Mr Dyche, You Drive Me Mad — Play the Winning Team!

With Onana, this is clearly not the finished article and we get glimpses of what he could be one day. He needs to accelerate his progress though as currently his development is a luxury we cannot afford.

This Bournemouth match is only a fraction less vital than last season’s. You could have hoped for 10 points from our first 5 home games and expected 7 as a bare minimum. If we end up with 3 it’s still been a disaster, less than 3 would be catastrophic considering who we’ve played.

7 defeats in the last 8 matches at Goodison. Meanwhile only 2 defeats in the last 10 away matches… clearly we need to learn how to set up at Goodison. Our away form is half decent.

https://www.premierleague.com/stats/player-comparison

Gueye is someone who should sit deep and deeper still. This is what Jim's team will allow him to do. Various posters point out again and again that certain players are being player out of position, Jimmy Garner more than anyone else, I think.

Gueye seems to get this positional attention rather less often. Yet he is, I think, a thoroughbred number 6 who does the stuff that often passes unnoticed and unremarked: closing someone down, winning tackles ten yards either side of the half-way line, getting the ball back, hounding opponents, short passing, and so on.

Gueye in front of the defence not being told to always get higher up the pitch; Garner in the middle being encouraged to spread the ball, run into space, be more creative; Doucoure with a license to push up into the attack, although I also think that Onana could do this too.

It seems that nearly all of us agree that it is not a good idea to have Gueye, Doucoure, and Onana in the starting eleven. Nearly all of us seem to agree that Jimmy Garner should be in the middle, meaning that one of the first three needs to drop out. That would be Onana for me, but there is new scope here for mixing and matching and bringing in Onana for one of the other three as the situation might require.

Gueye, Garner, Doucoure is hardly the Holy Trinity or Reidy and Bracewell in a 4-4-2, but it might well be the best we have at this particular point in time.

If, as surely will happen as night follows day, some will pop on with unadulterated vitriol for Gueye, take a moment to be constructive and to consider that he is being asked to do things on the pitch that are not a part of the role and game that got him a move to P.S.G.

A manager who doesn't know his best 11...to be honest - not as easy as it sounds

Current League position - 16th on goal diff.

QED

I think Gueye, is too slow now, to do the job he's asked to do, especially with Doucouré and Onana alongside him. I looked at Luton's second goal (well played to them, I thought it was an excellent goal) and we were all over the place. With only Garner anywhere near the goalscorer, as Patterson and legged it over to the left side to cover Keane, who was somewhere on the left wing trying to get back.
Anyway, you're point is a good one. There is some weaknesses in the team, that might be put right once we've got a full 1st team squad. Especially helpful would be the full fitness of McNeill and Harrison.
I'd like to see a midfield that is fast and creative but with the defensive midfielder of Gueye included, In other words, the other three; Harrison Garner and McNeill are much more capable of covering more ground than Gueye. He should be the poor man,s Peter Reid and get the bulk of the breaking up done.

And in our best time during the great team of the 80's we had two forwards, with Andy and Inchy, and later, Andy and Sharpy, then I'd like to see a similar set up. In my view, considering the dangerous place we're in, we need a settled team, a fast team and a settled formation.

That to me means that Doucouré and Onana wouldn't be in the midfield. Doucouré or Beto would be up front with CL and Onana would be on the bench. Doucouré's decent going forward and can score goals. The other three are fast, skilful, can cover a lot of ground, and can score goals.

The defence, until Seamus is back, It seems to me that Patterson, Branthwaite, Tarkowski and Mykolenko are first choice and Young could cover either full back, in need.

About Dyche! I can't see what the point of his tirade was, and perhaps it came about by frustration. Whatever it was, I don't think it's good to wash your dirty linen in public. I can't see us getting another manager in, until. at least,the Enquiry is over and what ramifications come from that. Then only when the takeover is completed.

This snippet had me howling - "He took Gueye off who was playing his usual game and getting slagged off as usual for his passing"

Well, yeah you can't fool Evertonians.

On the whole they know who can play and who can't but remarkably there exists a group of fans who think the inability to pass a ball is just fine. No wonder we're in shit st

Suggest you look at the stats for our midfield players, Gueye makes more tackles more interceptions than any of our midfield, and a few weeks back Sky put up a list which showed Gueye was in the top 5 in both these categories in the whole of the Premier league. Also his pass completion is about 89% so not disastrous. While he probably has lost a yard of pace he is still as the stats prove he is the best that we have at present.

Never use stats over the evidence of your own eyes especially when inadvertently confirming my point.

You're saying don't look at his whole game just look at a limited part and compare that to other players just as limited.

As I keep saying it's no mystery why we're in the cacky stuff with such a dreadful trio but 2 of them can at least run and contribute with the odd goal, Gana is so bereft of basic skills and athleticism he can't. I said it was delusional madness at the time bringing him back and so it's proved.

