Toothless loss not helped by Zouma's late madness

Trying to crowbar an expensive tug boat into the formation that worked well in the first half the other night. Just when you see a glimmer of light with Silva, it's snuffed out.

I've had enough of this. I'm seriously considering watching the Rugby instead.

Rubicon crossed.

Or is one of Davies or Gomes out wide?

Or is it a completely different formation?

4-4-2?

Clearly today it's about being even more boring and uncreative and hoping to sneak a deflected goal or free-kick and sneak a victory. Yeah, right!!

4-1-1-1-1-1-1.

Tosun is no good at holding the ball up and is too slow to run on to things. Richarlison is an out-and-out left-sided player so who is playing right wing... Sigurdsson? If we're playing a 4-3-1-2, that makes us very narrow.

I just can't see it but hope I'm wrong. We really need the 3 points from this one.

I'm clearing out my garage. Enough shit there without looking for more and the lucky Redshite on Radio 5. Deep joy.

Some steel throughout the side and some nice football as well.

Kenny and Davies continue to impress. Keane and Zouma comfortably winning the aerial challenge. Digne OK. Good block on Deulofeu's shot. Gueye having another great game, not least of all some very slick passing. Even Richarlison looks better than he has in recent weeks, but he still needs to man up rather than roll over and play dead, even on the plays when the foul is called.

Gomes for me continues to be the weak link in midfield. Not strong in retaining possession when he gets on the ball. Doing very little with it when he does get a pass off.

Sigurdson similar, but still getting off better passes than Gomes. A mixed bag from Tosun. Good shot that forced Foster into a save, but it does annoy me when he gets called from coming back from an offside position, thus halting a promising attack.

Three points are there if you want them, Everton.

Wish I shared your optimism but I'm watching a pile of shite. It doesn't look like we've got a goal in us and people saying we are crying out for a top class striker... Where would the service come from?

Thats it.. club hurling game is on. Sod this.

Siggurdsson has been shite for weeks. He tries to play like a Bergkamp / Sheringham, but he’s just NOT in that class. He kills the shape of the team, and makes us one dimensional.

Walcott has also been shite for months too, yet he’s clearly a favourite. Tosuns has two good games all year and offers nothing in a struggling team. Cant get Gomes fit to last an hour.

Other than the kids who where already in first team he hasn’t tried or managed to bring in one.

Set pieces are like sunday league, but less organised.

Enough is enough, give Unsworth another go, or i’d even accept Moyes as a stop gap if we have to. We need passion and fight, and Silva is a damp squib.

Nah, you can't build a team around ambition. Best throw money at mercenary players and managers because they wouldn't cost money unless they were worth it I'm sure.

When is the last time we lost three league games in 7 days?

Worst strike force I’ve seen at this club since the days of Bakayoko.

Midfield is made up of just nobodies with no real Premier League quality on show.

We can’t keep a clean sheet, can’t score goals.

If I was sticking my neck out right now I’d say we will struggle to win another game this season because I can’t see any team out there other than Huddersfield currently worse than us.

Cannot believe anyone could defend this shambles now!

And to say who else do we get in? Anyone barring this joker

Watford scored from the one class pass of the entire game. The excellent one touch lay-off by their centre back kept the cleared ball from a corner alive and opened the right flank of our defence for the cross and finish.

There were good individual performances. The back four was mostly solid with our two centre backs winning everything in the air. Neither Digne nor Kenny were stretched - Kenny was superb in defence and attack and had Deulofeu in his pocket all game.

Tom looks to have returned to the form he showed in his debut year. Gueye was immense, but Gomes, Sigurdson and Richarlison peripheral and all 3 understandably substituted.

Walcott did very well when he came on (possibly not a popular thing to say on TW) and it was an obvious tactic to use his pace to get in behind their defence which almost paid dividends.

Bernard flickered and DCL did OK, but he and Tosun had great scoring chances in the dying minutes. Even though Tosun was called offside for his chance, he doesn't know that and still has to bury that kind of opportunity.

