From My Seat: Bournemouth (A)

His failure to make 'in game' substitutions (for fear of offending personnel?) bit us in the bum and demonstrated that even with the most capable squad in years we will again be also rans.

If we manage that by January, before we go to Man City and Chelsea away, then we will be in the mix. Today's results show again (the RS penalty win being horribly predictable) that it's up for grabs and we just have to seize the opportunity if we are to advance as a club. I still think we can do it but we must use the bitter disappointment of yesterday to drive us on.

Thanks for your report as always.

It's been the Achilles Heel of Everton for years now, going right back to the Moyes years; we were always hard to beat but we drew too many matches, hence why we never could quite push on in our top 4 challenge.

It's a poor quality league this season and it's WINS that will get you to the business end of the table. Only time will tell if games like yesterday will eventually prove the downfall of another assault on the top 4, but we need to go on a winning run soon; forget being hard to beat, it's back-to-back wins that we need badly.

All we can do for now though is prepare for a huge potentially season-defining game on Tuesday night at Middlesbrough and try to get the win that will get that "20 minutes from the twilight zone" yesterday out of our system.

Let's get real. Around seventh is the best we can hope for.

The players on the bench are not just there to cover if someone is injured; they are also there to change the game plan, or cover for players who are struggling. If after Bournemouth started to get on top in the second half, and either of these options were used, the game was there for 3 points.

Great that you say James McCarthy was back to his best, he was a great favourite of mine after his first season but I don't think Martinez has been getting the best out of him since that first year.

Tony Hill is a poster I always take notice of as, to my mind, he speaks a lot of sense concerning the Blues; however, Tony I would stop looking at the league table if I was you; just let things come or go, I feel you will also be frustrated by Martinez and his strange stubborn tactics.

Not only that, but they have the second lowest amount of possession.

Those facts illustrate, if any were needed, that our multiples of passes are worth no more than farting in the wind.

There is much talk of learning from this experience. Some of that talk is fair, we have quite a young team. What worries me is that the guy in charge seems to have an aversion to taking lessons on board.

"If, after nearly 7 seasons in the Premier League the manager is still failing to manage the team during the game time by changing tactics or players, and the Bournemouth game is not the first time he has not changed players or tactics when the opposition has changed theirs, how long is it going to be before he learns?"

The thing is though, Bill, in his first season RM frequently had a Midas touch with his substitutions which were pivotal in changing the game. Many a time the introduced player would create a goal or score himself.

Nor were they like-for-like subs, with no change in formation or tactics.

Take the 3-3 derby match at GP. Baines was injured late 1st half, lasted 5 minutes of the 2nd half. Did RM go like-for-like and bring on a defender? NO! He went for bold and brought on Deulofeu, who almost immediately scored, but then terrorized and occupied the Liverpool defence the rest of the game.

Certainly last season, and mostly this, I don't see the same boldness in either his substitutions, the timing of them, or a change of tactics, in response to what is happening in game.

If anything, as opposed to your question 'How long before he learns..?' It's almost as if he has 'unlearnt' what he showed us and filled us with such hope and promise for the future in his first season.

Sure he will play Gibson, Besic, Osman and Mirallas but somehow I see the defence struggling again.

Also Howard's kicks against the wind were hardly reaching the centre circle so the tactic of passing the ball back for him to hoof it upfield meant we then faced a battle to regain possession inside our own half. More sensible surely for defenders to launch the ball themselves from more advanced positions.

It was obvious with 20 minutes to go that we needed to push the play into the Bournemouth's half. If they had been introduced at that point, Mirallas and Naismith, both with something to prove, might have given us the energy and fight to renew the pressure on the home defence which had looked vulnerable in the first half.

Instead, the substitute goalie hardly had a thing to do until picking the ball out of the net in the 95th minute. This was a game in which we could have scored a hatful if our players had put their minds to it. All the more annoying therefore to drop two points against a team which will more than likely be back in The Championship next season.

