The big problem is Paul, Vaughan may be suspended.

I’m going to go with very blinkered.

ON of the most fundimental parts of a managers Arsenal is bringing on a sub at a key point in the game either ot consolidate or to push for a win/ draw.

How many times do you see the starting 11 finish a game?

We have no decent subs for what ever reason so how ever we do at the start the probability is that Blackburns ability to bring players on will effect our chances of wining

(P.s. Sorry about spelling and Grammer - still jet lagged)

We all know it will be the Yak up front on his own. The lack of transfer action is quite staggering. To sell Faddy and AJ without replacing either and losing Carsley and Stubbs, what’s the world coming to. Quite shocking management by the boardroom. Ok, wait for the big star but we need a few reserve players also........

I’ve been busy all day and only just had the chance to see whats happening today in the news of EFC......I’m thrilled to see that Phil Jagielka thinks Jose Baxter is a good lad and a fine player.

So thats it then?

Great.

I cant wait till Saturday.....

.....is over.

Yup, and Lescott thinks Stevie P has got nice hair.

That should keep the fans happy, I would love to be a fly on the wall in the Everton IT office.

IT Bod " Geoff, we still havent got any new faces in, what shall I put on the website"

Geoff "Oh I dont know Greg, just nip down to the showers and catch some gossip, we can put that up with a nice pic of Tim Cahill shaking hands with a monkey or something. No one will ever know and it will make interesting viewing.

Well, it "could" be worse!
We could be playing The RS or ManUtd or Arsenal or Chelsea on Saturday!
I would be the first to admit that Saturday’s game is a "must win" game ..... but with Robinson in goals and no Bentley.....are we doomed! Are we hell as like!
I’m speechless regarding the transfer situation but specifically regarding Saturday’s game I see no reason why we can’t win it and as Peter said - that will give us another week to worry about incoming players.
Of course, win/lose/tie we’ll still worry for another week!!!

Everton’s game is the first game of the new season to be shown live over here in th US so I’m all fingers crossed for a fantastic result!!

COYB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cheer up guys. I agree with Peter. If we start with a 4-4-2 of Howard,Valente,Yobo,Lescott, Neville, Baines (LM), Jags, Arteta,Osman (RM), Yak and Vaughan/jutkiewiz we should be able to beat most of our first five opponents (portsmouth excepted). This is conditional on moyes ordering jags to keep it very simple, provide a screen and just get it to arteta at every opportunity and if vaughan is suspended to get jutkiewiz to create nusiance value which might give the Yak some space. At least we’d be hard to break down and should be able to nick a goal a game. It wasn’t so long ago that we had Steve Watson and Lie Tie playing in the midfield!! Of course I’m just waiting for the news that Arteta has stubbed his toe and is out for 4 months...

On a wider note I am as dissapointed as anyone else with the complete farce that is Everton these days. I wouldn’t mind so much if there was just a little bit of honesty from the club to the fans. I’m not saying for one moment that we should be told how much the club has to spend etc but my real fear is that BK is keeping Moyes in the dark about the moneyy situation. I mean if we assume a worse case scenario that Moyes only had to spend what he raised in tranfers plus (say) 5M he should have a minimum of 20M to spend (10M Johnson, 5M McFadden). Thats not even to mention the wages the club is currently saving by leaving 8 players (last count) go. Even Moyes was only told that today we could quite realistically get Fernades back (6M class player and potentially world class whya re we not signing him now when we were willing to pay 12M last summer?), sign M’Bia/Huddelston (6M), Smith (3M), Milito (5M). Although not ideal signings, not bad in my view and would allow us to push on a bit. Of course the real fear is that we had to sell Johnson, MCFadden and leave the loans go because we don’t have a bob and the banks/earl will not advance any more money due to the ground move failing. I’m not exactly pro DK but at least it would have left us do some creative accounting, Put the new stadium in at a value of (say) 150M on the Balance Sheet (Trade Mark Keith Wyness), and raise further loans against it. Currently the club is technically insolvent (per 2006 Accounts) so the banks can’t be too keen to advance further loans, particularly given the credit crunch.

As for this Moutinho, I know he’s good but how wise is it to spend your entire transfer budget (if you have one) on one player when your current squad size is 10 fit senior players?

Pat, we won’t buy Moutinho, not for all the tea in China.

I’m expecting something like this:

Howard

Neville Yobo Lescott Valente

Arteta Rodwell Jags Baines

Osman

Yakubu

What makes you guys think that next week will be any different regarding transfers from this week or the one before that or the one before that or the preceeding 3 months (you catch my drift).

This is just my interpretation, and I’d be interested to know what everyone else thinks, but I feel that as of today we are as far away from signing a single player than we have been all summer, sure we had the hyped bullshit at the start of the week...Vagner Love, Smith (oh joy), etc. but one by one those rumours have been rubbished so I just don’t see any movement happening!


Something has got to give and I just don’t know what it’ll be, will it be the fans, will it be kenwright, will it be Moyes or worst of all will it be our current players?

Possibly right connor.

I’m expecting a pretty dour game sadly with more negativity on the pitch than off it (if thats possible)

Should we get a goal we’ll be protecting it like mad and without major personnell changes then that will be our season.

Having said that, i would take a whole season of one nil wins if it keeps us up there and ’in the shop window’ so lets hope that santa cruz doesnt bring his scoring boots - even if we bring ours!!