Not pretty. Another loss. But there was more fight and spirit in the team than we've seen in most games since early December.

And despite the calls for his head, I doubt Moshiri is going to go back on what he said 5 days ago and sack Silva tonight. But today's defeat is one less game for him to save his job at the end of the season.

Rhino stretching out in readiness for stint three

Do we wait until the end of the season to part company? - at the moment I cannot see where a next point is coming from??

I think drastic (but again costly ) measures are required now...

We are going backwards, and we cannot afford to be cast further adrift. If Silva is still here come the summer, then he could still be here in October - and we could be in dire straits by then. We saw it with Martinez and Koeman. Get rid now, and get someone else in to spend the rest of the season trying to build some semblance of recovery; at least that way it gives us a chance of hitting the start of next season running.

There are some people who always cite the Howard Kendall turnaround in 1984. Other than that, and Sir Alex Ferguson at Man Utd in the 1989/90 season, I cannot think of managers who are on the verge of disaster and turn it round. It's very rare. What is common is continuing to be rubbish and eventually getting the sack. I'm for sacking him now.

Anyone will do compared to this one-dimensional clueless football.

Embarrassing times. Cardiff? I for one am not looking forward to that game.

Stop looking at Everton's results in insolation as if we are in a direct fight with Cardiff for relegation.

There are eight other teams between us and Cardiff. They ALL need to go on title winning form to overhaul us before we topple into the bottom 3.

It ain't gonna happen. Save yourself the angst every week.

But if we continue like this into next season, all bets are off!

Would any manager leave their current job to step up? Unlikely I think. It would have to be someone who's available, or give Silva the rest of the season which is what will happen.

We needed to be more compact and play counter attacking football. We needed the pace of DCL, Richarlison and Lookman or Walcott from the start.

Gana and Davies played well and we're combative closing them down but it's the next phase that we lack. We either go backwards or give the ball away.

I'd rather they mix it up and whack it forward 30 yards for our forwards to chase down the channels.

Now a much needed break to work on the tactics and back to basics defending and attacking. Everyone in 9an until 6pm 7 days a week training and getting some much needed discipline.

I wish I had more confidence in those running the club but they are a major part of the problem. Moshiri: wealthy but clueless about football; Barrett-Baxendale: good with charities but clueless about football; Kenwright: good for fuck all.

Brands is our only hope. I worry about him too.

Oh God come to our aid, Oh Lord make haste to help us.

Under Moyes, you always felt away from home if we were level at half time, then we would not be beaten and might get the result. Now, you almost feel if we are not ahead at HT then you know we are going to concede just like Brighton, Saints and others!

DCL and Tosun both had criminal misses there at the end of the match that any striker should be at least hitting the target with.

Other than that, same old shite from the whole club. Only ones who seem to be really giving it their all are Bernard and Zouma.

I mentioned prior to the Southampton game we needed to win that and at Huddersfield as our home games were horrendous. I thought we would have a chance against Wolves and Burnley.

If we were to get any points I thought it would be away... now I just can’t see anything anywhere!!

I may we’ll have been waving the white flag but I bet there’s a lot more flag wavers tonight

Just wish this transition would hurry up and finish. It’s been going since 1987

2.I would bring in Billy Kenny to talk to the team about how fragile a football career can be.

3.I would ban Kenwright for life from entering Goodison Park.

4.I would give life bans to anyone who says bring in Arteta as manager since he has zero experience and is a traitor

Silva is possibly the worst manager we've ever had, the weakness in his character transfers through to the players on the pitch – we look as lost as he does. How was he ever considered for the job?

There has not been much positive development since Ferguson came in as head coach. We are not even close to scoring and look completely toothless.

Jenas was right on MotD, we are a nothing club now, no identity.

I've got no answers to this decline (very steep decline) I hope someone at the club has.

"Kurt Zouma sent off in the tunnel after the match. Ugly scenes here on a terrible day for Everton. I'm hearing he bit referee Lee Probert. Absolutely no place for that in the sport. Can't wait to hear what Silva has to say about this..."

