Everton 3 - 1 Saints - Post Match Reaction

[Charlie Wayman]

we have little in the way of PL experienced coaches and surely Adkins needs an assistant

 

It's already quite apparent that our defensive coaching is second rate (sack the buggers) and we need desperately to find some replacements but from where? Abroad? Italy? Certainly the PL is not choc-a-bloc full of them which is why so many sides ship goals like shoals of mackerel.

[SuperMikey]

How many of the naysayers were at the game yesterday? I was there, and frankly we had no chance given how well Everton played. Fellaini was immense, Mirallas always finding space and Osman was everywhere. I'm not saying we should write this one off, but I can't see many teams picking up points at Goodison Park this season.

 

Fox in the crowd with the away fans, apparently he's fit but wasn't picked, even for the bench. Shows Adkins isn't afraid to make changes to the team - and I actually thought Reeves did very well at LB when he came on (albeit very late in the game). I think our problem is the link between our defenders - not sure if the "chemistry" is right there. We'll have to wait and see how that's adressed.

[Chez]

That is a losing mentality - we have a winning one now ...........!

we just need to add the actual act of winning to that way of thinking.

[Chez]

I actually thought Reeves did very well at LB when he came on (albeit very late in the game).

I've seen him several times now for the first team and he looks a very good prospect to me. Decent first touch and not afraid to get on the ball. Big future if you ask me.

[SuperMikey]

I've seen him several times now for the first team and he looks a very good prospect to me. Decent first touch and not afraid to get on the ball. Big future if you ask me.

 

Very versatile too, plays anywhere on the left and in the middle of the park. Handy player to have in the squad, AND he's an academy product!

[Chez]

Very versatile too, plays anywhere on the left and in the middle of the park. Handy player to have in the squad, AND he's an academy product!

 

For me he's a centre midfielder and very scholes-like. Needs games though

[shurlock]

I've seen him several times now for the first team and he looks a very good prospect to me. Decent first touch and not afraid to get on the ball. Big future if you ask me.

 

Good player- saw him for the first time at Millwall in the cup and was arguably our MOTM. Plays with his head up and looks to play quick, short, forward passes and decent in tight spaces.

[Nexstar]

Can't be bothered with my views on the rest of the game, but thought JWP put in a brilliant performance and really stood out for us.

[View From The Top]

thought JWP put in a brilliant performance and really stood out for us.

 

Totally & utterly agree.

[shurlock]

Totally & utterly agree.

 

Thought he had a poor first half, played a lot of backward passes for the first 20 mins of the second half whereas Davis was playing with his head up but was then exceptional for the last 20-25 mins, finishing as one of the strongest in the team.

[pap]

How many of the naysayers were at the game yesterday? I was there, and frankly we had no chance given how well Everton played. Fellaini was immense, Mirallas always finding space and Osman was everywhere. I'm not saying we should write this one off, but I can't see many teams picking up points at Goodison Park this season.

 

Fox in the crowd with the away fans, apparently he's fit but wasn't picked, even for the bench. Shows Adkins isn't afraid to make changes to the team - and I actually thought Reeves did very well at LB when he came on (albeit very late in the game). I think our problem is the link between our defenders - not sure if the "chemistry" is right there. We'll have to wait and see how that's adressed.

 

I'm not getting too wound up about it. It's Everton, always capable of being a good side, always capable of being a thorn in our side. Like you say, this particular Everton is impressive, well drilled and when Fellaini can be arsed playing, he's one of the best midfielders in the league. If they've learned something from it, great - but I wasn't expecting points from this fixture.

[red&white56]

Can't be bothered with my views on the rest of the game, but thought JWP put in a brilliant performance and really stood out for us.

 

In the second half JWP put in some excellent tackles on Pienaar and stopped them totally bossing mid-field, but when we were under the cosh in the 1H I think he was lost, like Lallana, chasing the game.

 

All in all I was impressed with him.

[Saints foreva]

What the hell was Lallana doing for their 3rd? Coleman got past him so easily.

[Katalinic]

Good article from an Everton fan regarding tactics yesterday and echoes much of what has been said on here so far i.e. we were too open and left or full backs too exposed. NA needs to wise-up away from home

 

http://theexecutionersbong.wordpress.com/2012/09/30/tactical-deconstruction-how-osman-and-his-wide-boys-schooled-saints/

[Saints foreva]

Been over that point a few times but guess you are one of those that believed we didn`t try to address it

 

We obviously didn't try hard enough to address it. We had four months to sort the back four out but didn't and that will cost us massively.

[Clifford Nelson]

Changing formation to accommodate Rodrigues was not a good idea and showed surprising lack of conviction from NA. Scoring too few goals hasn't been our problem. Taking a man out of midfield to achieve this accommodation was rather suicidal. We will be chewed up in the middle of the park unless we compete there. However you convince yourself that we must play with two strikers you can't do it without weakening the team elsewhere. And if you weaken midfield you expose your CBs.

