I reserve my self important blow hardary for only the most moronic of posts these day. I like to think that if you take enough of them to water you may get one of them to think.

The midfield is a real strength of ours and I can’t really agree with the premise of the argument in the OP. I think we’re currently playing our strongest 3 in there, but accept that they are essentially 3 ‘no.8s’ rather than suited to specific roles. The issue on Saturday was Keane at centre back and a centre back playing full back. That’s what cuts down all the options. Finally, of the 7 players we have to play in those 3 midfield positions, Norgaard would currently rank 7/7 for me. I hope he surprises me, but given that we were already strong in that position, sold a promising young player to accommodate him and desperately needed reinforcements in at least two other positions, Norgaard is currently the worst signing we’ve made in a long time. Partly because he’s a symbol of what a brain-dead, shambolic transfer window we had.

Wrong all the way thru. And you’re a dead bore, too. Aim your self-important blowhardry elsewhere.

What is wrong with this team? 1st six games last season – 69 shots – 18 on target 1st six games this season – 95 shots – 30 on target. That is 50-60% more. OK who as abducted the defensive David Moyes and replaced him with that White haired Scotsman?

Can’t agree with ‘one of his poorest performances…’ Armstrong was outstanding both halves, and the only one trying to make something happen in an overall poor first half. If Barry had taken his chances on Sunday and at Bournemouth, then I think we’d be reading different articles. However, I’m also the opinion Moyes does not use the bench and fringe players enough. It cost us the last 6 games of last season and to now leave George and Dibling out for Johnson is baffling. In the few minutes he got on Sunday, Dibling walked past his full back to get to the by line. I’m struggling to remember Johnson doing that ever? Along with Hackney, they both deserve more minutes.

This is all confusing! Why fix it when it’s not broken? 😬

I dont think we have cat in hells chance Dave. There are too many gaps in the squad, never mind whether moyes has got it or not. And probably hasnt. A club with a modest amount of ambition & is well run, will hit the jackpot this season. Thats what frustrates me most. Opportunities not being taken.

We are too slow- Rohl added a lot when he played wide right and Jack needs a player breaking ahead of him to draw the full back and allow Jack to move inside with the ball. Johnson is not a first team player and George or Dibling should be given a decent run. Hackney should play- too good going forward to sit on the bench. We now have some decent pace in the squad and Moyes needs to give it a chance

We have a small group of players two misstakes did not help” wasted “chances did not help the course . Where we was making good chances and not wasting them does not help also still remain unbeaten IF we had won we could be 4th keep the faith

I thought we looked unbalanced all round. Johnson instead of Dibling was a major mistake as he offered nothing and doesn’t help AMN either. Putting Jarrad at LB was another major mistake. The lad has known hamstring issues and the CB area is weakened significantly by him not being there. Would have preferred James Garner to play LB and give Hackney a long overdue 90 minutes. By not playing wingers it brought extra pressure on the MF hence they struggled to show their true form.

Michael. Seems like you guys are having a nightmare with the changeover. Hope people keep their frustration to constructive criticism, as we can all see you guys are as frustrated as the rest of us. The reply option is a good idea, but couldn’t a reply be posted as a comment too, putting it at the top of the newest sort order? Saving the need to open the reply manually. Just a thought . Keep at them mate !!

Thanks, Mark, your continued support and posts are much appreciated.

Michael, I do feel for you, having read this. Must admit having been a fairly regular poster on here, recently not so much. It seems common now, that website ‘improvements’ end up anything but that. You’re far from the only example and I don’t think it is all based on fear of change. Having heard your lament, I’ll try to persevere because I think there are good people with good intentions trying to run this day to day and hope you don’t end up joining the long list of things that have ended up worse than they used to be.

I’d forgotten about that, Stu. If you clicked on the comment in the Recent Reader Comments page, it would go right to that comment in the thread. Now, it’s down to you to find the damn thing by hunting and pecking! Thinking about it, a lot of problems would go away if we just got rid of the Reply facility…

I’d like to be able to search comments, in the old days you use the default browser find option, but now because they aren’t all visible you can’t. Also the recent comments on the homepage is broken by replies, and doesn’t go to the comment you click on. It can be difficult finding the one.

