It’s the hope that kills you

The hope is next season we move into a new stadium and with 'hopefully' new owners that genuinely see a direction and plan in taking this club forward. We will in the non-too-distant future revisit some memorable times. It will take time. In the meantime, we all get another year older.

Dyche signed his own death warrant — not via the result but getting snippy with fans leaving. Just needs to go on a long-term winning streak now to rectify the situation… Bye, Sean.

Incredible support! Everton have got some of the most loyal and dedicated fans imaginable, so the manager has got to be careful with his choice of words sometimes.

I felt for Danny, who sat next to me yesterday, because he too was due to arrive home from yesterday's game around midnight, and he was telling me that he met two dedicated Evertonians on the train home last night, who attend most games all the way from Brighton.

A poor result but I expected no more when I received a text from an old ToffeeWeb lunatic who was slaughtering the manager for his team selection at 2 pm. Certain Evertonians know a lot more about the club than a lot of people who represent the club.

"Those who learn the quickest get on the most" was an old phrase Dyche will have heard Archie Gemmill mutter hundreds of times — and this definitely applies to our manager right now.

Goodison looks the same with a few licks of paint, our long-suffering supporters fill the ground with hope of better times ahead.

For the first 20 minutes, we created havoc with Brighton pissing around at the back — oops, passing around… but no matter how close they came to shooting themselves in the foot, we managed not to make them pay.

Then Brighton broke away and we were behind. Only then did I notice that Brighton were playing 4 players - Pedro, Wellbeck, Minteh and Mitoma who all knew how to score whereas we had one … supposedly.

Halftime came and went and immediately we got a penalty. But we know what our relationship with VAR is and, despite Simon Hooper seeing and giving the penalty, he was talked out of it by the VAR, Darren England. You knew then that nothing had changed.

Welbeck converted a mistake by Gana, Young showed his age and experience by getting a red. We hardly touched the ball. Goal number 3 went in by the sub and it could have been 4.

By this time, we had both Holgate and Keane on the field, which shows how poor our squad is. I can't be bothered to give ratings.

As a team, we were even worse than last season in our darkest days. Only one boy, Tim Iroegbunam showed any hope and Harrison did what he does without an end promise.

We know Dyche and company won't change. We survived last season because it worked out in the end, but to start this season and you can understand why Goodison was empty at the end.

Yes, when we won at the end of last season, we had almost all our good or better players; now, we are missing Branthwaite who covered up many mistakes on the left and Mykolenko could have done with his covering and backed up Tarkowski who looked very unhappy at the end.

We are now bottom. Not sure we ever reached such illustrious heights last season. Our record at Spurs leaves me thinking we will be there next week on 0 points and a —6 goal difference.

Dyche has a whole load of stuff to sort out this week. Most of which is down to him when it comes to team selection. Hopefully Branthwaite returns and Holgate and Keane start and stay on the subs bench. Hopefully we see some different faces start the game. But I doubt it.

Could we be worse than last season?

I think the hope and accompanying dashed expectations are probably worse for Evertonians than many fans. In Ancelotti's last season, we were ranked by Transfermarkt as having the 8th best squad in the division. After the extreme cost cutting since, we now have the 16th best squad.

Through the careful development of young players, Brighton's 2nd XI would easily be a match for our 1st XI. With Patterson, Branthwaite, Garner and Coleman out injured, it was always going to be difficult.

Although we should of course keep hoping, the likely reality is that things will be very tough until the takeover is complete and funds are released to compete for players.

Talk about letting a bad day cloud your already clouded judgement.

I can't understand it when the results aren't happening, where performances aren't happening, when it looks like the manager is looking for evidence of what he wants to see, rather than noticing what is actually happening.

The team Dyche picked yesterday will never regularly score goals. We finished safe because of a particularly good defence. Yesterday, one defender was missing, three of them had shockers. It happens.

You can, and should, press and run all day. That's no substitute for pace, guile and attacking intent. All three were missing from the team sheet yesterday. Arguably all three were sitting on the bench. Against Brighton, not Man City.

Dyche lost me with that team selection yesterday. He'll get me back if he plays the players he was given to create and score, rather than the players we know can't.

Fans would have stayed if emboldened by "hope" — especially for the first game.

I've lost track of how many defeats I've seen at Goodison, some of them the team still applauded off; others, not so glorious. I saw cushions flying from the stands in mountainous anger — this is very different.

But I always think that I'll see Everton win again.💙

Seriously, Barry, thanks mate because you have just reminded me how much I look forward to flying with a beer in my hand whilst listening to a great collection of old musicians and I'm getting away from Everton for a couple of weeks which I'm sure proves your point!

People hoping to see glorious victories even though they know the current team is very poor. People who hope against hope that we will beat superior teams like we did against Liverpool couple of months ago. People who will celebrate those rare occasions for months. People who dream that tomorrow will be another day. People who love the club. People who will never be swayed by relentless negativity spouted by attention seekers who are unlikely to ever get in front of them in the queue for a season ticket.