 

We have had poorly defending FBs throughout the season, apart from that Fox isn't up to it. He defended poorly in the CC as well. To try Ben Reeves in that role isn't far fetched. He used to play LB before we tried him in midfield. With only Luke Shaw as back up it's thin to say the least.

 

I'm not terribly disappointed for losing at Everton away when they're at their best, but with NA not sticking to his conviction about how the game should be played.

[melmacian_saint]

I still think we spent too much money on Rodriguez considering what I've seen from him. That chance in the first half for 0-2 is unforgivable. And I'm sorry but I expected a bit more from 7 million pounds than 2 goals against lower league opposition (1 penalty even) in all of the official games we've played so far this season.

[CityRanger]

I still think we spent too much money on Rodriguez considering what I've seen from him. That chance in the first half for 0-2 is unforgivable. And I'm sorry but I expected a bit more from 7 million pounds than 2 goals against lower league opposition (1 penalty even) in all of the official games we've played so far this season.

 

I think he comes into the 'one for the future' bracket in a way. Ricky is in his 30's and the club probably think Jay Rod can lead the line for us in the future. He'll learn the ropes this year and as long as he gets 7 or 8 goals his value won't really drop yet.

[ALWAYS_SFC]

We obviously didn't try hard enough to address it. We had four months to sort the back four out but didn't and that will cost us massively.

 

What do you consider "hard enough " then?

Please elaborate

[Guan 2.0]

Does anybody else else think we should have bought a LB (left back ) in the summer? I've just started thinking this, and haven't been able to find anyone else who feels this way on the post match threads thus far this season.

[RobM]

Does anybody else else think we should have bought a LB (left back ) in the summer? I've just started thinking this, and haven't been able to find anyone else who feels this way on the post match threads thus far this season.

 

We tried, it didn't work out as he went to Man UTD instead.

[Thedelldays]

not too sure if buttner would stop other teams waltzing through midfield..

[sotonjoe]

not too sure if buttner would stop other teams waltzing through midfield..

 

 

Buttner would certainly do a hell of a lot more than Fox. If you can't see that then you're blind or retarded.

[Gordon Mockles]

What players could be motivated by Adkins and his stooges lying back on the touchline. Where is the Nigel who gives as much as the players from the touchline. Failing to replace the useless Rodriguez by Puncheon ensured we didn't stand a hope in hell of pulling a goal or two back. Switched off, just couldn't see more of the same old ****e due to Adkins losing the plot again.

 

Was it Adkin's decision to keep J-Rod on?! Without wanting to stir up controversy, I have a feeling some remnants of a past chairman are starting to surface which is worrying. I'm hoping Nigel hasn't been gagged or become too much of a yes man.

 

Same thing I mentioned before about Cortese's signing, Guly starting so many games despite him not being all that good. Can't be coincidental & a couple of players had interesting views on Les 'bloody' Reed but best not to shop someone on here. I find it most disturbing they favour J-Rod over Lambert. Ridiculous. Penalty ability alone, that's a good few points & Ricky looks sharp. Ward-Prowse has been good but should be used sparingly.

 

It's a bit (sorry to say) Lowe esque pushing them on too quickly & if Cortese had bothered to pay attention to our history, he'd have seen where that philopshy got us with the last cluster f**k of a board full of morons.

 

Still. We have brought in some class with Gaston & possibly Mayuka but I struggle to understand why the obvious frailty of the defence was not addressed. We all knew so the bloody committee should have which begs the question, were they over ruled or could we not attract anyone? Money talks but possibly we played hard ball too much. Pure conjecture of course. I just hope we don't offer Lambert out in Jan & I hope we keep hold of Ramirez cos big clubs will try & unsettle him despite rules to the contrary. Glad Fox is being dropped as he often forgets the rule of defenders is to defend.

 

Agree with Duncan about Alpine. Stop whining on. Most would like to talk football. Not read pages of futile bickering. I hear enough of that with the catty secretary at work! Say your bit, then move on. It's like you relish arguing yet it winds up most people. Positive attitude as cheery old Nige would say. It's early doors & we will pick up more points but we must stop giving opposition acres of space cos we wear ourselves out attacking. Did it v Villa & we make it easy for relatively poor attacking lines. No wonder the stronger sides bang in loads. Naive.

 

Merson brought up a good point, we play or attack like we are Man Utd or Arsenal but we don't have enough players of that standard. Or words to that effect. Implying defensively when we lose possession which is frequent. Take heed Nicola & Les. Understand the professional opinion but keep the positive, attacking belief.

[S-Clarke]

Was it Adkin's decision to keep J-Rod on?! Without wanting to stir up controversy, I have a feeling some remnants of a past chairman are starting to surface which is worrying. I'm hoping Nigel hasn't been gagged or become too much of a yes man.