I cannot see where the the wins or draws are going to come from, can you?

As soon as we concede the game's over. It's pathetic. Yes we had a couple of chances at the end with Tosun missing a sitter but every time we concede first not one ounce of me thinks we can get back into it.

I think it's 4 wins in 15 or 16 now. That's just unacceptable no matter who the manager is or how long they've been there. I know for a fact that if Sam was in charge and presided over a similar run we'd be hounding him out right now. 11 points picked up since the derby. Only Fulham and Huddersfield have picked up less. We're a mid-table side in relegation form being flattered in the top half by a poor league.

His tactics are shocking, his subs are ridiculous. Why is he still going with Walcott? He's nothing short of useless and has been for months. We may as well just go down to 10 men whenever he comes on. Waiting until Watford were basically comfortable before bringing Calvert-Lewin on. Taking Richarlison off seconds after conceding? What's that all about?

How much time does he need before we admit that he's an absolute charlatan and we get rid? Our form is indefensible, the performances are unacceptable, the season is over, we passed up probably the best chance we'll ever get of getting to Wembley this season with that Millwall shambles. We're a joke. Silva's a joke.

Moshiri is a joke as well. Footballing wise he's an embarrassment. Knows fuck all and his decision making has been disastrous. Don't think those players escape criticism either. I am sick to death of them. No leaders, no one takes responsibility or gives a shit unless they're basically encouraged to.

I can't believe we were prepared last November to pay £15m in compensation to get Silva after a few decent games. A relegation and a sacking after jacking it in essentially is a record that should see someone nowhere near our club yet people were making out that he was ‘a world class coach' and the next Mourinho.

If you appoint shite you're going to get shite. Watford fell away just as badly as we are now and they got rid. Their fans warned us when we got him about how stubborn he was, how he couldn't set up a defence and that he can't turn around a poor run of form and look what's happened. They were spot on.

It is the besetting delusion on this site that we are a club just waiting to claim our birthright and not a club which has been on the slide now for a long, long time. But dream on by all means.

Or perhaps you were talking about my concluding prayer. In which case, there is no logic at all.

Someone say it isn't so!

Sacking Silva? Who the fuck of any pedigree would in their right mind come to manage Everton? We've had 5 managers in 4 years FFS! We're going to have to stick with Silva for at least another 2 years.

The club's transfer policy has been a thunderous disaster. Over £300m? Not one has been a raging success so far. Most have talent; however, talent is nothing without application, hard work and character. Things that the current team is lacking in abundance.

Yes, it's Silva's job to motivate and decide tactics; however, if a player doesn't have the character and application, then his job is akin to teaching a national winning racehorse to tap-dance.

I'm afraid we're going to have to suck it up and hope we can sign some players with winning mentality and character, and hope Silva can tactically get the team back together. Remember for the first 3 months of the season we played some good attacking attractive football. We can only hope that returns from next season.

I couldn't care less what has been spent. Its a net spend of about £80 million in 4 years and people wonder why we are worse.

Sell one top striker and throw 4 big wages in there without replacing him. Absolute shocking.

Cardiff - Everton 0p (maybe 1p)
Everton - Liverpool 0p
Newcastle - Everton 0p (maybe 1 p)
West Ham - Everton 0p
Everton - Arsenal 0p
Fulham - Everton 1p (this can go either way)
Everton - Man U 0p
Crystal P - Everton 0p (maybe 1p)
Everton - Burnley 3p (we can loose points here)
Spurs - Everton 0p

He will now be out of action until the derby.

Any sign of Mina around Finch Farm.

Please say it ain't so. Please!

As soon as he came out with Calvert-Lewin and Lookman being the envy of every Premier League club, I stopped taking him seriously, another spin doctor.

I'm convinced we have been overtaken by with Kopites or a sect in the Illuminati that simply have a sole objective of destroying this club.

This team will not win again unless there is a major change as in the coach being sacked. It is madness sticking with this bloke, he has reverted to form and gone on a run which must be one of the worst in the league.

The players have no belief and even with this match and the pre-match banter can't even muster a result. This league is too hard for us presently.

