Blues had no answer to Saints' desire

It'll be tough!

Hard to believe it's the same player as early in the season.

Wasting everyone's time right now.

The ball is breaking down most around two players: Gomes in midfield, Richarlison as 'centre forward'.

When he first came in the side, Gomes was very good at protecting the ball, turning away from players and laying the ball off.

PL teams and managers learn quickly. He now has 2-3 players closing him down whenever he is on the ball. The result is, he coughs up possession a lot and even when he does get a pass off these days, it often goes to the opposition, rather than a blue shirt.

Today, Silva has him playing a lot deeper - even with Gana in front of him at times - presumably to get him on the ball more with more time. It's not working.

Richarlison simply cannot play with his back to goal against one solid PL centre back, never mind the 3 he faces today. He is virtually redundant playing the role he is being asked to fulfill.

It needs a shake up. Gomes off, Gana staying deep, Sigurdson dropping back to more central midfield, Bernard into the number 10 role vacated by Sigurdson, Richarlison wide left, DC-L at centre forward.

I doubt Silva will do it, but what we have at that moment won't cut it, today or in future games.

Gomes, Gana and Sigurdsson look like they are not interested. and cannot make a simple pass to each other.

Coleman getting roasted.

Zonal marking a joke. Ings, has a free header with 6 defenders around him in the box and nobody attempts to go for the ball with everyone watching each other.

Second half has to be better than what we have just witnessed.

Fear for us if they score as we don't seem to have anything up front.

Midnight for me, off to bed. Can't watch any more of this crap.

It's the lack of urgency that's so frustrating, and as Ernie said, we desperately need a striker, but we also a lot more coming from the middle of the park.

Wide open Everton, an accident waiting to happen

Every team has picked a striker.

Most of them aren't playing the striker of their dreams but they play them anyway because that's football.

Ings, Barnes, Wood, Ayew, Carroll, Rondon, Deeney, Niasse... I could carry on but you get the idea. We talk about needing a striker that is Premier League standard - well there's your Premier League standard. It's not a high bar!

Yet we're the only team that thinks we're too good to play with a Niasse, Calvert-Lewin, Tosun, or Walcott up front.

How long do we watch Richarlison stink stadiums out?

Silva has to go. We cannot continue with garbage performances against garbage teams.

If we're losing, throw strikers on.

If we're winning, throw defenders on.

Brilliant stuff.

So let's hope the board are consistent and get rid of this fraud Silva as soon as possible.

Pantomine season continues for Everton FC.

How the fuck can you feel sorry for Moshiri??? It's that prick that hired Koeman, Allardyce, and now Silva. The man hasn't got a clue about football and his first appointment has set our club back 3 years.

Silva, like Allardyce, was left a poor poor squad – mind you, his signings now look ordinary players after the early optimism.

No point talking about sacking Silva because this clown Moshiri would hire someone like Pardew or someone of his ilk We are going to have to bite the bullet with Silva – no matter how bad it gets.

Ask him if he fancies a job managing the Blues if we get dumped out of the FA Cup next week please?

He doesn't seem to have any idea how to make tactical changes during a game, same subs thrown on every match and hoping for the best.

Awful management.

He has to keep hold of McCarthy and put him in the team next week in the FA Cup.

Part of me thinks it would be daft to get rid of another manager, part of me thinks we might just have to.

Hang down your head,Kev Dooley
Hang down your head and cry
Hang down your head, Kev Dooley
Poor boy,we're bound to die!!!!!

Hanging by a thread with the trap door beckoning – oh boy, we're going to die – unless something drastic happens... soon.

Is this merde the incentive I need to renew my Season Ticket??? Methinks not.

Other than the (nicely taken) Sigurdsson goal, I can only recall two other chances we might have got something from: Sigurdsson's header at the start of the 2nd half, and Calvert-Lewin 's header under pressure from the centre back and keeper.

Silva initially made a good first substitution, but only after coughing up the first goal, and even then the tactical tweak wasn't a good one, keeping Bernard and Lookman wide and playing both Richarlison and Calvert-Lewin down the middle. Effectively a 4-2-4 with Sigurdsson withdrawn to play more alongside Gueye. Only, that left too many spaces from an organized Saints, who pressed us well all day, to exploit.

Once again, evidence for me, that Silva goes too gung-ho, too soon, when going behind. It's schoolyard football tactics: sod defence, attack-attack. Attack-attack-attack.

He compounded that further by withdrawing possibly our most creative player on the day, Bernard, for Theo 'Why?' Walcott.

The goals we conceded were dreadful, in keeping with too many games this season in which the opposition don't have to work too hard or do anything extraordinary to score or win against us.

The passing was again poor – back to underhit, dribbly, 'it's-behind-you!' balls, easily picked off by the opposition.

One win in the league all season for Southampton before today.

Where has the team pre-Liverpool game gone?

Poor fare. Very poor fare.

Good luck to anyone trying to pick an Everton MotM out of that lot.

In reality? Walcott will probably come in for Lookman and Richarlison will start up front. Gana will have legged it to PSG and Davis will get his shirt.
I'm depressed

There does not seem to be any game plan, two players running for the same ball and neither getting it, it has become a joke!

Silva was not my choice, but I was prepared to give him time to turn things around. I am afraid that time has run out for me, the man is clueless.

Unfortunately, sorry to burst the good feeling bubble but I think Brands seems to be another one. We, as supporters generally, are not stupid and believe that actions speak louder than words.

From Moshiri, from Brands, from Silva, it is all talk no trousers with regards the footballing side of things. For the next manager can we please just get a competent, someone who hasn't relegated anyone, type of manager.

Anyway to try to say something positive and fix things a bit please now Stop playing Richarlison as a centre-forward. He is not ready for that yet . He is ineffective. Out muscled and overpowered. He cannot play to his strengths in that position.

Silva has to take him out of it for his own good. Physically and mentally. Either sign a proven centre-forward or loan one; failing that Calvert-Lewin gets more change out of defenders .

Put Richarlison on the left, Calvert-Lewin as centre-forward and Lookman on the right.

Sloppy, lazy passing. Awful defending and organisation. The players clearly not training properly. Just looks like Martinez is in charge again.

This has all gone south since Kenwright declined to hire a top-level manager when Moyes left and gave the job to Martinez. It's been a fucking disaster ever since. Don't give me any nonsense about Martinez first season, it means nothing when he left us in such a shit state.

I can't remember the last time an Everton squad showed collective pride in the jersey since Moyes left and before you all start, no I don't want Moyes back, but at least effort and pride was the minimum requirement when he was here.

I'm quite sure that we will finish mid-table due to quite a few awful teams below us but that masks the lack of ambition from the club. I get that a bad result can set you back (the derby result) but to be still sulking about it several weeks later, well the whole squad/manager need a quick reality check.

Bad things happen, get over it and start again, don't just let your heads drop for an eternity. This has gone beyond a "hairdryer" moment. The manager needs to ask the question who actually wants to play for Everton FC, because on current form there are plenty who apparently don't want to.

A bit of harsh tough love is required. Players literally need to be knocked into shape and those who cry about it, drop them. I can't believe we have such a brittle squad now with absolutely no leaders. Well done, Kenwright – you've overseen a complete shambles. Hang your head in shame. You are responsible for what we're seeing now

I'll say it again - we head hunted this guy?!?!!

The dead hand of Bill Kenwright has poisoned this club for decades and almost to extinction.

Who wants to follow a joke, a shambles going through the motions and making up the numbers while making a crowd of useless mercenary shite multi-millionaires? Nobody, that's who.
It's heartbreaking.

He is not getting what is a technically gifted team to play even basic level football. Very poor.

Silva was not a smart appointment but these players will get anyone sacked.

This is pathetic, turgid football and don't anyone dare argue that this isn't Silva's team and tactics. He's had long enough to stamp his mark on the way we play, spent a fortune and brought 5 outfield players in - half of the team represents his signings. Its arguable also that at least half of the rest would be acceptable to him. No other manager would expect to sign a full team before they make a difference.

After the Liverpool game I said to judge him after the Cardiff away game. If we haven't picked up 26 - 29 points from those 14 games then he will have dug his own grave. By my reckoning, he's already at least 10 points behind that modest target. Even if we win all the games to Cardiff, we'll still be 1 - 5 points behind (and those games include Wolves home, Watford away and City home - no chance.

Silva is rapidly running out of time to make a difference but the problem is - he looks way out of his depth.

Shame - but I remember Sir John Moores once saying that 'the ultimate responsibility for the team performance rests with the manager'. Nothing's changed in that regard.

Blame Moshiri for pursuing him?

Blame the players who seem oblivious to hard work and have failed under god knows how many managers?

It's just a vicious roundabout of one failure after another.

Replacement?

Who would you rather have next?

Big Dunk or Jose Mourinho?

Sorry, it's only January... but hold my hand up: I was wrong about you, Mr Silva, you will not last.

The game showed that Silva has no tactical solution to a team who plays a high defensive line flooding midfield. What's more, maybe he doesn't know what the problem is, since his player selection was the same as last week, and they all had the same problems this week, contributing to the same farce.

His substitutions must have been lucky last week to pull him out of a hole, because he didn't follow them this week, continuing the farce. He wasn't even able to get his aggressive tactic of the ground so deflated were the players as they were overwhelmed by Southampton.

I can't see Silva turning things around, unless Brands has an input.

Really poor today Everton, with only Digne, brave enough to take real responsibility, with a lot of players, willing to hide, or just pass the buck. (Same thing)

Who wouldn't like to play against Everton, when in possession? There is enough space for the opposition to do whatever they like, the way our team is set-up.

I'm not calling for anyones head and I'm not sure if it's the coach or players but it needs a bit of a shake up.

This is the Premier league. You can't coast unless your 3 goals to the good with 5 minutes to go.

As a player if the short passing game isn't working that the manager wants you need to change it just so it's not predictable and get us further up the field.

Ric is a top player but I'm one of the many who's of the opinion he's wasted up front. It's not that he's a useless striker it's just that the service is poor. Get him involved in the game more by playing him deeper.

Bernard isn't a typical winger. He's not strong or fast enough to get the better of modern day Premier league full backs. I like him but he needs freeing up. He always looks dangerous on the ball but he scares me when near the left back position covering Digne.

I'm still a fan of Gomes but he needs to up his game. We can't afford to give the ball away when playing deep knowing the opposition have pushed up on us. Far to risky. Again Silva needs to take some blame and improve things.

No effort, no spirit, no quality. Something has to give and we all know what that is under the current administration.

I wouldn't have Big Dunc anywhere near the job, that's everything that's wrong and has been wrong with this club for too long.

When you look at the players we have, they are mainly just cast-offs from other teams where they have failed.

It goes far deeper than managers and players, the whole organisation (!) has been stolen by people with no idea how run a football club, employ a proper coaching and scouting set up, build a team or engage with true supporters.

Goodison has become a rats nest of bullshitters making fortunes off the back of the club's ever more distant history.

Well it's not me that should be accused of that it's the cowards that are playing for and managing our team.

Hopefully all the excuses like transition, fatigue etc have been put to bed and we can call it how it really is.

A set of lazy cowards coached by someone who doesn't really have a clue. No tactics and even less motivational skills.

I have no doubt that, if there has been no vast improvement this time next season, regardless of signings or not Silva will be back on the dole.

Could someone explain the improvement as I can't see it!!

We could get Eddie Howe in next and he'd be getting the same grief in six months time.

The club has just been existing on memory for too long, too clueless of how to move forwards and be bold on and off the pitch.

If PSG are serious regarding Gana, then sell him, he offers fuck all to the team. When he wins the ball, he usually gives it straight back to the opposition. Sigurdsson again piss poor as was Gomes and Richarlison.

Silva has a huge job between now and this time next season. If there isn't a massive change in personnel and performances, he will suffer the same fate as the last 3. He doesn't seem to have the players who care about the club, they just all seem to care about there big fat pay packets.

They are a fucking disgrace to our club and they need kicking out quickly What a gutless bunch of twats we have representing us.

However, it can't be denied that he had a team ethic and spirit that has never been matched since his departure. I am not advocating his return, by any means, but we have done a lot worse in the meantime, and at what cost?

Bring Moyes, Unsy and Big Dunc for the interim. Let us steady the ship and bring people who will get the best out of our current crop of expensively assembled squad before we think about the next stage.

Hate it or like it: Moyes got us into Champions League qualifying with an average team based on hard work and grit alone. He also got us to an FA Cup Final. Qualifying for the Europa League was a given toward the end of his tenure. What have we inherited since then?

We've been dying slowly of lazy incompetence, egotistical, lying directors, and apathy for years.