That requires the players selected and we can't just keep a system when those specific players would be risked. Harrison just got healthy and playing Wednesday ruled him out. Patterson needs Harrison on front to be effective so he was out of the picture. That takes out the 3-4-3 option and now you have to set up differently.

It isn't that he doesn't know the most effective eleven. He is working on a rotation that allows that system to be played often I think. We simply don't have the replacements to stay with a system. This doesn't even address whether we could get away with playing the same way each week. Our speed would likely have us found out after a few games.

What the stats don't show is the uncompleted passes that lead directly to an opposition attack or even a goal.

They don't show him losing the ball in dangerous situations leading to an opposition attack or even a goal.

They don't show him often out of position leaving a gap which leads directly to an opposition attack or even a goal.

They don't show that his shooting skills are on a par with my mum's. (She's 98).

Statistically he MAY be our "best" passer but if 2 of his 100 passes go directly to an opposing player and lead to goals against us then fuck the stats, thank you very much.

Dyche needs to either drop him until the penny drops or his agent needs to tell him the Champions League clubs won't pay the big bucks if he's not catching the eye. I'm not a big fan of Gana Gueye Mk 2 but I'd 100% have him in the team before Onana.

That team Jim picked looks good to me. UTFT

Doucoure - Garner - Gueye - McNeil - Harrison, but the manager has got to be flexible, and with Onana, Bete and Danjouma starting on the bench, then he has got ready-made replacements, to use once he sees what way the game is going.

It's fuckin dead easy sitting on my arse, writing this!

Yes, Gana does make mistakes but, when you are doing somebody else's job as well as your own, it makes it very hard.

Who does the covering when Gana presses further up the field or who is supposed to do that job? I'll give you three guesses… but you have to search for him when he's on the pitch.

I think you have hit the nail on the head, that is exactly what the problem is. And to switch Gueye's and Onana's roles has only increased the problem, not helped it.

Garner has the all-round game and a good work ethic to help Gueye and not hinder.

Onana has been given the deep lying role. When I first saw him, I thought he was going to be a marauding Vieira type of midfielder. Instead, Dyche has him lying very deep.

Doucouré has been charged with aiding Calvert-Lewin but it looks to me like they have all been told to join in attacks where possible, hence Gueye's regular errant shots!

I would have Jimmy Garner in the middle with Gueye, leaving Doucouré to get up and down in support of the striker.

Onana can sit on the bench and replace one of the others when needed. Onana is young and his stamina will improve with time. I think he will become a good player but alas, not with us.He will be sold in the summer.

Now Garner will become a very handy little schemer.

He was right to blame the players and point at their mental weakness. It must be so frustrating for a coach when the game plan goes out the window at the first sign of adversity.

I totally agree with you that Gueye is a much maligned player and I can't fathom why either. I guess we all see football differently.

I do take exception to your Brighton line up being the template and a winning one. The difficulty there is that we produced just as a masterful performance against Villa (not the reserves) in which Onana and Garner were immense.

But here's the kicker we have generally played quite well away from home and I really don't think midfield is the problem it's made out. Had DCL been fit and pumping in the goals no one would have batted an eye lid.

You have been very critical of Onana who was brilliant, absolutely outstanding in his two previous games (both winning ones) and was also having a decent game alongside Gueye in that first half. Believe me the guy is still learning but he is going to be a top class number six.

Again in the first two home games of this season there was nothing wrong with the midfield who dominated but it wasn't as you say a winning team because we had no one to finish the chances off.

I have been calling for a midfield of Onana, Gueye and Garner in the home games where we are expected to win as I feel Doucoure becomes defunct when he hasn't got space. This midfield trio allows the option of replacing the worst performer on the day with Danjuma as a ten should we need a goal and Doucoure as a number eight if necessary. Hopefully with the options out wide and up front we will see more winning teams.

I personally think too many ToffeeWebbers and the manager are too set in their ways and don't see that players have attributes and deficiencies and things like form, fitness, opponent and now most importantly having five subs mean that you shouldn't just play your eleven favourite players anymore.

Take Jimmy Garner who seems to be every ones love child at the minute. He had a stinker on Saturday, was poor on the right wing and missed a sitter which would have changed the game then went into midfield and he was the worst player on the pitch. If that performance was from Gueye he would be massacred on here.

The manager now has the luxury of options to choose from to start and must have a plan b if its not working. It's up to him to use these resources a lot better than Saturday.

Bandwagon suggests it was or is an inherently bad idea. Of course using Calvert-Lewin and Beto together requires getting suitable and ample supply to them. No-one who fancied seeing them tried as a pair thought the way we got the ball to them wouldn't require modification from the way you'd play with just one of them. Question is: Had Dyche and his staff worked on that with the players and did the players play that way last week?

One of the reasons for trying the two together would be to remove the need for Doucouré to be trying to get onto all the knockdowns and give a hopefully even better finisher the opportunities he had been getting.

Don't understand what ‘of course' means in the last sentence. Are we writing Beto off already?