Football: Just Slaven Away

[mormont]

1 hour ago, JordanJH1993 said:

His most expensive signing at Newcastle was Jose Enrique at £6.3million. Do tell me how Newcastle in the 07/08 season were similar to the current Everton when it comes to giving the manager a lot of money to spend?

You are remembering that this was in 2007, not 2017? Prices have risen. Everton signed Leighton Baines for less than Newcastle paid for Enrique. Sulley Muntari cost about the same, Bacary Sagna somewhat less.

Allardyce spent over £33m that summer, not including free transfers. About 50% more than Everton did that season, and Everton finished fifth. Accounting for transfer fee inflation, pretty similar to current Everton, I'd say.

[Mexal]

Those goals by Mahrez and Vardy were awesome. That's the Leicester we knew and loved.

[Consigliere]

That was a whole lot better than I was expecting. Glad to see that we are not just resorting to lumping the ball in the general vicinity of Lukaku but rather actually stringing some passes together. This has made our counter-attack more effective. Richarlison is Watford's biggest threat but we managed to restrict them to just the one chance - a header that hit the crossbar.

[polishgenius]

It's a shame I missed the first half coz the second has just been us letting Watford play.

eta: worth it for that Lingard goal.

[Consigliere]

We made hard work of it but got the three points. Lukaku really should have made it 4-0 and wrapped the game up. Lingard was our best player today and even though we took our foot off the gas in the 2nd half and allowed Watford back in, we were the better side overall.

Lindelof deserves a mention. He started off the season a bit shaky but he's has been really good in the last few games. Kept Richarlison fairly quiet throughout the match and he is our best passer from the back.

[Mexal]

Tottenham is really bad on the road.

[Daemon the Leaner]

We should be happy to have Mourinho as a coach, if it has been Wenger or Klopp then Watford would have managed to get the 3pts.

I suspect a lack of confidence from Lukaku on that fail, although he was very good in the playmaking during the first half to be fair.

Lingard probably scored one of the greatests goals of the month but does he even know it ? lol

Lindelof and Smalling deserve credit for their defending, as Rojo deserves a slap for this dumb tackle.

[Jordan La Cabra]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

You are remembering that this was in 2007, not 2017? Prices have risen. Everton signed Leighton Baines for less than Newcastle paid for Enrique. Sulley Muntari cost about the same, Bacary Sagna somewhat less.

Allardyce spent over £33m that summer, not including free transfers. About 50% more than Everton did that season, and Everton finished fifth. Accounting for transfer fee inflation, pretty similar to current Everton, I'd say.

I did mention that it was the 07/08 season in my last post.

Everton were only out spent this summer by the two Manchester clubs and Chelsea. £33m spent by Newcastle in the summer of ‘07 and £140m spent by Everton this summer is a massive difference, even if we take inflation into account.

 

 

Big Sam really must have done something bad against you, for the last time I mentioned him being linked with the Scotland job you nearly jumped down my throat for merely linking his name with a job the press had linked him with, and all it took was a mention of him in a slightly positive light for you to post in this thread for the first time in a while to attempt to contradict me?

[Consigliere]

I thought Lukaku had a pretty good game overall. Of course most will focus on the missed chance which was a sitter. His hold up and link up play was quite good in the 1st half and at times in the 2nd half as well. Us dropping deeper around midway through the 2nd half didn't help him and he struggled a bit once that happened. Those sort of tactics (basically Mourinho's big away game tactics) don't suit Lukaku at all and leaves him isolated while highlighting the weakness of his game i.e. having to play primarily with his back to goal.

[polishgenius]

18 minutes ago, Sandokan I Ironborn said:

We should be happy to have Mourinho as a coach, if it has been Wenger or Klopp then Watford would have managed to get the 3pts.

Fuck that. It's not as if the only options are Jose, Wenger or Klopp.

[Philokles]

1 hour ago, Sandokan I Ironborn said:

We should be happy to have Mourinho as a coach, if it has been Wenger or Klopp then Watford would have managed to get the 3pts.

Or, more likely, they would not have been so passive as to let Watford back in to begin with. Even then the swing in momentum was stopped by a good individual goal by Lingard. Watford could have stopped that too, if they had not given him an escort to the edge of the box.

[mormont]

11 hours ago, JordanJH1993 said:

Big Sam really must have done something bad against you, for the last time I mentioned him being linked with the Scotland job you nearly jumped down my throat for merely linking his name with a job the press had linked him with, and all it took was a mention of him in a slightly positive light for you to post in this thread for the first time in a while to attempt to contradict me?

Alternatively I just think he's an over-hyped, over-the-hill manager about whom a lot of guff is talked. He's had his chances at mid-sized clubs, if not at a giant: he has not been hard done by, and in fact still gets jobs in preference to younger managers (the same ones he complains are being squeezed out by foreign coaches). 

I was an admirer of his work at Bolton but that was a long time ago. 