We may need to press the re-set button. Go back to basics, keep clean sheets and stabilise. I hope Silva gets it right, but patience is a rare commodity in the Premier League.

I just wonder if Brands sees him as the right man? Did Brands have a say in his appointment? If not, maybe Brands doesn't really fancy him and Silva knows it? Maybe Brands has seen enough and has other ideas? Who knows, but I feel something ain't right behind the scenes.

For a manager who was so sought after (by Moshiri) and is so young, yet managing a fairly big club in the Premier League, he looks and sounds a bit demotivated. He doesn't look like he's enjoying himself at all. He shows little emotion and I'm not convinced the players are turning up for him.

He has form for falling out at clubs. Fuck knows, but spending money hasn't worked and whatever people say of the squad, too many are underperforming now. No-one is playing to their potential at the moment.

The club has been pathetic for over thirty years thirty sodding years with the exception of a year or two in the mid-nineties when we celebrated the miracle of the “Dogs of War“. That's right... we look back fondly to the days of Ebbrell and Parkinson. And Big Dunc. Why have we accepted this for so long? I genuinely want to know.

As someone pointed out on the live stream today, we are fixated on Liverpool not winning the Premier League rather than examining our own shortcomings. Ffs, what has happened to this once proud club?

Of course Silva will get more time but I'm worried about more millions being spent to solve our problems. It's just not what Everton are about.

I know it annoys some fans but, if a poll was put out to the ToffeeWeb community on who the Manager should be, I'd have picked Moyes many managers ago.

Go and get Rafa, Big Sam... any manger who tries to play football at this daft club is not going to get the time or the patience with the fickle fans.

Like a young player the best way to learn and improve is by giving them chances, support and a bit of time. I'd personally tell him no more funds until the summer and he still needs to get rid of 5+ players beforehand. He needs to prove he can improve results and performances of the current squad.

Those calling for McCarthy to be loaned, no, he needs to be sold! If not sold he'll soon be back on the treatment table. There are worse players we need to offload but I think he's done at this level. If not sold, I have no issue with giving him a chance.

If a striker is not brought in before the window closes, it will cost Silva his job.

The BBC will be rubbing their hands that they picked our cup game to broadcast to the nation next week.

At the beginning of the season our squad was bloated, now it looks threadbare. How fortunate we are that we haven't suffered any major injuries. Ironically, there is more talk of other players leaving in January than there is of serious recruitment.

I have never really played the game nor coached it. Yet, I wonder who is to blame for players misplacing passes? Who is to blame for an apparent lack of fitness? Who is to blame for the lack of a clear leader on the pitch?

Our previous coaches were no idiots yet they failed miserably at Goodison. Bobby's first year apart, this has been a truly rancid 6 years since Moyes left. Moyes, rightly or wrongly, has been heavily criticised on this forum but he got some things right.

The present incumbent would appear to be on thin ice now and so early in his tenure. Is it all down to him, though? That's what I'd like to know before calling for his head. Where does the blame lie in all of this?

As for the position we are in... be grateful if we stumble to the 10 points needed.

No more short-termism, I say — 70 thousand capacity a minimum! Forza Azurri!

Moshiri has a difficult decision now. It would be cheaper and less risky to replace the manager and invest in a proven winning manager. Better not to throw good money after bad.

His persistence with Richarlison at centre-forward is ruining the lad, negating his strengths.

If we cannot buy/loan at centre-forward you have to give the next best a run. That is Calvert-Lewin.

He is quickly running out of alternatives to his staid and predicable line ups and formations.

Brands perhaps might be better served scouting a manager rather than players.

For me, there was just a huge vacuum between defence and attack. Every time the ball went loose in midfield, it was picked up by Southampton as we had nobody in sight. We have problems all over the park and, let's be honest, without Pickford today, it would have been a hammering.

Zouma may be a stopper but he certainly is not a footballer so why do we keep giving him the ball to play out of defence??? He is just not capable of doing this.

Gomes is a good player but he can't do the midfield role on his own. Has anybody really figured out Sigurdsson's role in the team? He was totally anonymous today and his passing was abysmal.

Bernard I like... but again, he is not a winger so why are we persevering with him in this position? Move him central and let Richarlison move out wide. Playing Richarlison as a lone striker has been shown now to be a complete failure and so why again do we trot him out in this position week after week?

The reason behind all of these limitations rests right at the door of Marco Sílva and I, for one, was prepared to give him a chance but I am afraid, after the last few games, I have changed my mind because he does not change his tactics and his substitutions smack of desperation. This is a sure sign he is an imposter.

I think he will be gone before the end of the season. I just hope we can get the 10 points to get to 40 and safety. On today's showing, I am not sure where those points are coming from because we were totally undone by a team in the relegation struggle.

Winners are not popular; losers are loved. The organisation needs a ruthless streak.

I did wonder myself if there was anything more to Brands being elevated to Boardroom level, at such an early stage in his time with us. As it stands I can't fault Brands on any of his signings, although possibly we have paid slightly over the odds in some cases.

Up to the Derby match we were starting to look reasonable, but since then have seemed to lack not only direction, but confidence, the whole gamut to be bluntly honest.

Now in my book, the buck goes no further than the manager, he has them virtually every day, yet we seem to be getting worse and worse. I think basically he has lost the belief of the players, and in similar fashion to those at United, who in turn, accelerated the dismissal of Mourinho, it is also happening with Silva.

Players don't suddenly become poor overnight, unless they have lost belief in their leader, that for me too, has evaporated. Coupled with the team selection and 'style' of play it must be an opposition manager's dream to know pretty much, that Silva with stick with the same formation that didn't work the week before!

Having said all that, it seems that Moshiri was the one intent on appointing Silva, or so we are led to believe, so he can't complain too much about the situation we are in now, when he has been the root cause of it.

We missed a trick with Bielsa.

'The board need to stop listening to the fans booing.'

'Get Rafa, Sam.., any manager who tries to play football'.

Let's go wih these two beauts.

Are you saying that it's the match going fans who are responsible for these hopeless displays?

When did Sam try and play football?

There are many things wrong with the club at the moment but to blame the most patient, loyal, group of people who follow the club home and away is insulting to them. Very poor post.

Our club is right now wasting talent and money due to mismanagement. As I see it it we seem to have 2 serious problems.

1. Silva as a manager is not good enough.

2. Silva does not either have adequate help from the backroom staff including Duncan Ferguson.

Brands want ut to add value to our squad, to develop the team, with a plan for the long term future. But as we look today it seems like we do the exact opposite but adding value to our players.

Why am I sceptical to Silvas managerial skills?

1. Good players are going backwards in development. Like two of our most important players Richarlison and Gomez.

2. Silva does not seem to be able to adapt his game strategy during games. When we are down 1 goal we are absolutely dead.

3. It seems like Silva has a motivator problem. The players does not seem to be motivated enough as we seem to lack fighting spirit. Maybe they do not believe in Silvas strategy or maybe we do not train well enough.

4. Passing is bad and is getting worse.

5. The midfield is almost non existent and does not work at all. The midfield is the engine of the team, when it does not work it has a negative affect on both the offense and defense.

6. Players seem to be isolated on the field rather than working together.

7. We play with plan A only and does not have a plan B. This can not continue. We have have a manager that can adapt strategies when things does not work.

8. Since I see so many problems it cannot be only Silvas fault I think. If we had good traing sessions several of these poins could be erradicated. So as I see it we must have a problem in the training staff. They cannot be good enough.

I can add more point here, but I wont.

Marcel Brands want us to add value to our club to work on the players we have. But right now it seems like we are doing the total opposite. Come to Everton and deteriorate and then we ship you out for free. It is an absolute joke.

Is Niasse really so much worse as a striker than Richarlison. I am not so sure.

Is James McCarthy not good enough for our midfield? I do not think so. If he is close to his old standards he should be playing for us.

Is it good value to have Baines on the bench? I do not think so.

We need a manager who can adapt the strategies to the players we have. We don't need a manager who says "we are going to play this kind of football". That is just way too easy if you are not Barcelona, and it just does not work for us.

We also need a backroom staff that improve our players.
As it is right now we seem to lack the most basic things in football.

More of us are starting to have serious doubts as to whether Silva is good enough to manage our club. At the moment, you would have to say he isn't. But only time will tell....

One thing is for certain: he should be getting more out of the useless bastards than he is. I would definitely invest in Zouma but, as for Gomes: Is he worth in the region on 㿏 to 㿔 million? No fucking way!!!

The team look passionless and clueless, as if they couldn't give a flying fuck about our club. What a bloody disgrace they are to Everton Football Club. They will be driving their fancy cars back to their mansions tonight, safe in the knowledge that they get paid even when they are garbage... It's a hard life.

Nothing against Denise Barrett-Baxendale, a very bright individual, I'm sure... but it occurs to me that the Club seems to be as focused on community work as it is on winning trophies.

A fellow blue said to me recently, after another notable good deed was carried out by the club: “You wouldn't find Liverpool doing that”. No you wouldn't — they've got their minds on other things. Like football.

We are no better than last season or Martinez's last 2 seasons despite all the promises and money spent since. Average at home and terrible away.

Why do we expect managers who are relegated with previous clubs to be successful? Martinez = Wigan. Silva = Hull. Watford went into freefall last season before Silva was fired. We need a winner not a wannabe.

Get rid of this 4-2-3-1 crap once and for all. It does not work which is proven by the fact Silva himself gets rid of it when we go behind. Lets have 2 up top rather than 1 playing against 2 or 3 defenders. I think we are quickly learning it is Gomes or Siggurdsson not both. Gueye is a great chaser but offers little else. Give McCarthy a go. How about moving Digne forward and bringing Baines in? Change it up? Do something. We are getting too close to the bottom 3 for my liking and we still have to play them all.

Silva has lost the support of Moshiri clearly evidenced by no transfer funds being made available this window when they are desperately needed. His look to the Chairman after the second goal last week said it all for me.

Fingers crossed he goes soon. I never wanted him in the first place.

Any managers with a proven Premier League record available …?

If we'd had 6 to 8 points less I think they would have been forced to find the cash.

At the end of the day we could sign Messi and he'd have problems playing in this zoo

We are absolutely abysmal and so far tactically a shocker

I watched Wolves v Leicester now Arsenal Chelsea. All four plus So'ton are showing everything we are incapable of.

I have no doubt if the manager had any sort of motivational skills we would not be in this situation. He is incapable of playing any other way than what we already are.

Since the day Martinez arrived until today with Martinez II we are a poor excuse of a football team. Sad times

When you keep signing other teams cast-offs you get results that are mediocre because they are players whose limitations have obviously been laid bare at their previous clubs.

Barcelona will be laughing all the way to the bank if we seriously do cough up £40 million on Gomes, a midfielder that hasn't shown anything other than a great ability to pass sideways (ahem the early Schneiderlin days).

We've already paid £20 million plus for Mina who can't get starts regularly.

Richarlison at £45 million is too in and out and regardless of him being young, don't we need more consistency in players who cost such money?

Sigurdsson was overpriced and has many anonymous games but he's the only midfielder that ever looks like to score a goal in the whole squad.

Coleman has been kept on far too long and there's no club better than Everton for acting like sentimental old fools.

Walcott was unwanted by Arsenal but they managed to milk £20 million off us.

Tosun is a disaster and simply needs selling ASAP.

DCL is a sub at best.

Lookman is another who can be decent or dreadful there's no in between.

Bernard just doesn't look like there's any real end product in him.

Gueye is a woeful passer and offers zero going forward.

It's just the whole squad really, it's full of mediocrity.

Lose to Man City "Well, their team is better than ours"
Lose to Man Utd "Well, it was do or die for Mourinho"
Lose to West Ham "Well, they were due a win"
Lose to Soton "Trying to impress their new boss"
Draw with Huddersfield "They are fighting for their lives"

Thus far in this thread I've seen Moyes, Unsworth, Big Dunc, Rafa Benitez and - Hells Bells! - even the return of Sam Allardyce as candidates to 'steady the ship'.

If he is as thorough and professional as we've been led to believe (and on his performance to date, I see no reason to doubt that), then Brands as DoF as well as scouting potential playing targets will no doubt be keeping tabs on the progress and availability of emerging or established, proven managers also.

Again, we are being told that on the financial and commercial side of things we are becoming a slicker more professional, corporate run business, and that Moshiri genuinely wants to lead us to the promised land.

If that is the case, then sooner or later he needs to pick a top, top manager so the key component of the football club - the playing side - is placed in safe hands and can develop accordingly.

To date, Moshiri has picked chancers and nearly men.

In the last year it was confidently reported by the Echo that Diego Simone's representatives had approached Everton - not Everton approaching him - curious to know about 'the project'.

