Second-rate Blues no match for slick Leicester

Let's not wait until the end of the season to start approaching games with that all-or-nothing, relegation mindset. We're very much in the mix for the drop.

We needed 3 points from Fulham, Leicester and Bournemouth. There's still a chance to get 4.

And yes, okay, he makes the odd good tackle but he is the past, not the present or indeed the future defensive central midfielder and will cost, us just like Doucoure in every match

Players like them are weak links and no threat to the opposition – only to their own teammates.

Simply not good enough but past it – Nil Satis in fact

We must admit our mistakes, take action now, and not play them again. Instead, make it a priority for replacement,t like a top striker in the next transfer window, or we will regret it big time.

I know most comments will say Leicester have quality etc, but over 90% of the Premier League have players with match-winning quality.

We are in the 10% of the Premier League with very little quality, so I'm now expecting another relegation battle.

Does anybody else see Doucouré getting on the bench (not the first team) of any other Premier League club? Exactly. He is dogshit; I'd rather see one of the academy lads getting a chance.

We have a looser of a board and an owner who has no intentions of seeing any success on the field other than fulfilling his remit of completing the new Everton Stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock.

I think we have to change the way we are set up as our two wide players offer very little and, with a single central striker, we have no threat.

Looks like Calvert-Lewin will be missing for the games next week so change is inevitable. Maybe a 'surprise' centre-forward and the much-maligned Tom Davies in midfield as our best options?

This setup is fine against Man City, Arsenal etc, but not in this kind of game. For this kind of setup to work, we need very efficient finishers and we certainly haven't got them.

I wrote a longer rambling post and scrapped it. I am cutting to the mustard.

Two problems:

1) Midfield has to be stronger.
2) More forward threat.

Two solutions:

1) Garner has to come in and be a starter.
2) As things stand, Maupay has to play in tandem with Calvert-Lewin, feeding off knock-ons, scraps, making a total nuisance of himself.

I think it is not a recipe for beautiful football but, with what we've got at the moment, this at least plays to our strengths. It will cause the maximum problems to opponents that we can offer right now and they won't like playing against this approach. It's the best chance of us getting progress with narrow victories. Then, and only then, can we introduce more expansive football.

Although we improved, at times, under Carlo we were very much 'in decline'. Since the Moyes era, team after team has surpassed us, albeit at times sporadically: Leicester, Spurs, West Ham and now the likes of Brighton and Fulham.

We are floundering. I like Lampard, I think most of us do, but who can honestly say with any conviction that he is the man to get us out of this?

Still, I live in hope of progress. I see our magnificent new stadium on the horizon, I dream of big European nights there. As I said, I live in hope.

Playing one up front at home in a game we should be looking to win was not good enough. Let's get a couple of the young lads in the team for the Carabao Cup and see if they can give Frank the option of a youthful change.

As much as I don't like criticising as football is a game of mistakes, despite the poor performance, we had 2 gilt-edged chances.

Iwobi has to score from there and it's a different game. Calvert-Lewin demonstrated that whilst he's a good striker, he's not top drawer. All he had to do was put a bit of lift on that.

And as much as I admired the Leicester goals, there were defensive mistakes.

Seamus gets caught ball-watching and, although it was a great pass on Leicester's part, he's then playing catch-up. And Coady's clearance left a lot to be desired.

The second one, yes, Barnes made the space, but whoever our player was (I have watched it back and won't), gave him the space.

Sometimes you just have to accept you are beaten by a team that performed better. We were.

Next match, please.

I know you are a believer in the importance of winning the midfield battle; we lost the the battle at Fulham and again last night.

Their first goal was a worldy and the second one resulted from a mistake by Doucouré.

Our back four as a defensive unit is still a positive, as is Iwobi; over time, we need to improve the midfield sector and have more firepower up front.

Let's finish up with two wins before the World Cup break.

We don't have a lot of options going forward but, as unpopular as this might be, I'd be inclined to play three at the back, two wingbacks in Patterson and Mykolenko, with Iwobi, Garner and Onana in midfield and Calvert-Lewin and Maupay up front.

We'd have better natural width plus we can go direct to Calvert-Lewin and have Maupay picking up the pieces.

I think that all started close to the edge of their box. About 30 seconds later, Pickford is diving and it's a goal.

Along with the seemingly unpopular McNeil, for whatever reason, those 3 have scored 7 out of our 11 goals (all competitions) this season.

And one has hardly played and looks like he can be a good provider for Calvert-Lewin once he settles.

Although that looks like it will have to wait until after the World Cup.

By which time, apparently, we'll be confirmed as relegated and replacing our manager.

We carry too many players that can't (maybe never will) be able to do the basics of football, which is pass, move and shoot.

Our midfield is a nonentity.

Onana is not good enough on the ball to play there, he's meant to be physically strong and domineering but games are passing him by when teams with trickery and movement turn up.

Gana wasn't awful, he breaks play like he's always done but for the number of times he gives possession away it's hardly worth it.

Where is the creativity in the midfield?

Look at what Leicester had yesterday? They had everything that I wish we had but can only dream of.

We have loads of money to spend but seem to make the same mistakes, year-in & year-out. More big money spent and not a single quality attacking player brought in again.

Onana, Gana, Maupay, McNeil, Garner – how many goals are we getting from that lot?

The only two signings we've made which have improved us are Tarkowski and Coady, as without those two there it's back to getting smashings every other week like last season.

We should have replaced Calvert-Lewin last summer, we can't bury our head in the sand and think this fella will play more than 15 games this season, his body is clearly knackered and he's not clinical enough anyway.