If neither Jags nor Mina ever regain match fitness, logic suggests Feeney should play the next game. Therefore, with Silva in charge, I guess we will see Walcott at centre-half.

That's about as good as it got, second half they came more and more into it, so it was only a matter of when they would score. I expected them to get more than one to be honest, but scant consolation if you could call it that, when it's another three points gone begging really.

I can't see us getting many more points with the games ahead, and we may as well be leaderless, with that clueless charlatan at the helm. I still hope he will resign, but his arrogance tells me he will hold on like those before him and get a Lottery win pay-off.

If Moshiri thinks he's made a mistake, he should rectify it, but only when he and Brands think carefully about who they want to/can get next.

Other clubs have gone through a few managers before getting the right one, looks like we're no different.

Brendan Rogers? Really?

We needed fresh impetus in January, we needed a short term Kevin Campbell or Brian McBride type signing, someone to score a few goals to get us to safety.

Yes safety, because we ARE definitely in danger now of getting sucked into that relegation mire, looking at the fixtures and our form.

The Cardiff game is simply astronomical and a game we dare not lose.

I would love Unsworth to step up but I just don't think he has it in him and I don't think the players did last time around.

I can't get my head around Marco and his decisions.

Why does he start to play Tosun after he had already binned him ?

Why does he keep going back to Walcot over Lookman ?

Why does he often decide to take our only 2 goalscorers off when we are behind, even though there replacements have let him down time and time again ?

Why doesn't he ever change the game from the sidelines for the better ?

Why are we still zonal marking ?

Yes I am all for giving managers a chance, but Silva looks like he hasn't got the solutions and he's looking to me like a man who doesn't really want to find them.

I'm wondering does he actually want sacking ?

We are a poor outfit, the keeper is a typical English player who is over rated, City fans called him a shit Joe Hart, it's stuck with me all week, are they right ?

We can't find a solution to goal scoring, we done ok with Richalison up top and imo if he had Bernard, Lookman and Siggy behind we would get some goals were as were back to getting none.

No wonder he didn't sell Gana, we would be a lot worse without him.

I'm totally void of ideas how Marco Silva sorts out our many issues, his main plus point for me was his signings were working but even they aren't at it now.

Bernard is in and out every other week, Richalison has had a dip in form, Gomes isn't what he was at the start and Yerri Mina is almost like a myth, only Digne is working out.

Won't be long before he's booted if he doesn't sort out some of our many issues.

I do not believe there is a difference of managing people, rich people, stars or loosers. I believe either you are good at motivating people or not. This I think is one of the strength Unsworth have.

Surely not, after the Sewer Rat Suarez fiasco!

The referee wasn't that bad at the end of the day!

The fact he threw a hissy fit and demanded a transfer to Arsenal on transfer deadline day so weak @$$ Bill bowed to his wishes and let him leave.

All in all a terrible game by two poor teams. We created virtually nothing of note although to be fair neither did they. I thought the starting eleven was unbalanced with no natural wide man to go along with the ineffective Richarlison. It showed in the play with us being quite narrow. It's hard to actually pick out players who were worthy of the shirt today. Tom did ok, not great but ok as did Digne and JJK. As to the rest, well far below what we should expect. Just very poor and I expect a serious mauling when we play the RS. I'm not sure where we go at this point. I can't see Silva being sacked before the end of the season but I also don't see how this dreadful run of 10 defeats in the last 16 is going to end. To those who say the effort is there, I'm not so sure. If maximum effort is there then you should be harassing the opposition to make mistakes at the very least but we very rarely do. We are second best to lost headers and picking up second balls, we create next to nothing and still give away stupid goals by switching off, today prime example when you've got a Watford player in the 6 yard area completely unmarked.

I've never known us to be so rudderless. It's a shambles. This is no better than the death throes of Martinez. I find myself saying the same things like no effort, no professionalism, rubbish football that sucks all the life and joy out of you. I'm not concerned about relegation, there are too many other rubbish teams in the division but if something is not done then next season will be a real problem.