THAT is the caliber of manager we need to be looking to recruit if we are serious about wanting to sit not just at the top table of the PL, but ON TOP of the table.

Gueye offers nothing to the team? He's the only player who can win the fucking ball. He's made more tackles (83) than any player in the Premier League this season - and almost 40 more than anyone else in our squad. Gomes, in comparison, has made 22 tackles.

Anyone who thinks we're better off without him is cluless. As is anyone who thinks his absence against Spurs made no difference. He's doing his job reasonably well. It's up to the likes of Sigurdsson, Gomes, Lookman and Bernard to provide the creative spark, not Gueye. They are not in the team for their defensive capabilities, that is for sure.

https://www.premierleague.com/stats/top/players/total_tackle

Playing football that wins trophies.

One single purpose. Let's hive off all this "community" stuff to an actual charity and only focus on the football. Making her CEO has taken the club in exactly the wrong direction because she is a charity person, not a football person.

Yes, I do think the club does a lot of good in the community and I support that, but I also think its an extension of Blue Bill's cynical promotion of the "People's Club" as a way of damping expectations as if all our players and managers are pulled off the docks and thrown together every time we have a match.

Forget transition. Your Man at Old Trafford doesn't seem to have a problem.

It's time our management came down to earth. I'm wasting no more time on this lot after 60 years... Sorry, Guys.

But do we have to include them in the first team every week?

The mind fucking boggles.

You reap what you sow and the harvest of mediocrity is a hard one to dispose of.

But anyone who thinks we should let Gana go needs their head examined! Without him today we would have been destroyed!

Keep Gana (and Digne) and sell the rest! They are not good enough to play for this club!

“Shit team shit fans” was ringing in my ears near the end and I couldn't even think of a response!

Another fucking weekend ruined!

Transition is just another term to use as an excuse for watching shit football.

It's the same as the tiredness excuse, well Southampton just played 120 minutes of football on Wednesday night yet they outran and outfought us all game today with more zest and energy.

Excuses excuses, I've heard them all before at Everton but nothing ever changes.

Can't win at Anfield? Blame bad luck.

Can't win a trophy? Well the big six take them serious.

Can't win away to a top six club? Well they've spend more than us.

As I say, it's all just excuses that we've now become accustomed to over the years.

It'll be the same next season, more millions splashed out on overseas players with “potential” and then we'll have the apologists coming out with the “work in progress, transition” blah blah blah.

How many more seasons can we keep on writing off as transition and watching limp wristed dross like today?

As I said, agree with frustration re team but I know from my job, EitC is not the problem and if we were winning we would be so proud of it.

If we were to appoint a “mourinho” type, then we would see a vast improvement for sure - it's about having some sort of organsisation and at least having some sort of pattern - however the last few managers cannot even do this simple game plan, especially silva who cannot be classed as even a championship level manager - poor poor recruitment of this guy ! Why??!?

I also agree the problem runs deep to higher level management and there is something seriously wrong - we've invested millions and no improvement since the Moyes era - also who is scouting these players? 40+ million pound signings who are clearly mediocre mercenaries

I am proper peed off and cannot drink enough Stella tonight to make me feel slightly optimistic about our beloved club

The end

I have supported Everton since the 1971-72 season. But enough is enough now, I am sorry to say. How do you delete an account at ToffeeWeb?

Overpaid both the players and the management staff. :(

Gueye only has to make that many tackles because he has to chase back from wherever he has left his position and ran to. He is supposed to protect the Defencevand fails miserably. He should watch some videos of Kante or Carsley.

What happened to the guy who won the league with Monaco?

Sigurdsson's goal was a delight to behold, but everything else about that performance including Sig was rubbish. I can't single any player out for praise.

Millwall are shit but one thing you can put bet your life on is they will turn up and play out of their skins and want to hurt us in front of a hostile nasty crowd.

Hand on heart, can I see our meek little lambs turning up there at 5.30pm under the floodlights at that place and rolling up their sleeves and being prepared to win the battle before the game itself?

No I can't to be honest.

I'm praying we can get a replay against a shit Championship team just because I know they'll be more up for it than us, how sad is that?

Since David Moyes left, apart from Martinez' first season when his short lived success then was, to a large extent, due to the fact that he was fortunate to inherit a decent team, we have been plagued by poorly performing players and over rated managers. The Board are culpable for a lack of due diligence before making these appointments along with that of Walsh as a director of football, a position which many would argue is an unnecessary distraction and a ludicrously high cost overhead.

The present shambles is not remotely acceptable and there has to be an immediate resolution. All this talk about transition is misplaced and just serves to prolong the agony.

David Moyes would sort this mess out within weeks just as he did when he inherited a club in free fall after the dismissal of Walter Smith. He would not need any assistance from the likes of Marcel Brands whose own record hardly justifies a board appointment, but then how on earth did we get lumbered with Barrett - Baxendale, another one who is a totally unnecessary high cost overhead .

Time for a large scale clear out and for the money saved by getting rid of these freeloaders to be given to David Moyes who has the proven ability to unearth hidden jewels for next to nothing rather than squander resources by over paying for third rate players,

Give David Moyes the opportunity and he will do an excellent job and have us up where we belong

Just to clarify I support Eitc and don't see it as a problem in itself but I do see the officials hiding behind it to distract from other issues. The problem is with the people at the club not the EITC program

My question is as always - what do we do about it - we are sleepwalking with the club to being second tier of the English game where staying in the top flight is enough - we are sitting just above Villa, Blackburn and others with a long and proud past but no future other than the odd upset.

I cannot fathom how this is allowed to happen around the Boardroom and nobody seems to outwardly give a fig - we hear and see the same platitudes and self congratulatory noises from all at every level of the Club.

We need to wake up. shake up and get them to buck up - I hate comparisons with the RS but look at the change their supporters forced over the last decade or so.

This club needs a big clean out. It needs coaches who understand the basics as a starting point. Some on here say we need a striker, I say you could bring in the world's greatest striker and we would still struggle because we don't create chances for the striker, we can't even pass to the one we have now.

I just checked the stats for every premier league game today. Everton had joint equal number of shots with Brighton. Every Premiership team, even Arsenal and Chelsea at half time, had more shots than Everton in 90 minutes. A new striker is not going to solve anything; in fact I doubt that new players would fix the problems.

Fix the basics, get the coaching right and the basics skills embedded and things might start to improve. Continue as we are hiring and sacking managers who play "pretty football" and we will continue to go backwards.

Pickford
Coleman Zouma Mina Digne
Lookman Gomes Sigurdsson Richarlison
Tosun Calvert-Lewin.

Get Messi, Salah, Suarez, Neymar, etc... and nothing would change

The service is virtually non-existent.

He is allowed a bad run, although his time in England did come with that warning, but he shows no signs of invention or tactical nous to stop the rot.

That's the biggest worry, no vertical balance in the team, in transition we got riced in the middle of the park by a bottom feeder in Southampton, by a guy who has been in the league all of 5 minutes.

Now where have we seen this before?

We have had only one convincing win all season against Burnley away every other win we've had the luck go our way. And we have been beaten by poor sides and gave away poor goal's.

This guy is a fraud!!!!

Tell me how West Ham sign an ex premier league and champions league team manager a we seen fucking Relegate Hull and fell apart Watford manager fucking Marco Silva!!

Ive had enough already Silva out Rafa in!

'Davies' and 'power' are two words that do not belong in the same sentence.

Absolute conjecture. As you pointed out earlier, we play two defensive midfielders - yet despite evidence to the contrary, you single out Gueye for defensive criticism over Gomes. Gueye snuffed out two chances in the first five minutes alone today. Bar almost scoring for Southampton, I can't recall one notable contribution from Gomes in his own half.

I honestly don't know what some people expect. Gueye's got players alongside and ahead of him, strolling around, doing nothing, yet he's expected to single-handedly 'protect the back four' and have the creativity level of Zinedine Zidane. He's not Superman.

Oh, and Chelsea just lost 2-0 to Arsenal. Kante obviously failed miserably...someone get a Lee Carsley VHS in the post to him asap.

We need a complete clear out of the whole club not just a “striker”. Too many dead wood still in the club including coaches. Tosun - love his enthusiasm towards the club but he's just not good enough. Bernard - don't rate him at all, terrible touch and the Russian league is no where near the Prem, rather have Aaron Lennon. Walcott - just don't get me started, he's finished. Tom Davies - like Barkley he just does me head in, scored that goal against City, gonna be the next best thing since sliced bread then starts playing like a crab, Alan Whittle would be turning in his grave! Schneiderlin - just do one!

Personally I don't like Marco Silva and I weren't happy when he was appointed but as people are saying we can't just keep going through managers like there's no tomorrow - but I blame the board for that, because let's be honest they've got nothing right since Moyes left the club. From what it looks like since them comments were made at the annual meeting about current form it looks like Silva weren't happy and he's had a dig at the board in the pre match conference and now post match conference.

Suppose we'll finish around 10th and then see what happens in the summer. Probably sign another 60 mil player for him to be garbage! What annoys me about them scum over the Park is the siignings they've made over the years who have cost near enough f**k all - Salah, Suarez, Coutinho, Torres, Fowler, Owen etc. Now tell me this, is it bloody luck they they find gems for next to nothing or is it the scouts? Who've we ever got? Rooney, Stones? I say clear the whole f**kin club out! Sick of it mate.

If they don't show any fight against Millwall we can forget the cup as well.

Only positive (other than meeting a fellow TW'r) was that Marcel Brands was on the train from Crewe to the change at Wolverhampton. Nice bloke, I asked him what is happening with a forward but he wouldn't say anything other than he knows what is required which could mean just about anything.

The team as a whole was playing with a freshness and confidence early in the season it was not down to Davies presence in midfield.

We really are in trouble if we think bringing him back to the fold is the key to our woes.

I know people don't like it, but January needed a few signings quick fixes to bring fresh impetus and new blood into the ranks.

We are now in a season that is simply sleepwalking into a dead end of mediocrity yet again.

We needed a January window akin to Moyes in 2012.

As for a manager of that calibre, sorry I don't think that would work. We need to build from the bottom up and even Simeone would struggle with players whose basic footballing skills have been allowed to degrade to the level they are at now. That means a manager who can focus on the basics and build a team and those managers are not the top manager but the managers who have shown they can do it in the lower leagues.

Some people on here are shouting about bringing back Moyes, in my view that is wishful thinking and the evidence thus far at Everton and elsewhere is that managers returning for second spells rarely do as well as the first time round. However, I would look at an up and coming lower league manager who has built a team and brought them a level of success but who is struggling to bring them further due to a lack of monetary resources. That kind of manager would be perfect right now to get us to a position where a Simeone or similar would be able to walk in and take a perfoming team to a higher level.

Last season at Watford they came full pelt out of the gates and I think they were in 4th place after about 10 games before Everton's “interest” derailed him and his team.

This season, with Everton, progress was slow at the beginning but it was progress nevertheless. Ever since the derby defeat we look like both manager and players have given up the ghost and can't be bothered to even try any more.

Why is it that most teams have an upturn with new managers but at Everton there always seems to be the opposite? Is it because the demands from the board are not as strenuous as at other clubs? I'd love to know.

I used to get angry after every Everton defeat. Then sad. Then worried. Right now I can't be arsed. If they don't care, why should I? Sorry, but that's how I feel right now.

We were outfought and outthought in all areas of the field. Last season's 4-1 scoreline could very easily have been repeated were it not for the woodwork and three very good saves by Pickford who was our man of the match. In front of him was a collective shambles. Individually several players lived down to their recent poor form. Some reached a new low including Gomes, Sigurdsson, Bernard and Richarlison.

If our players were outthought, so was our manager, overwhelmingly so. He appears to be trapped in a tactical cul-de-sac, unable to move away from his favoured 4-2-3-1 formation until the game is lost. Silva seems not to have grasped that committing four players to attack leaves the midfield and defence undermanned and exposed to quick breaks. Opposing coaches have worked out that if they can maintain a solid defence we do not possess enough pace and quality to create many chances. They have most certainly worked out that we are vulnerable to quick breaks by players such as we witnessed today in the pacy Redmond.

Where do we go from here? First and foremost Silva must make his team less of a soft touch. The midfield needs reinforcing with an extra player to snuff out trouble. Inevitably that will mean sacrificing one of the front four with a more defensive minded player. Given how poor they all were today it will be a tough decision as to who that might be. Based on the evidence of this match Millwall will fancy their chances in next week's cup tie.

We should have had plans for this transfer window incase of a situation like this.

The squad is on its knees (why it's so knackered I don't know when no Europa) but it's race this season is clearly run, theres little else left in the tank.

