From My Seat: Norwich (League Cup)

Last season and this, I am finding myself veering between apathetic torpor and hysterical fanaticism. The latter is there having supported the Club all my life, it lies within all of us, it keeps us going. But despite it, despite the fact I was pleased with the shootout and we live to fight another day, another round, I have to say I was bored senseless at Goodison last night.

Such indifference is dangerous, it allows things to drift. I hate to hear booing, but I was almost relieved by the show of dissatisfaction at Martinez when he took Kone off. We'll hear some more on Sunday if Howard maintains his current form, following a very competent display by Robles last night.

One thing is clear: Martinez is losing the fans he almost won back. More booing at the Old Lady is a double-edged sword. Yes, fans have the right to express themselves; however, the younger plays such as Barkley will loose confidence.

This moronic "resting" of players when we play in the League Cup is sticking in everyone's throats. What the hell is he saving the players for?? I would rather we went hell for leather and won a trophy that has so far been missing from our trophy room than pondered whether we may finish 6th or 7th or owt else!!

He won't get it... he's a waste of space... and his blindness re our keeper just beggars belief.

Thinking on something since yesterday. I can't remember a win, an important one at that, surrounded by Evertonians ripping into the players and manager as if we lost. And lost badly.

I didn't watch the game, but had the Fan Forum open and read all the comments in Michael's report. If I didn't know the result, I'd think we lost the game. Again, I can't remember that happening after a win.

BEIN has the replay here this morning. I'm going to watch it. Could we have been THAT bad?

By the by, "The fat van was in full swing and by the queues assembled not many are taking much notice of WHO food advice.". Nice one.

" . . . scuffed a creeper past a wrong-footed keeper.

Great to play so poorly and still win!

I've never given any time or money to this competition as over the years it has become just a reserve team romp. To those who want silverware of any sort, I would point out we've won the Liverpool Senior Cup in recent memory so we are not potless!

Bad though it sounds, it did give the manager the chance to see his back-up players in action although reading this report that's just what they will remain – including the goalie!

It was a rank bad performance.

I also thought that it was the crowd that ultimately won us the game. I've never before heard at any ground the opposition players striding up for their penalties to a wall of sound of chanting for the home team. The fans were silent for most of the game, understandably given the sleep inducing football being watched, but they more than made up for it in penalty time.

As I said yesterday, they wanted it more than us. The amount of 50 50s we lost was shocking and mistakes too. The Norwich midfielders always had space, and I think the main downfall was the Gibson McCarthy partnership. McCarthy in particular had a terrible game, that midfield to me really missed bite, Besic comes to mind.

Then Robles bailed us out, our defending from set pieces is atrocious. Mori had a fantastic game I thought, he won everything in the air, but he was the only one capable or defending crosses and corners in our box. Stones wasn't great last night, and actually looked better further forward when he went to right back.

Then the positives was the amount of chances we created. Only one in the first half, but so many in the second and extra time. I remember at least three one on ones, and we probably should have scored 5 goals last night! We need to be more clinical.

Also I thought Mirallas played alright, and I think Ken, you were a little harsh on his performance. Remember he did the assist and he looked a lot better after the subs. I don't see Sunderland's full backs as that threatening, so I'd like to see him and Deulofeu start on Sunday, or at least on the bench.

But I was at the game and thought we were god awful. General play we were but I did forget about the amount of chances we created. That's a positive at least.

Norwich rarely gave the ball away, we rarely passed the ball to each other but found the opposition much more.

I thought we started with two passengers, one was substituted, the other scored our goal, I think you saw him differently, strange that Martinez kept Osman on for the whole game when he has hardly played this season.

Deulofeu's corner by the way was very weird, but in mitigation he did slip when he took it.

Roberto talking about last night's penalty shoot-out victory. I'm not too sure many would agree that the performances so far in this competition deserve a great amount of credit. Greg O'Keefe from the Echo, who usually sees Everton through very blue-tinted glasses said:

Those who were there will bear the scars of watching that first half forever.

