Allardyce slams his players following Emirates disaster

Drops the goal threat of Rooney, Sigurdsson, Calvert-Lewin and Tosun.

Leaves out top performers from Leicester in Coleman, Davies and Jagielka.

What happened to don't change a winning team? What happened to letting the opposition worry about you rather than worrying about them?

I get that we have an awful record away vs Arsenal but this was unforgivably bad management. Woeful. Yet again, multiple changes following a win and resulting in defeat.

Baffling. I would sack him now. Pay him up and get Silva in. Silva would have cost £15 million. Even if we had to pay Sam £15 million to do one we still end up breaking even to get Silva.

What a mess.

His next job should definitely be as a Tory politician.

He wrote today's off and he should be ashamed of that. Sadly, shame, self awareness, imagination and inspiration are not part of what he brings.

He is tactically clueless and unable to motivate. A sign should be provided for his desk:

The Buck Stops Here!!!

They were awful and have to shoulder a lot of the blame but, ultimately, I think they are not playing for the manager.

The persistence with Schneiderlin.
The signing...and immediate dropping of Tosun.
The dog shit at left back.
The complete disarray in defence.

Sam has to go. He doesn’t belong at our club

I did not want him as manager due to the fact that he is a crook and had never managed at the top end of the Premier League but I did not realise he was this bad. As much as it hurts to say it we should have brought back Moyes as a short term. He knew how to set up a defence and at least has a little bit more class than this slope shouldered whinging idiot!

Such little fight, such little talent, such little care, and – although the manager also has to take a lot of responsibility for this embarrassment – I'm glad "most of these players" are finally getting hung out to dry.

The rot set in here the day David Moyes left the club. Martinez fucked up all his good work in a very short time. Initially Moyes's team kept him going but he soon destroyed that solidity. Kenwright knows this for sure and as for Moshiri he basically hasn't the football brain despite his billions and best intentions.

Sam is just a hit man being paid to save us... Who would turn that down for the dosh?

I just hope we stay up and start from scratch virtually next season.

You keep playing crabman Schneiderlin, you keep playing the awful Martina (I don't blame him, just accept that he isn't good enough for Everton), you play the terrible Williams.

Young players perform and are dropped. The marvellous Lookman doesn't get a look-in and has to leave. Vlasic plays well and is dropped.

Rooney has his best performances playing deep next to Gyeue and then you refuse to play him there. When you play Sigurdsson, you play him on the left, out of position.

You buy a shiny new striker and keep him on the bench. I love Niasse, but he's to come off the bench, you decide to start him. You sub the best players in games, aka, Walcott today. Good to to see Bolasie back, but he will win you the odd corner with the odd step-over but won't win you games.

Everyone knows to beat or get something from Arsenal, you need to press (they don't like it up-em), close them down and attack but you decide to play 7 defensive players, 8 if you add the keeper.

I'm sure there is lots I have missed out, but please Samuel Allardyce, be an adult and take some responsibility. Don't play players who play poorly and stop dropping players who perform and want to get forward. These tactics might work at Sunderland, Palace and West Ham etc, but not here.

I watched the Burnley game earlier. We bought the wrong centre-back from them. Lennon played better than any of our players today and they have a much better manager than us.

We prepare the team to defend, to respect the opposition, and the next thing – the team collapses. Heads held up everytime and giving it all is hard these days? Someone please motivate them.

Absolute bullshitter.

Why is failure and dross accepted and tolerated year in year out at Everton Football Club?

Really thought when Moshiri came on board we'd begin to see a more ruthless business like approach with serious strong decisions made.

Sadly the man is an equal in Kenwright buffoonery and spouts the same “the sky is pink with fluffy marshmallow clouds” crap that we get from Mr Theatre Impresario.

Nobody at Everton seems capable of making big decisions and able to drag the club out of this disgusting disgraceful embarrassing crisis it's now in.

We are going the same way as Aston Villa if we aren't careful and the men in charge are simply guiding us there with their eyes closed, oblivious to it.

How dare Sam come out after that first half and lay blame on the payers he picked for a game that was actually a contest we should have expected to get a point from.

Why did 95% of Evertonians know well before kick off that the team he put out was about to be slaughtered. Why change a winning side?

After coming out and stating that Sigurdsson and Rooney can't play in the same team, he plays them in a winning system against Leicester and then drops the two of them to the bench to see us lose.

How do Schneiderlin and Gueye get to start so many games? I don't have the solutions, but to see Moyes doing well at West Ham, Silva now unemployed and the wonderful Lookman scoring on another debut in Germany drives me fucking insane.

Nothing to do with the shambolic team you picked and that ridiculous formation you set up. Three centre-backs has never worked for us, and Williams and Schneiderlin need dropping for good.

But not your fault, Sam. Hopefully you will be gone in the Summer, good riddance.

I didn't feel good about it, I didn't feel angry, I felt that this could be the point when I stop. Why invest so much for so little. I know before the next game I will get all excited again, I will try to see the match, I won't give up.

Yes we have another manager who shouldn't be anywhere near our club. You can insert all his poor judgements both when picking a team and opening his mouth. Why give the other team a cause to win by pointing out their poor defence when you're own is no great shakes.

As Evertonians we are going to have to suck this one in. A change of manager is not going to help until the end of the season. This man will walk away from our club thinking he did a great job keeping us up.

He will, but this will be in spite of his expertise not because of it. After the last game of the season everyone involved with our club should take a long hot shower to clean away the bullshit.

These are hard times indeed, but ask the older fans, we've been here before. It's time to be resilient.

Maybe 2 or 3 of them may be so embarrassed by the performance they will be desperate to put it right, but Walcott, Tosun and mangala must be wondering what they have let themselves in for. The rest will be unmanageable until either them or Sam have left the club.

I hope it's the latter sooner rather than later or this rot that has set in may suffercate the club for years to come. However strongly he feels about the performance it's unacceptable to humiliate people in public in such a way. Coming off the back of his 'stubbornness' Lookman comments, it reeks of a school yard bully regime.

Someone said on the live forum, Bolasie or Lookman?

Schneiderlin and Williams look as though they don't want to be here. Just picking up the wage and going through the motions.

I don't know what to make of Keane, he seems unsettled and devoid of confidence . A spell in a settled side may improve him.

He complains about a lack of consistency after completely changing a winning side. He mouths off about Arsenal's defensive weaknesses, then puts out the most cowardly, negative starting XI possible.

He talks about studying the Swansea blueprint when he did absolutely nothing of the sort. Swansea played without fear – you might want to try it sometime.

I'm tired of hearing about how the players aren't good enough. There's plenty of talent in this squad, I 100% believe that, and it's Allardyce's JOB to maximize that talent. Instead he makes zero effort to get anything out of Sandro or Klaassen, while stubbornly sticking with underachievers like Schneiderlin...

He completely mishandles Lookman (who's already fitting him for a clown suit after one appearance in the Bundesliga – good for him!)...

He's already started to alienate Tosun, bravo... he changes the centre-back pairing every game... he hands Vlasic a random start, completely drops him for 2-3 matches, hands him another random start, then drops him again – you call this man management?!

Enough is enough. Koeman, for all his faults, would at least concede getting his tactics wrong. Allardyce is a snake oil salesman, a coward and a cancer. How anyone could try and defend this boob is beyond me.

He has lost the plot, players and fans.

Very sad.

Fire him now. Never should have been at our club.

Fireman Sam. He's messed up and mixed water for petrol.

Bring back Rhino. At least he had a go!

I can't imagine there was a blue in the world who would have wanted that starting 11 and approach – white flag before kick-off.

Sir Alex, Clough and Paisley would never have stooped so low. To publicly admit your players can not follow your coaching and slag them off is a sign you can't do your own job very well, Mr Allardyce.

Please go at the end of the season and don't rob the kitty on your way out the door!!!

Surprise, surprise.

Couldn't agree more Dennis Stevens.

Simply a respite versus Leicester.

It could have easily been double figures if Arsenal were as ruthless as Man City.

Can anyone name a balanced side for the next game?

After that team selection and set up, he should be embarrassed to blame anyone but himself.

The defense is relegation level and Allardyce the 'renowned' defensive specialist has been unable to improve it. Seven defensive players and they give up 4 goals in the first half??? WTF.

Apparently Everton players under Allardyce can't play two games in a week. Seamus and Rooney, okay... no excuses for the rest

Of course they have world class players in every position but it is up to the coach to mould the players into the best formation given what he has at his disposal.

Maybe Allardyce needs more time to be able to do it, but hanging his players out to dry like this will not help him achieve it.

The BBC were reporting that Everton had to do something about their 7 defenders.

This man should be nowhere near this football club.

Experimental, 5 changes, no chance to practise the formation (he said in another interview that, though the players hadn't been able to play the system, they had watched the Swansea game a couple of times).

Slaughter the team afterwards. Wow.

There is something not right at the Club – again, alluded to by Baines. What it is... I don't know; but whatever it is if we do not find it, and sort it, we will be having these discussions every season.

We have employed some dire managers and players, we have also employed some good players who have morphed into dire players.

Moshiri should instigate a clear out from the top and slowly work down. Either take full control of the Titanic that is the Club – or abandon ship!

It's like loving the wrong woman. You know she will break your heart but you keep going just in case she might one day love you as you love her. She never will!!

Guardiola has got world class players in every position. The adaptation of De Bruyne into his current position and David Silva ability to play in any position across midfield has no similarity to our squad whatsoever.

Every player in their side today played in his natural position.

No-one else to blame for this immediate absence other than the manager who could have addressed the problem last month. He failed to do this and lived with consequences today, like he did against Spurs.

In football the opposition always attack your weakest point In our case, this is the entire left side of the team – no matter who is selected!

Agreed we are not comparing like for like. But if you showed most people two years ago the team that has been put out this season, most would say it was unbalanced.

Of course it is not ideal to have players playing in the natural position but balance comes from players knowing exactly what their role in the team is and having the confidence to carry out their responsibilities. It is not an accident that De Bruyne has made the transition from a wide player to a world class central midfielder so seamlessly.

Anyway, I do agree it seems foolish to make any comparisons with our team to Man City at this moment in time.

The manager is part of it as well, especially tonight. He picked the wrong formation with three at the back.

You are spot on, confidence is very low. That makes the situation worse.

What was wrong exactly with the line-up earlier in the week? Putting in Schneiderlin and Kenny kills any thought of going forward. Look at the heat map for those two players and you will see a competition for the most errant forward passes and the most successful negative passes going on. Result is Walcott was wasted today. That is why we looked better when Davies came on.

Stop making excuses for Fat Sam. He is awful. He cannot be given credit for his selections earlier in the week and then absolved from blame for putting out the line-up that he did. I wonder if Sam had money on the game that Arsenal would score at least 4 goals? That is the only reason I can think of for the line-up changes and formation change.

Burnley haven't got world class players in any position, and have lost their striker, goalkeeper, set-piece specialist, and both fullbacks (for large periods of time), and yet, their manager knows how to actually manage with what he has. Burnley takes a point against mighty Man City so why can't Sam figure out how to do the same against not so mighty Arsenal?