I can't see how we turn this horrid run in reverse now.

Since the Pickford brain fart in the derby it's all just been one way and that's down.

It's a clear example of how mentally fragile they are that they still haven't remotely recovered from that Liverpool defeat.

For the past couple of months the players look as if they wish they hadn't left the house.

I have always maintained even before Martinez was appointed that a top club should never consider any manager that has taken a club to relegation.

The confidence in this squad has been destroyed by a stream of calamitous, unprofessional individual howlers. Its showing in everyone's performances. the players clearly don't have confidence in each other.
Silva doesn't seem to be able to correct it, in fact he looks like his confidence has been blown to fuck too.

Wonder what odds you'd get for Rhino being asked for the third time to step in and get a tune out of a team who have zero self belief.

What senior pros have really let the team down this season?

Sigurdsson is regularly bashed but where the fuck would we be without the 10, yes TEN goals he's scored?

How long do we keep calling the 22 year old DCL a young player?

When is the last time we watched Tom Davies and say he brought energy, power, creativity or goals to the side?

Richarlison is the same age as DCL yet he's regularly bashed because cost so much and doesn't deserve any protection for shit performances (rightly so) any more so than DCL.

It's not just about senior or young players.

Collectively it's a complete mess from fuckin top to bottom and it's on, one our owner and the lack of organisation on searching for the right managerial team and two, on having a blind spot when it comes to signing a bloody striker that can actually play as a proper striker should and be physically strong, hold the ball up and get involved in the game.

Every time Danny Ings plays against us he shows us what a striker should be doing, Danny fuckin Ings!!!!

The best managers/coaches can communicate & motivate, get into the soul of their players. Silva still has to convince me he can do that. I'm getting concerned that this team is a mental reflection of their manager. Hope he proves me wrong.

We have to earn the right to play and in the first instance that means showing some fighting spirit and I am afraid that this lot just don't care enough! Sunday league players with little natural talent show more spirit in parks every week. Maybe Silva should take the team to to a park to show them what it looks like!!

Others fans on here often say other teams are inferior to us and that their players wouldn't get in our team. Get real as most Premier sides are better than us because many of them are actual 'teams'! We are 11 players on a pitch with no idea how to play together.

Managers? don't even get me started!

Well in that case and given the games we have left this season at home (forget how easy on paper the away games are because we don't win away hardly) we will probably finish 12th.

The squad is just too weak and fragile to win enough games across the remainder of what's left.

Finish 11th or 12th this season and then it's going to be a major uphill battle next summer to attract decent quality and try and improve the league positions.

There's still time for Silva but it's starting to look like a rerun of his time at Watford. I My own requisite for Silva was to reach 7th with better football. I'm not sure we'll do that now.

I can take losing but when the commentators report Everton players haven't turned up today then we have problems. Big problems! A high number of our players are season professionals and yes more must go before buying. After a week's training that's what we serve up. The club should refund all travelling fans as they showed more desire today.

Again we are sliding down the table. A cup run can save this season but I won't be getting excited. Sadly Silva has no plan b and that shows. May can't come quickly enough for me!!

He's not physically strong enough or quick enough to play holding midfield.

Not creative or quick enough to play a ten, can't shoot like Sigurdsson and can't head the ball like Tim Cahill could so I'm struggling to see what real improvements he'd make to this struggling pile of rancid shit.

Feeling like your judgement has been exposed ? Why ? I mentioned no names.
Firstly I didnt say Calvert-Lewin was a young player. Secondly, no matter how desperate your efforts have been to make him 22. He isn't - Stick with it fella. This is one lie which will come true if you repeat it often enough.

I'm glad you popped up, because you have been probably the most dogged in your singling out of these two. The fact that you even have to ask what senior players have let the team down with individual errors says just about everything to me.

We started with three left sided forwards, Bernard, Lookman & Richarlison, the latter playing as a striker. If Koeman or Martinez had shoehorned the same there would be howls of derision on here, mind you it's like watching a Martinez team from 14-15 or 15-16 anyway.
Question: is Gomes the new John Ebbrell?
For fuck sake lad, if you have a clear shot on goal, have a go. Don't pass it wide to an out of position central defender to try a cross...

My post you responded to simply reported what (David Prentice, I believe) emphatically reported in the Echo: Simone/his reps initiated the approach to Everton, not the other way around.

I don't speculate on the legitimacy of the reported approach and I make no comment on how the club responded, or the thoughts of Simone on what he heard back, because I don't know.

YOU choose to speculate, not me.

I offer my opinion THAT is the caliber of manager we should be targeting, not the chancers and nearly men of recent years.

To say as you do that a manager of Simone's caliber, 'wouldn't work', further stating "We need to build from the bottom up and even Simeone would struggle with players whose basic footballing skills have been allowed to degrade to the level they are at now", misses a very simple point:

Managers such as Simone would not tolerate such 'degradation' from day one, or at any time on his watch. The organization and levels of fitness of a Simone team are legendary. He has shown himself to be an extremely astute recruiter of exactly what a team needs at bargain prices.

You, by contrast, appear to be proposing more of the same (taking a punt on a lower league manager who hasn't performed at a high level of football) when you claim we are in need of a manager to build a team from a low starting point "...and those managers are not the top manager but the managers who have shown they can do it in the lower leagues."

Quite frankly, I find your logic bewildering. Why does manager recruitment have to follow your linear model? As in, get a hungry manager from the lower leagues who 'knows the basics', then upgrade when the club is stabilised?

Everton is a PL club awash with money and an ambitious majority shareholder. We can AFFORD to recruit a really top, top manager. I would go so far as to say we can't afford NOT to recruit a really top manager if Moshiri is sincere in his ambitions for the club.

So why not follow the monied Chelsea and City models (and - no! - I'm not talking in terms of big money player recruitment...I'm talking ONLY about manager recruitment).

Abramovic at Chelsea inherited Ranieri and wasted no time in appointing Mourinho, and then a succession of high profile managers every couple of years. No 'stabilising of the club with an unknown' for him.

City the same, once the Arab money arrived. They went from Sven Goran Erikson to Mark Hughes, to Mancini to Pelligrini to their dream manager, Guardialo. Their starting point saw them lower than us in the league.

Your proposal would perpetuate the 'transition' we need to break out from.

Boldness is required, not a tepid tippy-toe, slowly-slowly approach you advocate.

Overhaul FF, clear out the dead wood soon,as EFC, will become Atlantis and disappear as a football club.

Give the next contract to Dynarod and Bunker Busters, as the stench that never leaves GP and FF, is now more than a health risk to Evertonians, it's becoming terminal.

In context the way the club can't put b2b wins together for more than two games, and the manner and lack of style and care, commitment this current first team squad of footballers lack.

Step over the line and it's down to the players, but do they care and do they believe in EFC? I can't see how they do. These players today have dragged the name of EFC, down to a season low, for a poor season in the worst lull of form in the clubs history.

No leadership on the pitch, Pickford is verbal but we need an outfield player to rally and kick arse, on the pitch. We don't have one.

I'm not gonna go back to mentioning The mid 80s Immortals, but this lot are on top dollar and clearly don't really give a crap, about the results.

Back to basics again today, and it makes me wonder if EFC has some imposters in the ranks putting dope in the food and drinks.. a team smashed by a Championship team in mid week playing extra time played and died for their cause today.
EFC got sfa, as they deserved sfa. It sickens me to the teeth and I'm sensing an anti climax next week in the nicest place in South London. Happy memories from the 80s, got to know Surrey Quays and around that patch well.

Next week is our season, and let's hope for a miracle and recovery of some passion and care for the shirt.

MS must play DCl up front next week, keep Charlie on the left. Our lack of goals doesn't need a genuius to work out, but flogging Charlie upfront, is destroying the lads mojo.

Play to the strengths of the players we have in their best positions, not easy with many square pegs in round holes, but next week is massive.

The club should refund all the EFC fans who went today, and no. Wonder the atmosphere at GP is now fading as fast as this squad is.

Divine inspiration needed this week for EFC.

Now to seek solace in the beer.

He might not be everyone's cup of tea and he's got a long way to go but Marco has scandalously underused him.

The similarities with the end of Bobby's regime are pretty scary. Unfit, out of form players played every week in the same formation, without any pressure to play well to keep their place, two defensive midfielders that can't keep clean sheets and a lack of chances being created.

At least he's not mentioned phenomenal.

If we have a manager with motivational skills combined with some strategic football thinking and som help from the trainers this could be turned around.

But unfortunately I think Silva is not the man to do it.

He is starting to look like Koeman did in the end. He looks concerned, nervous and empty. Contageous?

Away from home we need to get back to the boring fundamentals of solid, safety first defensive play to eke out a few draws and perhaps an occasional narrow win. Many fans of course do not want to hear about defensive play but that is what must be done when a team is being beaten regularly and all too easily.

It is worrying when we hear opposing managers and fans praising our style of football and mouthing words like ‘a strong Everton team trying to play the right way'. It is code for ‘we enjoy playing this team because they are a soft touch'. I would prefer to hear managers and other clubs' fans bleating about our horrible negative anti-football style after they have failed to beat us.

I hope Silva is bright enough to learn that. I fear he isn't.

It's terrible in fact !

We need to open up teams and lack decent creativity in the midfield. In Gomes we have a good midfielder to do that job but whose form has dipped, might I suggest by overplaying him in December. So, we need to bring one in as soon as possible but if not in January, then we need another solution. Rest Gomes for at least 2 games to the subs bench and try McCarthy who will work hard alongside Gueye and give us the possession and make it hard for the opposition to break. The creativity would have to come from the wings, adopt 4 4 2 with Lookman and Bernard, one tricky, one fast.

Use 2 strikers upfront, not Richarlison who needs benching but Dom and ?, well not Cenk and Niasse as he is going on loan. That leaves Sigurdsson playing much more forward or a better solution is that we buy.

Surely, we could bring in a stop gap until the summer possibly on loan or buy a striker who could do a job without costing too much. Otherwise, we will have to look at playing Walcott as a striker or looking to the under 23s. We need to mix things up, look at the opposition and pick the players within 4 4 2 to suit so we need options which we don't possess currently.

We could do with a similar player to Dunc, at least someone with experience who can rough up the opposition and give Dom proper support. Mix things up, surprise the opposition and make substitutions where necessary.

Finally, the defence. At present any opposition that scores a goal generally will either win or draw. No or 1 from us doesn't result in a win so we need 2 goals every game or even 3. A possible solution (apart, obviously scoring more ourselves) would be stopping the opposition.

We seem to get plenty of possession so why is it we concede virtually every game? One reason is that Keane is going off the boil. He is solid on balls put into the area and generally when he is facing the player. The problem is with players breaking away, he is slow and he does not compensate by his judgement and positioning. We use zonal marking so when opposition players attack his area of the pitch, he fails to react, thus we see one on one and Pickford forced into making a save. A I don't want to be hard on him but he is going the same way as last season.

Bring in Mina, slow, possibly but he possesses better judgement and has very valuable experience. He couldn't do any worse than Keane who never seems to get dropped. Oh and quite clearly, dump the zonal marking.

A word about Zouma, the more games, the better he gets. Pace, judgement and with luck more goals.
Poor Lucas, comes across to cover and unluckily scores an own goal. Zouma, Digne and Lookman playing reasonably even Sigurdsson and Bernard on and off but that's it.

We won't get consistency if we keep sacking Managers every time we got in a bad run. I didn't want Silva but he needs 2 seasons to be judged. We are expecting too much, too soon.

Frustrating, I know but... give them time.
COYBB

A Saints team that got a good working over from Derby during the week fully deserved the win.

Silva is proving to be a one trick pony. Making subs but keeping the same formation. Richarleson playing up top obviously isn't working and hasn't done for a while.

No real threat, backwards and sidewards, safety first until we give the ball away isn't getting the best out of anyone.

I like Gomes he is obviously a talented footballer but over the last half dozen games he is playing deeper and just passing square. He is turning into Schneiderlin. Tom Davies would be getting slaughtered on here for performing as badly.

The motivation the formation the tactics come from Silva and his team, it isn't good enough. Moshiri has put his faith in Brandes to run the football side of the club Silva must be on thin ice.

I don't expect us to win every game but I do expect a certain level of tactical nous, effort and passion. Today was poor on all levels.

I Celt we deserved a point at the Emirates but that was about 6 or 7 games in. Until then we were pretty poor at best.

Got a point at Chelsea but the other games we played from Arsenal to the RS we weren't exactly exciting.

In my opinion the whole season so far has been totally underwhelming after the hype some had given us when Sílva was appointed.