His comments about communicating once or twice with Moshiri, sounded hollow to me. He knows the guy isn't interested in the team, just the £50m golden handshake he wants, to bugger off.

Maybe Dyche has realised what we the fans have lived with for decades now. Enough really is enough.

To those supporters who travel, from far and wide, spending good money and their time to support Everon FC, I salute you.

A shame the result didn't work out, but I'm still optimistic for the season.

Total respect for the West Country Blues and all travelling Evertonians.

Keep going and keep believing. Our day will come.

Oh, come on, who still has any hope left!

I'am determined to stay to the end of every game, being it's the last season at the grand old lady.

Anyway I need every minute to loosen that seat by end of the season. lol.

Don't say that — apparently those leaving early were expressing hope.

Hopeless is my middle name. I wouldn't take a blind bit of notice of my wittering.

And thanks for realistic ratings that make full use of the range of numbers: all 6s, 7s, and 8s never catches what took place on the pitch.

You should get Mike Kenrick to join you on the coach. I believe that he is somewhere in the West Country.

We have a risk-averse manager who always goes back to the same well when things run dry and we all knew that we wouldn't get that welcome boost byof seeing at least three debutants yesterday.

Knowing us, Ndiaye and Lindstrøm will be this season's Danjuma, hardly getting game time over the old Mr Reliables, McNeil and Harrison.

I sat and watched us against Roma and it instantly hit me that there can't be many slower sides in the Premier League than Everton this season.

You can get away with a lack of pace in the team if you have technically gifted footballers, like in the days of a Pienaar, Arteta, Osman even but when you have the likes of Doucoure in there, who seems to play the game with a tennis ball bouncing off his feet, then you are looking for another type of commodity — pace — and there's none whatsoever.

The game started exactly how we thought it would, we'd start with gusto first home game of the final Goodison campaign… but after 20 minutes it became clear that the same lack of goal threat is always there.

The right-back position now is also a massive issue as we go forward, we don't have a right-back who will get us through this season, and it's not going to be Patterson either with his injury record. I can't take calls for Coleman to start any more seriously than starting old man Young.

Looks like being a long hard season.

Something has to turn around and quickly, like I said on another post it is no use moving to the new Stadium as a Championship team. Performances at home like Saturday will make that a distinct possibility.

'Get your act together Dyche' and provide something on the pitch, that makes supporters like the West Country Blues, and everyone else for that matter, feel it was not a wasted journey.

But the reality is that even after some interesting signings this summer we still have a dreadful squad (5th worst) and, as per every summer since 2021, no money to improve it. Given our financial situation and ownership troubles, it is truly remarkable that we haven't been relegated and fallen into administration.

Whilst I am genuinely excited to see Lindstrom and Ndiaye, they each failed at Napoli and Marseille respectively. We cannot pretend that they are brilliant players ready to hit the ground running. Equally O'Brien has an awful lot to prove after a good season in Lyon but nothing more than fourth tier appearances for Swindon in England. He may also need a carefully managed introduction to a big step up in standard from Ligue 1.

Equally, we cannot pretend (as people do every time things get bleak) that we have a bunch of quality academy players who'd outperform the seniors if only they would be given a chance. This, I am afraid, is make-believe. Last season it was Lewis Warrington (now a sub for Leyton Orient in the Third Tier) and McKenzie Hunt (now at Fleetwood in the Fourth Tier). After a couple of decent performances in friendlies against half-fit seniors trying not to get injured, Roman Dixon has become "the answer" (although strangely no clamour for his signature on loan by teams in the Championship...).

For the failures of club management (off the pitch) and lack of investment into the academy, Dyche is labelled a dinosaur who doesn't trust youth. The reality is, like last year, Dyche is the overwhelming reason we are likely to come through the season without being relegated.

Hope is one thing, but I think it's the over-expectation that is really killing people.

I predict we will finish 12th this season and nothing I've seen from the Brighton game changes my view in any way. One game down, 37 to go.

We signed four players this summer, but the only player that started was probably the most inexperienced player out of the four of them, and although Dyche, was probably trying to be professional, and hoping to ease the new players in gradually, I think it looked very obvious that our stale team, needed freshening up?

I said after the game on Saturday, that once the season settles down that, I expect at least four or five changes in the starting eleven, from the team that started on Saturday, and I think everyone left the ground concerned because the team that started on Saturday, is nowhere near good enough to compete?

For any fan who hasn't watched the U21's perform I'd advise them to listen what Robert says about them although I expect Harrison Armstrong to get some game time this season even though he is only seventeen.

I think Saturdays game is not a reason to panic ——yet ——but if there are no more signings before the end of the transfer window you have my permission to press the panic button then, the squad is very small with quality.

Could we have been "braver" with O'Brien, Ndiaye and Lindstrom?

