Gomes nearing return from injury

No mention of Dele. He’s unplayable on his day. Which is every day now.

It's the Gbamins, Schneiderlins and, worst of all, Alli for whom I have nothing but contempt.

Apparently Gomes did quite well last season and if he can prove his fitness then he definitely can bring quality to the table.

Had Andre been on form and available on Saturday to come on for 30 minutes there is no way we would have been hoofing everything forward.

The worry is that we have had a succession of managers who have not utilised our squad properly especially Gomes and I don't have great faith in this manager to do so as evidenced by last Saturday"s debacle.

In Andre"s pre-injury season Gana provided the legs and tackling prowess while Andre kept things ticking over by controlling the tempo of the game and directing the play.

Under a succession of managers Andre, although not the same player, hasn't been helped by being deployed in a two or a three with other slugs around him.

We now have a number of athletic midfielders to compensate, meaning he in theory shouldn't be the liability he has been at times.

If our manager was a bit more savvy he has the option of starting Garner with the choice of two of our other midfielders and bring Andre on for the last twenty to dictate play.

You could even play one sitter with Jimmy and Andre as the two eights in the latter stages of certain games where you need to see out the game and managing possession.

He can, unlike Gueye, receive a ball and pass a ball. So that is something. But surely we should be building around Onana and Garner now.

Getting caught on the ball because he is not quick enough for the prem both in his feet and in his head.

Giving dangerous free kicks away on the edge of our box because he is too slow to catch them. Does he score goals? I don't think so but it's so long since he had a shot at goal I can't remember.

But the girls think he's cute so he has something going for him.

Every manager has got to become more savvy, now teams can use five subs, but because I’m only interested in Everton, then it would be very good news if Gomes, could suddenly rekindle his love for the game, which has probably been passing him by since he had a hard time at Barcelona - bar the odd few games in the very early stages of his Everton career, imo.

If he still loved football, then I’m sure he would have left Everton in the summer, but listening to the French team saying they couldn’t afford his wages, was very telling.

The sooner Everton get back to having a proper detailed plan on the playing side of the club, can’t come soon enough, even if the other side of the club has also been fucked for years and years and fucking years.

I think the doubters started doubting in Barcelona when they waved him away with their white hankies and a lot of fans here started doubting him well before he was injured in the Spurs game.

As for getting our money’s worth, are you having a laugh Paul? Gomes has cost Everton £58,350,000 in wages and transfer fee,and he becomes a free agent next summer,how is going to give us our money’s worth?

We should sue the man who gave him this contract and the fella who signed it off.

He did ok with Lille and they wanted him back at a wage that was sensible to them (25k -50k pw?) probably. It’s good news for him and us he is nearly fully fit, that means he can move on in January and we will save 2.5 million in wages. Also may mean Thelwell can bring in a shrewd midfield buy, or more likely, loan from somewhere.

Dave, it is astonishing that £58m total for Gomes in 2019, fast forward four years and we are begging for £20m from god knows who to pay the day to day running costs of the entire club.

Can't see the Goodison faithful calling for Gomes to come on and change a game (for the better rather than the usual effort).

Yes he might have one or two decent performances left in him for EFC, but is a reminder of where it all went wrong.
He should have been moved on.

Go figure.

I think fans are fickle, but no need to be abusive about the player, he was/is a good representative of the club but his time on the pitch is unlikely to be much. Hopefully he will move on in January which would suit both parties.

Interestingly, no comeback dates for Dele? Did he have an injury setback again?

The manager mentioned something about it a week or a few ago.

It was around the time he was papped laughing his head off whilst throwing away a parking ticket after a nice lunch in Manchester, go figure.

Haha… you're having a laugh. He was well-regarded before the injury and it's clear to anyone who's been watching that he was good for us before that injury. I don't recall one Evertonian saying out loud when we acquired him that they had doubts. Not one.

Yeah, he's been crap since but let's not let facts get in the way of a good moan. I don't think he's the answer at all and if we can get something for him or get his wages off the books, I'm all for it.

But this "he was crap the whole time" is just utter bull. Reminds me of how Evertonians hated Fellaini until he was "good" and then stated that they thought he was always good. We love a good rewrite of history, don't we?

Our fanbase needs to give their heads a wobble at times or just go out for a breath of fresh air.

Gomes had a very good game versus Liverpool at Anfield; MotM I think. He then scored a terrific goal versus Woves at Goodison in a 3-1 defeat. He didn't have a good game in that match.