Although I'm waiving the white flag - apparently - I can see these comments and these threads being repeated more often in the remainder of the season

I agree with the Gomes v Schneiderlin comparison but I wish Gomes had just stuck to square passing today. I lost count of the number of times he gave the ball away cheaply with loose forward balls straight to an opposing player. People got very excited about him after a few decent games in October and November. At the time I thought we should wait and see how he is playing in January before we commit ourselves. I think his price is falling by the week as is the number of likely suitors.

Tom Davies is still getting slaughtered by one or two even though he wasn't playing today.

Silva gets a free hit for me this season. Give him time to learn and allow him to develop and evolve. He isn't the finished article and he seems intelligent enough to take advice and adapt. His tenure is very much in it's infancy. We aren't in any danger and he needs our full support to get through a tough period.

Why do so many just write him off and chuck in the towel? He's going through a difficult couple of months. Let's see how he responds and get behind him instead of shouting for his head. Some of the suggested replacements make me want to cry.

It happens and now EFC is in my view, in the benign doldrums going no where,, which is not the place EFC, should be in.

Next week, but the core plan in terms of the football side needs reviewing as it's not working and hasn't being working properly for over 25 years.

That's me over, for this weekend, all the Best Evertonians, and have Ball, this weekend .⚽️👍🍀🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺

Let's face it, we won't go down, we won't finish in Europe.

Get Kenny, Davies, Lookman and Calvert-Lewin all on the pitch between now and the end of the season. Maybe even play Baningime and ship Gueye off to PSG while we can get the money.

Stop playing Zouma and Gomes. They're not our players.

Personally, I now think it's a shame we let Dowell and Holgate go. We could have played all 6 for a run of 10-15 games and given them all the game time they need. Then make a decision on them after a sustained run in the side. I guarantee we'd show a lot more fight than at the moment.

Laugh all you want, but a team of Pickford, Digne, Kenny, Keane, Holgate, Baningime, Davies, Dowell, Lookman, Richarlison / Bernard and Calvert-Lewin would at least put up a fight every week and might get you back to being proud to watch us again.

We'd then be in a better position next season as we wouldn't have a squad of promising youngsters needing games, we'd have more of a squad of young players with games behind them.

A big club wouldn't tolerate such a shite run of form. Are we ever going to be a big club again?

I'd like Silva to succeed but he looks a bit on the fragile side to me. Yeah tactics, subs, motivation and the like are down to him but, if the players can't find space, beat a man, pass to a team-mate, raise a gallop, play with some passion — what chance has he got?

I think our players, apart from lack of quality, have their large pay cheques rolling in every week and they feel that top six is unlikely, so middle of the table will do, so why break sweat!

Why should Silva get special treatment? Our current form is bottom 3. I think now, he's having a worse run than Allardyce.

Silva should be shown the door immediately.

Silva's post-match comments are in danger of competing with those of Martinez. Absolute drivel. Today he concedes that Southampton were more aggressive than us with or without the ball (an indictment in itself). Then he finishes by saying that the players kept trying and fighting to the end. From what I have heard and read – no they didn't!

Having said that, the players should be totally ashamed of themselves. Another gutless, pathetic and shameful performance. Millwall must be licking their lips. It will be a bear pit next week and can anybody see our players having the bottle for it? They keep saying they enjoy working with Silva, so why the lack of commitment and professionalism? It's beyond me, it really is.

Q1. I think not all but a good number of fans boo too early; if we misplace two paces, we boo. We're not Barcelona and never have been.

Q2. Me personally, I think we should get Rafa or Big Sam to get stability back at the club. Plus these know how to get points, regardless of the performance. A lot of Everton fans are too quick to judge and, after all, what have we done over the last 30 years to judge?

Q3. As for the match-going fans, I am sure you're the same as me. I have been all over the world watching this club. And if any fans deserve any silverware – it's us. Everyone has a right to boo and have their say. And no, it's not the fans' fault for the team playing like this – it's down to the board bringing in managers with no good history.

Q4. Why don't we go and get a tried and tested manager how has won trophies and who is ruthless?

Benetiz went from Real Madrid to Newcastle (as well as having an extremely impressive CV of previous clubs). Hell! He was even relegated with them and stuck around to get them out of the Championship, back to the Premier League.

Another former Real Madrid manager and Premier League winner with Man City (as well as other top European titles), Pellegrini, is currently at West Ham Utd.

If you say Everton cannot attract a top manager because we don't have top six players, or for whatever reason you want to put up, you are effectively accepting we are inferior to the likes of Newcastle and West Ham Utd.

Unfortunately, he and his tactical naivety have been well found out.

I can't see anything other than riding this waste of a season out and see what happens next summer.

Once again, we have shot ourselves in the foot and given another manager a contract longer than we should have.

Steve Ferns told us we would see Silva style and approach shortly after the season started. Write this one off and, if no improvement next season, then pay another shed load of money and bin him.

His selection of Richarlison to lead it is nonsense. The midfield trio is made redundant and they are not coached who to pass to, hence they are getting caught in possession and passing weakly.

The Apocalypse in terms of EFC, in football terms, is getting closer, in context of being part of the Premier League, as a few more years of this, and this is what we've been saying for years, will see us as permanent has-beens.

It can be stopped but requires big descisions and loads of money. As Einstein once said, and the definition of madness...

People will never loose their beliefs and religion in EFC, but generally it's tough times and people will realise that, as the complexity of recovering to historical glories becomes even tougher, year on year, we strive and without a pit of money, we will not compete.

No more crap value bargain buckets, unless proven value bargain buckets.

The previous thread on TW, about the Blight we've bought since 1992, says it all.

I'm deffo done now and All The Best for the Weekend, Evertonians.🍀👍⚽️🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺

Albert Einstein has got you down for being insane, Marco!

Repeating things over and over again and expecting a different outcome!

It's not rocket science, Marco: if the system isn't working, change it to suit the opposition, FFS!

Show a bit of ambition, for fuck's sake, Moshiri and break the bank for a top-rated manager instead of blowing millions on overrated coaches and even more overrated footballers, for all our sakes.

I really don't know how much more of this depressing club I can take. We are a fucking shambles.

Today was the lowest of the low. Worse than any Moyes, Martinez, or Allardyce performance. Today saw an expensive collection of misfits directed by a one-dimensional creativity lacking so-called manager.

Have we not learnt? We are not good enough to go to Bournemouth, Southampton and play the way we did; the players look shit scared of passing forward.

Sadly today I have decided to forget about Everton. All shirts, programs, books etc have been packed away and will end up in the tip or in the loft. Today my love of Everton has gone.

Thanks, Silva and fucking Co.

P.S. I think Mina will be a great player for Everton but he needs to be playing.

I'm expecting us to win in the cup next week, mainly because so many now think we will lose, that's just how EFC is these days. But overall we are steadily getting worse. This defeat to a relegation team was pathetic, gutless, disorganised, without any spirit or sense of urgency. No shots to save for their keeper until Gylfi's goal. Most performances at level 3 or 4 in anyone's honest assessment.

If we don't take a risk or two now before the window closes, we will regret it for two more years. We have to recognise the damage being done here goes way beyond arguments about transition or going in the right direction, it's about players of quality seeing us as worthwhile, having forward momentum and not just waiting for another year of false hope and crushed optimism.

The result today was poor and the performance even worse. But Southampton beat Arsenal a few weeks back and their manager thought they played better today. Give them some credit.

As for Silva I have defended him constantly but ultimately the proof is in the pudding. He'll get the rest of the season to get a tune out of these players and whether he's here next year will depend on how that tune sounds. I worry that we're seeing a lack of genuine tactical flexibility and mostly that he's struggling to motivate these players out of their cure malaise. We seem to be getting worse rather than better.

We're not getting new players so it's up to Silva to get the best out of this, admittedly unbalanced, squad. If we can get 7th-9th and a decent cup semi then I think he might deserve another season. If we finish bottom half then that's not good enough and Brands and Moshiri will have a tough decision on their hands.

The lot of them are average at best. Is there anyone actually at that club that can spot a footballer? Because, from where I'm sitting, all I see is a squad riddled with mediocrity.

I couldn't agree with you more regarding players on loan. We bought a centre-half for big money and still persist on playing a guy on loan instead. Same applies to Gomes. No logic in trying to build a team with players on loan. Sign of a desperate manager.

It looks like McCarthy will be moving away... If I were him, I would, but I believe it's a mistake that Silva won't give him a chance. He could be the guy that could do a job for us – especially when you look at the lack of midfield aggression.

Constantly excepting mediocrity has killed this once great club.

Brands chose Mina so Silva has no confidence in Brands either; he seems to be the current flavour of the month whereby he's getting no stick, but Brands brought in the 3 Barca players and none of them, including Digne, are playing well right now.

So maybe Brands is not all he's cracked up to be.

Think he will whip these players into shape and get our club moving forward.

Thats what Villa tried and look where they are since.

We need a total revolution which I thought Moshiri was going to do.

Clear out Kenwright and all his old boys.

Find a top class manager that can motivate and direct the players.

Don't say it can't be done because there are glaring examples of success. Solskjaer, Nuno, Emery... all managers that we could have considered in preference to a manager with a dubious Premier League history.

We need to be ruthless.

Isn't this manager seeing how poor the performances are? He is not even trying anything different. It doesn't, to be honest, look like he has anything in his locker to improve the team. He seems to massively lack the ability to motivate the players, lacks the passion to inspire or even frighten them to do better.

I am now not even expecting Silva to change Everton for the better. I don't think he has it in him. So, while he will most probably stay in charge, the end is inevitable for him now; it's just a matter of when he goes... And, to be honest, it doesn't look like it would bother him if it was next week.

Aston Villa tried it from a totally different position. We only need 3 wins in 4 months to be safe, it's virtually pressure free.

Pickford
Kenny, Mina, Keane, Digne
Baningime, Bernard, Davies
Lookman, Calvert-Lewin, Richarlison.

Pick Gueye instead of Bernard or Richarlison for the games against the top 6.

Fuck the rest of the money-grabbing overpaid shite.

Drive, passion... what have we got to lose? Nothing.

I'm prepared to give Silva a chance but only if he buys a striker in January. If not, do one.

Rest Gomes, he's a passenger at the moment. Give Davies a couple of games or drop Sigurdsson back. The squad is desperately short of quality depth with no reinforcements likely so Silva has to mix it up and try other players.

Start Calvert-Lewin or Tosun, Kenny and Davies. If we have no wage budget available maybe try for a loan, we need something different.

At present, we don't have one. Pickford may one day fill that role, but too many errors of judgement so far have proved otherwise. I have come to expect mistakes far too often these days. Stekelenburg frankly is useless at this level from the few times I've seen him.

If the younger keepers on the books are not yet ready to be promoted, then we should immediately buy an experienced proven keeper to steady our listing ship. We are all aware of the deficiencies in other positions, the most obvious being attacking midfield and weak striking areas.

But for me, the priority should be a goalkeeper to at least give Pickford realistic competition. He is far from being the finished article. I wonder has he got what it takes to ever be?

Don't kid yourselves this could not happen to Everton. Other big names have done so too thinking they were "too big". This could get very very uncomfortable unless we get wise and real.

(If you do watch it it's very odd the number of players from us who filter in and out playing for them – and Rodwell covers himself in glory too!!)

For those that still choose to sweat over the numbers, 35 points will be a guaranteed escape this season – five points more than we already have.

Two attempts on target tells it's own story but both of Southampton's goals came from misplaced Everton passes.

The football, tactics, passing ability and lack of passion is shocking.

Failure to beat Millwall, next week, and it will become toxic for Silva.

Shots on target 2
Sigurdsson 2

Richarlison and Bernard 0 shots? WTF???

Pickford
Coleman Keane Mina Digne
Bernard Gueye Sigurdsson Richarlison
Walcott Calvert-Lewin

If we can't create then at least put pace and a target man up front and play more direct. Richardson is a winger full stop. Sigurdsson continues to struggle at No 10 so don't play one. Really frustrating watching the same rubbish that isn't working, week-in & week-out.

Pickford,
Kenny*, Mina, Zouma, Digne
Sigurdsson, Gueye, Gomes, Baines
Lookman,
Calvert Lewin.

No start for Richarlison, Bernard, Coleman, Walcott, or Keane.

Zouma is playing his heart out for us - sign him.
Don't sell Gueye whatever we do.

We are light on in the middle of the park (overrun might be a better way of putting it). Give Baines a run their to see how he goes - at least Gueye would have someone else to pass to in the middle of the park - at the moment Gomes is running round with target on his back.

If the Baines experiment doesn't work swap him for Bernard and get another centre mid in in the summer.