Another thing that’s lacking is for me as Admin to move comments to more appropriate threads. There’s a bunch that were posted on the Premier League — Matchweek 6 thread which ideally belong here… but I can’t move them. I’ll edit the above feature to include some of those messages…

I think starting Armstrong was the right call against that Hull midfield, but he didn’t make as much of the opportunity as he might have. The nature of the game had shifted by the time he came on, but Hackney looked like a better fit. Perhaps Armstrong could be used in a more advanced role?

It’s finally caught up with Michael, sent him over the edge ! He’s gone crazy!!@

It’d be really easy to criticise Moyes on this one, I don’t understand some of his team selections and his use of subs, but to be honest it’s deja vu comments from previous matches. He’s got a small squad but he also has his favourites etc. We are undefeated, doing OK at the start of the season (which I did predict), but I have found Toffeeweb more interesting recently than watching a Moyes Everton. Moyes is what he is, I’ve come to terms with him going nowhere so for now I’ll wait for the next Friedkin installment and read through the comments!

Don’t think Armstrong was so bad, Harsh . Made a few chances not mentioned in the piece. Playing better than Garner I’d say.

No. But it does in the Live Forum.

type a link: https://www.toffeeweb.com/live-chat/ — does that work?

It’s not the owners system though Brian, they went and bought in a bit of software ‘cos their own IT people couldn’t fix Recent Comments. Now that’s OK but actually making comments is fcuked!

I much prefer the referee to have the final say Tony. As I said, it’s the VAR remit of ‘clear and obvious error’ that I think introduces doubt into the refs minds. How many times have we seen that it’s actually VAR that made that clear and obvious error. It should be a tool that helps referees, not overules them, which is as it’s described in Rugby Union.

Sheer skill and ability to draw fouls Scott? When opponents draw those professional fouls we call them cheats and more often than not that’s exactly what they are!

You can sort by newest. It’s not perfect, I like the idea of being able to reply to people but it’s really hard to find replies and I don’t like the comment character limit. I’m sure MK is looking into improvements though

Guys surely it cant be beyond our owners to fix the recent comments section so they are in chronological order in when they were posted. Also its saying there are 51 comments on this subject yet despite clicking on th eshow more comments icon I can only see about 25 comments. I posted a couple of minutes ago yet the first post is by John Collins to something h eposted 19 hours ago, come on lads get this fixed.

I don’t think we learned anything that we didn’t know before. we have one of the worst strikers ever to play in that position for our club, yet has the arrogance to post on instagram a picture of himself saying 6 goals in 8 games. Many on here have premeditated who was at fault for their goals namely Keane and Tarkowski when it was clear that AMN and Branthwaite were the main culprits ably assisted by Garner and Pickford. Our football in the main is mind-numbingly boring and only alters when we go a goal down. The manager still starts Johnson who has done very little since joining the club, Garner is way off the pace and Grealish is great at holding the ball up but without players overlapping when he has the ball it means he comes back inside most of the time, and yes he did lay on a guilt edge chance for Barry.

Eric, I’m like a scratched record, I can’t reply to you below the answer you have gave me mate because it hasn’t got a reply button, but the difference between the offside decision in Rugby Union and football, is that the referee never has the final say, until yesterday!

Some would still blame Hibbert if they could.

Thanks for those replies Steve and Ian, but I can only reply to my own post because of the way this website, is currently set up. I have never seen a defender deliberately clear the ball to an opposing player standing seven yards from his goal Ian, and as for subjective rather than factual, then what a load of shite that ex referee is uttering Ian. If you’re offside, you’re offside, and normally they show us lines to vindicate the decision. So the official in the VAR room, has decided Johnson is offside, but has left it up to the on field referee because the offside was subjective? They make it up as they go along and are seemingly even getting praise off their mates now. It’s a complete circus, and the clowns are treating the audience like clowns!