Then who is our best manager prospect I don't know. But it is better to let Unsworth take over now and think about it than it is to let Silva continue.

Its as if the 90% or so of the games utter dross (before he even came on) didnt happen and we should focus on the young substitute.

The center halves were once again crap. The goalie all over the shop, the midfield pedestrian, the "creative" Icelander contributing nothing, The dazzling Brazilian embarrassing, club, fans and team with his appalling attitude... but fuck all that, lets single out the 21 year old late sub again.

Genius

Silva is done, the players have decided. his mind funk is all over this team, none of them really have an idea how far apart from each other they should be, who breaks lines and who sits. Every week it’s the same confused game plan with nothing coming from the sidelines.

We haven’t had a good 90 minutes since Silva has been in charge including cup games against dross, friendlies against dross and our league games.

Moshiri is ruthless but he will save face with this and use Brands to take a bullet and shift Marco. Moshiri, being an extremely successful businessman should now know that football decisions should be completely out of his and uncle Bills hands from now on. These 2 are equally to blame for our 3 years of underachieving.

He (Arteta) didn't throw a hissy fit. We desperately needed money when Arteta was sent down south. I remember that as a sad day, but one that was certainly more agreeable with Everton and Arteta than you're recalling.

I don't see Mikel Arteta as a "traitor" at all and Bill didn't bow to his wishes - Bill was selling Mikel no matter what because he needed the dosh.

We are spiralling out of control and close to becoming an Aston Villa.

In fact anybody but this tosspot.

Panicked and brought Sam in, instead of giving Unsworth a few more games to turn it round.

A refreshing change from the last three years of dross plus the actual results speak for themselves

Remember all you unconvinced ones be careful what you wish for

People calling for Unsworth to be given the job til the end of the season really make me wonder. In his last stint as caretaker, he got wins against a dreadful Watford and totally abject West Ham. Add to that people keep talking up how great a job he's doing with the u/23s. To what end product? How many of those players are coming through? The jury is still very much hung on Davies, Kenny has had two good games, and the rest either get loaned out or don't make the grade.

Why? Because he's from Barcelona !! Que?

I was just about to ask the same rhetorical question.

Does anybody on TW not think it's time to grab the pitchforks and torches?

Not will he go, as that probably won't happen until summer, but surely he should go?

Is there anyone out there who thinks Marco Silva should not be replaced?

After today's debacle how anyone defend his position now. The fans must be heard loud and clear that he is simply not good enough. Yes of course players are failing our club massively and this summer there has to be a serious purge of what I have consistently called the shirkers and the cowards.

Ask yourself this: would any of those so-called players be afraid of Silva in the dressing room? I cannot see our mis-manager instilling fear or respect among any of them.

He has to go and the sooner the better. If it means bringing in a sincere servant of Everton football club in the guise of David Unsworth, so be it. But if we are tied to Silva until this empty, painful season is over then at least let us all band together and see that he gets shown the exit door from Goodison the second the summer break begins.

And even if, miracles never cease, we were to get something against the Kopites in a couple of weeks time I still don't believe it would be enough to save Silva's job. Measured against the entire campaign his performance has been awful.

I never thought I was would say this but he has turned out to be an even worse manager for us than Martinez.

From the Echo day after Arteta left:

"Having rejected a £10m bid earlier in the day from the Gunners, Everton were compelled to later accept the offer when Arteta expressed his desire to leave."

Traitor

Henry McDonald, to be fair, Walcott came on at 0-0.

Maybe I would be more sympathetic to the traitor if he had ever shown up in a big game or allowed anyone else to take the corners that he wasted for six years. He thought he was too good for the club. he achieved nothing. He is a clown and I do not understand why anyone even mentions his name.

Anyone who thought Unsworth could wave a magic wand in the limited time he had last season havemore belief than me.

But I certainly think Unsworth would do a better job until the end of the season, than Silva will.

As far as feeling sorry, let me cheer you up. ;0)

I just had a look at the form table. Over the last 6 games we are 15th, 2-0-4, with 6 points from 6 games. That's a point a game and 38 point pace for a season.