Play Calvert Lewin every game for the rest of the season. If he is not up to it sign a a centre forward (or sign one anyway).

Silva lost that game when he took Gomes off instead of Richarlison.

Wake up Mr Silva - you are coming under increasing scrutiny.

* Once described as “an excellent young man”.

Its hard work this being an Evertonian.

I have been very concerned too about the ineffective formation we seem to wheel out every week.

Any team can deal with it. Overcome it . We have 2 wide men every game that are never able to use their pace, never able to get behind the defence. Every week our midfield formation is nullified easily by the opposition. The ball goes out wide from a sideways pass ., we lose the ball when it comes back sideways to the CM positions, then we are disorganised and under pressure, often leading to a chance for our opponents.

This system has to change.

To win games we need a top quality CF, someone who wont be outmuscled by average PL defenders . Someone who can hold it up a bit and create a goal out of nothing.

We need then a solid midfield 4, a midfield that is disciplined and can control a game . It's been a while !

Then a number 10, the luxury player, the messi player, with pace and skill. Give that man a free role to go wide or find space or link up with the CF.

The team Laurie has above would be a definite step in the right direction . For me it looks like Gomes's mind is eksewhere lately, Id take him out of it.

Sigg would need to be focused and disciplined . Lookman as no10 must understand he has to produce as competition for that role is fierce.

Pickford

Kenny Zouma Mina Digne

Sigg Gana Mccarthy Baines

Lookman

DCL

I started watching it live near the end and, as it wasn't us playing, so I waited as I thought we'd be on last as we usually are.
Ironically we weren't so I went to the iPlayer, I was glad of this as it allowed me to repeat Silva's post-match interview.

Did I hear right? "We didn't deserve to win, we had no tactics!" WTF!

I am still at a loss, and am starting to sound like a broken record, saying why did we employ a man who has been sacked from his last two jobs for failing?

For me, it's got to the point where I don't expect to win anymore, and I'm often right.

Something is radically wrong at the Club and it needs sorting.

So... have I and answer? — clearly nothing!

1. There's no intensity in the play no matter what eleven go out. The vast majority of passes are back or sideways while we try to get a foothold in the game whilst the opposition always get at us. Momentum is lost from the kick-off.

2. There's no leadership either on or off the field. Seamus is obviously struggling with his form and should not be captain even if selected. But who else has the bottle to drive this lot on? I've watched Silva and he seems incapable of motivating himself – let alone anyone on the park. There's no spark anywhere... it's demoralizing.

3. The rest has been said above.

Signed: a blue for 65 years.

To win games, you have to control the midfield, even if it's not pretty. Joe Royle knew this with his "Dogs of War".

Maybe we have to go to 4-3-3 and ditch the Number 10? Get three scrappers in the centre and keep three fast artisans upfront.

But, as of 19 January, we have exactly half the points tally of the unmentionables. "Underachieving and embarrassing" does not begin to cover it.

The trouble is, they've both run out of time and only their stubbornness sees them continue to make the same mistakes which inevitably ends in repeated defeat.

The problem is, of course, that we've lost faith in their masters to ever get it right so they soldier on. In every way, Everton and the UK both present as a busted flush.

The days of greatness are a long time past. Aston Villa-like.

The present squad, like those before them, seem slow and weak and poorly organised. We haven't had a warrior on the pitch since Tim Cahill left. The rest of the season is a dead rubber so we may as well give our own lads ie Kenny, DCL, Beningme, Lookman etc a run to either make them or break them, as it were. At present only Pickman, Gana and Digne are earning their wages.

Same shite, different manager and season but same old shite.

We know all the questions...see above paragraph...its answers we need...and results

Over to you Moshiri, Brands or Silva - or somebody...the toffee lady, anybody.

We're not getting relegated (with a caveat that this is Everton we're talking about and if something can be fucked up it will) and top 7 or best of the rest is not looking good.

Bench Gomes and Sigurdsson, both of them look like they're running on empty, and play Davies and Baningime with Bernard as No 10; as well as giving Lookman and Calvert-Lewin an extended run.

As they won't be in a dogfight and just playing for their careers, we will finally get to see if they're good enough for the prem. And we'd have a reasonable bench as well.

They are entirely of his own making. He keeps playing players that are consistently failing and the fool is tactically inept.

Get rid as the next headline will read “Everton's problems mount”.

Having said that, Unsworth tried it last year and as soon as we lost a game or two the crowd and indeed most of this site turned on him and the team.

I'd be quite happy to watch this lot given a few games:

Pickford
Kenny Keane Mina Digne
Davies Baningime
Lookman Bernard Richarlison
Calvert-Lewin

No loan players. All under 26. A good few academy products. They may lack a bit of finesse so get them to play the ball forward quickly with Calvert-Lewin, Lookman and Richarlison running the channels.

Bench: Pickford, Feeney, Adeniran, Hornby, McCarthy, Sigurdsson, Gueye, Richarlison.

For the past few weeks most on TW have been calling for Silva to play a settled team in a settled formation. So after beating Bournemouth last week Silva did what most have asked for and picked an unchanged side with the same formation. But, after another away defeat, TW is now full of posters telling him he has to make changes, and all manner of team selections have been encouraged.

As infuriating as it may be to some we just have to not panic and let the manager and Brands have the time to put things right. Obviously after a run of bad results particularly away from home the calls come in about sacking the manager. Surely the one thing we should have learned over the last few seasons is changing managers every 18 months doesn't work.

As I have said before the comments Moshiri made at the AGM were not helpful. I really struggle to see why he made those comments publickly when they should have been said behind closed doors. He was prepared to give Watford 㾶 million to secure Silva, now he is saying it was a big gamble.

For what it's worth, I would suggest that Moshiri keeps his comments inside the club in future: he has sacked 3 managers and appointed 2 none so far have been a success. So maybe before making comments about a man less than 6 months into a new job, he may need to question what criteria he uses to select a manager.

I think we have to give Silva at least all of next season to see if he can turn results around. It's easy to sack someone but it's finding the right man that we have found so far to be elusive... except on a couple of occasions over the last 60 years.

Like I said earlier, there appear to be no consequences for consistently appalling performances from all concerned from what is one of the richest sports leagues in the world.

Directors, coaches, managers and players are hired and fired willy- nilly with no cohesive playing plan or methods. The same mistakes are repeated over and over with the same predictable results.

We, as fans, appear powerless to change things, to try and drag Everton finally into the 21st century. Vote with your feet, don't go the match until we get guarantees that the club moves away from its default amateurish approach on everything from marketing, publicity (what publicity? – we're practically invisible), coaching and, of course, playing to win at all costs.

We've been a soft touch since being walked all over after Heysel when the club did, and continues to do, nothing to right the disgraceful and shocking injustices that still affect us to this day yet are being whitewashed from history at the expense of all Evertonians.

Change everything. Grow a backbone. Start now.

I think you've got it wrong there mate, people were asking for change even though we beat Bournemouth, because we were crap against them. They should've never lost that game.

I understand saying give him more time if it looked like we were progressing in any shape or form, but the truth is we seem to be regressing.

He employs the same tactics week after week which, to anyone with any nous about football can see, that it's not working. Were do we go from here sadly I don't know.

Also, why does Silva persist with playing Richarlison as a striker? As far as I know, he never played him there when he had him at Watford so why do it here? He's useless as a striker. Just gets muscled out by the oppositions centre-backs.

Managers complain about getting the sack but sometimes, through their own obstinance and lack of tactical flexibility, they bring it on themselves. Picking the same out-of-form players in the same ineffectual formation isn't doing Silva any favours. But it's his funeral.

Richarlison, Gomes, Lookman, and Pickford were a bloody disgrace yesterday.

While the players are clearly under- performing, it was only a short time ago when people were lauding the recent recruits, and congratulating Brands on his astuteness and acumen in his first transfer window.

I still believe that the players have not suddenly become poor overnight, or in a short period of time; I believe it to be down to poor coaching and a lack of a game plan.

While I have never been an advocate of people getting sacked (apart from Koeman and Allardyce), it reflects strongly upon getting the choice of Manager right in the first instance!

I will be surprised if Silva lasts the season should results and performances follow the current trend. Also, I am getting sick and tired of the excuses, especially directed towards the loyal fans home and away, who turn up at great personal expense, to be put through that torture.

I'd like to see us go back to basics, and by that I mean go to 4-4-2. It seems like a formation is past its sell-by date, and maybe it has to be a top team, but, for now, maybe it is what we need.

The midfield three just ain't working, the forwards are isolated and the midfield exposed.

I'd go with Gana and one other, maybe Davies, and try for an energetic midfield two, that battle and win the ball.

Then 2 wingers, Walcott and Lookman being my preferences. Hog the lines, use pace and get the ball into the box.

Then Tosun or Calvert-Lewin and Richarlison. Two strikers, playing off each other, not isolated.

And Kenny at right back, Coleman's time is up.

Players joining Everton lack ambition because they also want to drift on the good ship Everton.

Stagnant and stale. Forget about a new stadium – it will just become a white elephant.

The club is treading water, staying in the money in the Premier League, with little chance of breaking into the top 6. The money is not on offer, and the hierarchy are keeping what they have for the possible ground development.

Moshiri is doing just enough to protect his investment but we simply are lacking in both the finances and the intent to make the next step.Silva is unproven and we have been taken for a ride in the transfer market.

Hopefully, Brands can change things but it is going to take 2 or 3 years to drain the swamp and refill with guys with talent, strength and spirit.

Hasenhuttl joined a hopeless Southampton in December, and they are already better than us — beat Arsenal and drew Chelsea.

Also, every time Gana wins the ball with a perfect tackle, he loses it again when he tries to pass it. And Richarlison's morale will get lower if he continues to play him as a centre-forward.

Some are calling for the 'keeper to be replaced as he has poor distribution. How I wish that was actually the reason we play so poorly.
Others say Gomes should be dropped and replaced by Davies but all that would lead to is Davies having nobody to pass to either. As I've said previously, Gomes gets the ball in space but everyone runs away from him and the opposition player just sits so that all he has had is to play wide to Digne which oppositions have seen and cut off which leaves him with just a long ball to non-target men or to play it backwards to Keane or Zouma which merely leaves them in the same position.

The style, line-up, tactics, something, call it what you will has to change and this is the Manager's responsibility. We have to have options such as taking them on in at least even numbers in midfield which will either lead to the midfield becoming overcrowded or freeing up space for Digne or Coleman or getting the forwards in a one-on-one position with a central defender, or actually outplaying them in midfield. Whatever, the manager has to be able to change tactics if necessary as the game progresses.

Then, if he has time, the manager can move on with other problems, poor zonal marking with nobody looking like they actually know what the opposition does in such circumstances particularly set pieces and, apart from the one set piece goal involving Schneiderlin, see if we can come up with some set piece movements of our own.

After that we should be halfway to where we want to be.

I think this may be one of the more intelligent things I've read on TW:

Managers complain about getting the sack but sometimes, through their own obstinance and lack of tactical flexibility, they bring it on themselves. Picking the same out-of-form players in the same ineffectual formation isn't doing Silva any favours. But it's his funeral.

I think this surmises Marco's predicament perfectly. Everyone could see his preferred lineup wasn't working for a few games - at least not garnering the type of display you'd need for continued success.

Yet he persists.

He'd better get flexible pretty darned quick because right now he's looking like going down the Martinez mark II lane. And without a 72 point season I might add!!

Bernard is technically excellent but having 2 diminutive wingers at the same time (lookman or Walcott both not big enough either) leaves us with little chance of playing long diagonal balls when we are countering or trying to stretch the opposition to create more favourable situations. Our Long diagonals are always hit in the air to the player and not in front of them so don't have both options on the wing under 5ft 5 to let a 6ft defender easily win the ball back. If the idea is to have 2 wingers who are technically good and can play 1-2 touch with a marauding full back then great, but not if you only have 1 full back now capable of getting up and down the pitch. I would love to see Bernard behind the striker where one pass or man beaten leads to a chance. This is also pretty obvious?

If we continue to play 2 central midfielders then Gomes needs a rest as the speed and physicality of the Premier league and the constant opposition targeting of him has caught up to him and will result in a red card to go with him rushing and squandering possession. In a central midfield 3 he would be much better, the weight on his shoulders is too much, if that means sacrificing a wide man or number 10 then why not? We don't create any chances now anyway.

In order to proceed I think Silva has to change not just the eleven but the squad as every week its the same players getting minutes and it hasn't worked for far too long now. The same squad, every week, yet the only subs Silva ever seems to make are “like for like” wide men or a striker.

