A "69-yard run" now THAT is accurate reporting!!!

This was the type of performance that exemplifies the Martinez philosophy - in control, always an attacking threat, strong in defence for the most part. Very pleasing.

Did Pardew sniper shot Stones from the Grassy Knoll? Not seen an Everton player that keen to just rub it clean and continue playing since Richard Gough telling the ref to leave him alone he had a game still to carry on with. A great result and one we badly needed to keep the moment going, was really disappointed outside our game with Lee Probert blowing the whistle with De Guzman bearing down on the Arsenal goal with just the keeper to beat.

One game at a time!

If only Martinez can instill those qualities permanently – even if it has to be at the expense of his beloved ticca-tacky – then my belief that our destiny for all time is to be seventh will be proved a myth.

If only.....

I had written 4th spot off but there is perhaps a glimmer. Arsenal however have a considerably easier run in than we do and there is no doubt we will need to beat them at ours and then match or better their results for the rest of the season. A long shot still but definitely more plausible than it looked a month ago.

It was devastating football played with raw pace and agressive attacking play.
We are far better when we cut straight to it rather than pass the ball about just for passing sake, I have always said the passing is beautiful as long as there is some pace to it and end product, well last night there was.

Does anybody think we looked a better side without Mirallas in the team?
I know Deulofeu at times can be simlimar to Kev in that he tries stupid things but for me, Delboy just seems to be more devastating than Mirallas when both are on the peak of their game.

It's going to be a difficult decision for Roberto to make on Sunday but I would stick with Deulofue simply because his confidence will be high, plus lets be honest he is here on loan and we want to see him play.

As Sam says in the above post though, great result last night was, we cannot slip up at Fulham , a Fulham team that has conceded 70, yes SEVENTY goals this season.

This weekend could now be massive in terms of that top 4 place possibly being swung in our favour.
We can pray that Arsenal lose to City but first and foremost we MUST make sure we take care of our business in the early kick off at Craven Cottage.

We are one more positive weekend's results away from a potential barnstormer at home to Arsenal on April 6th.

Last night, we played like Liverpool played against us in the derby and it suited us down to the ground: 'counter-attack football'.

With the big teams still to visit Goodison Park (they will go for it), and the away teams must take the game to us for their fans, we must have a great chance of picking up points playing this way for the remainder of the season. It works for the RS so it can work for us!

We will get in the Champions League because Arsenal are in free fall.

I think Del boy deserves a prolonged run in the team till the end of the season with the other winger spot between Mirallas and McGeady depending on who we're playing.

Hah, thanks, Darren! My initial guess was 70 but then I saw that they'd actually tracked it to 69 yards so I went with that for, well, accuracy :)

Regarding the continued criticism of Lukaku, some of which has been warranted at times, particularly with regard to his movement and hit-and-miss hold-up play: at 20 years old he is not the finished article. In the same way that neither Barkley (20), Deulofeu (20) or Stones (19) are anywhere near complete in their development, he still has plenty to learn, especially when it comes to leading the line on his own.

Is he a £25m player now? Probably not but he certainly could be and while I'd love to keep him, if he keeps his current rate of goals up and we qualify for Europe, I very much doubt we'll have the budget to buy him and the other squad reinforcements we'll need. That's a shame because I'm a big fan of his.

Deulofeu is fantastic...I'd pay 12million for him in a second. He is too greedy, and needs to work on his defensive play, but he is incredibly dangerous going forward, and has world class potential in my opinion. I'd rather see him in the team than any other wide player at the moment, even if it restricts the forward runs of Coleman a little.

Just to be clear, I think we should now finish 6th minimum. Like all other ToffeeWebbers , I shall love it... just love it... if we do better!

Looking at his attitude on the pitch I find it easy to believe that Barca would have to very forcibly dispense with young Gerard before he would consider a future anywhere else. He does appear to be enjoying his time at Goodison though so you can imagine him speaking well of us amongst the wider circle of talented youngsters back in Spain. That itself could lead to interesting opportunities for us in the future.

We could get Del on loan for another season which would be great but I'm sure he was quoted in press somewhere saying he wants to fight for a place in Barcelona next season.

I think we should enjoy what time we have left with them and look forward to seeing who Martinez replaces them with.

As for Lukaku. I thought he was great, conserving his energy for those sprints, and not wasting his power chugging around.

He is a big powerful player, and like a 100metre sprinter, he isn't built for the marathon.