This is horrendous but will achieve the outcome he was employed to achieve.

We are going to have these types of posts every game apart from the few in which he and we hope to get a result.

Nightmare but hopefully soon we'll wake up and it'll be daylight.

He's a dick.

Someone show this asshat the door please.

We are not Brighton or Huddersfield. Any 11 players Everton FC put out on the pitch must surely do better than this load of wasters did tonight... Most of this squad downed tools on Koeman they are doing it again now to Allardyce. The horrible twats at Chelsea are at it again. Its rife at some clubs but here it is an epidemic.

As for Allardyce being out of order for slamming these useless fuckers today, well Mourinho and Ferguson both done it or do it and they are two of the best ever seen in the game..Our fans are becoming like the chairman and the players – too nice. Who gives a shit if Allardyce has kicked some butt? The twats deserve a kicking.

£100+ grand a week players at the club and you lot are telling me it's okay for them not to be able to run or pass a ball 5 yards? Did Allardyce coach them to be shit?? I thought they were shit when Sam arrived here, weren't they??

So Sam were is the platform for anybody to be consistent?

Utter bullshit, leave preferably by the back door. Disgrace we hired him.

Looking at the unforced changes I was concerned about what everybody else has mentioned; Mangala literally on his second day at the club and not playing regularly used in an unusual (for us) formation, Williams has been flaky every day of his Everton career and Keane is fragile, Martina could never be a left wing back, Gueye and Schneiderlin do not work as a pairing and actually seem to bring the worst out of each other, Bolasie seems a long way away from being worth a starting role, Niasse seems more effective off the bench. But you don't know what the players work on at Finch Farm so you swallow your reservations and hope for the best.

Watching it all unravel as I'd feared it would I went back to wondering “What is it that the manager sees in training that never seems to be replicated on match days?” Now the manager reveals his genius! You just watch how one particular team got a result against the same opposition and tell your players to copy it two days later, with players in critical positions who have never played together before and one very square peg in a round hole! And then you get furious when they don't carry out your plans very well!

Why Calvert-Lewin for Walcott and not one of the ineffective defensive mids? What is the Holgate strop story? Is Vlasic injured or just permanently dropped now?

I watched up to Ramsey getting his hat-trick, and turned it off, I have never done that before, and I have seen some poor displays in the past.

I'm sorry but this guy has to go, never mind waiting till the summer, or perish the thought seeing out his contract. Schneiderlin should never play for Everton again.

All will be well.

He did it once today (and I nearly choked on my pint) and it lead to our goal. It is not just about putting crosses in from that side, it is also about giving the defenders on that side something else to occupy them which should give Bolasie more space and options.

Gana and Schneiderlin just seem to make each other (more) ineffective. Was there any attempt to replace the athleticism/ presence of James McCarthy? There was talk about Nzonzi which just evaporated after a while (and that was before McCarthy got injured.

That to me suggests very strongly that our chairman/owner signed up the scouting version of Per Krøldrup to be way more than chief scout.

"No, let's make him our Director of Football. What can possibly go wrong Ken/Farhad?!"

And on the truth thereby hangs our future folks.

We were saying before the match, having seen the team line up, it was just a team selected to invite pressure, and boy did they invite the pressure on. The defending was absolute shambolic. There was no tackles, no closing down, they were letting Arsenal players run through like our defence didn't exist. Seriously, that could, and probably should, have been about 6-0 at half time. Someone said during the break we had made three tackles in the first half, although don't know if that was true or not?

The second half was marginally better, thanks to Tom Davies who at least had a go. I also thought Calvert-Lewin did okay when he came on. I see Aubameyang seemed to settle and acclimatise to the English league quite well, something Allardyce seems to think foreign players can't do! Why Niasse is in ahead of Tosun is beyond me.

Anyway I'm off to bed, and hopefully wake up tomorrow morning thinking it was all a bad dream and it never really happened.

Five defenders, two defensive midfielders, and then nothing until you hit the wingers and striker. Basically just gave the ball to Arsenal and just invited them onto us again and again. Even if our defenders were great, that's still a recipe for disaster.

Against Leicester we actually looked reasonably balanced. One defensive midfielder, and then Rooney and Davies in the middle with one able to sit while the other went forward. Two wide players, and a striker. The difference in our attacking threat when the lineup gave us some scope for midfielders to get involved made a huge difference.

Unfortunately both are big earners, so as a matter of principle from within the club, they are both going to play.

We all know that Williams has limitations and is totally shown up whenever we play any half decent opposition. (Arsenal by the way are half decent, but shite then they play a team that's a little bit better.)

As for Bolasie, has he had a wooden leg fitted? Maybe he is struggling for fitness after a long time out. Or maybe another bad buy. Thought he was atrocious, again. Another player who looked as though he couldn't give a fuck.

Have we just paid £27 million for a centre-forward, who hasn't had a look-in, in the last 3 games, WTF is going on there? Is he any better than Sandro? How has Walsh not been fucking sacked yet? OMFG! Are these men at the top pocketing some serious fucking money??

Without going on about each individual player, we have a squad full of players who are paid an absolute fortune, who couldn't give a fuck about fighting for the fans, fighting for each other.

To optimise all this, we have a loser of a chairman stuck in the 1980s, running this club as some sort of part time hobby. The buck stops at the top. Bill Kenwright – the game is up, step aside at let some professionals take over.

Totally embarrassing. Allardyce out now. What a fuckin clown.

Allardyce out. A complete fraud.

With the exception of a couple of players, the effort was disgraceful. I couldn't give a fuck about the changes. This ishappening in too many clubs. Look at Watford supposedly down tools to get rid of that loser Silva.

This ain't Sam – this a problem with the modern player: too much power. Sam is exposing this – some fans are just too blinkered to see it.

This is my very first post on ToffeeWeb being a reader for many years and and Blue for all my life.

I find it astounding that a lot of fans and putting the blame squarely on Fat Sam. Yes, he made a few changes from a winning side, but if he had played Seamus and he got injured again, all hell would break lose. Yes, at least one of Rooney or Sigurdsson should be playing but both have no pace, which Swansea used to good effect on Tuesday night. It was clear from the line-up Fat Sam wanted pace which is why he made the changes he did. Changes to the side should not affect form as they are all one team, yes players have different skill sets and the rest of it but players need to still be putting 100% in when playing for Everton which by and large I don't see.

I believe the blame should be places solely on the players. They need to be held more accountable for their lack of passion, desire and energy. Davies, Calvert-Lewin, Walcott and Niasse were the only ones who played with the desire and will. The others were as Fat Sam said, were pathetic and did not seem to play at all.

All goals were conceded tonight was because players were lacking the basic skills taught to children learning how to play, such as man marking or holding a defensive line. Fat Sam should not be to blame for players not knowing the basics when they are fully fledged professionals earning upwards of £100,000 a week.

For the first goal Martina sees Mhkitaryan in yards of space, yet shows no urgency to get in front and sticks a soft left leg out in the hope he blocks the cross. You do not have to be a left footed in order to defend that so being played out of position, in my opinion, is no excuse. It's being aware of your surroundings. Its basic, see a man in space, get in front, and block/tackle.

The second goal, Keane quite simply loses his man in Koscielny. Again, it's basic. Mark your man. This is taught at a young stage for a footballer.

The third goal, Ramsey is in acres of space sprinting down the field, all the while Bolasie is jogging down showing now desire or will to track back.

The fourth goal, Williams, Keane and Mangala hold no line, no shape. Yes it's offside and yes Mangala hasn't played in a back three but surely it's basic to hold your line.

The fifth goal, Calvert-Lewin rightly so, prevents the Arsenal throw in but has no support, the closest blue shirt was over 10 yards away, again showing no desire or will to show support.

And these aren't the only examples throughout the game where players showed no passion to play in the blue shirt. Especially in attack, there were several cases where no support is given for the attacking player, ie Walcott or Bolasie.

It should not be solely down to Fat Sam to instil passion and pride into the players. It should be the fat pay check and more so putting on the blue shirt every game.

So people on here bashing Fat Sam and placing blame solely on him need to watch the game and see how very few players actually give a fuck about playing for Everton. Players like Schneiderlin, Williams, Bolasie and the list goes on need to wake up and realise they are playing for Everton and show the passion that Fat Sam is asking for.

He can't even organise the team to follow is negative, defeatist straight-jacket now. Let's just get to the end of the season and send him packing, together with his merry band of mediocre failures on the coaching staff.

I couldn't help noticing that Aaron Lennon was MotM for Burnley today; Deulofeu was MotM for Watford in midweek; Lookman scored the winning (and only])goal for Leipzig: Oh, and Bournemouth won, with their midfield powered by some guy called Dan Gosling. Ah, well!!!

Did you expect Mangala to slot seamlessly into a back three, Cuco Martina to morph into an attacking left-wing back, and Gueye and Schneiderlin to suddenly become an impenetrable shield?

You would hope the manager would understand he was gambling on quite a few things by ringing the changes like he did.

The only good thing: Walcott, Martina, Niasse, Calvert-Lewin should have scored. Also, Rooney's goal was disallowed at Spurs for offside yet Kane and Abuameyang's goals were allowed to stand and were more offside than Rooney's.

Moshiri and Kenwright Out – Usmanov In!!!

Walcott is a proper professional who'll be trying hard (new brush sweeps clean and all that) but we've too many with no incentive once they get out there and no football brains. Not even Kendall or Catterick or Shankly could do much with these. Moyes would have blasted 'em in his prime. Moderate players ran themselves into the ground for him. He made players like Hibbert, Cahill, Lescott etc into skilled warhorses.

I reckon Sam Allardyce will retire once we are safe; to be honest, it's job done for him and who would blame him at 64 years old? Who needs that shit from them kids every week?

Yes, we do need a complete re-vamp but, to be blunt, no fucking decent manager will come here anyway. Sad times, I'm afraid, but criticism and insult to the level on here won't help, will it?

Sentimental Bill is probably distraught 'cause he does love the club. Even Moshiri might walk yet before he has a bloody heart attack. And as for Walsh – dear oh dear... we must be mad!!

Well thought out, James.

The fact that they scored so early also clearly indicates that his ridiculous choice of players and tactics were out of kilter. His after game statement should have stated, " I made a major mistake in my game plan and choice of players. I basically put them in front of a firing squad. I know many of them played badly but I set them up to fail"

San Allardyce is the Donald Trump of English Football. Never wrong and unwilling to ever admit that he may have made a mistake. Please retire to a rest home where you can bore all those willing to listen to your drivel. On second thoughts, that would be unfair to the elderly.

He actually managed with his selection to totally muck up the minimum he could achieve. What he managed over the break was to dismantle Everton's youth development policy and convince Unsworth that Moyes's advice was right.

Against Arsenal, he put out a team suitable for a League Cup tie, where the objective was to concentrate on advancing a challenging Premier League position. Everton are nowhere near that,

Where Everton go from here is anyone's guess, but we are totally in a self-inflicted mess. The Board is useless and who are they going to get as a Manager who will take the job? Players wanting to play for Everton will also be difficult to get.

