave Brailsford brought to British cycling.

I think that the other lot, had a real fear of failure in the early years of the Shankly revolution, that's what motivated them then and to a certain extent, that fear is still there, as most of the important occasions they seem to pull things out of the bag, even when it seemed impossible for them to do so.

Everton on the other hand seem to have spent most of the time, avoiding success, even when on occasion things have seemed to have been handed to them on a plate, think 1975, when there was a real possibility of doing the domestic double, but the club ended up potless.

Onana's miss, is now being seen as a blessing in disguise, because we wouldn't want to be humiliated by the neighbours in a two-legged competition in the New Year would we? We'll never find out, if this current crop could have coped and triumphed in such a fixture, but imagine what things would have been like if this team could have overcome the other lot over two legs, it might just as easily have been a springboard rather than a trap-door of doom.

The biggest single difference between the two clubs during my time of watching is that they've always had a go-to goalscorer, with name after name joining their ever-growing list of legends, not adequate or good goalscorers but reliable ones who score in many many matches. Everton have had to feed on relative scraps in the goalscorers department, and it's the major reason that we've continued to struggle to compete against them and many other clubs in the division. That's also the main reason that we won't be facing the neighbours in that two-legged semi-final.

It looks like this (your post@22) has been put on another of those cross threads, that sometimes make us look stupid Mike D, but I’ve just been watching a Watsapp, where Piers Morgan, is questioning how the England’s women’s goalkeeper, has just won the sports personality of the year award, and shows a clip of Kenny Dalglish, collecting his lifetime achievement award on the same night. It’s obviously all about winning said Dalglish. Hard nosed professionalism ingrained.