Do we have a team of winners or a bunch of losers? Tuesday night at Middlesbrough may go some way to answering that question.

I am hoping Naismith will start getting some game time soon. He may only be a squad man, so will be limited to coming off the bench, but he wins niggly freekicks to take the pressure off. He also works his socks off. He may not be the best player in the team, but his spirit is infectious, and I think our young team needs a bit more of this. It seems things went downhill when McCarthy went off. We should have had Besic on the pitch, as he is another one with a bit of devil in him.

The ability of a lot of our players is not in question – Lukaku, Barkley, Deulofeu to name 3. But do they have the nouse to pick up points when conditions are not perfect? Apart from Barry and Coleman, it looked like a very quiet 11 that finished the game...

Seems to me the players had it in them to win this as evidenced when we stepped it up to score Barkley's goal but are prepared to cruise too much when it appears we have the game in the bag.

This lethargy has been too evident this season and is the reason why we won't win things or finish near the top.

We need a leader that wants to win things and does not allow the rest of the team to go into slumber mode.

1 win in 6 away games is not good enough for a team of our quality and ambition.

Sort it out Blues hopefully before Middlesbrough.

Is this a pub team de-brief? Professional footballers have no right to spout this shite. Our team has nowhere near earned the right to be swanning around in the second half, 2-0 up, assuming that they're above all that nasty "hard work" thing (McCarthy excepted).

Take a look at the way Palace spent their WHOLE match trying to crucify Newcastle if you want to see what ambition and ruthlessness means, Roberto. For some weird reason, they and every other professional seem to believe that RESULTS matter, at the cost of "performance" if necessary.

What the fuck did you tell them at half-time? Not only that, everyone but us seem to believe that goal difference matters. Watching Lukaku and Kone do their childish little dance, presumably perfected at Finch Farm, celebrating a goal against the truly dire Villa, with more than 30 minutes to go, pissed me off, 4-0 or not.

That said, under the muppet Martinez, seven years on as he is in his Premier League "career", I expect I'll see Cameron having a whip-round for the homeless before Roberto even starts to get to grips with what being a winner is.

I was screaming for Gibson to come on at 60 minutes with the in-form Mirallas. Martinez did a Moyes bringing on the defensive Lennon and invited the Cherries to take the initiative.

Under Moyes, it would have been "All hands to the pumps, let's keep what we have, 2-0 and ride the game out" but to concede 3 goals as we did is Sunday League footy after a skinful on Saturday night! Totally embarrassing to say the least.

I dunno what the answer is but I would start with the keeper who can't dominate his 6-yard box and has no idea how to organise the defence. Coleman is so off the pace, it's not funny, and Galloway is looking tired and needs some rotation with Baines.

Deulofeu is much better coming on for the last half hour with fresh legs. Gibson can pass the ball and when we play to Lukaku strengths he is worth his £28 mil pricetag.

Now the dust has settled somewhat, it may be a BLESSING in disguise this result as we really need to tear Boro apart on Tuesday night. Perhaps a few will be up for it. Baines, Cleverly, Osman and Mirallas should start but that would be it.

Your gem for the week: "Apart from being able to buy a crystal ball on the seafront, nothing could have prepared us for what we were about to receive." You always get a smile out of me no matter what.

Jay (#17) spot on about the leader. I'd actually take it a bit further. There is plenty of talent in the squad – but this group needs someone on the pitch who they are more afraid of than the opposition – a sergeant major type.

Link

Sums it up, Jay. Little else to say. Except why we didn't keep stepping on it through the second half. And that's got to be down to the manager. If the lads step off the gas, their fault initially; if they continue to step off the gas, entirely the manager's fault.

The only worry is, with him and "Sideshow Bob" running the AGM, the other night, we will be left with a talented man who isn't learning nowhere nearly quick enough for us.