Big Sam is a deadman walking as far as Everton's future is concerned, which, when you see his actual performance, was always going to be the case. The team performances reflect this.

Top managers don't publicly blame the players to reflect any blame on them, they do the opposite and shield and encourage the team. No wonder the players are playing with out morale and unity – they're all wondering who is going to be publically blamed for the next defeat.

The worst of this is management seem to believe every word this joke of a manager is saying. I blame the people running this once-great club. It seems they're more interested in trying to make the club a commercial success at the expense of what happens on the pitch.

What would happen if every Everton fan world wide wrote in a vote of no confidence for the current Board of Directors???

I was one of the guys who suggested to go for Big Sam or Unsy with Unsy as first option and Big Sam coming in February to save us if we are still in relegation battle. Both did a decent job to pull us away from relegation battle with the shambles that Koeman left us. But yesterday was just shocking with no midfield and the defence was left exposed to Arsenal's wave after wave of attacks. No doubt defenders should have done better for all the goals but they were just sitting ducks against Arsenal's offence.

I knew Big Sam will only play a defensive lineup against top 6, but yesterday was just horrible. How he started the game with no central attacking mdifielders when Arsenal's defence was there for the taking is just mind-boggling. Only after Davies came on did we get more into their area in the midfield.

He deserves to be sacked just for that line-up yesterday. I would love Unsy to take over from him and play the team for the next season. I don't see us getting relegated now with West Brom and Huddersfield looking certain to be relegated and one more spot probably be between Stoke, Newcastle or Brighton.

One thing looks certain from yesterday's lineup – that Big Sam is only here to get us to safety. He has already targeted games where he will put out an attacking line-up. Safety from relegation is the only target he has been given with a replacement lined up for the summer. It looks like it is going to be Silva, whom Moshiri was desperate to get. Conte and Zidane will also be available very soon, both of them title-winning managers. I would like Unsy to be assistant to any of the 3 above and step up when they decide to move on.

This is going big summer for the club with some big decisions made right from the manager, to our transfer dealer and global traveller Mr. Director of Football and many of the players we have in the squad and on loan and players that will come in.

Big thanks to Rooney for helping the side this season but he needs to move on now. We saw what he can do both ways against Leicester – play perfect passes in front and fatal passes sideways or backwards; it could have easily ended up 3-2 to Leicester in spite of us dominating them for first 70 mins.

If Stoke gets relegated then it will be easy to get Shaqiri else need to spend big on Mahrez. Need to give Klaassen and Vlasic game time to see if they can make it else offload them along with Williams, Martina and Schneiderlin.

My team for next season would be Tosun and Calvert-Lewin up front, Niasse as impact sub which probably he might not want and probably he will move on, so we might need another striker.

In upper midfield, Shaqiri or Mahrez, Sigurdsson and Walcott with Bolasie, Dowell and Lookman as sub, in lower midfield area Davies and Gueye with McCarthy and Baningime as sub. In defence, Coleman, a new left-back, Holgate and one of Keane, Mangala or Funes Mori whoever performs better till end of this season.

If all perform badly then move Keane and Mangala and keep Funes Mori as sub as he is a goalscorer as well and spend big on a top central midfielder with Jagielka, Kenny and Baines as sub – remove Duncan Ferguson from staff and make Jags a defensive coach at end of next season.

Certainly a big summer coming up, let's hope Moshiri lives up to the expectation with big changes expected.

The season is a write off and we’re just about comfortable enough in the league to make the change now. Whether that’s Silva or whomever, if I were Moshiri I’d be making those calls now so we can install them pronto.

Putting a back three of Keane, Williams and Mangala together was a disaster. Poor Mangala had no clue where he was meant to be and was pulled in every direction. Keane and Williams just held position and didnt even step into the gap if runners got past the CDMs.

The wing backs are not capable of playing there and did not push up the field in the first half. We should have had three in midfield to compensate for the abysmal Schneiderlin. Niasse required a second striker up with him and Walcott and Bolasie got isolated. It was an utter disaster waiting to happen from the moment the manager decided to set the team up like that and make so many changes.

So why is he doing it? Either he wrote this game off which is disgraceful, or more worryingly he is trying to prove that he is more than the one dimensional tactician that many of us believe him to be. He know that will not be enough to keep his job, so he is trying to prove there is more to him than that. It cannot be rotation apart from Seamus, as we have only played two games in two weeks.

Also his evaluation of players is really poor - Schneiderlin over Klaasen, Niasse over Tosun, Bolasie over Lookman, Williams or Martina over anyone? - not for me. So please select a defensive four and play it to the end of the season, drop Schneiderlin permanently, select Siggy or Rooney every game and go with Tosun. Get us to 40 points, take your six million and sling your hook along with Shakespeare, Lee, Ferguson, Walsh, Elstone and Kenwright.

They let you down Sam? Welcome to the Club, they've been letting themselves (and us) down for years.

It seems that for half the team, the reward for what now passes are a semi-decent performance is to get dropped... and you wonder why they're not arsed.

I thought when the Geordies sung to you - 'You don't know what you're doing' they were being their usual... well, them really... they're daft, but they're not that daft.

The short-term blame lies with you...t he long-term blame starts at the top and works it's way down.

Moshiri, Kenwright, Elstone, Walsh and Allardyce.

You all don't know what the fuck you're doing.

Incidentally, is Tosun just going to end up another Sandro? It is utterly criminal the way this club recruits players.

We have a squad full of players past their best, or youngsters who haven't reached the elite standards required to compete in the top league in the world. These players demonstrate their individual failings every week. Not tracking runners, poor reading of the game, poor ball control, lack of vision, passing inaccuracy, poor dribbling, you name it the vast majority of the players are below the top standard.

Only Sigurdsson, Coleman and Pickford would have any chance of playing in a top 6 Premier Lerague team. As I say the rest are past their best or have not and may never reach, elite footballer status.

The goals conceded yesterday were nearly all down to individual player errors, losing their man or not reading the play. Wake up, the problem is the squad of players, Guardiola could be our manager and we'd still be crap with this squad.

The question is how and why have we got such a bad squad? Walsh has to take some if not all the blame, possibly along with Koeman but we don't really know what went on last summer. It needs sorting this summer though and as I say you could get rid of all the players other than Sigurdsson, Coleman and Pickford as far as I'm concerned.

Both can also control a football so massive improvements on whatever Gueye and Schneiderlin are actually supposed to do.

But I think our main problem is that due to changing all the time we have no core of the team and hence no leaders. The central defenders are being rotated like we are in 4 competitions. I don't even know who is our first choice and pairings and systems keep changing. No wonder they looked like they hardly knew each other yesterday.

Who is our midfield leader? Who is our playmaker. Who is our main striker? No one knows because it is changing every week.

A successful team requires a core and some stability. We don't have that.

I'm not excusing the manager – I didn't like the formation, and it is helping no one when the defence is being changed every week. But there are players here who need bombing out of the squad. Tom Davies should be one of the first names on the team sheet. He always wants the ball and always gives 100% – unlike some.

Bolasie – nice fella, but please he was useless for us before his injury. He should be trying to have impact cameos that's it. Schneiderlin a complete and utter tosser. Gueye, useless currently. Walcott, very good. Shows how bad behind we are that Arsenal, probably the 6th best team, deem him surplus to requirements. Niasse useless.

Big Sam, well he's just the same as he has been anywhere, an average manager.

We will probably finish 8th, which is effectively 2nd in our part of the Premier League, so all-in-all, sort of normal, neither the end of the world, nor the end of a manager we unfortunately needed. 3 points at home next time, and all is okay-ish.

Let's not forget, above half way in the Premier League is still special, let's not take it for granted. More realism needed I think.

Also, can Calvert-Lewin stay on his feet in the box next time? This was embarrassing. I'd have Shelvey and Barton in midfield at the moment.

5 changes from a winning team, new formation trying to copy the tactics of another team etc, it all just makes you look a fool and thanks because yet again it is Everton FC who look stupid.

Please throw away the performance stats and overthinking tactics, look at the players at your disposal and pick the best 11 and a system that suits those players.

Pickford, Coleman, Walcott, Rooney, Davies and Sigurdsson are in the average to good category but the rest are shit.

Leaving Tosun and Mangala out as too early to judge and maybe give Calvert-Lewin, Holgate and Kenny a pass because they are young.

The rest really are shit though.

Let's celebrate 8th and terrible football and being twatted five times season.

None of them 7 should have played yesterday and Sam picked them all.

When (not 'if') we get the 40 points, he should be paid off and Unsworth takes the team to the end of the season when we can get a proper manager (not Silva imo - he was the board's first choice – nuff said).

At least I hope it was his weakened side because, if he picked that side as his first choice, I've no idea how he has made his dosh as a manager!

Shocking from top to bottom and I've not been so embarrassed since the 7-0 at Highbury which I had the misfortune to witness.

He loves Everton but the offering is so bad, so negligent that I don't blame him. It's not just the fault of Allardyce. There is a common denominator going back to post Moyes period; a total lack of professionalism in every aspect of the club from ticketing to the academy and coaching (abysmal by all accounts).

Unfortunately Moshiri is not running the club because of the cliques and nepotism rotting the club to its core. There are cliques in the boardroom, in the team, in the admin, in the academy. Its been perpetuated and allowed by the biggest disaster to hit this club in its history... Bill Kenwright.

We need some sort of protest and organisation to demand change. The players are a disgrace. Bring in 11 local lads, get some Italian coaches and Bielsa in and coach them to play football and not this zonal robotic passing they learn in the academy. Garbage from top to bottom..

I haven't read any of the above comments but I have seen Sam's post-match interviews and while agreeing with his observations, eg, 'crap', 'pathetic', 'unacceptable' etc... the truth of the matter is, he's responsible for this.

He can't continue to blame the players for not following his instructions. He's the one who is with them all week, training, talking, analysing etc.. So they are either playing for him or, like the last three managers, they are downing tools once again.

Sam won't go until the season ends so it's no use calling for his head now. We need to have a big, charismatic manager lined up to replace him. A manager who is not only tactically astute but who is brave and can motivate his players. I'm more inclined to go Italian next time. A Conte, Allegri, Mancini, the Napoli manager. Someone who will kick, shout and scream to get them playing to their maximum. Please not a mouse like Howe or a young old man like Dyche.

Sam out!!

The club is rotting from the inside slowly, it's not specific players. It's at the very top. We've become a club for mercenaries who are looking for a big fat wedge of cash. When players say I was excited by the project, it's code for, I was offered a tonne of money to come here. Absolutely disgusting.

I feel for the fans who make the journey up and down the country in all weathers, costing a fair penny too, and these players on megabucks can't even put in a decent shift.

Wigan are doing well mate, time for another foray in the summer. :-)

Commentator yesterday: "The Everton starting eleven for this match cost £ 20 million MORE than the Arsenal starting eleven."

Let that sink in... Also, bear in mind that our starting eleven included Kenny (youth player), Martina (free) and Mangala (loan).