So the good news is all this talk of us being relegated is unadulterated nonsense! We're playing absolutely shit, but even playing absolutely shit like this would still most likely see us safe!

Because under Marco, that's going to be our new barometer for success - safety.

That's what you would think, but given the new look of the table and the way we're playing, 48 hours can be a long time in football !! (or is that politics?).

Well done Everton. Genius

Always knew Tosun and DCL were full of enough goals

It's not working with Silva, if we go back into the market now we'll only be asking for fat Sam again to save us and all his conditions attached (or someone like him).

If we go with Unsworth can he really do a worse job than Silva? I don't think this it is such a sentimental choice, it's also a good business one, he'll take the job with now strings attached.

If we don't stick and decide to twist, I'd go with Unsworth.

Not good enough, we will finish where we belong, about 15th .

I will bang on about it until we get a striker . We sold A 25 GOAL A SEASON STRIKER AND NOW WE HAVE NOTHING .

Sorry those caps came on by accident, but I'm leaving them . God did it.

Until we have a striker who can provide goals, some respite, put some fear into the opponent and provide a bit of extra motivation for the rest of the team we are going nowhere .

We are too soft, too easy to play against, no threat, our forward line was just bouncing off Watford players all the game .

We have to stick together and get the club over the line for this season. But if Mr Brands though he was getting somewhere in August he needs to press the reset button because this chronic play cannot go on much longer.

Next game we should play Virginia in goal, include Kenny and Feeny in defence, Davies and Lookman midfield and DCL up front. Let’s get rid of all these overpaid overhyped so called senior pros who are shite

Hissy fit / ask to leave potato potato. My point is that there is no basis for this drive to bring a one time player as boss who won nothing and has no experience. He is no Everton legend and is not a manager

Six points from 11 games. That’s genuinely all I can see based on Silva staying and our shite, over paid gutless joke of a squad combining to get us into a relegation fight. We are nine points ahead of Southampton and I get what you are saying about the nine teams between us and them but from Saints up who is playing worse than we are ? Who looks more disorganised than us ? Who looks to have less fight in them ? Who has the worse manager on this seasons form ?

Ok, we may scrape nine points but something big will have to change to see that happening.

Silva looks every inch as hapless at this point as Koeman, and Martinez. Allardyce, frankly, looked better than either of them and yes his football was grim and his gob worse, but really, how can any of the haters say he and Lee were worse than Silva or Koeman or Martinez ? The results are unimaginably bad. There is not an inch a bloody inch .of progress and really I see that most of the “we are going in the right direction” and “it’s transition” club have withdrawn to their safe place.

The biggest problem isn’t Silva, it’s the owner who remains a very decent guy with loads of money and not a clue how to run the footballing side of a premier league club. He’s moved Brands into the driving seat too late methinks. But regardless, the decision not to strengthen up front in January may have pleased all our “sensible” supporters but the evidence is crystal clear, it was the wrong call, and even if we do, as remains likely I suppose, escape relegation, the impact of that fight and freefall collapse will do terrible damage to our club in the summer transfer market.

The only progress is winning.

If we lose to Cardiff which is by no means impossible and the result against the dark side I don't want to think about, we will well and truly be in the quick sand.

I hope someone at Fawlty Towers has a plan B?

John Cleese for manager?

take ex-Barca Manuel on loan ?

There are conflicting reports at the moment, but from what I am gathering it was in the Tunnel after the game was effectively over.

So basically I am saying how can that happen, if that is the case?

Maybe Moshiri and Brands already have someone on standby, given Silva's record it would be foolish not to, but this is Everton and normal rules don't apply.

They played to 1-1 and in extra time scored to win in the end 2-1.

They were outplayed. The must have had to defend 20 corners, and they gave away so many silly fouls in dangerous positions it was laughable.

But they fought like warriors. Our high school is a bit of a power house in soccer, and losing is just not acceptable in its own way.

I watched these girls run and defend like their lives depended on it. They just wouldn’t allow themselves to lose.