Or maybe Silva knows this shower isn't good enough so he puts them in positions they cannot succeed in to show Brands and Moshiri that he needs upgrades? The problem with that is if you are completely inflexible to a starting formation it's your fault Marco, time to “work with what you have” as you keep telling us and find positions that work for the personnel you have because at the moment you are being found out every week by teams, managers and players who are inferior to what you have.

How the f could Gomez ever look good when he have no one to pass the ball to? He almost all the time only have the back four and Gana Gueye to pass the ball to. And he can not pass the ball to Gana Gueye too many times because then we lose possesion.

So tell me. How the f*ck are either Gomez or anyone in front of him ever be able to play good when we have 4-2-3-1 system that does not work?

I guess the players understand the problem, but Silva not. Then the moral is crasing like a plane on fire.

If Silva does not change the system ASAP or put some better suited players into he has to go. Gana Gueye does not fit into this system. The most terrifying thing is that is seems like a lot of other people do not under stand this problem. Yes we need a new striker, but this is not our main problem, it is the midfield!

There is no striker that would shine with us because of this. And add sharply falling moral to this and we could easily lose 8 of the next 10 games without problem.

How the f could Gomez ever look good when he have no one to pass the ball to? He almost all the time only have the back four and Gana Gueye to pass the ball to. And he can not pass the ball to Gana Gueye too many times because then we lose possesion.

So tell me. How the f*ck are either Gomez or anyone in front of him ever be able to play good when we have 4-2-3-1 system that does not work?

I guess the players understand the problem, but Silva not. Then the moral is crasing like a plane on fire.

If Silva does not change the system ASAP or put some better suited players into he has to go. Gana Gueye does not fit into this system. The most terrifying thing is that is seems like a lot of other people do not under stand this problem. Yes we need a new striker, but this is not our main problem, it is the midfield!

There is no striker that would shine with us because of this. And add sharply falling moral to this and we could easily lose 8 of the next 10 games without problem.

Let's get one thing straight here: Unless you have just landed from the moon or you are exceptionally stupid, you will know we are in transition; half the team is new; we have rid ourselves of so much deadwood with more to go. Our dressing room was littered with ordinary players who couldn't believe their luck when they were paid a fortune to sign for us.

We have appointed a Director of Football, brought in a new coach, and we are trying to change the shaming perception of being the last-on ugly sisters of the Premier League...

How much of a fucking evidence of transition do you want???

I despair at the foolishness of people claiming it is an excuse; it's not an excuse — it's a cast-iron fucking fact!!!

I knew Everton would not finish any higher this season, there is far much upheaval for that. I know I will be accused of using hindsight but, before a ball was kicked this season, I stated that I would not put a penny on us to finish above Wolves, and I got slaughtered for it at the time.

We have spent years being managed by cowards – real gutless fuckers like Koeman who didn't dare trust his own coaching skills and come out and play, despite spending more than any manager in our history. Allardyce picked up the anti-football flag and ran even further with it. Do people not remember those 10-man defences?

The soul had been ripped from this club; restoring it is the biggest part of the transition. Yes, the cowards had found the ugliest of ways to finish 7th or 8th, but a club of Everton's standing could not continue to conduct itself in that way.

Nothing will erase the shame of setting our stall out to avoid a home defeat against a Championship bound West Bromwich Albion. The club had plunged the depths by allowing managers to make us the ugliest side to watch in the Premier League for three consecutive seasons – even Stoke didn't manage that.

I don't give a flying fuck if we finish between 7th and15th. I want to see life breathed into the heart and soul of the club. I want to see the deadwood flushed out. I want to see the painstaking and sometimes despairing efforts of restoring this club.

I don't care how many setbacks we have to endure in the rebuilding process: the transition must continue. I want the days when Everton embarrassed me by going into football matches without any thought of winning erased from my memory... Forever!

I'm all for giving Silva time too because I think given the time he and Brands will do well (certainly Brands will).

But! Taking everything you've said into consideration, we should be going to the likes of Southampton and beating them because they're a poor side on a poor run and, although we're in transition, it can't be used for every failure.

Southampton wanted it more than us and tried harder than us and had more desire than us — being in transition doesn't make that acceptable, IMHO.

I recall you coining the damning phrase 'zombie football' last season as a succinct descriptor of what we were forced to suffer. I wonder if the clock has started yet on how long it will take for similar lucidity to strike you this season...??

Take away their cutting edge and they're no better than anyone else, including us. If a side wants to be any good, it needs strikers. Players who can put the ball in the net.

No finishers = no success.

Everton need strikers. Simple as.

But the money-grabbing cowards who served up the Zombie Football did untold damage to this club... and they did it for years.

I don't know if Silva is the man for the job and I think you know that, if he had simply been charged with restoring the team, like other managers, I would have been well on his case by now... but there is so much more to rebuilding Everton. Previous employees and managers have cast such a feeling of hopelessness around the club and the remaining players, I'm beginning to think we need a fucking exorcist.

Jam tomorrow? Right now, I'd settle for a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.

He's rebuilding the club, and needs to be given more time, while other managers and their cohorts were a dead loss from Day One? Have I got that right?

Just seeking clarification here as I'm perhaps guilty of being swayed by those (spouting bollocks?) comparing the lack of progress now with the lack of progress under those previous regimes?

Rebuilding the team is important, but this is not simply a team rebuild. The club has taken a different approach to the past. Why? Because it wasn't working.

New positions have been created. we haven't got a manager, we have a coach, we have a Director of Football, we are undergoing upheaval right throughout the club. If there is a team in this league trying to get rid of more deadwood than us I don't know about them.

Anyone who tries to deny we are in transition is indeed spouting bollocks. This upheaval may not be successful, but changes had to be made... Otherwise we may as well have stuck with Sam Allardyce, finished 7th every season and happy clapped our way to miserable trophyless early graves,

This fella may not be the one to make the omelette but, if we don't start employing coaches with the bollocks to break a few eggs, we are finished as a club who wins things.

Same thing is happening before our very eyes... Ignorance is a poor forgiver!

No Kane or Son and yet Spurs still showed the will to win (2-1) having conceded the first goal - something we haven't done all season. We've conceded the first goal 10 times this campaign and clawed back just 2 points (Huddersfield and Newcastle).

Good strikers are important, clearly, but a bit of resilience, self-belief and determination helps too. Our players' heads go down as soon as we concede the opening goal.

The last time we won a Premier League game having conceded first was against Swansea at Goodison in December 2017. Last time we did it in an away game was at West Brom in October 2016. Pitiful.

Get fucking paid.

The soul has definitely been ripped from our club and I don't know how we are going to restore it if we don't go and sign a Number 9.

Of course, there is a lot more wrong than just this at the minute, but to play without a proper centre-forward eventually becomes soul-destroying and this is definitely affecting some of our players right now because the ball is going backwards a lot more than it's going forward – and the same is happening to the team.

We fans should be up in arms over this but it's easier to say the managers shite or "I never wanted him in the first place," which seems to be the most common phrase right now.

Those people might be right, especially since the manager doesn't appear to be very pragmatic at the minute, but surely we can still use the loan system to try and help the team?

The only thing I want is a manager that can make the best of the available players and sources we have. Right now, I believe we don't have one that serves that purpose.

Right now, I see an owner in Moshiri that does not really know what he is doing. He is hiring managers that have got other clubs in Premier League relegated. That is equivalent for any private firm to hire the employees of his worst competitors that were so bad they got fired. Does that sound like a smart and winning strategy?

And please stop talking about how big of a football club we are and the glory days when we were winning trophies. It is not going to help us now and it is not going to help us in the future. We have been a midtable club for about 25 years. We have to look at where we are now and do the best thing about it.

So we've got a coach and not a manager. When is he going to start coaching them as our players are not improving – if anything, they are going backwards.

I get the transition we are in but we have to see improvement from one of the many transitions we get ourselves into.

Confidence is a big thing in football and players need motivating. Whose job in Everton's new setup is it to motivate the team?

I agree with Tony A, we need a real Number 9 to help halt the slide.

I hope we're not in this transition thing too long...

Once Gomes came into the side we had a coherent pattern of play and players who looked confident and would deliver. There were people, myself included, who thought that Gana, Gomes and Sigurdsson were a better middle three than Liverpool had.

However, though we had a front 3 nowhere near the quality of theirs, we did have promise in Richarlison, Bernard, Lookman, Calvert-Lewin and even Walcott. The madness of the derby defeat blew a hole in that.

We now have players lacking confidence, out of form and struggling - Gomes, Seamus, Siggy, Richarlison Is it the manager's job to put that right? Yes. But he hasn't got a pool of resources that enable him to radically change the side, he has to ride it out. It's frustrating but that's the way it is.

For some, the answer seems to be sack the manager and find a better fit. For what? And then when they've got us 8th next January, sack them? Think back to the games from Fulham to the derby. Did you think we were on the right track then? I did.

We have to stick to Silva, we have to see through a radical restructuring of the squad and we have to hope that he and Brands can deliver the football and the trophies that every Evertonian wants to see.

But let's stick together guys. Let's give our backing to Silva and Brands and have faith that they will deliver. If they haven't succeeded in showing progress by the end of the next season, then show one or both the door, but can we please avoid the non-stop revolving of the last 30 months?

I watched Ings coming short, then trying to pull defenders out of position; I watched him keep it, or play it off quick, and I watch Richarlison not really doing any of these things naturally...

After reading it back, I didn't understand it myself.

What I meant is: How many full-time recognised strikers that play every week in the position have scored more than our rotating strikers? — if that makes sense...

I look at Silva, who has little or no knowledge of the fabulous Everton traditions, and a lot of the time, he appears quite smug, which is off-putting.

Nowhere did I give the definition of transition. Nor did I defend recent performances. Yet again you have created another straw man,

You were one of those who regularly happy clapped Allardyce and his Zombie football. What you are seeing now are the consequences. Complete overhaul right throughout the club, Why? Because the faithful had had enough of years of Zombie football and going entire games without managing a shot on target. They were disgusted...

No excuses being offered here; just a reminder to people like you that you can argue until you are blue in the face but Transition on several levels is happening at our club.

It was an appointment I was totally against but understood why it was made

I consistently commented to any concerned poster that Allardyce would be gone at the end of the season and no way he would last his 18 month contract

You are talking shit

Like many many posters I don't accept that transition as you call it means we have to put up with crap football and tactics

I don't expect an apology for your comments about the lies about my happy clapping suffice to know that I know it's lies

Allardyce did not do that much really. He bought Walcott, that turned out to be our best player last spring. Also he bought Tosun. He managed to get us on 7th spot. This did not hurt us too much really.

Now Silva seem to continue where Martinez ended. With no strategy at all playing this useless 4-2-3-1 formation with no ability to create a functional defence, no ability to create a good strategy and no ability to motivate the players. He is like Martinez moving development backwards.

This has absolutely nothing to do with Allardyce. If this negative development continues it is only a matter of time before we get a visit from the relegation ghost.

I played centre-forward till the ripe old age of 46 and injuries caught up with me. I judged my performance on the complaints of the defenders and I noticed yesterday that the defenders didn't start complaining till Calvert-Lewin came on.

We hardly ever win away and our home games are a nightmare!

Too many serial losers in our team I'm afraid! Pickford – relegated, Keane – relegated, Zouma – relegated, Gana – relegated, Sigurdsson – in regular relegation battles! That's right down the spine of our side!!!

I also said I liked the way Silva sets out to win every game. If I am honest, I am completely bamboozled by what has happened since the derby.

Perhaps the remedy really is just as simple as us signing a tried and tested centre-forward. If so, Moshiri should get him one – if there is one available.

In the meantime perhaps Silva should show a willingness to change his tactics until we can get him one.

After reading all the posts and weighing it all up, I think we need to get behind Silva and Moshiri needs to get him a centre-forward. If that works out it will be best for all of us.

In the meantime as Winston Churchill once said – “If your going through hell... keep going!”

Might it be prudent, Mr Moshiri, to stop splashing out for what turn out to be mediocre managerial appointments as you have done whilst you welcome/endure the "Everton-ness" of the monster grabber and just pay whatever it takes to get rid of him in every way, totally, absolutely and finally, and the acolytes he's stuffed Finch Farm with.

Maybe, just maybe, M&M can then delegate their own choices to try to achieve what they and we fans (and you?) want?

And don't feel sorry for them either. If they're any bloody good they'll surely thrive at another cub, not that any of them have "coached" anywhere else of course.

Somebody said earlier that he looks like a rabbit in a headlight when standing on the touchline. I couldn't agree more. His body language says it all. Brands should be reading the riot act to him — as we would expect if we were seriously under-performing in our jobs.

Right now I might be encouraged if I saw the Manager doing something that appeared an improvement — not on what last season's managers did – but on his own presently failing ideas.