1. Goad Arsenal pre-match by stating they have trouble scoring and are dodgy at the back.
2. Make five changes to a winning team.
3. Introduce a brand new, overly complicated five-at-the-back system that only Mensa's finest could comprehend after 12 months of intense study.
4. Ensure limited time is available to practice the system and also throw a dodgy centre-half into the mix who hasn't played all season.
5. Play Schneiderlin and Gana despite it being proved in a court of law they cannot play together.
6. Start on the wing a woefully out of sorts winger who appears to have had his legs swapped with Djimi Traore during his recovery.
7. Disregard big money striker.
8. Allow the shit cake to bake fully by not changing anything before half-time.

There you have it, and when a punter dares question the quality of the cake, be sure to absolve yourself of all responsibility.

Perhaps we should now bring in the Swansea manager because you, big Sam, have no idea about tactics. Very annoying to watch!

You don't hurt as much as the fans do and never will do. Unfortunately, massive wages have dulled players views of the fans and don't seem to give a flying fuck about who they play for.

I for one hope to god you are not playing for us next season because you are garbage and have been a complete waste of money, along with several others. The sooner you are gone, the better.

We are sick of hearing the same bullshit time after time. Just keep your mouths shut. What a waste of space.

After the shambolic appointment of the current post holder surely it would be beneficial to be sounding out prospective candidates asap.

Who knows, they may even bring a left back with them.

Big Fat Sam blaming the players is a disgrace as he picked them, the system and the tactics. Yes,they were a disgrace but they were your disgrace, Sam; be a man and admit it.

Frank – that is a defeatist post. Realism needed!!! Well my version of reality is that we are following the Villa blueprint. sell your best and replace with shit. Change your manager regularly and generally run your club badly.

Sam, sort it or fuck off!

Koeman kept getting "surprised", before making hefty changes at half-time to salvage some dignity. He was "refreshingly honest", and blamed everyone else.

Unsworth was completely undermined by our board. I still believe with the fixtures, time he had actually to train the players he made the most progress... as erratic as we were.

Sam came in and took credit for Unsworth's West Ham result. He set us up against other relegation candidates like they were Real Madrid or how we made Arsenal look yesterday evening. He didn't want to "gamble" on a left back, refused to sell Schneiderlin, loaned out players who haven't really had a chance (but certainly won't under his tenure), and already publicly said our new striker is struggling. The man is a complete fool.

He should never have been offered the job. We now have to sit and watch while he tramples further on our players' confidence, he continues to play two DMs and sticks with the laziest waste of space in Schneiderlin. Cuco Martina may be woeful, but he tries. And surprisingly players coming back from injury or youngsters need rest (for those slating Davies, Kenny and Bolasie)...

If we know who we want, we might as well recruit them now and let them experiment until the end of the season. Yes, they might be on the end of some more "edgy" Joey Barton rants, but they might as well assess what we have across the board (youth, coach, senior, etc) than let this oaf carry on.

Why didn't Martina play at right back his preferred position? Which would have allowed Rooney or Sigurdsson to play in the team. Arsenal or other top six sides don't need a written invitation to tear average / poor teams apart, but Sam's teamsheet was exactly that.

Some of us supporters seem to be taking it for granted that we won't be relegated; I find that a curious position to take given our inability to keep a clean-sheet and our ability to give opponents a chance even when we play well.

It says much for the organisation at Goodison that Sam's team had been 'leaked' by somebody hours before the game and, whilst it probably didn't affect the result one way or the other, it does beg the question as to why it was leaked.

Twelve tortuous fixtures to come and we have to win at least three and who knows perhaps four of them, I don't know how Sam will motivate the players now that he has declared that they are 'crap' but somehow those players have to be motivated and play well enough to get those elusive three or four wins; if they don't, we will be in big trouble.

Yet even speaking about them like this comes across as being patronising. My main point is: How has this little club managed to achieve so much in such a short time? Lessons to be learned there.

Yeah, the players were poor, but is he really demanding consistency when he makes five changes to personnel, plays a different formation, and breaks every partnership up?

Is this guy for real? I keep thinking our managers can't possibly do worse than the last guy... and they keep on leaving me dumbfounded.

Of course the manager got it wrong, he's played a new boy in a back three, and must know the other two (Keane and Williams) hate getting dragged out wide, and he also played a fella who is completely not interested, and this ruins Gueye's game.

But where is the fight? Where is the pride? Where is the anger? Everton fans, sing a song to Liverpool, about how it's never there fault, and that's exactly how most of our overpaid phonies, look like they feel, at the end of another embarrassing display.

Look at the end of the game and Schneiderlin shakes his head and gives a phut, whilst he shakes Mkhitaryan's hand. Exactly Morgan, £120k a week to not give a flying fucking fuck.

If your starting point is to see this fixture as one where anything other than a defeat is a bonus, then why not just fuckin go for it???

Tosun? What must this fella be thinking.

How Williams is even in the squad is incredible to me.

Why managers believe a team can defend better with 3 at the back than 4 is a mystery, especially, as Everton took on Arsenal on their own ground, where they have not won for a very long time.

Mike Walker must be made up as he is now our second worst manager ever.

We have a highly paid backroom team who must know our strengths inside out and who forensically study our forthcoming opponents. They can then formulate a plan to exploit their weaknesses with our strengths.

Or they can just try and copy Swansea.

Has anybody seen a Mr Silva house-hunting on Merseyside?

Maybe they already have? I put my season ticket for the Leicester game on StubHub for less than face value, but there were no takers.

I would quite happily have Eddie Howe. I would also remove the locker keys from Schneiderlin, Williams, Mangala, Steklenburg and Martina. Pack Rooney's bags for the MLS. Jags and Baines will also sadly have to go after many years of great service.

We are in a mess that keeps getting worse. We look like just avoiding relegation this year If we don't make changes then we will go down next season. We are Sunderland in waiting.

Second half was totally different after he gave them a rollicking at halftime. Doesn't matter which team you are the first thing to do is stop the other team scoring. Which if we had followed Sams instructions we would have had a chance of doing.

Let's hope he gets his points across for the next game.

In Sam we trust – COYB

The board have to ensure the next manager is lined up ready to come in, ie, plan for the next season. This one is an absolute disaster.

As others have pointed out the majority weren't even doing the basics yesterday. I turned off after three goals having watched our players amble back into position once again having given up the ball.

Sam is being paid to keep us up and doubtless will be on a bonus if he succeeds so guess what is motivating him. Quite a number of the current team will be or should be hanging their boots up at the end of the season and clearly don't care anywhere near enough to actually put a shift in.

We were on the Soccerbus on Weds and got talking to a lady, who must have been 70 if she was a day. She told us that she travels to every home game – from Sheffield and has done for years. She was expecting to get home at around a quarter to one. She also goes to away games when she can. Doubtless many on here make similar journeys.

My missus said that the players should be told about supporters like her to motivate them. Hands up who believes it would make any difference whatsoever.

I would go further and say they have lost the right to appoint or manage the affairs at Everton. More pressure needs to be put on this club because they keep getting away with it, year-in & year-out.

What bullshit, Martina plays every game so does Gana so did Kenny until Wednesday. Hasn't Walcott just played 270 minutes?

You had a match-winning team Allardyce and then you decided to piss about with it over Christmas, you found the formula again on Wednesday.

Stop fucking around you dickhead.

I have no problem with us going to the likes of Arsenal and losing. I have no problem with us going anywhere really and losing fair and square but, for fuck's sake, man, play a team with a creative midfield and a consistent defence.

Apart from the obvious, how many defensive players did Arsenal field? One, just one... Xaka. Why couldn't we do the same and just play Gana, would it have been any worse?

I doubt it.

He was hired to avoid relegation, no more no less. Why would anyone be surprised, when this man who possesses not an imaginative bone in his body, can only come up with a hopeful stifling strategy, when faced with a creative force such as Arsenal?

When will people realize that Moshiri and Co are interested only in financial matters and have no knowledge or passion for football whatsoever, even less for the long suffering fans. They signed Allardyce for one reason only, to safeguard our premiership status and with it, their investment. The end product is of no concern to them whatsoever, provided we avoid relegation and financial disaster.

Allardyce never has and never will produce an attacking creative football team. He is simply not capable of doing so. Anyone who remembers him as a player will recall that he was what we used to call a 'clogger'. The word speaks volumes.

He took his playing philosophy into management and the rest is history. It was one of the sorriest days I can recall as an Evertonian when he became our manager. I fear the worst is yet to come.

Slagging his players off in public, yet having to alter his line-up and formation at half-time. Coward and hypocrite.

Give him his marching orders and that irritating sidekick Little Fat Sam (pointing & screaming orders for 80 minutes out of 90+; why?).

Chelsea will likely part with Conté before too long, get him tapped up and signed up.

Who identified the players?

Were these players scouted and watched in action over a period of time?

Did Koeman or Allardyce actually see the players in action or did they rely on video recordings and the testaments of the players' agents?

Were enquiries made into the personalities of the players to see if they would fit seamlessly into the club?

Why was there a failure to address the obvious lack of depth in some positions but a willingness to duplicate areas of relative strength?

Tens of millions of pounds have been wasted on players who are no better, and often worse, than the players they were supposed to be replacing. The club is badly mismanaged both on and off the field. Someone should be held accountable and I would start with Allardyce and Walsh and work up from there.

They've been awful all season and 3 different managers have had a go with them and struggled to get 2 decent performances out of the cretins all season. Why is it so appalling that Sam has called them out on it???

So many on here are so biased against Sam they've lost all reason and sensibility. We have a squad of mercenaries that have been rubbish all season, frankly don't care... but the manager shouldn't say anything?

C'mon chaps, start using your brains.

The team selection yesterday was a disaster waiting to happen – I bet not a single fan thought that it was a good idea.

Don (#59) – I totally agree re Walsh... I actually said something similar after Diabate's debut.

The image of Schneiderlin trailing Mikhitaryan by 5 yards as he set up Arsenal's 4th, instead of being goal-side of him, are just a couple of examples of highly paid professional footballers failing to do the most basic of duties assigned to them.

I don't think I've ever seen a team in the Premier League afforded so much space by their opposition. Who was supposed to be looking after the Arsenal playmaker, Ozil, Sam? He can't have had an easier game in his entire career!

A shameful, depressing representation of our club by everyone on duty last night – every last one of them.

Sigurdsson, Coleman, Pickford and Walcott as far as I'm concerned. The rest not close to good enough. There's our problem.

However, it's pointless calling them out publicly then picking them for the next game only to repeat the same limp, gutless performance – which has been the pattern with many of the players this season.

Notwithstanding, once selected they should at least get out on the pitch and put in a professional and competitive performance as a matter of course.

Unfortunately few have stood up and performed on a consistent basis. To compound the problem(s) there isn't a leader amongst the players (Coleman excluded) and they, along with our management, are bringing shame down on our club.

Additionally our current manager, and at least three before him have not been good enough for Everton and have been the inevitable result of our unambitious ownership which has long since set the scene of amateurism that permeates throughout our club in just about every department.

