Allardyce looking for more from 'surprised' Schneiderlin

Let's see if Morgan and the others respond in what will be a very testing fixture.

To me, he looks what he is – a snide Too many backwards and sideways passes and not a positive bone in his body. Love us to get shut to be honest but I can't see it.

I am particularly impressed by the backroom team and Sams Analysis. His comments about our tendency to frequently look to pass back to Pickford is something I have noticed since our Europa qualifying games. This habit has two issues:

1. It shows a fear mentality in the players; and

2. It puts a fear mentality in me as I seem to be the only Evertonian who thinks the jury is still out on Pickford. I worry about his kicking ability in these situations often going out over the sideline and also his apparent in ability to hold the Ball and bat any save back into play. Hope I am wrong because we will need a commanding keeper if we are to make any progress.

If we get something from our games against the top six sides we can definitely say that this management team can help realise our dreams and believe they can bring us to the next level. COYB

I hate to say it, but I've almost given up on that happening. Never seen a player fall so far so fast, from top form to deadweight over a summer. I'd give anything to see him light up the side again the way he did last spring.

And Neil (#4), you may not be the only one, but it would be a pretty small gathering at this point. Most of us feel Pickford has been plenty commanding, particularly in light of the chaos at the back earlier this season. Personally, I think he's outstanding and growing in stature every game.

Beginning to love big Sam.

(Yeah, no ambition, best you hope for, blah blah!)

The surprising thing for me, is he keeps getting picked, and the last two games, we have improved dramatically after he was subbed.

It's going to be an interesting January.

Morgan only joined us 11 months ago, not 18. And for the first four months, he was absolutely outstanding. He was MotM against West Brom, the game he scored in, and also against Leicester, when he had I believe eight tackles and ran the midfield.

From Schneiderlin's debut against Stoke until the end of the season, we were 8-3-1 with him in the lineup... and 0-1-3 when he was out injured.

"One-and-a-half decent games? Really?

Like I said, he has lost his form. But anybody who says he "never had any" is just wrong.

I don't know how many times against Swansea in the first half, he ran forward and as soon as he was confronted by the opposition he checked and passed the ball sideways. The game changed dramatically when he was substituted and we became much more offensive.

I would like to see Tom start in his place tomorrow because it will not be pretty if we start so negatively again.

Good point and don't know if it is significant because we soon realised when Koeman started well that he eventually lost the dressing room with criticism of players. His ego was bigger than the club.

So far so good with Sam but we do know he has an ego; let's hope he uses it well.

I was thinking he joined us in the summer, you are right – it was the January window he came to us.

Have a good Xmas and New Year, Mike, and your family, and all the other guys far and wide.

I completely agree. I was desperately hoping we wouldn't get Allardyce, but now he's here I have to say I'm impressed. He is saying the right things, the results have been very good and I'm hopeful the performances will follow suit.

With regards to Schneiderlin, I'm almost ambivalent towards him. I loved him when he joined, then grew to almost loathe him. Now he's just a name on the team sheet that fills a gap. He has as much of the ball as anybody and does absolutely knack all with it.

Saying that, I don't think Gana offers enough going forward either. He at least has a great attitude though, and defensively he's huge.

As an aside, I know Rooney has done well with his goals etc, but if I were Sam I would ban him from that bloody stupid Hollywood pass. The amount of times he rakes the ball 50 yards to Aaron Lennon's head. Just completely wasteful.

If a permanent manager had been in place when they staged their walk out, then they would have been dropped from the squad and transfer-listed. We should get shot of Mirallas in January and Schneiderlin in the summer.

Those who would want to get rid of him because he has 'stunk the place out' when the team was not well organised under Koeman, need to think again IMO. There's a good chance he'll recover his original form, and we won't know unless we give it a chance under Allardyce. To get rid before that, would be cutting off our noses to spite our faces because of annoyance with past poor performances. Which would be daft.

He's a straight talker and he says what we see.

Schneiderlin is a good player struggling. It's as simple as that.

When Rooney dropped back our attacking pace quickened but I'm not sure I want Rooney starting the game back there against the top scoring teams in the league. I am willing to give Schneiderlin more time under a new manager as we have too much invested in him.

You can't push him further forward it's just not in his psyche. Sideways and backwards, mopping up the loose balls has been his game ever since he was a kid at Strasbourg and at his age he's not going to transform into an older Tom Davies.

Lone defensive duties is what he did at Southampton... Their fans say that his defensive play is what made Wanyama look so good... and Man Utd bought him to replace Carrick which again was a mistake as they have Herrera.

He had a good game in Cyprus because he was on his own in his preferred role. Play him just like Gana with a creative partner and we'd see the best of him.

The problem we have in this day and age is that due to over rotation players are unable to form on field relationships. I'd have the older three Schneiderlin, Rooney & Gylfi train together as a midfield pyramid and the younger Gana, Klaassen & Davies do the same then rotate the trio so they learn each others game.

Increasing the behind closed doors 11 v 11s will help create this and bed in the new signings quicker rather than just throwing them on with 10 mins to go in an ad hoc manner.

He made some good tackles yesterday and retained possession well by twisting and turning out of trouble on one or two occasions. Much better.

He may just be innocent so why would he apologise. He's being picked and Mirallas is not – that tells me everything.