Thats a great shout Connor - I totally agree with the selection you have posted. I am sure Jags wont be too happy but he can do a job there as long as he gets support from Rodwell and with Osman buzzing around.
Not much on the bench - however lets get behind the boys and concentrate on the game rather than the the lack of new signings !
Its time to start thinking about the action on the field, and I cant wait. Everything else can unfold over the next few weeks.

Agree with Connor re probable line up for sat. Was just giving my own preference.

Vis a Vis transfers tend to agree with James and Steve.


Oh man I came on here trying to be positive. Now I’m more depressed than ever!!

It’ll be interesting to see Baines on the left of a five man midfield, he’s certainly got the attacking qualities and pace to do a decent job out there. He’s got a good engine and gets up and down well. Hopefully he does well, it’s not ideal but nothing is with Everton.

I’d like to see Arteta interchange positions and roam around the park. He needs to have a big game so he has to be given a bit of freedom. Let him run at them from the left and the right and let him come inside and control the pace, pick it up and slow it down.

Atleast with Yobo, Lescott, Rodwell and Jagielka we’ll be strong at set pieces and will have enough physical presence to deal with Blackburn.

Anyway, good luck Blue boys.

Santa Cruz has an achilles injury picked up pre season so he might not play Neil - Ince hasnt ruled him out, but he’s a doubt which is handy - we need all the help we can get at the moment!

By the way, one last shred of a possible signing, that of Stephane M’Bia; he scored a beauty for Cameroon the other night against (ahem) Honduras for a 1 nil win - Cameroon drew 0-0 with Italy and went through 2nd in the group - they now play Brazil so hopefully they’ll lose, M’Bia will go home, sign for us and be fit & ready to play in a couple of weeks.

Or a flock of pigs might swoop over Goodison Park.

You choose.

Blinkered?
I’ve entered you in the 2.30 Haydock Park
The name of the horse is "Blind Hope" good luck Peter.

What’s so great about Portsmouth? Apart from the addition of the streak of piss from the RS, for (cough!) £11m, all their other additions are fairly typical Harry Redknapp journeymen so far as I can see.

Several articles I’ve seen tip them as the great hopes for breaking the Sky 4 this year (including one from - ahem - Jamie Redknapp). Last year it was Spurs, who we took apart on their patch within a couple of weeks of the start of the season. Portsmouth I believe are a team who have hit their peak.

I’d take the side Connor names against them any given day, as I’ve said before.

I’m as disappointed as anyone on new additions so far (and isn’t the deadline for playing on Saturday noon tomorrow (??) ), but we still have some great players in that 11 at least.

It shouldn’t be forgotten.

If I was Moyes I would say the following:

Get the ball and give it Mikel. That applies to everyone, wherever you are on the pitch.

I reckon he is our only hope. Yakubu is great but Moyes has knackered him up playing him up front on his own.

He always plays up front on his own. How can you knacker Yakubu out? He only runs when he wants too.

It doesn’t really matter what team we cobble together on Saturday we are now so short of options that just like off the pitch We now have NO plan B on it.
I really hope we don’t end up going behind & chasing the game.
Looking at our early fixtures many seem to think we’ll get through.
However we’ll be arguably putting out a weaker side with fewer options than we used against Oldham in the FA cup last year.
We should’nt underestimate the New boys ( as they’ll be fired up ) & certainly not Blackburn & Portsmouth. With us in our current state people will be looking at us & going for it, especially if we’ve got people playing out of position or Kids in our side.

Obviously I am praying it doesn?t happen but ............................ Can you imagine the atmosphere in Goodison if we go one or god forbid 2 down.
It won?t be nice

Let?s hope for a Yak hat-trick in the first twenty minutes and all our potential new players being there to watch.

Fuck me I?m dreaming

It will be threadbare for sure....

I would predict something along the following lines for Saturday:

-------------------- Howard --------------------

Neville - - Yobo - - Lescott - - - Baines

--------------------- Jagielka -------------------

Arteta - - - Osman -- -Rodwell - - - Kissock

---------------------- The Yak ------------------

Officially Injured:
Pienaar
Cahill
Hibbert
VD Meyde

Some of them might be available.

Jesus... even just typing that out makes me realise how desperately we actually need at least 3 to 4 signings ASAP!

Please god don’t play Jags centre mid.. did no one see him against Metalist away?! I don’t know what was more embarrassin. Rats pronouncing his name completely wrong every bastard time or Jags’ complete inability to know where he is or what he is doin in centre mid.

I’d rather have neville there and that’s how bad Jags is in midfield.

Gosling will start in midfield i reckon.... alongside arteta, osman and baines.. what power and height we have there... maybe neville thrown in and put gosling at right back instead.... it is depressing me writing these names in terms of our startin 11.... we are a right mess and its mismanagement at it’s worse.

Jags will start in midfield and his passing will be bad, he is a fighter and we are going to have to fight for 3 points. I think the back four will be Nev, Yobo, Lescott and Baines Jags will sit in the middle with Gosling on the right and Ossie on the left and Arteta and Rodwell in the center with the Yak up front. Im hoping for 2-0.

Can anyone tell me why J P Kissock hasn't got a squad number and hasn't figured in pre-season.

Adam,

Kissock is shite and Moyes does not approve of his haircut.

Valente will play at left back and Baines will be in left midfield. I reckon Cahill will be on the bench even though there’s no way he’ll be used.