Sadly it will now take much more than a good manager to right the ship.

I would have expected a few bright spots on the pitch regardless of who manages us. However until we get the visionary leadership that both Kenwright and Moshiri are unable to provide, our destiny will remain in this football wilderness.

How anyone can put that on Fat Sam is beyond me. We played with 7 defenders for the most part of that game and still conceded 5 goals, how does that happen? It was clear he wanted to play defensive with counter attacking play as he said in his post game conference against Leicester, which is how Swansea beat Arsenal, so I think that says something more about the players than Fat Sam.

This group of players didn't play for Koeman, who did well with Southampton, won countless trophies with Barcelona and a couple of European Championships with Netherlands, so it's fair to say he has some knowledge and football pedigree.

They couldn't play for Unsworth a club legend who took the under 23's to the premier league champions, and are now not playing for Fat Sam, who has not got quite a football pedigree but been involved in football for well over 40 years and kept countless football clubs in the Premier League so has pretty good football knowledge.

So who will they play for? Players should play for their manager and give their all no matter who it is, as it is he has a major say in his contract conditions (even though they mean fuck all now a days).

My last point is that fans were on ToffeeWeb while Martinez was in charge giving him shit about how he gave lame excuses about how opposition players and goals conceded were "phenomenal" and gave Koeman shit about saying all football was unlucky with his "Okay, that's football, it was unlucky" excuses and how they weren't putting more responsibility on players.

Now we have a manager calling players out for what they are, pathetic and inconsistent and we are calling him a fraud and whatever other insults people can think of. Just remember this: Fat Sam retired from football after his Crystal Palace spell. He did not need to come back to football as he would be pretty comfortable. And the arguement that he is greedy and wanted one last pay day falls on deaf ears as, if he was greedy, why not stay at Crystal Palace and finish his contract?

So let's cut Fat Sam some slack and back him to succeed and let's push the the players to be more passionate and energetic.

I'm calling fake news on that. I don't deny it was said but it can't be true as Ozil, Mustafi and the offside scorer cost £135M between them alone.

Bolasie, a big favourite of Sam, has been so inconsistent since his return. It tells you why Lookman, a young player with pace and width, who I thought, changed the game when he came on against Liverpool, has left the club.

So much for youth getting a chance under the clueless Allardyce.

Where to go from here? Two managers have failed, and one is on the brink of going the same way. The good or bad news depending on how you see it, is that it's very unlikely Sam will get the boot so he'll see us through to May. But then what?

Once Coleman is back to full fitness, the rest of the defence has to go. We need at least one new left back, replacements for the ageing Williams and Jags and the inept Keane at centre back. We need to hold on to our goalie if we can, and we need to build a team that can get the best out of our two most naturally talented players in Walcott and Sigurdsson. The rest of the squad can fucking do one. Useless bunch of shite.

Sam? If it carries on like this, he can do one too at the end of the season. But let's not get some flavour of the month loser like Silva – this year's Martinez. Who do we get though? Fucked if I know.

The main thing is to sort it out early, so we can clear out this godawful squad. And for those who say that this godawful squad finished 7th last year – no it didn't. Lukaku, Barkley and Barry have been sold, Baines is finished, Coleman and Bolasie have missed the bulk of the season as has McCarthy. None of those were replaced in any shape or form.

Three fucking tackles in the first half? Sure, Sam gambled on five at the back and three fast runners up front, hoping to do what Swansea did, and it backfired on him horrendously, but three fucking tackles?

Under Walter Smith, we conceded 7 at Arsenal; under David Moyes, we conceded 6 at home to Arsenal. Koeman conceded 5 at home to Arsenal earlier this season... and now Allardyce follows suit with 5 away at Arsenal. Guys, this fixture has been our Achilles heel for decades. Our away form at the Gunners is worse than our Anfield form – and that takes some beating. We always lose to Arsenal at their place.

Sam Allardyce has continued the Everton way of getting slammed by the bigger teams above us and having a separate league with those club's around us in in the table. Allardyce hasn't just turned Everton into a side that losses to the big boys – it has happened all my life! Yes, Allardyce did himself no favours with the line-up yesterday but we have a squad full of internationals playing for us. We should do better.

We are a mid-table side... have been for decades, apart from the odd blip here and there, either up or down. Allardyce was brought here to keep us in the Premier League, which he will do. Most on here would've bitten your hand of for that safety last year when we were in the bottom 3.

Allardyce doesn't give a shit about anything other than keeping EFC in the top flight because that was his remit. Most Everton fans a few months ago knew this. So chill the fuck out. Sam will be gone as soon as this season ends. Our season was over in October anyhow.

Bolasie needs to work much harder to be in that league of Everton shiteness. You've called back, however, those dire years in the early 70s when we set the standards from which we've only briefly wavered in nearly 50 years. I should add that I'm a Belfitt man myself.

Sorry, but that is bullshit. Sam made the line-up and set the tactics. When you ask players to do what they cannot do it is a disaster waiting to happen. Sam and his claim of studying Swansea is ridiculous. For all we know he told the players "go out defend, don't give up any goals, and score two on them." Then he can blame the players for not following his directions. The man is a fraud.

Over here, if I have a basketball team that has a tallest player of 6'-2" I am not going to freaking play a 2-1-2 or 2-3 zone defense around the lane as a bigger team will simply post up or lob over the top and kill my team, even though my players are trying. Similarly, if I have poor outside shooters, I am not running picks and screens to get them open looks from 20 feet away from the basket.

See, it isn't the players downing tools in such cases, it is the manager abdicating any responsibility. My opinion is Fat Sam has no drive to do anything. His "famed" attention to details and work ethic are gone. He should have been allowed to stay in retirement as he is clearly not willing to put in any work required to move this team forward. He couldn't even be bothered to attend our last European game FFS.

I truly think his "I studied Swansea" bullshit means he sat on his couch watching the freaking game and wrote down on his notepad, "Tell the players to play like Swansea did." I expect more from my managers.

We have a bunch of mostly average players that he is trying to get the best out of. People need to get real. When we brought Sam in as manager, he was the best of a small bunch who wanted to manage Everton.

We cannot live in the past. Many teams now have more money and that means they can go out and get better players.

Leicester winning the Premier League was a one-off. Whether we have Dyche, Howe or any other average manager, we will not get into the top four for many years. We haven't got the money or the pull to bring in a top manager or top players.

Now all stop moaning and start supporting the manager and the players because, without our support, they will not perform at their best.

He brings Keane back into the team in a back 4 with Jagielka. What does he do next match? Jags dropped and Keane put in a back three with the consistently terrible Williams and brand new signing Mangala. He subs Keane off at halftime.

Bolasie keeps being brought back into the starting 12 despite making no impact to date. He talks about the players' inconsistency. Yet his inconsistency of completely changing a winning team goes unchallenged. He didn't just change one or two players. He makes five changes to the team, completely changed formations and tactics. He dropped Davies, Rooney, Jagielka, Sigurdsson and Coleman. He goes from a back 4 to a back 5, with a brand new signing. He goes from a 4-1-4-1 with Gana allowed to play the holding role alone to a 5-2-3, which in reality was nothing more than a back 7 with Walcott and Bolasie mostly in defensive roles and Schneiderlin and Gana dropped back with the 3 center backs.

He says Lookman couldn't have made a difference because Walcott cost £20 million and Bolasie £30 million. But he dropped Sigurdsson who cost nearly £50 million quid and said Davies and Calvert-Lewin were the only two who did anything good yesterday. He's just an old, bumbling, walking contradiction like the old man in the pub who slurs his way through rant after rant about how it was in his day.

Kase is spot on in my opinion.

Can you name a balanced starting eleven out of the players available for the next game?

I said it last night whilst fuming in the aftermath of sitting behind the dugout watching Luddite Allardyce bark out his Neanderthal instructions.

He is actually more concerned with being in the ear of the 4th official. Sammy Lee tended to do most of the team instruction.

You can't blame the officials when so comprehensively beaten. No; he'll switch fire to the players. Anyone but the person who picks the team, formation and tactics.

Don't give him the satisfaction of claiming he kept us up. We will stay up without him.

Press conference tomorrow please. 9th when he took over. 10th now.

It underlines he had already mentally ignored the game and was concentrating on Palace some 10 days away.

The signal that sends to players and fans alike is awful, and emphasises that he has no idea of how to progress a club of Everton’s stature.

InEVERTONable!

£27m for a striker and he can't get a sniff.

And still they apologise...

There's very few football brains on this forum, after repeatedly being told Barkley, Besic, Deulofeu and Co we're all going to be talented superstars, most of us haven't got a clue either.

t also grated me when he was asked about Lookman doing any better, and he had to bring up the price of Bolasie, like that is the measure of a player. WTF, was all that about?!

We paid way over the odds for Bolasie like we did on Sigurdsson. He hasn't or will ever justify the money we shelled out. I like Bolasie but he offers no end product. He's not fully fit either and IMO Lookman would be a much better option.

Seamus Coleman cost £60k!! the price of a player means jack shit – especially on the evidence we've seen with this expensively assembled Everton squad.

Based on what I've seen regarding football in general and Everton in particular, I'd say most ToffeeWeb posters are football Einstein's in comparison!

Unsworth – 5 Matches. 2 won, 1 drawn, 2 lost. So he got us 7 points in 5 games. Moved up to 13th in the table on 15 points. We scored 10 goals in those 5 league matches.

Allardyce – 12 Matches. 4 won, 4 drawn, 4 lost. 16 points in 12 games. But, more important, 3 of those wins came in his first 4 matches, which had a 3-0 win in Europe sandwiched in that he didn't bother showing up for. So he has won 1 match in his last 8 matches. We've scored a grand total of 12 goals in those 12 league games, and of course most of those were in his first 4 matches.

Interesting that Unsworth had us scoring goals, Allardyce takes over and we keep scoring goals, but then the goals dry up. Also interesting that he's basically average the same points per game as Unsworth.

So Koeman had us struggling, albeit against a very difficult schedule to start the season. No excuses though, everything just felt wrong and at the end it was that 5-2 loss against Arsenal that was used as an example of how the team had stopped fighting for him.

Unsworth comes in and we were a bit of a shambles in defense. He had a much easier schedule than Koeman, but he had us scoring goals. He in no way lit the place up during his time here. But he did have us scoring 2 goals a game.

Allardyce comes in off the back of a 4-0 win, proceeds to win his first few games. Since then, the goals have dried up and the results have been horrific. We were going week after week without getting a shot on goal.

Most recently, we just got battered 1-5 by Arsenal in what was much worse an overall performance than the one that had Koeman sacked. We had shipped 18 goals in Koeman's 9 games. We've shipped 15 goals in Allardyce's last 6 games. We've won 1 out of our last 8 games.

Under Allardyce, we are getting worse – not more stable – and definitely not better.

If we were in the bottom three I could understand that logic. But we're not. We should be aiming for a 7th place finish again.

Instead we send out a team waving the white flag before the whistle was even blown. That 11 and formation was never going to get anything.