I don't know where we will end up with Roberto, better or worse, but I wish he would try and see the game from the perspective of the supporters. Life is so full of technocrats and managerial speak, which isn't designed to capture the imagination of the viewing public and often has an air of "but the ordinary person shouldn't be expected to understand the various nuances..." of whatever the subject matter.

I never thought that I would be watching an Everton team led by a person who seems to have no affinity, from a football point of view, with the match-going fan and who sees himself as a missionary trying to convert the followers of the club to his precious philosophy.

The faith Roberto shows in his own beliefs are unlikely to be replicated by the masses, for they have witnessed good football from good players, some have witnessed great football from great players and many have witnessed bad football from bad players, but rarely have we all witnessed, so often, bad football from a pretty decent set of players.

If the manager stays aloof from the fans from a football perspective the chances are he will have to find a new audience of fans to convert, because in general Merseysiders treat football as a religion and they know every hymn and can quote chapter and verse every tactic that has ever been employed by any manager, they also recognise what is good and what is bad and from that point of view they don't need converting.

Speaking of which, good to see Oviedo having a decent game. We can do with him back to his best.

Ossie scored. Like Naisy, up around the box is where he ought to be, leaving midfield graft to others.

So, Sunday all eyes will be on Tim Howard, and I don't just mean ours, plus Joel Robles has shown he is ready to play for us.

Solo lo mejor es lo bueno.

In over 55 years of watching the Blues I currently feel as low as I have ever felt because there is a chasm between the club and the fans.

Roberto is totally indifferent to the fans views as is our "one of us" leader.

When you treat the masses with total contempt like making the statement: "Tim will be back against Sunderland" immediately after a MotM performance from Robles, the mind boggles and you inviting a very bad reaction.

It almost seems like RM wants the sack with some of his inane statements LIke "He thought it was a good game of football and was quite impressed by the players attitude."

I would have been questioning why the players are in a slumber until the second half of every game or when we go behind.

It doesn't matter who plays we see the same every game and it's now 2 wins out of the last 8 home games.That is an appalling statistic.

Seriously though I thought we had learned some lessons from last season but that was one of the worst performances I've seen in a long time.
But not the worst; I was at THAT Tranmere FA Cup game.

RMs quote of 'It was a well deserved passage to the next round with the quality that we showed in our penalty shoot-out'. Is also odd - shocker that. There really is no stopping him. From what I saw, we only started playing after around the 70 min mark. Before that we looked like a pub team and Norwich ran rings around us, at home, with a lot of changes to their line up too.

For an honest view, I'd rather go with the Norwich manager, 'We played really well. If anyone deserved to win the match over the 90 or 120 minutes, it was us. Having gone out of the cup on penalties is disappointing.'

Still - we're through to the next round, which is the only good (and most important) thing we can take out of the game. I believe the next round is already the quarter finals.....although City, United and RS are still in the competition so fingers crossed we avoid all three of them in the next round. Seems like an away tie to a Hull or Shef Weds is what we need.

I hate to say this but Stones was a liability defending in the 6-yard box. His positional play really needs to improve. As Ben Jones says (#10), he looked a lot better when he moved to right back/flank. Perhaps Roy Hodgson knows something after all.

In over 60 years of supporting the Blues, I cannot ever recall leaving the ground feeling sympathy for the opposition but I did on this occasion. I thought we were dreadful and if our manager thinks otherwise I think he needs to take a serious look at himself and the tactics he employed along with the team selection. To play both Osman & Gibson, with little game time between them, in midfield was surely a grave error proven by how overrun we were in that department.

The next few games are crucial to the future of our season but similar performances to this one will surely lead to mid table obscurity with little prospect of further progress in the cups. Let's hope it's just a temporary blip.

It was a chance to get some rust out of fringe players paid tens of thousands for spending their time here sitting on their arses and for proving our reserve goalie is better that the one the manager is in love with.

Saturday is the real deal and I'm sure there will be a far different approach by both manager and players.

So our lads do not know whether they should clear the lines or find a way to start the passing and more often than not they get caught somewhere in between. As a result, they're able to do neither and end up either losing the ball or finding it in the back of their own net.