They were the two outstanding games I remember from his earlier games. I remember having doubts about him in most of his games, but everyone remembers his derby performance – it was a one-off.

He was just as slow before his injury as he was after, getting caught in possession, giving ridiculous and obvious fouls away. He always came across as a nice fella off the field – and maybe he was, that's another thing that goes in his favour.

I didn't have any doubts about him when we acquired him because I hadn't seen him,but I knew Barcelona fans didn't think much of him and that was in a slower paced game than the premier, and after a few games for us I began to understand why, I couldn't believe the wages he was on for such a mediocre player.

I also think you are wrong with regards Evertonians wanting to rewrite history, Bill, although if this was even possible, then the Boxing Day when Bill Kenwright was introduced to the crowd as our new owner would definitely be the place were I would start!

I had many doubts about Gomes before his injury. Apart from that derby game, he was generally poor in away games. He was terrible in the 3-2 defeat at Newcastle and the 2-0 at Fulham where, if I remember correctly, he was sent off. He can pass the ball well when allowed time on the ball. The problem is opponents very rarely give you that time in the Premier League.

His injury was a bad one but nowhere near as problematic as for example an ACL rupture. He was back in action within months. Gomes appeared to be a nice guy but nowhere near the standard required in this league in which pace and power must be aligned with quality.

When Gomes was signed there was an excitement amongst the fanbase that we'd acquired a proper Rolls Royce midfielder. Anyone saying otherwise is, as you say, suffering from selective amnesia, and yes, it's a common problem on Toffee Web, perhaps not so much with our fanbase in general.

If James Garner fails to impress in central midfield we'll soon have the keyboard warriors on here saying Dyche was a fool for playing him there. They'll conveniently forget they were the ones calling for it. It's the way it is. A bit like Beto and Calvert-Lewin up top. That call has gone very quiet now.

Re Gomes, can't see him coming back now to be fair. He looks too slow for the Premier League. Pity. Good player on his day and we could do with more of those.

I was at Goodison when we played Chelsea and Gomes was in midfield, during the Silva years, so he'd played way more than 10 games by then. He ran the midfield that day in tandem with Gueye. He didn't look too slow for the Premier League. But yeah, his form tailed off, along with Everton's. He seemed to lose confidence and didn't look the same player after his injury. I think with the right personnel around him, he could still be a player, but not currently at Everton, he doesn't suit the way Sean Dyche wants us to play.

You're sure Dyche would find a place for him? Based on?. A conversation you've had with Sean Dyche?

The nearest we have to Gomes is James Garner and so far he's been unable to get a berth in central midfield. (This might be because Dyche thinks he's a better crosser of the ball than the other options available to him and he wants crosses in the box.) So far Dyche has played with two sitters and one more forward midfielder who can cover ground and potentially chip in with goals, this seems to be his preference. Though I accept his options are limited. I don't see where a passer like Gomes fits into that thinking. But I wouldn't mind being proved wrong.

As for Gomes 'not really trying'? How do you know he doesn't really try? How do you know it's not a lack of confidence or speed that's inhibiting him? That seems much more likely to me.

Taxi for Gomes!

His stint at Lille showed he's still a solid player, I just don't think he's a good fit for the Premier League at this point.

I hope you're right. I've been watching French league football for about 35 years and it's a funny old league. I'd say more than any other European league there is huge variability between the best players and the worse. In that sense I suppose it's kind of like the MLS.

A good place for talented kids to get game time, a place where very good players seem excellent and one where limited journeymen with one attribute, eg, passing, shooting, dribbling, can seem like franchise players. Gomes did well there but not as well as the other Gomes, the Man Utd reject, who is nowhere near to an England call-up.

The big issue with Andre is that, in the past, he'd have been a roll-of-the-dice inexpensive type like Li Tie, Warzycha, Preki, but for some insane reason Brands & Silva decided to pay a wage to him as if he was Iniesta.

If we'd paid him Tom Davies money, I think people would view him more sympathetically but, on Michel Platini wages, he's obviously going to get stick as he is nowhere near that level.

We have one central midfielder who looks comfortable in possession and links play in Jimmy Garner. Onana, Gueye and Doucoué are all athletes who are very inefficient on the ball — when you see Doucoué charge forward at pace with the ball, you know there is only a 50/50 chance his next pass will find a blue shirt.

He will be back-up to Garner unless Dyche has another brainstorm and switches Jimmy out of position again.