But when his questionable line up goes wrong? He can't laden all the blame on the players. Yes, they are culpable too, but How can players be expected to gel when every match they line up next to different players??

What was the point of getting Coleman back for one game then losing him again?

I am beginning to think Chelsea have it right. Employ a guy, get what you want then sack him off. Loyalty just ends up getting you a twat.

As for ‘downing tools' for 3 managers this season, did a visibly emotional Unsworth ever state, or even imply, such a thing when he was in charge?

I think some people are confusing lack of ability (which includes the qualities of keeping concentration and application at high levels throughout) with just not caring. What you are seeing is unconscious switching off not actively tuning out.

Motivational talks, hair dryer treatments, etc may get extra from some players but some just don't have anything that can be activated by outside agencies. All you can hope for is that drilling and repetition during training leads to things becoming second nature. I think some managers and coaches believe there is nothing that can't be instilled by them so they come unstuck when they end up with too many players who aren't naturally intense.

Part of being a successful manager or director of football, has to be the ability to recognise who you can build your team on, the ‘water carriers' who routinely do the simple and effective things so that others can get on with being creative.

Trevor Peers, the likes of Barkley, Deulofeu and Besic all had some ability to get people excited and out of their seats (with Besic that was a combativeness that was more risk than reward) but unfortunately their faults have thus far outweighed their virtues. Everything is relative, and if most of what you see on a regular basis is of the routine variety then the odd flashes of brilliance are going to attract a disproportionate amount of attention.

Even those of us who enjoy the technical aspects of defending get really excited by the flair stuff as well, so it's not surprising that there is a fair amount of hope above expectation when something potentially special is glimpsed.

He was of course terrible, turned up to training drunk and had to be pulled off the coach by Gordon West. We could do with him now!!

Not quite but just to be talking about him in the context of our team yesterday says all that needs to be said. Sam has no shame.

I do wonder if at some level, the players think they have no chance against the top six (and the manager sends this message too, explicitly or implicitly with his selections). They then play accordingly.

Self-fulfilling prophecy.

But on that subject. Moyes as Director of Football if West Ham don't survive? The one thing above all that he did was buy guys who were committed.

I think 35 points will be enough for safety this season. So we are only 4 points away. Doomsayers will say they cannot see where we will get them over the next 12 games. Toon, Saints and Brighton at home?

So how much of what we are doing now is experimental? When there is nothing to be lost from "risking" players – then play them. I agree, frustration when "big" players don't play well but are played because they are expected to play well but young players are not played. We all say give them a go. I hope we will, when we know we can afford for them to fail. Play them and go on a 10 game losing streak – destroy their confidence and then you have to win one of the last two games. No you get safe first.

Williams seems a disaster every time he plays. Thank you but you were another Koeman disaster. Martina was a stop gap but another Koeman disaster. Jags playing style at his age (he is no Bobby Moore/Franz Beckenbauer) means 2 games a week is too much. Seamus needs time. Schneiderlin must contribute something – but I don't know what, perhaps in the same way everyone on here said Osman was useless and we really went downhill after he stopped (2 starts in Martinez's second season).

Forwards I thought always needed partnerships to work out what the other does. Is that all on the training ground? Bolasie has now spent almost 23 hours on the pitch and scored the grand total of 1 goal? If that is not his job what is it? And how many has he created?

France v Ireland rugby was really exciting and tense if anyone missed it and chose to watch our chosen ones.

Whilst every big match they play is a rip roaring classic played out in front of a vociferous crowd, we have a manager who proclaims we should be "more boring" after a 4-0 defeat at Spurs then, after getting twatted by Arsenal, claims we were trying to emulate mighty Swansea in trying to figure out how to play.

I personally would take John Aldridge, Nigel Farage or even Gary Glitter as our next boss rather than put up with another season of the big fat loser.

There is just so much imbalance and lack of ability in certain areas that any manager will struggle to get this lot to play. Strangely enough, "not caring" may not be the main issue.

Whole sections of the squad need to be replaced. The season started off on the wrong footing when Lukaku wasn't replaced and Koeman / Walsh bought so many duds – so I'd say the majority of the blame rests with them.

Unlike some, I am of the opinion that 38 points, or even more, will be needed to stay up and 40 points to avoid being involved in a nail-biting final day. The fact that so many teams will be playing each other is fine as long as most of the games end up as draws but if a team wins one and loses the next, then every team is gaining a fair ration of points. Nobody is adrift, every team has a chance of picking up some wins and a chance of avoiding the drop.

But we don't do any of this with any consistency. I'm unconcerned about Koeman – he's yesterday's man that we can do nothing about.
But as FS is in charge it is beyond dispute that:

- he picks the players,
- he sets up the formation,
- he sets up the tactics,
- he is responsible for training,
- he is responsible for coaching,
- he is responsible for inspiring, cajoling,
- in short he is fully accountable for the performances of the team.

Publicly blaming and shaming players is a sign of a weak manager and a bully. These things can happen privately behind closed doors but never in public.

He has failed – like he always has and always will. He shouldn't be anywhere near us. He's a fraud and a dinosaur.

Sir John Moores once said that ultimate responsibility for team affairs rests with the manager – he was spot on. I really hope that our present incumbent thinks and acts as clearly.

Someone up the thread suggested that Moshiri should use the remaining months of the season to identify a replacement – I sincerely hope that one has not only already been identified, but also secured come season's end.

Notwithstanding this hope, Fat Sam should be sacked now along with his clueless band of clowns.

Bottom line is that we are, and always have been, too good for this fraud. Anything else is an embarrassment.

How do you know what you need? You look at the picture on the box, ie, the picture in the Manager's mind.

How is it that everyone and his dog knows that one of the vital pieces to the Jigsaw/Team is a left-back? Not addressed at all. Does this mean that Sam hasn't got a picture of how he sees his team?

As for Lookman and Tosun, don't get me started. I don't think I can get any angrier. Sam is old-fashioned, his coaching team are old-fashioned and second rate. No wonder modern players don't want to play for him and the modern game is passing him by.

Hopes for the future. Everton stay up; Allardyce goes in the summer. Then I remember it's Everton we support…

Finally, Williams says the team are angry and hurt, well be a bit more angry and hurt out on the pitch – after the match has finished is no good to anybody.

Somebody said to me yesterday that before Mangala signed we had one left footed player in the squad.

Take Michael Keane for instance. Many have started to write him off, but I think he's a good young player whose confidence has simply been shot to pieces. He had a very good game against Leicester midweek. So what does Allardyce do? He completely changes the system, throws him into a back three with Williams and Mangala – the three of them have no idea what they're doing and it quickly turns into a disaster. Keane gets hooked at halftime and instead of being given a platform to build on that Leicester City performance, his confidence suffers yet another setback. That's 100% on Allardyce. He's setting players up to fail, then throwing them under the bus and taking zero responsibility for it – that's why people are pissed off.

I've said it before and I'll say it again – Allardyce's management of the squad has been a disgrace. He claims nonsensically that Bolasie merits playing time over Lookman based on his price-tag... while his new £27-million striker languishes on the bench. He implies players like Sandro and Klaassen might get one opportunity to impress, if they're lucky, while players like Schneiderlin are allowed to stink up the joint week in and week out. The guy should start giving his press conferences with a rainbow-colored wig and a red ball on his nose.

Firstly, the French were written off by most of the pundits but their pride and passion made sure that, despite the so-called inferiority in talent and experience, they certainly didn't lay down and accept defeat as being inevitable. An example to Everton against the so-called top 6 which we perennially kowtow to.

Secondly, the Irish were having a bad day and, despite the dominance in all stats, with 3 minutes to go had to execute an unbelievable set of plays to create a score. This involved 40+ phases to eventually open a minute chance to try and win a game. The team and the players believed and trusted in each other and, hey presto, an iconic moment in Six Nations rugby with a winning drop goal from 42 metres.

The performance from both teams in this epic encounter highlights what sport is all about. Sadly at Everton we don't have any body at Management, Leaders on the pitch, or a collective belief in the team to dig so deep to dig victory out of the jaws of defeat.

We need leaders on the pitch like Jagielka, Coleman and outside these I am struggling although I do believe the likes of Kenny, Davies and Calvert-Lewin will ultimately fill this role if given the opportunity.

Unfortunately, Sam who I didn't want but accepted as an interim because we were drowning, is now adopting the same stance as Koeman. When things go well, I organised the defence; when things go bad, the players are not following my instruction. This despite no continuity or attempt to build some sort of team cohesion and consistency.

Rant over. Sorry for taking up so much space.

To use your analogy of a jigsaw, even without the box, the 4 corner pieces go in the 4 corners.

I suspect Sam would try and put them somewhere else, and blame the manufacturer for not following his instruction.

I might be wrong but isn't Garbutt left-footed! But, then again, Sam says we don't have a left-footed left-back in the squad apart from Baines!!, so that must be the case.

He has to go at the end of the season, and pay him off.

It's also time for Kenwright to step down, as well as Steve Walsh to jump before he's pushed.

Moshiri needs to have the next manager lined up now, and if not, sound out Bournemouth for Eddie Howe.

We are a shambles... are there three worse teams in the Premier League than us? I can't see it.

Saying we don't have the players to put out a balanced team! Yes, we certainly could have done better in the January window, but my 10-year-old could name at least 3 balanced formations with the players we have.

My wife on the other hand who knows nothing about football, couldn't pick a worse team selection than this clown if she had a stab herself.

A friend of mine, a true Blue who sadly passed away a few years back, was a neighbour in Formby of Stuart Imlach, who if my memory serves me was our physio at the time. My friend told me that it was Christmas time and the players all received Christmas hampers. Bernie does no more than swig the whiskey from his in Bellefield after training.

Imlach remonstrated with him, so Bernie promptly beat him up. Imlach immediately sought out Catterick and said "Either he goes or I go". Bernie was given his P45 and sacked on the spot the next day.

How times have changed!

I thought I knew that Allardyce was a difficult appointment to swallow for the “We are Everton” core who still think we are a club of Barca or PSG or Man Utd or Real Madrid proportions. That's not really a criticism, why is self delusion such a terrible thing and at times I've dreamed the same dreams.

But in order for the club and it's amazing fan base to move forward, I honestly think we have to accept that's it's not a betrayal to accept, for now, that we may never achieve the kind of special brilliance at the root of a “We are Everton” feeling. In turn this will help us understand and live with the fact that we are several decades into absolute mediocrity and worse, of the kind that honestly makes, as the excellent posts from Tony Marsh suggest, getting twatted at Arsenal very unsurprising.

But the reaction to this latest shameful mess has the added dimension of what seems like the vast majority wanting the Allardyce management team sacked today. It's not hard to understand when We Are Everton. Harder, if you look at us thru reality glasses of the last few decades.

Allardyce, like a lot of Everton managers, believes that you make up for being a long way second best to the top six by stopping them play. Sometimes it actually works, but mostly not. Sometimes instead of the inevitable one- or two-nil it's a slaughter which emphasises the gap in class and rubs our collective noses in it. And occasionally it is just all too much to accept because sod reality, We Are Everton.