I agree that it was interesting that we played so well without Mirallas.

Deulofeu isn't even close to getting ahead of Neymar or Messi. If we can get a CL shot, I think it highly likely that we can get Deulofeu on a permie after next season with Roberto and his Spanish connections.

Lukaku on the other hand is far more likely to end up playing abroad as Chelsea are unlikely to want to sell him to a club in the same league.

Back to yesterdays game, I'm still hearing about this fantastic performance, and if I'm honest I saw a decent performance, but nothing out of place with how we've been playing for a while.

The only differences I can fathom between yesterdays game and the Chelsea or Spurs game is that our chances went in and theirs didn't. From what I can gather people are conflating 'performance' and 'result', when infact they don't always align.

It wasn’t the blessed ticca-tacky that won the game last night – it never is; it was the three words that started this thread. Pace. Goals. Killer Instinct.

Long may they reign.

The performance last night was excellent, and nothing like recent games. For one, we actually had 'chances'. Not opportunities, not openings, but full blown chances. You've talked a lot recently about missing chances but the only time I can recall thinking 'he really should have scored that' in the past 4/5 away games was Barkley at arsenal, all the others have been decent efforts from range or scruffy opportunities. Last night there were a number of genuine chances where you would expect a goal, including the 3 we got.

Also, you surely must have noticed a massive tactical switch? It was a totally different set up last, geared up to countering at pace. The possession was secondary to the speed of attack for a change. The full backs got forward less, allowing the 3 attacking midfielders more space, and we ceded territory to allow us to counter, rather than defending high up the pitch.

If you can't see the difference between a real vibrant performance like last night and the dull battle of attrition at white hart lane I shouldn't be surprised that you can't see the potential that deulofeu has, but I still am.

ToffeeWebber’s béte noir, Ossie, had his best game for two years and capped a real skipper’s performance with the final, cracking goal.

Will the lads be allowed to play like that on Saturday? I sincerely hope so!

The kid obviously is oozing talent which just needs some proper coaching. Much like the other young uns' at Goodison he wants a successful club and big money which the Blues may be hard pressed to match.

Chelski and Barcelona may want to cash in on that fact in the Summer. A Champions League place may however alter the scenario.

Ross Barkley has not had a single full season yet, whilst Gerard Deulofeu has been in the Barcelona reserve team and had little first team experience before he made a brave bold decision at a young age to come and join us.

It is frightening to think how good Ross and Deulofeu could be in three or four years time.
I recall Christiano Ronaldo look very much the rough diamond in his first two years at Manchester United, but just look at the career he has had.

Then we have the ice cool 19 year old John Stones, again with little first team experience but if this lad is not a future England International I would be amazed.

Romelu Lukaku..20 years old, has had only one full season in the Premier League on loan at West Brom, even then playing mainly as a sub but still managed 17 goals.
Add to his 13 so far this season and his assists then you would have to say for a young guy with not much expperience behind him he is doing pretty good.

I am just slightly sad that we wont see Rom and very probably Gerard Deulofeu progress into even better players in the blue shirts of Everton.

I console myself in the knowledge that nobody could sign Ross Barkley without seriously breaking their bank, you really hope that will never happen though because I don't think the bank would be the only thing broken.
I can imagine Roberto Martinez, who rates Barkley so so much would be extremely saddened.

If we are going to criticise Martinez when its slow and predictable (and we should ) then surely we have to be even handedly and give him the credit when his side have played with pace and a swagger.

I'm a great believer of calling it as you see it. When RM decided he was going with GD he KNEW the kid was not going be content to keep possession, by selecting him RM made a conscious decision to go for the jugular. It worked a treat because he terrified Newcastle so did Barkley and gaps started to appear everywhere. . Ossie thought it was Chrimbo.

It's not about saving face or being right, its about being fair, by being prepared to try a bolder approach RM proved that he has other strings to his bow

10/10 for Martinez last night

No, I'd be reading how we can't defend and how our performance was poor. Anita not scoring was nothing to do with our defending being better and everything to do with his finish being shit.

In truth the performance last night was good and the result was great....but our performances have generally been good, but results poor recently. You wouldn't think that from the way many fans over react.

If you can't remember any real chances from previous games, this just goes to highlight my point that the result is clouding your judgement of the football played over the 90 minutes.