We will know where we stand after the Chelsea game Dave. First decent team we have played

I think you are correct Gerard— Moyes rants away to Irvine, his assistant, who never talks back to him as if to say “ The stubborn xxxxxxx never listens anyway” and surely the players must think and say the same when they talk to each other—- that’s when they are not praising him to the media!

Brendan we’ve still only won two games in the league and drew the other four all against teams that are struggling and hardly won a game between them, don’t get too excited Brendan!

I think the biggest problem Derek is that we don’t have enough round pegs to go in those round holes. Squad depth is a huge challenge for us at the moment. Myko’s injury (and Röhl’s ongoing recovery) pretty much change everything for us defensively. TBF to the defenders that played yesterday, if it hadn’t been for two AMN screw-ups, they probably would’ve helped us secure another clean sheet and an away win.

Yep! I think the worst thing is how long these reviews take. There should be a time limit of 1 minute. If they can’t come to a definitive conclusion after 60 seconds then it stays with the on-field decision.

Eric — from 4 hours ago — Why have you left Mykolenko out of the blamed gang ?

What I learned is that we have a striker (our only striker) who works very hard but has an appalling conversion rate. Even after conceding two goals, with the chances Barry had, we should’ve won easily. We also have a right-back who defends well for long periods of the game and gets forward with real gusto but is prone to mindless errors which undo his otherwise good work. KDH seemed to rediscover the form he showed for most of last season which is a huge plus, and Garner looked sharper than he has of late too. We obviously missed Myko, who’s been fantastic in the last few games. Hopefully his Lazarus-like powers of recovery mean he’s back for Chelsea on Saturday. I know many complain that Grealish slows things down and doesn’t release the ball quickly enough but his sheer skill and ability to draw fouls offset those weaknesses IMHO. Onwards and upwards and UTFT!!

I think that the reason the ref goes to the monitor is that he needs to decide if the defender has deliberately cleared it to Johnson or it was just a block, which he decided it was and therefore Johnson is offside.

Frustrations aside, we should easily have won that game. Playing devil’s advocate, (first watched my beloved blues in 1962) Let’s say dithering Dave is incapacitated for several weeks and the running of the team falls to the backroom staff and senior players….do you think the football and results would improve? My personal opinion is that it would as the shackles imposed by Moyes would be lifted. The players allowed to play with freedom and being able to express themselves without the laser like glare of the manager lambasting them for playing football and not the safety at all costs football demanded by him. There is a lot of good young talent in this small but highly capable squad just waiting to be allowed to play and not feeling cowered by an ageing manager with tactics from bygone years.

It’s more of a prescription site these days Derek!

Can we have a vote on whether to go back to the old format as I believe it will be a resounding yes.

I`ll go anywhere for a chat/debate/argument about Everton, but I`m struggling to stay interested in the comments on TW at the moment because they are all over the place. Not sure it would take much fixing either

Reading the newspapers reaction to thier favourite team receiving a good hiding. I reckon City will get away with long jail sentences although the death penalty could come into calculations given the national uproar.

Brent persevere mate and see how it goes- I know you are a patient man.

We wont go down and we wont be playing European football next season. Thats what l learned from yesterday

Say what you like about City and their cheating off the pitch, although every team cheats on the pitch— that third City goal was a Brazilian one at their peak, absolutely marvellous to see.

I think it’s harsh on Johnson to blame him entirely for his lack of involvement in the first half. His team mates were choosing to send pretty much everything down the left flank as far as I could see. Similarly harsh to only blame Maitland-Niles for their goals when both involved a series of errors that helped them to happen. His errors were simply the most glaring. I think Hayden Hackney is being severely under used (he’s not the only one but as a targeted signing it seems like disjointed planning). He offers something that bit different and I don’t think Jimmy G or KDH have really hit their marks so far this season (although both improved second half yesterday).

Sorry but this updated site isn’t showing posts consistently. It’s abysmal. I’m hardly on here now. And this post will probably disappear into the ether.

Derek if Grealish finds that proper partner who he can’t play without I think it would be fair if he gives that partner half of the outrageous wages he is on.