I cant copy and paste on this thing, but I can search back. How about this for irony given your constant attacks on Silva?

"We all have to support Allardyce as we do all our managers"?

Anyone who can be arsed to look back will find numerous examples of your support and attacks on other posters for criticising Allardyce. In his very first game, you told a guy on here, who had watched since Catterick's days, that he "didn't know what he was talking about" when he criticised Allardyce's tactics.

Like I say, there are quite literally numerous examples of your support for the Night King, but I'll leave you with this little gem you posted before he even signed:

"We were happy to pay Koeman ٤M a year, so I'd grovel back to Sam with a ١M offer till the end of the season, with a ٟM bonus for staying up" – John Keating, 7 November 2018.

When you call other people liars, you kinda force them to track back. I don't expect an apology from you, but I do expect you to send 50 quid to Cancer Research.

Marco Silva, is struggling. Marco Silva, has been here for six months. Marco Silva's team, look very niave, to the point we're they don't even look like a team at the minute, but let's get behind the man, and his players.

He showed some great intent before the wheels came off and might possibly have won a few more games if he'd had a genuine centre-forward.

Let's get behind this team because it's much better than it's currently playing and, even if you don't want this manager, you would have to admit that football and life is a lot easier once people get behind you.

If they go out the cup to Millwall, which is quite possible the way they are playing, then this might change... but right now the players and the manager need support.

The boy is far from the finished article but I can see that big Dunc has been working on him. He wins a lot of headers and is putting himself about more than he used to. He will beef up naturally which will help, but he has mobility.

I hope Silva takes the difficult decisions to drop one of his personal favorites and keeps Dom at 9. I would have Gomes, Sigurdsson and Gueye in the midfield with Richarlison on the left with Lookman on the right.

If things need changing there is always Bernard to pop in instead a winger or Tosun to help Calvert-Lewin. What we don't want is the middle exposed to raiders running right through the empty space.

If Silva can't see this then there is either something wrong with him or his players are ignoring his instructions.

With that in mind, it's a blessing that we are away in the Cup as the away fans will get behind the team, especially with Millwall as the opponents.

Imagine if it had been at Goodison, with a large away support and our crowd getting fidgetty, then grumbling and finally hissing.

I personally have a feeling that we will come through that fixture unscathed. The lads will focus on the only thing they have left to keep their season interesting (as long as Silva puts out his first team).

When I write the words pull together, I think this is were Silva, is going really wrong. His formation is stretching us, and when it's backs to the wall, you don't want your nearest mate, 20 yards away.

Regarding Silva, he is just not listening or learning; he's had his cards marked at the AGM but still carried on with, what are to me, his sterile tactics, which are, patently obvious, not working.

Instead of defending deep with a compact midfield, especially away from home, he carries on in the same old way, leaving the team bankrupt defending; teams just go through us at will.

Upfront he plays a man who demonstrates with every game that he is not a striker and is next to useless there. This while he has a player, Calvert-Lewin, who can play there and will get better the more he is used there.

Unless Silva has a rethink on his game plans, he is leaving himself wide open to get his comics and his P45 before very long. I hope he learns, and quickly.

The writing is on the wall; another failure. But, we are stuck with him for now.

Despair doesn't even come close... I'm truly gutted at the state of our team.

I was going to say that was until Everton but apparently its currently still true of us where he has 1.44 points per game compared to Allardyce's 1.42!

Obviously we are in a bad rut at the moment both performance and results-wise and if Silva cannot remedy that by the end of the season then I imagine there's a fair chance he won't be here next year. But to say he was a bad appointment is very easy in retrospect.

Who were the obvious alternatives? Pellegrini? His West Ham are almost as inconsistent as us and only one point better off. Sarri? He's coming under serious pressure at Chelsea. Sean Dyche? His Burnley will be lucky to survive relegation at this rate.

I thought Silva was the right choice at the time but surely we all know there are no guarantees. Doesn't mean Moshiri deserves some of the abuse hurled at him. We have a tradition of giving managers a decent shot which I approve of and think it makes it more likely to be able to attract candidates. Of course, that patience is not infinite, but I think its highly unlikely that Silva will be sacked before the Summer.

As Darren Hind says, this is a serious rebuilding job, our squad is bloated, overpaid and yet unbalanced. Buying more short-term fixes (like Vardy!) is not going to help.

Brands has a serious job on his hands to shift the deadwood and loaning out Niasse (who the'd much rather have sold) is a sign of how hard it is to shift poor players on good wages who have not been getting game time.

How the team performs over the next few months will determine whether Silva is with Brands this Summer... or whether he's not up to the job of getting the best out of this crop.

Just let's assume Moshiri did just that at the end of the season, how do you think Everton would be viewed by any potential managers. They would think yes I can go there and make a few bob with a decent pay off after 6 or12 months if we are not in the top 6. But what sort of calibre manager would take on this basket case of a club would be dubious.

You can rule out any manager of substance considering us, so we would be back in the position of appointing someone who would be a bigger risk than Silva.

I would hope that Silva not only gets the rest of this season and all of next. Obviously, if results then haven't turned around, then maybe we would need to consider our options.

But, as with players, short-term policies with managers never work... unless you are Chelsea who can still attract the World's best coaches; sadly, we are not Chelsea.

If Allardyce had had the disastrous run the current manager is experiencing, he would have been called all the names under the sun. People had a go at Sam even when he was winning! What we wouldn't give for a manager like him that could make us hard to play against and motivate the players to show some desire.

What is funny is that this is just a re-run of the Martinez debacle. A lot of fans moaned that Moyes had been too negative so we employed someone next who ripped up all that had been good under him and played not more attackingly, but simply more naively. The same has happened once more as Silva has ditched all the good things that Allardyce had instilled in us for the sake of higher possession stats and a few more shots on goal.

This current manager is not good enough for us and he is now doing what he has done at most of the clubs he has managed. He starts off well but then that quickly fades into a long losing streak that he has no idea of how to halt. It happened at Watford before he joined us but the majority of fans were too blind to see this. Why is he playing a winger as our centre-forward when we have people like Tosun and Calvert-Lewin on the bench? Why was Niasse allowed out on loan when he at least has the knack of scoring?

You can only imagine the outpouring of vitriol if a Moyes or Allardyce made these mistakes. but hey, let's just give him more time to mess it up – strange that people didn't give the last manager that luxury when he actually performed much better. Don't give me childish name calling about Big Sam in response – the table and points accumulated do not lie.

It doesn't matter whether you've followed them for 1 year or 60, it hurts and it will continue to do so for a while.

There are many suggestions about who we should bring in. I don't have the answer to that but my biggest gripe is about the way we play and our set up.

Roger #238, in his opening paragraph, makes two statements. I partially agree with the first but totally agree with the second.
I watched Saints vs Derby on TV, a great game of football; both teams played really well. Note: 'Teams' — Everton aren't playing as a team.

Saints new manager has only been there for half a dozen games and has got them organised and playing as a team. How?

Derby played really well and I thought deserved their win. They had two wide men playing down each wing, moving very quickly in attack or defence and crossing the ball in at every opportunity. They had defenders who defended and midfielders who tackled and brought the ball out. They were very fit, had a plan, played as a team and were motivated. At the time, I thought "I wish Everton were playing like that." Lampard has only been in management for 5 minutes. How has he got them playing like that?

And no!! I don't want him as manager. Why aren't Everton fit, motivated and playing as a team?

It's a sad indictment of my club when I would like them to play like Derby...

Read Sarri's comments about Chelsea after the Arsenal game.

Moyes left for Manchester United 2013. Martinez started the season with a bang till the new year. Once Dunc was in place, nothing went right for Martinez and nothing has gone right since.

Every New manager that is appointed cannot let Dunc go, why is that? Normally managers come in with all their own but, at Everton, Dunc must stay... and, to me, it seems like that is when our passion went out the window.

I don't doubt his status as a club legend but maybe he doesn't quite cut it as a coach. Could this be why most managers since Moyes just seem an unhappy bunch, along with the players.

ps: Imo, I think Pickford is overrated (don't slay me)!

Rant over.

I agree, it's a bit odd that Duncan Ferguson always survives managerial changes. Maybe that would suggest he's an excellent coach?

The problem is we have no way of knowing if the coaches are good, bad or indifferent. That's why it amuses me when posters call for this, that or the other coach to be sacked!

Pickford is one of the best shot-stoppers around and kept us in the game last Saturday with two excellent stops.

Im no lover of Duncan nor do I dislike him. But I am a little puzzled as to his qualities as a coach (although his talents in this respect appear to apparently indispensable...

When Managers have been sacked, he remains. Why is that? Is he an exceptional Coach?

He has not set the strikers on fire with passion...

The figures you quote are wrong, so your point in the second paragraph is – to date – invalid.

Premier League stats.

Silva. Pl: 23, Won: 8, Drawn: 6, Lost: 9, Points: 30 = 1.30 points per game

Premier League Win Percentage: 34.78%

Allardyce: Pl: 24, Won: 9, Drawn: 7, Lost: 8, Points: 34 = 1.42 points per game

Premier League Win Percentage: 37.5%

The Silva PPG figure you've quoted is inflated by tagging on the easy cup wins against Rotherham and Lincoln. You don't get points for cup wins, so I don't see how they can be added to a 'points per game' comparison.

And before anyone asks, the 4-0 West Ham game is NOT included in Allardyce's total.

ps: Overall win percentage (including cup games) may prove your point – depending on whether you attribute the Apollon Limassol win to Allardyce, who was 'technically' manager for that game.

Source:

Silva: https://www.transfermarkt.com/marco-silva/leistungsdatenLigenNational/trainer/19631

Allardyce: https://www.transfermarkt.com/sam-allardyce/leistungsdatenLigenNational/trainer/445

Problem is, it hasn't happened. The atmosphere is still shit, we haven't improved our points per game, and we're still playing shit football. What a fucking waste of time.

Either way it makes more sense that Allardyce has more points per game at this 'moment'. I still hold to the rest of my post though.

Whether it be with three, four, five, a diamond or two rabid dogs linked at the hip, central-midfield needs sorting. We need players to be a bit more dynamic and get their 'bite' back in there.

Until this is sorted, there is usually only marginal improvement in other areas of the pitch.

Hopefully the the Silva ppg figure will be above Allardyce's in a few weeks time!

Personally, I think he is improving Calvert-Lewin 's game. If you want to look for reasons for problems, then don't go up this side alley.

Duncan is obviously getting looked after by someone, but I would personally have to ask if it's for his abilities as a football coach, because although I don't go to Finch/Farm, it never looks like Ferguson, has got much responsibility?

I might be wrong, he might be great, but I'm sure he'd have been promoted if he was because, after, all he's seen off three or four managers in 3 years, whilst Everton have not improved.

As Eric says, there's more to it than scoring goals. A centre-forward unsettles defenders, offers an outlet, plays other forwards in. At present, opposing centre-halves seem very comfortable when we are attacking, and when we defend, as soon as we get possession and play forwards, the ball bounces straight back again.

We have some very clever forwards in Richarlison, Bernard, Walcott and Lookman, as well as Sigurdsson in midfield and I think they would do a lot better with a big centre-forward to play off.

The only common denominator of Ferguson's tenure has been the regular departure and arrival of persons above him – it beats me how he survives. He is not the sole cause of our problems but very symptomatic of the issues holding us back and sending us further away from ever being the Club we all seek.

Get rid of him, Marco – show some guts – and finally rid the backroom of staff who are little more than coat hangers for a tracksuit.

If we were in say, Italy, Spain or France, I think there would be fan protests at every game, banners, chanting, anything to get their feelings across to the club. It just seems a particularly British thing that we don't do such things over here.

Simply booing at the end of yet another dire performance has no discernible effect on the upper echelons of the club management.

Until the paying public begin to demonstrate in some way that they are not happy or willing to accept the 'product' on offer from the club, then there will be zero reaction from those in charge. What the hell? We virtually fill the stadium every game, won, lose or draw, so the crowd must be happy... right?

We can rant on all we like on here but until the club are made to realise just how unhappy the fan base is, nothing will change and we will blunder on from one disaster to the next.

Moshiri's appointment of Silva has again, in my opinion, shown his overall naivety and lack of experience and knowledge when it comes to running a Premier League football club.

Now in my 60th year as a supporter of this once great football club and I must admit, my fervour and belief in the club I love is diminishing week by week and has been for the last three disastrous years of useless and ineffective managerial appointments.

It shouldn't be like this.

Time will tell if that was in the long-term interests of the club. In the short-term, although we have signed some better players than were available to Allardyce, we have a worse team.