 

Same thing I mentioned before about Cortese's signing, Guly starting so many games despite him not being all that good. Can't be coincidental & a couple of players had interesting views on Les 'bloody' Reed but best not to shop someone on here. I find it most disturbing they favour J-Rod over Lambert. Ridiculous. Penalty ability alone, that's a good few points & Ricky looks sharp. Ward-Prowse has been good but should be used sparingly.

 

It's a bit (sorry to say) Lowe esque pushing them on too quickly & if Cortese had bothered to pay attention to our history, he'd have seen where that philopshy got us with the last cluster f**k of a board full of morons.

 

Eh? What on earth are you on about? Is it said in jest or something, as it makes no sense. It's a bizarre couple of paragraphs which are just, weird.

[Saint86]

I watched MOTD - Gazza should have saved 2 of the 3 goals. Won't start the next game I bloody hope because Kelvin would have got them. Although he probably would have ****ed up some other way ..... :/

 

Oh Artur!! The holy goalie better be good or we are going straight back down to the football underworld!!!!

[Chez]

What the hell was Lallana doing for their 3rd? Coleman got past him so easily.

Lallana tries very hard, no doubt about it, but he lacks pace and is not the best defensive player positionally or decision wise and that's putting it mildly. He simply got done, as he did a fair few times last season I might point out. Playing slightly further forward is not going to help matters either. too ask to charge forward AND be expected to track runners to your own byline too.

[Chez]

Does anybody else else think we should have bought a LB (left back ) in the summer? I've just started thinking this, and haven't been able to find anyone else who feels this way on the post match threads thus far this season.

not looking very hard then as every man and his dog seems to be crying like a girl about us not signing 23 new players in the window. Signing two whole strikers when we already had a bloody good one is now seen as a crime. How dare we sign the best we could get across the side before we had bought two in every defensive position first. How dare we.

 

2 GK

1 CB

1 RB

1 CM

1 AM

2 CF

and a partridge in a pear tree.

[Saint_clark]

Buttner would certainly do a hell of a lot more than Fox. If you can't see that then you're blind or retarded.

 

An ironic statement, considering Fox didn't play V Everton.

[Appy]

I watched MOTD - Gazza should have saved 2 of the 3 goals. Won't start the next game I bloody hope because Kelvin would have got them. Although he probably would have ****ed up some other way ..... :/

 

Oh Artur!! The holy goalie better be good or we are going straight back down to the football underworld!!!!

 

I agree which one he should of saved, which other?

[S-Clarke]

I watched MOTD - Gazza should have saved 2 of the 3 goals. Won't start the next game I bloody hope because Kelvin would have got them. Although he probably would have ****ed up some other way ..... :/

 

Oh Artur!! The holy goalie better be good or we are going straight back down to the football underworld!!!!

 

My take, is that he got his positioning wrong on Evertons 2nd goal. He should have got something on that if I'm honest.

 

the Third goal came from such an amazing angle that he probably didn't expect it, and it was headed with such power that there wasn't a great deal anyone could have done - taking into account how unexpected it was as well.

 

their equalizer...not really. Could have said he may have taken a bit more of control of the situation, but my take on it is that it was a rash initial clearance that went no where, and no one tracked Osmans run into the box.

[Gordon Mockles]

Eh? What on earth are you on about? Is it said in jest or something, as it makes no sense. It's a bizarre couple of paragraphs which are just, weird.

 

What's weird about suggesting Nigel may be under pressure from elsewhere to make decisions, infering he may be from committee of management? The question arises a lot in football with varying power struggles & the dichotomy between football management & the financiars (or chairmen & advisors) wanting influence & control...or is that too off the wall & crazy for your ickle brain to rationalise?! Or perhaps you're just more passively accepting than I, which is a concern in itself.

[Dig Dig]

What's weird about suggesting Nigel may be under pressure from elsewhere to make decisions, infering he may be from committee of management? The question arises a lot in football with varying power struggles & the dichotomy between football management & the financiars (or chairmen & advisors) wanting influence & control...or is that too off the wall & crazy for your ickle brain to rationalise?! Or perhaps you're just more passively accepting than I, which is a concern in itself.

 

I don't think he's being passively accepting by refusing to listen to the rantings of a mad man.

[The9]

My take, is that he got his positioning wrong on Evertons 2nd goal. He should have got something on that if I'm honest.

 

the Third goal came from such an amazing angle that he probably didn't expect it, and it was headed with such power that there wasn't a great deal anyone could have done - taking into account how unexpected it was as well.

 

their equalizer...not really. Could have said he may have taken a bit more of control of the situation, but my take on it is that it was a rash initial clearance that went no where, and no one tracked Osmans run into the box.