Allardyce's biggest mistake in that Arsenal team selection wasn't just that parking the bus was never going to work, it was his hard-to-fathom faith in the majority of that team to have any interest in trying to prove us wrong.

How Allardyce can be slaughtered for calling them out is just beyond understanding. He knows he ballsed up and maybe it would have helped to acknowledge that, yes it would, no question. But to say he was wrong to call them 'pathetic' and it all his fault is just denying the truth.

This is the worst group of players we have seen for those two or more decades. Many of them have more ability than previous squads but those lesser groups had guts, fight, spirit and yes, being “plucky” suddenly seems a real attribute right now. Most of all, previous squads had a decent percentage of players who had a relationship with the fans, who knew why pride in wearing the shirt was actually a “thing” for us, and the end product here was that we often did better than we ought thanks to sheer bloody mindedness. There is no sense that any of that exists at our club now.

Why? Surprisingly I honestly think that a club that has never had money cannot actually handle spending large amounts of it and I say that accepting the market values of ordinary players are crazy. We have not adapted to the Director of Football design. Steve Walsh was over hyped and, whatever the mitigation, he has performed poorly and should never still be at the club.

The club has become besotted with the new Stadium, loan repayment and balance sheets accountancy debates. Amortisation versus effective squad building. There is a distraction that is destroying our ability to keep our place in this league. It has to stop and here's the thing. We screamed for 20 years at Bill Kenwright. Sell the club. Sell the club. Well, in effect he has. And frankly I'm not impressed, yet.

All I've seen is Mr Moshiri throwing his money into the wrong places. Our net transfer expenditure in two windows is £80m or so. Still below that of the £100m bonus from Sky. This matters a lot more than shouting about the shameful performance at Arsenal or the We Are Everton hatred for Sam Allardyce who has inherited a disgracefully poor squad.

Frankly in Walcott has just one quality addition to try and sort things out. Tosun is incredibly over priced but may come good, tho I don't see him ever being worth half his fee. Mangala is a cast off but a left sided cast off who, when given a few days to settle, will be better.

But we have terrible defensive players who have no right pulling on the shirt in any Premier League team. Mr Moshiri, Walsh, Koeman and Bill K are collectively responsible for this, not Allardyce. The club has totally lost its way but refuses to see what's before their eyes, which is simply that there can only be one priority, and that is the team and competing in, staying in, the top league.

Before you get to a point where you can direct your energy at a new stadium and a better long term balance sheet with zero loans, you have to get your transfer policy right, and when it clearly goes to shit, you must plough everything you have into sorting it. We didn't and for the most part that's why we are were we are – not Allardyce playing seven crap defenders in front of a decent goal keeper.

As for Mangala, I saw him for Man City against West Ham, and he was embarrassing, so who signed him?

Bolasie, Sam sees no wrong in him, so gets rid of Lookman? Sam has a lot to answer for.

Not one manager of three has worked out what our best team is. Not one manager has worked out what our best defence is. That's the problem – I don't think anybody knows because the players are so bloody inconsistent.

Really? That's Allardyce's view? It's completely out of character if it is and he and just about every manager outside the top six would be saying get me a bloody left-back who can perform at a reasonable level and get one in before deadline.

Allardyce wanted a left-back. Of course he did. He's not interested in the years ahead. He wants, needs, a left-back now and the reason he hasn't got one is because someone at Everton failed to find a player who could offer more than Martina and was more of a specialist at left-back than Mangala. That's the real story here. Five months to scout and research and find a player Walsh has to take a huge part of the blame for that failure, it is his job for pity's sake.

In the summer window Koeman personally wrecked our plans with his insistence on Klaassen and Sandro and paying £45m for Sigurdsson. I believe Walsh would have been the one who said Keane was a snip at £25m or Bill to be honest. Would we be having this debate at all if any of them had done the job that was the biggest priority of all, replace Rom with one, perhaps two, quality strikers? How is any of this Allardyce's fault?

Things have collapsed, we can all see that, and the atmosphere now at Finch Farm, well it must be close to toxic. Allardyce has ended up describing his squad as pathetic and in public. I think it had to be said but I dread to think what it's done to his relationship with the players, young and senior alike.

The Lookman thing is very strange and when the truth of that one emerges I suspect Lookman and agent are culpable. But, the hysterical reaction to that loan deal sums up the mess we are in. Any other time and supporters would be seeing Lookman for what he is right now, which is very promising but bloody inconsistent and he has had some genuine impact which immediately forces into the background the number of times he's lost the ball in his few minutes on the pitch or made the wrong decision.

I think he will be much better next season as will Vlasic whose another one who we screamed for but honestly, he's very mixed isn't he, one minute brilliant and incisive, the next costing a goal by losing the ball in dangerous positions.

Sam Allardyce has struggled under the intense pressure recently and I'm hoping he will see that he cannot play five at the back again and hope for anything much from this bunch of losers. He has to get Coleman back next week, and please play Garbutt or Mangala at left back and go for a balanced line up but nothing gets round the fact that we don't have centre-backs at the club.

Sam Allardyce picks the team, his coaches coach the fucking team, and they apparently give the team tactics to carry out... none of it is working so stop mentioning Koeman, Walsh and Moshiri – it's fucking boring.

The useless twat has made this team worse and I never thought that possible and people like you and Tony Marsh look for the tiny excuses because you and Tony Marsh made it very clear on here Sam was the man. Give it up – he is the worst manager this club has ever employed and that takes some doing. On top of that, he is a coward of the highest order.

Try reading his pressers on the left back situation. If he can get narked at the players not performing why can't he be a bit more forthright about the major problem of not bringing someone in in January rather than making out Cuco Martina is doing a good enough job.

Please don't give me any guff about protecting the players he has, bargaining positions, or the club's reputation – they are all moot points because anyone directly affected already knows the reality. For instance, Cuco knows he's doing the best he can but he knows there are better left-backs than him and so can only think it is a matter of time.

Whoever brought the players to the club is less important than how the manager chooses to utilise them. Mangala in a back three was all his own doing, Gana and Schneiderlin together is not his only option, Vlasic is apparently frozen out now and Lookman was told he needed to go out on loan if he wanted more playing time. His continual public derogation of individuals and the team in general doesn't really fit if his major problem is not actually having the required players at the club does it?

Going back to your post at 200 where you state that “a club that has never had money cannot actually handle spending it”; I don't know how long you have supported EFC but I would have expected all but the most casual of followers to know that the club has, at other periods of its history, been considered to be amongst the very wealthiest, probably right up to the formation of the Premier League. It doesn't explain how first Chelsea and then Man City have been able to turn that bizarre ‘burden' to their advantage either.

When people called for Bill Kenwright to sell to someone much richer for the benefit of the club, most of them probably expected that he and his executives would be quickly reduced to the same level as the rest of us spectators, not still having a large influence on how the club is run.

I don't believe a team has to be balanced in the same way some do who slam Martina as a left back because he is right-footed. I believe a team has to vertically balanced meaning it is able to connect from the defensive third through the midfield and the forward third. I would name Martina-Jagielka-Keane-Coleman (Kenney) playing in front of Pickford. I would have Gana as the sole holding mid with Sigurdsson-Davies ahead of him and Bolasie-Niasse-Walcott.

Martina has done better than just okay as our left back. I don't care that he is right-footed as this has not stopped players in the past such as Azpilicueta.

This line-up provides balance among the lines enabling the ball to be played forward while having balance along the lines too. Jagielka's experience and reading of the game will offset Keane's lack of mobility. Martina and Jags seem to play okay together as again both seem comfortable playing alongside each other. Once Mangala figures out what he is doing, then maybe work him in, but only until Funes Mori is healthy and playing.

As for the midfield, Sigurdsson plays where he should and Davies is free to add energy (and mistakes) going forward, covered by Gana, Coleman (Kenny) and Walcott. Davies links up with Niasse too and Bolasie has pace and some ability to balance the front line.

Some of our players lack confidence. Confidence comes from success. It is the job of the coach to set things up in practice so that the players feel that they are succeeding, to start them, sub them and bring them off the bench in circumstances that makes them feel good about what they are doing and to instruct them well enough to do the things that they ask of them.

Giving inadequate instruction and practice and then blaming the players for a poor performance is destroying their confidence. Sam is the one who is failing.

I thought the Everton set-up for the Arsenal game was simply so risky it was unbelievable. So many changes mixed with new faces and Schneiderlin we were on a hiding to nothing and so it proved. I was not alone in my reservations; almost if not every post has said the same. Even if the players had performed, it was a huge risk, which ironically would have raised some serious squad selection issues if ironically we had won.

However, Allardyce's comments to the media after the game were an even lower level of embarrassment, if that were possible; but Sam achieved it. He came across as a complete ignoramus with no social skills and a bullying side to his nature which I'm sorry is not for me a proper representation of Everton Football Club.

The Donald Trump of Goodison? Shocking. 63 years a Blue, but I am no longer going to follow my Club until after he has gone.

Goodnight.

"You can give all the instructions you like but the players have to take it on their shoulders."

How true!!!

Stop knocking Sam Allardyce, for God's sake – it's the same scenario, throughout football: once you're on the pitch, you must perform!!

It would seem no man can motivate a lot of our first team players or they have not much ability. They certainly can't show any desire and play for each other. Maybe they prefer Championship football and wages????

Play the U23s. They couldn't do any worse.

Win or lose, I just want our team to play with passion and bravery. Under Fat Sam, that's just not going to happen. He's too scared of the big teams, too happy to settle for a point always.

I look at Swansea under Carvalhal and Leicester under Puel, even Eddie Howe and Bournemouth and weep. I hope and pray that Marco Silva is still available in the summer. Either way, we must get rid ASAP.

It is up to the players to play with passion and bravery. Fat Sam should not have to tell the players to be passionate and show desire, that should come with earning the millions they do and the blue shirt they put on every week.

You can bring in Sir Alex, Mourinho, Guardiola and most of these players would still show no passion. They are just mercenaries and need to either retire and find a new club and we should all know who the players in question are.

Schneiderlin always seems to want to carry or pass the ball backwards. I can't recall a single time he ever drove forward with any purpose.

I really don't know where we go from here. There definitely needs to be a complete revamp of the playing staff and management in the summer, and I am keeping everything crossed that we can scrape together some wins to secure safety asap.

Arsenal are not great, but we were so woeful we made them look good.

First, you don't change a winning team, you stick with it until it proves that it needs changing.

Second, as a manager of a professional football team or any business come to that, you do not ever publicly denigrate or castigate your players /staff. By doing so, Allardyce has virtually guaranteed that none of the players will want to play for him – in other words, he has lost the dressing room, by his public mauling of his players. I can't blame them.

Sam set up a team that was guaranteed to fail against Arsenal and then has the nerve to criticise them when that's what they do.

His treatment of Lookman, I see as almost on a par with Koeman's treatment of Niasse. "If you want to play, you need to go somewhere else."