I wouldn't want him in charge of Scotland, or my club, but if Everton give him a gig, that's their lookout. 

[Consigliere]

It looks like Big Sam will be announced as Everton manager sometime today with Pardew set to take over at West Brom.

[Rorshach]

Me sort of sad now.

Hope it’s not a long term contract, as Samuele’s best days most definetely are behind him. Also wonder what this will mean for our style of play, as we do not have the target man he generally likes to have.

[Eggegg]

46 minutes ago, mormont said:

Alternatively I just think he's an over-hyped, over-the-hill manager about whom a lot of guff is talked. He's had his chances at mid-sized clubs, if not at a giant: he has not been hard done by, and in fact still gets jobs in preference to younger managers (the same ones he complains are being squeezed out by foreign coaches). 

I was an admirer of his work at Bolton but that was a long time ago. 

I wouldn't want him in charge of Scotland, or my club, but if Everton give him a gig, that's their lookout. 

I think hes 'ok'. Thats the best I could say about him. He gives himself a lot of credit for his methods when he was in charge of Bolton, bringing in concepts of data analysis and methods he found they used in American football. His time there was actually pretty interesting, he managed to bring in some not so over the hill flair players to complement his long ball style. 

When he's called in to sort out a defence and play some tough to beat football that will be just enough to keep you in a league he's usually pretty decent at it as well. 

His time at Newcastle was a bit unfortunate and I'm not sure I'd judge him on it, considering the absolute mess the place was for years afterwards due to Ashley, although his results there were certainly not good.

He has managed to have one half season at West Ham where they managed to play almost exciting football and you started to think he might actually have some skills to back up his claims, but then that tended to go tits up as well. 

He's in that bracket of English managers who have a certain brand of football which is functional and hard to beat, but is really not thinking any further forward than this year. Him , Pulis, Moyes, Bruce they don't seem to really want to think any differently and do just enough to get by. 

[baxus]

Allardyce is very unlikely to get your team relegated, but he's just as unlikely to get it into Europe or contending for any type of silverware or have your team play in a way you would enjoy watching* or do just about anything that would help an average fan enjoy football.

*I'm guessing that most Everton fans would throughly enjoy watching any way of playing that meant not conceding 9 goals in two matches just about now, but you know what I meant.  

[Eggegg]

2 minutes ago, baxus said:

Allardyce is very unlikely to get your team relegated, but he's just as unlikely to get it into Europe or contending for any type of silverware or have your team play in a way you would enjoy watching* or do just about anything that would help an average fan enjoy football.

*I'm guessing that most Everton fans would throughly enjoy watching any way of playing that meant not conceding 9 goals in two matches just about now, but you know what I meant.  

Really I think there are very few managers who will get your side into Europe on their own. Usually its a combination of a manager, great players ( that the manager may or may not be in charge of recruiting) a good technical set up and a good generous board. 

His style of football is utterly turgid however so if my team was going to be sitting mid table I'd prefer to see some actual goals.

[mormont]

1 hour ago, Consigliere said:

It looks like Big Sam will be announced as Everton manager sometime today with Pardew set to take over at West Brom.

It's entertaining to me that after all the moaning about how young, up-and-coming English managers are overlooked for fancy foreign names, three of the last four appointments in the EPL are Hodgson, Pardew and Moyes, with Allardyce likely to follow. 

[baxus]

1 hour ago, Eggegg said:

Really I think there are very few managers who will get your side into Europe on their own. Usually its a combination of a manager, great players ( that the manager may or may not be in charge of recruiting) a good technical set up and a good generous board. 

His style of football is utterly turgid however so if my team was going to be sitting mid table I'd prefer to see some actual goals.

Of course it's not just up to the manager, but Everton has a decent enough squad to be challenging for one of European spots, whether through the league or one of the Cups. They ARE playing in Europe this season after all. Sure, losing Lukaku was a great blow to their squad quality but they already held on to him for longer than they could've expected.

The point is that, if Allardyce is anywhere near as good as he thinks he is (though all evidence points to the contrary), this Everton team should improve on their form and climb the table rather quickly. There definitely is some quality in the squad.

[Consigliere]

52 minutes ago, mormont said:

It's entertaining to me that after all the moaning about how young, up-and-coming English managers are overlooked for fancy foreign names, three of the last four appointments in the EPL are Hodgson, Pardew and Moyes, with Allardyce likely to follow. 

Yeah. For all the moaning about it, I'd say that the biggest obstacle to young British managers is not foreign managers but rather old British managers. It is extremely unlikely that an up-and-comer will be given a chance at one of the top clubs, so that leaves the midtable sides where they can make a name for themselves and move on from there but, unfortunately, at that tier there is just a merry-go-round between old guard British coaches.

 

ETA. Allardyce and Moyes have been vocal about foreign managers but really they (and those like them) are a bigger part of the problem.