Ken, I hope you're right with your last sentence, and the fact that you don't have to come out with a load of bollocks to be the eternal optimist makes you a lot easier to understand than Roberto. Thanks, mate!

Ah well. Onwards and upwards

This is a Quarter Final of a cup competition we have never won, we are 20 years without a trophy; if we get past Middlesbrough, we have a two-legged Semi-Final to look forward to, that will really generate interest amongst the fans for the New Year and could kick-start our season more.

Middlesbrough have conceded just 2 goals at home all season; make no mistake, this is a very hard tie for us... they knocked out Manchester United in the last round whilst we have scraped through our matches.

Any messing about with the team tomorrow night or any slack performances will, I'm sure, see us eliminated.

It's a big game tomorrow; we need to bloody well rise to it!

We need a big personality on the pitch who doesn't happen to be our goalkeeper. Rooney (if available at the right wages) would be a quality addition. I feel he has lost his hunger for Man United – if he gets the 12 goals required to catch Bobby Charlton, then I think he will be off to us in the summer. It may take Man Utd to pay off a chunk of his remaining contract if he can accept the 𧴜k we could probably offer at a maximum.

Definitely bigger than the Kiev game for me.

We are one win away from a Semi-Final; even if we had beaten Kiev, we still had a two-legged Quarter and Semi to play against clever European opposition like Sevilla or Fiorentina... we had no hope!

We could play Stoke or Sheffield Wednesday in a Semi-Final here! We may not; it could be Man City or Liverpool... but wouldn't we like another two cracks at the redshite? And Manchester City have shown this season that they are far from formidable; they have clear apparent weaknesses.

We probably won't win it, no... but I at least want the chance to have another crack at it, and defeat tomorrow will be hugely deflating!

Some points. Why did Deulofeu run straight past their man on the edge of our area to give him a free shot for their first? Kone was near also but I can offer some excuse as surely he expected GD to hold up their player. That is what brought them back into the game. Notwithstanding our awful 2nd half performance we were holding them without too much difficulty until then.

After our 3rd there was no excuse for us to have any of our players ahead of the ball. So, what did we get? A player running across our midfield with no challenge. A man wide completely unmarked. (Coleman was running inside with one of their players, where was Lennon?) And a cross into an unmarked player in the box as we marked space.

After we scored we should have had all 10 outfield players back. We could have played with 2 banks of 5 to stop the midfield run. We could have pulled 10 back into our box and made it more difficult for them to get space. We could have put all of our players on our goal line to stop the ball going in. Anything except what we did.

Like my good friend Peter Mills, my son and I watching were equally angry and frustrated at 2 points being wasted in such a typical Everton fashion.

Venerable? I certainly didn't type that.

Could it be a sign?

I would have thought that Roberto was recruited on the basis that he had learned his trade after three Premier League seasons with his previous club. Certainly he was introduced as a manager who was well versed in basic tactics and was ready for a bigger challenge.

Just how long does the man's defensive naivety continue to let him off the hook?

Was he not at Wigan for 4 seasons and at Swansea for 2 seasons? Styles and tactics may change but management of touchline decisions during a game remain an integral part of the game, and that comes with experience that he has both as a manager, coach and player.

I think it will be utter madness to do this, because it's too many players coming back at once, without enough recent game time. Even if a couple of these changes are forced upon us, it makes a mockery of his recent use of the subs.

Hope I'm very wrong Jim, because like yourself, I happen to believe this is a massive game for us tomorrow, and Boro have got a good pedigree against the big boys lately, in the cups.

But now they want to play and to play they sign for (so-called smaller teams) with less wages but getting playing time. They have also recruited better managers with better ideas and training methods.

Everton just had one of those games on Saturday. This league is wide open and I promise the same old faces won't be in the top four at the end.

Robles
Coleman
Stones
Funes Mori
Baines (I just think Galloway needs a rest)
Deulofeu
Cleverley
Gibson
Besic
Mirallas
Lukaku.

COYB.