Terry causes confusion in our box in stoppage time at Stamford Bridge and we end up with a Howard own goal, and suddenly the performance at Chelsea was no longer any good and we created no decent chances.

Forget Cech's tip over from Osmans 20 yard strike in the first half, or Cech's stunning reaction save from Osman's strike in the second half that took a nick of Mirallas. No we didn't create masses, but then away to Chelsea neither did they...and thats one of the reasons our performance was good.

At Spurs we also had good chances, with Lloris doing well to stop an Osman volley, one of 4 chances he had within a 10 minute period. But because we lost that game due to an individual error, it was "shit" performance.

Most people who post on here are rarely subjective and able to separate the result from the performance. Martinez has said basically what I'm saying on many occasions, that some of our recent losses have strangely also been good performances.

As for Deulofeu, there are lots of current "superstars" who will not be good enough for Barcelona. I'm not saying he's not going to be a great player. I'm sure he will be one of the top 10 wingers in the world and a regular for Spain, but I still think the chances of him being good enough for the best team in the world are very slim. Sadly as Mike says, he may end up being too good for us too and going to a Chelsea, PSG or Juventus.

Its game on for a CL spot, won't be easy but key players are coming back to form/fitness, so why not.

Of course 'if' we'd conceded two more goals and scored one less then I'd be less happy but that would be because it has a material effect on the performance, nothing to do with perception.

Against spurs they scored with about 35 minutes left and we made their keeper make no saves in that time. If you want to put that down to bad luck then fine, to me it just shows that we didn't actually play that well.

To answer your question more fully, our 3rd goal against Newcastle was from outside the area from what I recall.

Against Chelsea, Osmans 20 yard strike was superb after some brilliant link up play and was heading for the roof of the corner of the net were it not for a good save from Cech. This was not some shitty speculative effort that was made after a long-ball. This was a well worked effort involving good build up play from several players on the left before it was worked infield to Osman....against one of the best teams in Europe.

Mirallas had an effort from about 10 yards out heading for the net, but blocked by a last ditch challenge by a Chelsea player. Jags had a header from the penalty spot go just wide. Importantly we restricted one of the best sides in the league to fuck all chances over a 90 minute period. Our performance was very good bearing in mind the quality of the opposition and the fact that we were without Lukaku.

You say that any goals Newcastle scored would've materially affected our performance and thats where I disagree. Its a subtle point of difference, but I think if we let them in and they don't take their chances because they can't finish, it should still affect our performance. In this case it was just shit finishing by him and we can take no real credit for having not conceded.

Consequentially, the result is largely irrelevant when it comes to determining performance. You can get battered for 90 minutes, your woeful defending only saved by even more shocking finishing and then go up the other end and get a goal in the last minute. You win, but it's still a shit performance. Play like that 10 times and you'll lose it 9 times.

Happened to us against Sunderland too where we battered them with 10 men yet lost. Good performance, but shit result, not that some on here could see that.

Anyway, I'll leave it at that because its clear that you have your opinion, which you're perfectly entitled to, and I have mine which I'm not going to change.

Thing is though. Do we want Champions league? I'd like the fact we've beat one of the so called big boys to it, and it's a big middle finger to the media but we would have little chance of success. Playing in Europa could give us silverware.

I know it's been an iffy ground to win at over the years but that was under Moyes and although like a few teams recently Fulham will be full of fight another performance like last night should be enough to get the points.

Fulham will have to come at Everton and that should suit Delboy and Ross.

If City can win at the Emirates against declining Arsenal then it would be great all around for the Blues.

Absolutely 100% yes!

It's not about our chances of winning the thing, it's about guaranteed millions in TV revenue, exposure, the raised profile of the club, the ability to attract better players. It's our holy grail and the first step towards being able to challenge again for the real Holy Grail!

I think where your argument falls down quite spectacularly is that you're arguing as though I said the Chelsea performance was poor, when in actual fact - as I said on a different thread earlier - I thought it was good. I just thought to say it was 'no different' to last night was rather bizarre as they were totally different, both tactically and in execution. I was quite clear, I thought, that I was talking about the tactical difference with regards to our attacking play.

Of course Chelsea are better than Newcastle, that's why I thought Chelsea was a decent performance despite the result. Similarly I thought the performances at arsenal in December and against Liverpool at home were very good, despite not winning any of them. Conversely I thought wins against Swansea (league and cup), Cardiff and even the 4-1 win against Fulham were not very good. Note that these views do not appear to be influenced by the score line.

