ToffeeWeb - Season 2007-08

Neil Humphrey
1 Posted 05/04/2008 at 17:22:29

In. The. Championship.

Teddy Draper
2 Posted 05/04/2008 at 17:20:10

Peter, cannot see your point mate, hes been here, worn the shirt, and did NOT do it. Not forgetting its poorer opposition hes playing against. Sorry mate, end of.

Connor Rohrer
3 Posted 05/04/2008 at 17:35:25

He’s found his level........simple as.

Robbie Skinley
4 Posted 05/04/2008 at 18:09:18

I rate Beattie, but for whatever reason it didn’t happen here and I don’t think it ever would have the way it was going.
Wish him well and more than happy with his replacement!

Paul Keenan
5 Posted 05/04/2008 at 18:13:38

Have a word. Beattie is crap full stop !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Peter Eastoe
6 Posted 05/04/2008 at 18:10:24

To fair, he did score 21 goals in a single season in the Prem with the Saints. You can’t spawn 21 goals and get capped for England if you are Championship level.
How many goals has David Nugent got in the Prem ?

Looking at Everton’s paucity of strikers at the moment. Perhaps that £4m might not look such a bargain if we freefall out of European qualification ?

James Newcombe
7 Posted 05/04/2008 at 18:22:12

He also had a couple of seasons in the Prem with a poor return for Southampton as well. I was made up when we signed an England International striker, but it just wasn’t going to happen at Everton for him. £4m was a very good price! Good luck to him

Jonathan Smith
8 Posted 05/04/2008 at 18:57:37

Oh my god! ? He?s amazing... let's buy him back!!!!

(Oh how I wish there was a symbol for sarcasm)

Chris Masey
9 Posted 05/04/2008 at 19:49:07

James Beattie - Pie Machine

Gavin Ramejkis
10 Posted 05/04/2008 at 19:53:13

Jigsaw Barlow used to score a bagload in the lower levels... As rightly pointed out, lower level is Beattie's level, he was shite in the top flight with the exception of one season at Southampton, even Blackburn fans I know think he was shite when he started out for them just a lump who barged his way to goal, he offers little to EPL standards as well proven over more than one season at Everton.

Neil Pearse
11 Posted 05/04/2008 at 20:47:20

Selling Beattie provided a down payment on The Yak. Excellent business! One is a top Premier League striker, the other a good Championship journeyman. End of.

Mark Pendleton
12 Posted 05/04/2008 at 20:58:47

Brett Angel was prolific in the lower leagues too. If no-one was scoring goals when Beatts played for us you could point the finger at the supply, but Vic & Vaughany used to play and score and always looked more of a threat than Beatts no matter how we played.

Dick Fearon
13 Posted 05/04/2008 at 22:37:44

Most of his time with Everton was as a lone striker supported by a rubbish midfield.Once his novelty wore off the goals dried up.
Opponents are not stupid, they easily find ways to defend against one trick pony’s.
Mark my words, if we do not come up with a variety of attacking options even Yakubu will hit the wall.

Just recently we saw old man Hypia or relatively inexperienced Skyrtle have the Yak in their pockets.
Ah’ you will say, but he had no back up and that, my friends is precisely the point I am trying to make.

Steve Brown
14 Posted 05/04/2008 at 23:06:10

Dick Fearon, what are you talking about? LFC did not have the Yak in their pocket. EFC did not produce a chance for him. Beattie is not in the same class as the Yak and would probably have scored 5 at the most this season. Beattie always seemed to believe in himself too much. his belief will never carry him through at the top level where as the Yak will score wherever he goes.

Paul ONeill
15 Posted 06/04/2008 at 00:13:02

I liked Beattie, he tried his best most of the time and actually scored a fair few goals for Everton. Some unneeded vitriol here methinks. I think he’s about half way between Champ and Prem level to be honest but I always like to see ex Blues do well so good luck to him. The ’end of’ cliche that some people seem so fond of on this thread is starting to get on my nerves mind...
End Of. (Damn it)

Keith Glazzard
16 Posted 06/04/2008 at 00:19:41

Paul O’, if I was going to say anything, you’ve just said exactly what I would have said. So I won’t, except that I just have.

Got to beat the Rams today, and in some style would be a bonus.

We all know what I mean.

Connor Rohrer
17 Posted 06/04/2008 at 00:24:10

Dick Fearon, Yakubu is twice the player Beattie will ever be. Yakubu had shite midfielders behind him at Boro and still produced the goods. Fact is he has scored goals wherever he has played. In Nigeria, Israel, England, Champions League, Uefa cup and for his national team.

Beattie on the other hand is average. He had a few good seasons at Southampton and that was it. A midfield of Arteta, Cahill, Carsley and Osman isn’t great but its certainly not the worst in the Premier League and the fact that Beattie failed to score a goal in open play in 16 games is terrible. He was an average player plain and simple and thats how defenses got wise to him.

Liverpool’s defense marked Yakubu out the game because of our injury problems. Yakubu was fighting against 4 defenders virtually on his own. Osman was trying to play a role he is incapable of playing, Neville was in midfield and Pienaar and Arteta weren’t in the game. If Cahill or Johnson where up alongside him and we where playing our favored system then Yakubu would have played alot better.