If we are not careful, Allardyce will destroy the future of the club by his treatment of the young players who many of us see as the future of Everton FC. They will simply leave or be sold off because they don't fit with his antiquated ideas of how the game should be played.

Don't say, all of the players are crap. They are not, or they would have been beaten by Leicester. No, he hit on a winning formula and three days later he dismantled it. That was down to the manager, not the players, who must be totally confused and demoralised.

Wake up, Moshiri, before it's too late. Allardyce is simply completing the demolition job that Koeman started. Very soon there will be no Everton in the Premier League and you can forget plans for a shiny new stadium because who will want to go to watch Championship football there?

I just can't stomach any more of Allardyce and his big-mouth bully-boy methods which make Koeman seem like a choirboy by comparison!!

I have a feeling that someone is pulling his strings to an extent, especially in the transfer build up; each time he was asked specific questions, his answers were evasive to the point, that he had little or no control over the situation.

I am not making excuses for him here, but suspect there is an underlying agenda. Having said that, there are no excuses whatsoever for picking the players he did, and putting them out on the pitch, with seemingly no game plan at all.

Why, oh why, Schneiderlin gets picked is beyond me; he seems to infect all those around him, with that malaise which is abhorrent and negative.

I was never one for getting Allardyce from the offset but, once it went ahead, being a true blue, I got behind him. I even started to think he'd proved me wrong when we started picking up points, and looked to be getting well clear of the relegation trapdoor.

Alas, that was all too short-lived, and he has reverted back to what I thought he would be, prior to his appointment.

It seems that Moshiri does not seem to bother losing millions – previous sackings and compensations, coupled with ill-conceived purchases of players being case and point.

I would therefore urge the Board to sack this charlatan now when, all said and done, another compensation wouldn't break his bank, but may save his and our reputations and ensure survival.

The transfer window may have shut regarding players, but Managers are not bound by any such restriction; they should act now, and prove that we are no walkovers.

I would go for Eddie Howe, purportedly an Evertonian at heart, has experience of survival in the Premier League with meagre resources, and his teams play much more attractive football than us at present.

I wanted Dyche before Sam got the job, but apparently he has signed a new contract at Burnley, so I can't see him being tempted, given his ongoing success with them.

Yes the players performance was below expectations, but to throw them under the bus was poor form by Big Sham. True colours and all that.

Back to the drawing board I suppose, who's next in the Toffee manager roundabout? I've had enough of these tried and tested names that are always bandied about, lets find someone exciting and attacking and young. Would you rather lose 5-1 with a 7-3 formation or 4-3 with a balls to the wall attacking outfit?

The great Man Utd and Arsenal teams of the last 2 decades were created by young and 'new' managers.

I know my choice. I've had enough of rolling over and showing our bellies to the big 6.

Let's kick them in the nuts, win or lose.

I find it interesting that you seem to suggest all that Allardyce needed to do was scream very loudly about the left back position ? Surely, all those pressers you mention Si would suggest that as manager Allardyce could not have been more vocal, more loud, more public, about desperately needing not just a left back, but probably three left sided players to try and balance a pathetically unbalanced squad ? If a manager shouting at the Director of Football and or Board inc Mr Moshiri was all it took to get the transfer policy in order then maybe Koeman would have got his one or even two desperately needed forwards to replace Rom’s goals, instead of being meekly forced to fall back on platitudes like suggesting all the goals deficit would arrive from midfield ?

You won’t find anything on these pages to suggest I championed Allardyce’s arrival. I was amazed Silva did not arrive. I admit I didn’t understand why many saw him as our saviour but I thought he was nailed on to be our next manager. Allardyce would never have been my or ckearlynyour choice Si, or apparently every single living Evertonian. But when it happened I championed supporting him because what other choice was there at the time? It happened, we ended up with a manager nobody would have chosen and I thought he would keep us up, and that’s about the end of it. Booing him and his team was crass nonsense.

It looked like he would steady us, get us away from relegation nightmares and organise a very poor squad in a better way than Koeman. But he’s making mistakes now and I like any of us can see that. Added to which he may have lost the dressing room if he ever really had it. But none of this alters my view that he and Unsy inherited the poorest most expensively assembled squad for decades. Whoever gotbthatvsquad together doesn’t matter now and I can see your point. But it’s not about the “whoever” it is about the facts and the facts are with three exceptions the entire squad is not the manager’s choice. He will see Walcott do well I feel. He will see Tosun take time to settle but I feel he is going to be a decent, tho not quite the no9 we need, option upmfront. Mangala looks like a horrible mistake but let’s give him slightly more than one match.

I’ve been an Everton fan for pretty much all my life from whenever I could explain that I’m an Everton fan and a season ticket holder for 40 years and 25 years spent travelling to every away game until a few years ago. I don’t really recall the Mersey millionaires Si but my point is that right now we are not spending the relatively large amount of money we seem to have, wisely. City or Chelsea are not comparable as far as I’m concerned. Moshiri doesn’t have that degree of cash and frankly its easy to appear to be handling big money as you suggest Si, when actually that funding makes you so rich you can afford to buy 20 £50m players and see most of them fail. Fair Play rules notwithstanding !

Truth is Si I think my post at 200 was less about absolving Allardyce of ANY blame and more about trying to get more than a balanced debate. It was actually saying that the club is cruelly mismanaged throughout the football side and our focus is totally wrong, with the results of that now being miserably exposed for all to see.

Sack Allardyce tomorrow. It won’t change the squad but I get it, maybe there’s yet another manager out there can squeeze more out of the crap defenders who don’t seem to care, or defensive midfielders that have become pedestrians or the right sided left backs etc etc. Or basically overcome the appalling mis Mgt that has got us here in the first place. Either that happens or somehow Allardyce cracks it over the next twelve games. Only one thing matters now, and that’s staying up. After that it’s Mr Silva I guess and being objective can he really do more with Walsh and co “delivering” as they have ?

Let's be honest, the players have been garbage, but the selections and tactics aren't much better.

Stick with a settled side. Defenders aren't going to build up an understanding when they're constantly being chopped and changed each game. Pick your pairing and stick with it.

They get on with the basics in Germany it seems which is what we patently lack even though we have some decent players, who currently only turn it on in spasms. Oh and let's get Lookman back as soon as possible. He scored a gem of a goal yesterday against M Gladbach.

That would be the same coach who said Lookman was falling all over the place and he was just about to sub him when he scored.

Make an example Everton. Get rid of this fraudster before the end of the season. Should never have appointed him.

Yes, but you conveniently left out why he was about to sub him. It wasn't because he didn't believe he was capable of staying on his feet. It was that he had just arrived to Germany and only had one pair of boots, which were not adequate for the conditions and causing him to slip.

It was his boots that were the problem, which the manager pointed out in the interview. But then he said this:

"He took his goal exactly how I hoped he would," said Hasenhüttl. "He has so much quality in one-against-one situations. He showed that again today."

He was lucky I didn't take him off again, he only brought one pair of boots with him from England and he was sliding around all over the pitch!" 😲#BMGRBL

We have obviously formed very different opinions about the overall tone of the manager's statements about recruitment during the last transfer window, one of which is letting him off the hook as far as I am concerned.

For me, rather than treating it as an absolute necessity and reiterating it clearly at every opportunity, he has totally played down the need to recruit anybody other than a couple of forwards, and he went as far as bigging up Cuco Martina as a left back.

Reducing the numbers was the priority he publicly agreed with, with no mention of how the unforeseen loss of James McCarthy could severely affect our defensive capabilities.

What do you think he said in his interview for the job? “This squad needs some urgent acquisitions.” or, “I can get this group organised and competitive with minimal outlay on new players.”?

You would hope a new manager, on massive wages and dealing with a panicked owner would be able to call the shots instead of being forced to live with his predecessors failures, but it appears to me that Sam is more than happy not to rock the boat when it comes to his superiors. Complete the job of avoiding a relegation (which was always remote in the extreme), pocket a huge wad of cash, and walk away without ever having to worry about fundamentally improving the squad. Easy money!

It wouldn't surprise me if he was on a bonus if he could significantly reduce the wage bill.

His explanation now? Not me guv. Fecking players and cross bar don't do what I instructed them to do. And those officials who I spend most of my time berating rather than actually managing the team. That's another story.

Go Neanderthal. Just go. We stay up with or without you and you do not deserve any self proclaimed credit for "saving" us and adding another bow to your CV to convince another unsuspecting club of your "ability".

All I read was that the Leipzig coach was considering subbing him because he was falling all over the place. Nothing was mentioned about him only having one pair of boots (which I do find strange) nor have I seen the other quotes you attribute to him.

I didn't want Sam Allardyce because I didn't think we actually needed his speciality services and because I was seriously worried about whether he could recruit and retain sufficient numbers of top class talent.

I've seen very little to change my mind, but I certainly haven't meted out anything that would be considered abusive, nor called for his immediate dismissal, which Mark unaccountably included in his reply to me.

An anti Christ of football in my opinion and that opinion goes way back before he was unfortunately appointed manager of our club.

If that opinion makes me a moron then I will accept that accusation over ever accepting Allardyce as Everton manager.

It’s the manager’s job to instill passion and confidence in his team. The bravery of the team’s performance comes with having a coherent game plan that the players can believe in, again coming directly from the manager. The way you make it out, our current dire state of affairs is purely down to our “mercenary” players with the manager exempt from blame. Have you been watching the same Everton as the rest of us? You’re not Fat Sam in disguise are you?

Could this be part of BK's endless desire to see the Scot back at his spiritual home, I wondered ? Our revered chairman has always been close to the erotic pair who run the Hammers, and with next pick of a leader for Blues, the dream of returning to eternal 'seventhish' must seem well worth stitching up a deal including a few of our many unwanted pros in the process !

Of course, I couldn't possibly divulge my source at this stage but shall have no hesitation in claiming 'first with the news' when it happens.

Ps. Following what is becoming a tradition for ex Everton chiefs to become managers of international teams, I'm forecasting a similar fate for Big Fat Sam. Both Moldova and Faroe Islands are in the process of offering him 'a pre-contract agreement, I hear !

Not as manager but as a replacement for Walsh as DOF.

Somehow the players DM recruited has more bottle, commitment and passion than any of the current squad apart from 2 - Seamus and Jags oh and maybe Rooney. Oh wait, Moyes bought Seamus and Jags and gave Wayne his debut.

I agree he has the makings of HKIII as a managerial appointment but given his track record (oh of course, Drenthe, vdM, Kroldrup means instant disqualification) he is probably a far better DOF than we have and maybe could get.

I just think players, especially the likes of Schneiderlin, Williams and Keane need to take more responsibility. Especially when you see teams like Watford, Swansea, Bournemouth who aren't blessed with the greatest of players and managers can take points from the top teams.

I also think Koeman destroyed our club and Fat Sam has inherited an extremely unbalanced and central midfield heavy team and should be given time to fix the team. For far too long managers at clubs have been given no time to adjust the players to their style of play. Yes, Fat Sam doesn't have the greatest record but for God's sake let's not get on his back 2 months in and start putting more pressure on the players to show some passion!