Of course. Would it have resulted in a better outcome? Well, it wouldn't have resolved the problem at RB - and may have further weakened us defensively on an already fragile right flank.

And Keane wasn't really the problem - Tarkowski had a stinker though, and would presumably have had the same stinking performance alongside the less experienced O'Brien.

Would it have stopped the individual errors of Mykolenko and Gueye in relation to our goals? Or made sure McNeil didn't miss a sitter? Presumably not.

When results are bad, it seems that fans can only perceive the alternatives as being better. In truth, there's every chance we could have been "brave" and had our arses handed to us on a plate for a 0-5 defeat - ruining the confidence of players like Ndiaye and Lindstrom and O'Brien in the process.

Over the course of the season, I expect Dyche will transition Ndiaye and Lindstrom into the side at the expense of Doucoure and Harrison. Hopefully Patterson (returning mid-September) won't again squander his chance to nail down our RB slot - and maybe we'll have signed a new RB by then anyway.

But none of this is going to be quick.

It's the shit state of affairs with our finances - highlighted by Spurs' acquisition of young French winger Odobert (£30m) as a prospect when they already have Son, Kulusevski, Richarlison, Johnson and Salomon for his position. We're so far behind it's hard to grasp the enormity of it - given where we were just a few years ago.

We haven't been for years. Last trophy will be 30 years ago by the end of this season.

Can I apologise for one poster calling what you and the 69 and everyone else do for true loyalty and love the lemming-like "dutiful masochism". No one else thinks that.

No need for you to apologize, it is not your place — although I realize your obsession with my posts means you have to have a little snark, it's something you have no control of. But kudos for reining in your tiresome default of baiting posters — the removal of your offensive posts seems to be doing the trick.

You just need to work on these sweeping statements like No one else thinks that. - take a deep breath and think about it; you simply cannot know that, even on this thread, people are questioning the use of "hope" (not Bob of course — he's dead).

He really meant Villa pass the ball instead of just lumping it.

I got a text at 2 pm bemoaning the state of the team that Dyche had gone with. Although you speak with good reason; I would also say that the people who were very frustrated with our starting lineup also spoke with good reason.

Loads of people don't like Dyche, and loads of people think that he is the right man for the job, given our present status. I have yet to see these new players perform; I just hope they are an improvement on what we had out on the pitch on Saturday because it's clear that we lack creativity and it's very clear we are also lacking quality.

I don't like the current set-up. Although I love Doucoure's work ethic, I don't believe he is a Number 10, because his best attribute is hard running, and it's mostly done in straight lines. (If that makes sense!)

His position on Saturday was mostly in no man's land and, now we have got Lindstrøm and Ndiaye, I want to see us playing a little intricate shorter game at times, instead of just hitting those very long diagonals.

It's more to do with the lack of fight from this group of players who — as soon as they go a goal behind, early or late in the game — the chances are that a draw is the best result we can hope for.

If Dominic Calvert-Lewin does depart to pastures new, who on earth could we afford to buy that would be an improvement? And it's the lack of chances that Everton create that is the true fault-line in this squad.

Why can't our wingers beat a man and cross the ball properly? Everything is based on getting the rub of the green, which didn't happen on Saturday. There's too much reliance on being lucky, and not enough emphasis on trying to make our own luck by forcing the pace and tackling like terriers — for the whole game — not just in the opening 20 minutes.

I think most home fans believed we were fairly unfortunate to go in at half-time a goal behind, and some of the play had been quite good, but that second period was fairly dreadful from both a defensive and attacking point of view.

It is very early and rash judgements shouldn't be made; however, how long do we have to remain patient? We all know this squad and its manager are pretty good on going for long periods without a win, and if that's the case at the start of this season, we will be in big trouble.

Upcoming fixtures aren't very kind given it's Spurs and Villa away with Bournemouth at home in between, but the team must take something from at least one of those games. Difficult, of course, but it's up to the players to roll up their sleeves and dig deep to at least attempt to compete.

It's a far tougher league this season than last, and if Everton don't work hard, because they are so short on talent, they will succumb to many more results such as that against Brighton. We all live in hope, but patience is wearing thin.

I'm also an optimist at the start of every season, but that was quickly shattered on Saturday. I don't think Everton fans are entitled or think we should automatically play beautiful football, we just have standards.

Certainly the older ones among us and I include myself in that bracket, have seen the glory days and passed down the stories to younger fans. Let's face it, if we don't hold the club, team and manager to account then no one will, especially in the face of the comments from Dyche, Tarkowski et al suggesting that we played really well for most of the game.

I appreciate that the club has to put a positive slant on things but that really is not letting the truth get in the way of a good story. We were okay in the first half and gave up in the 2nd, at least that's how I saw it.

Fans have every right to be angry at that. It's not acceptable. I don't mind getting beat by a better team but to give up is unacceptable to me.

It looks like we've gone backwards and learned nowt,if Dyche starts the old pro's down at Spurs then it'll be the same result I'm afraid my fellow Blues!!