What are you talking about "lack of variety of attacking options" may I ask? Are you saying we don’t have enough different options to supply for the Yak? I disagree. We have Cahill the box to box midfielder, Arteta and Pienaar the creative wide men, Osman the attacking link player and Fernandes the deep lying play maker. Lots of options there in my opinion.

Poor rant on your behalf.

Mark Pendleton
18 Posted 06/04/2008 at 00:38:04

The Shite marked the Yak out of the game because the passes to Yak were awful so he couldn?t make them stick and we dropped deep and isolated him. It?s been Moyes? intent to supplement him with a strike partner or Cahill, both of which have worked, so I don?t think we need worry that he?ll be starved of service and end up like Beattie on an ongoing basis. As for comparisions between the two, I think Beattie was always one who?d have a bit of a purple patch but then every now and then just hit the odd superb strike. Yak is more consistent and will get a steady stream of goal plus the odd superb strike. I?m certainly not against Beatts, far from it, and he did a job for us for a while but in the end he wasn?t good enough to keep us pushing at the level we achieved.

Dick Fearon
19 Posted 06/04/2008 at 02:19:28

Connor R, Mark P, I was not comparing the Yak and JB as individuals. I was drawing comparison with the type of game both are expected to play and how easy it is to defend.
I agree with both of you that when Cahill is available he does offer the kind of support needed by a lone striker.
The derby debacle must surely have made plain that 4 - 5 - 1 minus a Cahill type is not good enough.
How many scoring opportunities did we manage in that game? Speaks for itself eh...

Enoch Ho
20 Posted 06/04/2008 at 07:06:29

James Beattie is a good player, he just needs the service that a quality midfield would give him, which is something he never got here. Something that is still glaringly missing but improving since Pienaar is linking well with Arteta and Osman. Until we have that, all our strikers will continue to underachieve (yes, including Yakubu). Give them a quality midfield that will provide the ammunition and we will start to see the goals flow. A superb midfield engine that will supply and deliver week in, week out is something that all great teams have, and something we need to aspire to.

Eric Myles
21 Posted 06/04/2008 at 07:42:46

I read a story about Beattie in which he said that he attributes his success to something along the lines of having 2 wingers to supply balls to him.

Speaks volumes.

Nick Marsh
22 Posted 06/04/2008 at 08:26:12

Forget about the service to Beattie or the Yak the truth of the matter lies in what they did when a chance presented it self, Beattie always seemed to be missing a lot of chances where as the Yak has scored 19 goals from something silly like 30 chances.

Tony Part
23 Posted 06/04/2008 at 08:47:46

The big difference between the two is that Yakubu is a far more natural finisher. He is one of the most natural finishers I have seen as in the way when he gets a sight of goal I just know its more often than not going to result in a goal. We have waited a long time for that type of striker.

Beattie to his credit stuck to his task and worked harder than people thought he would but he just never looked like being the same player the Yak is. Yakubu is also a far better technical footballer... I remember Beattie did have a few really good seasons at Southampton where he netted a lot of goals but then again you can say that about a lot of players. Kevin Phillips never did it at international level yet he once scored 30 league goals for Sunderland.

I dont blame Moyes for signing Beattie, he looked an appealing buy at the time and he wasn't a total disaster, just not the player we hoped he could have been..Time moves on and I think I was more than pleased last summer that we got £4 million for Beattie so that paved the way for our best striker over the last decade to come in..

Keith Farley
24 Posted 06/04/2008 at 11:01:14

James Beattie was not too outstanding a striker for the Premier League but he was a hell of a lot better than some of the so called strikers Everton have had in the past e.g. Joe Max Moore, Joe Harper, Brett Angell, Stuart Barlow etc. Perhaps he has now found his level and perhaps he is a lot happier at Bramall Lane than he was at Goodison. All that really matters is that the current batch of strikers continue to perform reasonably for the rest of the season or I honestly believe Everton will finish below both Portsmouth and Villa.

Anthony Newell
25 Posted 06/04/2008 at 12:26:33

Although Beattie is not quite Premiership standard and showed he was a complete lummox on many occassions you have to say we never got the best out of him due to persistently playing him up front on his own and supplying shit service (fully agree with the wingers comment Eric). If we persist with this fucking 4-5-1 bollocks Yak will get cheesed off too and I wouldn’t blame him. He has already shown a worring tendency recently to be dropping to the ground like a sack of shit every opportunity and go down down diving - that to me is the sign of a striker who is frustrated. Christ, we have been down this road so many times and have already been draining the life blood out of Johnson this season playing him in the lone striker position with no support (CCup semi second leg comes to mind). Lets see two up front and a 4-4-2 today for gods sake. Stop this negative, defend defend mentality at all costs unless it’s employed at places like Man Utd away

John Roberts
26 Posted 06/04/2008 at 13:00:52

Not much to say except Beattie scored 15 goals in 58 starts for Everton. Roughly 1 in 4. Not good enough at the top level... end of (sorry, couldn’t resist!).

Peter Eastoe
27 Posted 08/04/2008 at 22:01:46

And an 85th minute equaliser in the Sheffield derby tonight. That?s 20 for the season now.
Bet he joins someone like Sunderland or Middlesborough next season?