You, however, do appear to be suffering from the affliction you're accusing others of. You say Chelsea had 'fuck all chances', which really is selective memory. Howard made an excellent double save from hazard, they had 25 shots, 8 on target and I recall lampard strolling into our box to a position he would score from 90 % of the time only to make a total hash of his effort.

Your point about the 'subtle difference' is also flawed as I still think a 2-1 win would have shown it to be a good performance - you will note I have never said the performance was perfect and therefore conceding 1 goal would not alter my biew of it. Your totally hypothetical scenario where their best chance goes in AND they score again is just pointless as it never looked like happening.

I'd just prefer the scenario of winning Europa, then hitting Champions League the following season a la Mourinho's Porto.

But summer is different. Remember Roberto didn't get the job until June and had to start cold with no preparation, yet his haul was dazzling -- Lukaku, Barry, McCarthy, Deulofeu, Kone (who will still prove out I believe), Alcaraz and Robles. Now think about what he could do in a full summer just on loans, with deals that he is no doubt already laying the groundwork for.

We're nowhere near ready for Europe right now... but if we get qualify, I'll bet the mortgage that Roberto will have us ready by the time the competition starts. Give the man a chance.

I mean, seriously, if you'd said that in the 1980's or most of the 90's you would have been judged insane. We've missed the boat and we need to raise our profile to be able to compete for investment, players, TV time, and world exposure. Otherwise, we're perennial also-rans.

NVNG

(Nothing Ventured Nothing Gained)

Against Spurs and Chelsea, we racked up possession stats and we had a couple of long range efforts, but rarely ( if at all ) did we see the whites of their goalies eyes, we simply were not bold enough. All our work was done in front of their back fours.
Last night we had players driving at the Newcastle defence and getting behind them, they just couldnt cope with it.

We deserved to lose those games at Stamford Bridge and at WHL because ( as we have done on several occasions this season ) we defended free kicks with about as much resolve of Jan Molby in a
cake shop. . . John Terry didnt cause confusion, we shit ourselves. Contrast that to the desire and bravery our lads showed in the face of a Newcastle side reknowned for loading up the box with half a dozen thugs every time they get a free kick or corner.

Tiki Taka does not need to be sacrificed, it merely needs to be complimented with drive and purpose.

I was in Thailand for the pre-season friendly, and whilst you couldn't read anything into it (the Thai U-23 team coped well with the heat/humidity, but we, Bolton and Man City struggled) you could see that the squad was painfully weak.

There was the debacle with Kroldrup - we were out of Europe before he even kicked a ball, and he was moved on again in no time.

Credit to Moyes where it's due for ultimately turning that squad around, but that squad that finished 4th did so more due to the inconsistency and inability of the teams behind us to catch us up.

If you need a reminder, look at our run of results in the 2nd half of that season.

If by some miracle we did finish 4th, we'd be there on merit having got there at the expense of some hugely expensive squads. The starting point would be very different from 2005. (I'm not sure the end result would be any different though!)

I think that ECL qualification would ensure money was made available to RM whilst with the lesser competition he would be expected to make do and mend!

I think that there will not be a lot of extra cash made available by the Board in advance of any CL action. We may not have to sell, and may get enough for one decent signing, but that will be it.

http://metro.co.uk/2014/03/26/why-everton-are-out-of-order-for-signing-so-many-loan-players-4679258/

Basically loans are fine as long as the players aren't any good, now get back in your box little Everton.

If we were 8th/9th you wouldn't hear a peep, but because we are doing well people are now looking more closely why a team with a negative net spend can outperform Spurs who have spent £100m.

If we do manage to make it to the CL, it will be even sweeter doing it with 3 or 4 loan players. I hope Troare can get fit to score the winner to take us there in the final game. (That's not to say our owners are a bunch of useless twats like.)

Love it!!

We now await the official club response and Twitter meltdown, and collapse of the economy.

Tikki-takka as needed, counter-attacking as needed.

It's encouraging that he has been tinkering with the team and tactics as injuries and form have changed too. We've had to muddle through a bad period without Ross, Lukaku and Deulofeu...our best attacking players. It's certainly a shame that two of those are loans, I'd buy either in a heart beat.

Interesting that we have been getting Stones over Alcaraz but good for the future.

If only we had a precocious young striker and keeper, we'd have the spine of a new team !