 

I thought Gazzaniga's positioning was awful for the second and third goals - (he also dived out of the way of the first one but wouldn't have saved it anyway).

 

For the second Jelavic was very wide and Gazzaniga should have been a step or two nearer the ball and less wide of the near post - Jelavic's shot went in nearly 2 yards inside the post and he had far too much of the far post to aim at. As for the 3rd one, he didn't get across quickly enough and ended up with a starting position behind the line, that's not going to help his chances of keeping the ball out - though it was a powerful header from Jelavic. But we knew he wasn't going to be perfect immediately, his handling and distribution is still good and the positioning is easier than something like learning to kick accurately.

 

The bigger problem overall was discussed by Jonathan Wilson earlier this week in an article I read, which is the idea that "possession football is replacing the defensive midfielder". The idea being that rather than having someone dedicated to winning the ball back, you use that position to have someone additional in the midfield to keep the ball away from the opposition to begin with. He uses Swansea as his example (high pass completion rate and possession stats), but Saints are the perfect example of this - we have an offensively-minded team, and the number of times we've been caught out with 5 midfielders the wrong side of the ball when we've turned the ball over is shocking.

 

For examples, look at the first goal against Arsenal - lost the ball in the middle, Podolski immediately in 10 yards of space, picks a pass, cross, goal. The same thing happened (albeit with slightly less space) for Everton's first. Top players can pick a pass under pressure and with space and time you'll get killed over and over.

 

It's not so much the defence as the lack of shield in front of them when we lose the ball, even at Sunday parks level if there's no-one protecting the back 4 when the other team have the ball in midfield you're in trouble, it just shouldn't be happening in the Prem.

[pingwing]

Your assessment of the second goal relies on Jelavic to put it in the same place if Gazza was in a different place. Pretty sure his position for the 2nd forced the shot there instead of him coming out and getting rounded like a chump, or getting beaten at the near post like Kelvin.

 

3rd one was really just a bullet header, only a few keepers in the world would have gotten something better to it than Gazza managed.

 

As for the defensive midfield, we were missing Morgan against Everton, what more can you say. For the Arsenal goal 3 people went in for that challenge and no one got the ball, another DM wouldn't have helped out that blind panic.

[tajjuk]

BTW thought I'd add after looking on whoscored.com, Everton have the highest shots on goal per game at 20.7 of all premier league teams, and we conceded exactly 20 shots to them.

[The Kraken]

BTW thought I'd add after looking on whoscored.com, Everton have the highest shots on goal per game at 20.7 of all premier league teams, and we conceded exactly 20 shots to them.

 

Not according to the BBC. 17 shots on target, 9 shots off target, total of 26.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/19684126

 

In fact, scratch that; 17 shots in total, 9 of which were on target).

[tajjuk]

Not according to the BBC. 17 shots on target, 9 shots off target, total of 26.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/19684126

 

In fact, scratch that; 17 shots in total, 9 of which were on target).

 

whoscored.com is saying 22

 

Against Newcastle they had 18, Swansea they had 31, 13 against West Brom (which they lost) 18 against Man Utd, 22 against Villa.

[Gordon Mockles]

I don't think he's being passively accepting by refusing to listen to the rantings of a mad man.

 

If I understood what the hell that comment meant, I'd elaborate. Keep on taking the tablets chief!!

[The9]

Your assessment of the second goal relies on Jelavic to put it in the same place if Gazza was in a different place. Pretty sure his position for the 2nd forced the shot there instead of him coming out and getting rounded like a chump, or getting beaten at the near post like Kelvin.

 

3rd one was really just a bullet header, only a few keepers in the world would have gotten something better to it than Gazza managed.

 

As for the defensive midfield, we were missing Morgan against Everton, what more can you say. For the Arsenal goal 3 people went in for that challenge and no one got the ball, another DM wouldn't have helped out that blind panic.

 

As I striker I'd be delighted if I was given a couple of yards at the far post to aim at because the keeper's angles were crap. I can, given Kelvin's tendencies, understand Gazzaniga's desire not to get beaten at the near post, though. If he'd been further out and covering the back post slightly more, he'd at least have made Jelavic put some pace on it, possibly causing him to miss the target, or blocked the shot. Where he was it was simple for Jelavic to roll it into the large space Gazzaniga wasn't covering.

 

For the third, he could have tried having a set position somewhere in front of the goal-line while the cross was going across. It was a powerful header but it was straight at him, he was stood behind the line and facing into the side netting.

 

Yes, for the Arsenal goal all 3 of our "tacklers" decided to go for the same ball - including whichever one (or two) should have been sitting. The whole point of a DM is to protect the back line and not leave an easy path to goal. Morgan (up until last weekend) had more combined tackles and interceptions than anyone in the Prem, but he didn't stop that one so we shouldn't assume he'd have necessarily been much more effective against Everton.