At home, we need to be more offensive and play with an intensity that gets the crowd going from the start. Midfield is an issue. Onana, for all his potential, plays like it's a training match.

We need to see a "We are Everton... Who The Fuck are You???" attitude from our team.

A very long hard season ahead of us and, as an earlier poster alluded to, we can't wait for the run-in to start fighting to save ourselves.

But there are two players who can't play together that are Gana and Omana; both players make too many mistakes, and Everton can only afford one of them to make so many mistakes.

Much of football is about belief.

Newcastle haven't spent loads of money so far but Eddie Howe has produced a fine football team that believes it belongs in the Top 6.

Look at us: 6 years on, we are still making ourselves second favourite to win home games.

I see people on here saying we'll get 3 points at Bournemouth next week... Why? Our away form is atrocious and, since Lampard has been here, we've only won 2 away and we've got to go to Anfield, The Etihad and Stamford Bridge among others this season.

Anyone who comes on here and says we are not in a relegation battle this season is living on Planet Twat. I really don't trust the club to get a striker in January, so therefore we'll struggle to score goals, hence another relegation battle.

Callum Wilson is another striker who will chalk up 100 Premier League goals; we've had one in 30 years.

I don't know where that comes from and why it is so ingrained across so many regimes and Everton teams, but it is a real blight and even when we have the odd uplifting performance (Liverpool, Palace this season) it re-asserts itself.

We need a witch doctor.

So many managers, players, regimes all go the same way.

1) Must play with big Number 9.

2) Must just cross the ball to big Number 9's head.

3) Corner kicks and set plays don't matter, just don't bother.

4) Must play two holding midfielders that offer zilcho attacking threat.

Nothing ever changes; same shit, different season.

The fear of losing (perhaps even a greater fear of actually winning?) at Everton has become so overriding that it's scary as a long-term fan watching it unfold.

It's because we have too many very ordinary players and have done for years. There's enough about them to exist in the Premier League but little else. How many times do we sign players who appear decent at first only to be subsumed by the disease of "Evertonitis" 5 games later?

They can all pass backwards and sideways, appearing to look like players, but the game is about taking it to the opposition and we've only done that in one season for coming up to 3 decades. Our standard of recruitment is piss poor.

Not only do we fail to score enough goals, we fail to create many opportunities to score. It is obvious using two wide attackers isn't working. They don't offer enough threat in open play while leaving the midfield open to counter-attacks. Until we can improve the quality in those positions, it surely makes sense to seal up the midfield with an extra body. That would be pragmatic. I fear our current manager doesn't willingly do pragmatism.

We really miss Richarlison. He was a player who frequently made something out of nothing and in a poor team could be relied upon to pop the ball in the net. Signing a player of that ilk should be a priority in January.

A Blue Shankly or Ferguson would be nice, someone to rip it up and reboot, but I don't see him on the horizon.

60m issak and 30m wood as strikers. 50m midfielder bruno

35m centre back botman. Trippier is earning a fortune. Pope 10m, Target 15m but other than that he has got them organised and they look like a top 6 team.

Siggurdsson is still our record signing from nearly 5 years ago.

Momentum is everything in sport and Newcastle have it at present we don't.

We've spent I'd say 80 percent of that cash woefully.

The fact that since Romelu Lukaku left in summer of 2017 we haven't signed a striker that's been able to score 10 league goals is an absolute negligence of duty.

I also agree that we can't play with two wide players especially two as erratic and lacking punch that Gray and Gordon do.

It's not like we have Andrei Kanchelskis on the wing firing shots in left right and center.

I worry for the remainder of this season, I think the writing has been on the wall most of this season to date but we've managed to keep it tight defensively and ride our luck out in a few games.

I just can't see however where enough goals are going to come from within this current group to win enough points in what looks like being a more competitive bottom three than last time.

The club, Lampard included, have failed to address the real issue: we need a striker who can score 20+ goals a season, Calvert-Lewin is not that type of player and Maupay is a reserve squad player trying to punch above his weight as a striker.

Due to the morons running this club, we are now being over-run financially by the bottom 10 clubs, who can buy quality players while we are getting everybodies' hand-me-downs.

This means that there are less players available to receive passes in midfield, putting midfield players under pressure. Errors didn't help. It also allows the Liecester forward line to stay high up the pitch and build attacks.

Some are blaming Coleman for getting caught out on the halfway line. If the rest of the players in the defensive line were following his lead, it would be more difficult for attacking players to run into space to recieve the ball.

The main culprits where Coady and Tarkowski who did not push up the defensive line, staying deep most of the game, allowing Liecester to encamp and organise in Everton's half most of the game.

As for Calvert-Lewin, he is never the player that he is heralded to be.

Yes, if we had tons of money and we pissed it away on average players, like we have done in the past 6 years, then yes. But we basically sold our one star player to bring in a bunch of decent pros to keep us up in the Premiere League.

Apart from the centre-backs, I still think Thelwell and Lampard did a good job getting the likes of Onana, Gueye, Garner, Maupay, McNeil, perhaps Vinagre also. Lampard is yet to find the right combination and formation to make us more threatening.

As someone else alluded to above, I would welcome Lampard trying a more solid, if unexciting, 4-4-1-1 formation with Maupay up front, Iwobi playing off him, Garner and McNeil on the wings, and Gueye and Davies sweeping up and keeping things ticking over. The width would come from the fullbacks.

I realise this is a ‘small' team, but I believe we will create more chances with this formation and set of players. I am not worried about not scoring goals (I mean, not immediately), but let us start creating decent chances at least. The goals will surely follow.