And I sat there thinking if Everton showed half the desire as these high school aged girls did, I’d be happy.

That’s just sad.

Yes mate, spot on!

Have you noticed the other similarity with our beloved club?

I feel sure our manageress's could easily swap roles !

The Cardiff game is 17 days away. That's 17 days for Silva to come up with a new plan and sort out set the set piece issues. We're currently 9 points off the relegation zone and a lot of the teams below us play the weekend before the Cardiff game so we could potentially be even closer going into that game. A loss there and other results going against us could see us in a perilous position and then we go into the derby with everyone below us having already played that weekend so who knows where we'll be. All this is worst case scenario but it's not beyond the realms of possibility seeing as only the bottom 2 clubs are in worse form than us. Everyone below us is slowly catching up with us. The board and Silva will know this. I'm pretty sure he'll be called into Moshiri's office on Monday to explain how he's going to fix everything. I think he'll be given these 17 days to work on it all. Or just sacked.

At the end of the day we are only the loyal fans who have supported them through good times (for those of us with good memories) and bad, Board Members come and go, as with Managers and players alike, but we can dispute amongst ourselves until we're blue in the face, they will make the decisions as they see fit.

It is infuriating that the ones who care the most, are the ones putting money in and taking nothing out have no say whatsoever.

I don’t know what to think anymore. I’m like most Evertonians - apathetic, trance like state with no answers left. What right now is Brands thinking? Tonight, is he telling those close to him that Silva has his backing and he believes he is the man? Or, is he telling those same people that Silva is a pile of shite who will be going as soon as he can line up a replacement? Who fuckin knows, and whose to say Brands has got a clue either? Let’s be honest, if Brands turns out to be a dud, we are well and truly fucked.

The club is run from top to bottom by LOSERS, and sad to say, some posters on here seem to accept, the mediocrity and settle for, " well we are making a better effort", and we broke sweat so must be improving blah blah blah..
Nobody is taking responsibility for this Shambles, all we hear is one lame excuse after another, we hired and bought shite, and some people wonder why we play shite . Amazing...

This Management team has to go, and GO now.
NSNO

Those players haven't suddenly become poor overnight, but are clearly lacking in confidence and leadership, where does that responsibility lie? With the manager of course!

To use an analogy a good Tradesman can still fashion something from a poor set of tools, a bad Tradesman can have the best tools available and still produce a monument of shit!

I suggest that the latter case is Silva to a T! Don't throw away the tools in a fit of pique, but some how replace the poor Tradesman, with someone who knows what they are doing.

Those who thought after our cup exit we had nothing to play for this season may yet be proved right. Those who thought we should have kept Allardyce for this season have already been proved right. Defeats at Cardiff and in the derby will see the panic button come into view.

If given this huge amount of time he cannot beat Cardiff, a team of cloggers, what point is there? This is an unprecedented amount of time to spend with the squad at this point on the season.

If not, what hope given 17days, can he be expected to turn a ream around 3/4 days later?

I have ordered a hot towel to clean the egg from my face, after I had confidently predicted an improved points haul in the second half of this season, following the sad defeat to our neighbours in December.
I know nothing. However Everton will always be the only club for me, divorce is not an option. COYB.

I doubt we will be relegated, so why not appoint David Unsworth until the end of the season? Give him a few more games than last time, see how he performs, then take stock.

Silva will not be sacked this season UNLESS we get a hammering from the red shite at our place.
Moshiri has spent too much money to have to start again, but if the above happens he may find he has no choice., and he does like a headline.

For all the doubts a lot of us have / had about Silva, the man is not responsible if players do not take very clear chances, Calvert Lewin should have scored and so should Touson ( doesn't matter if it was offside ) that should have been buried in the net.

You could argue it is all down to confidence for players missing chances like these two today so ultimately that is down to the manager and coaches, but for fuck sake, I would have scored the Touson chance.

Also, Deeney I thought got away with two bad fouls early on and given what he was raving about kicking the shit out of us, the referee was very weak to say the least - he should have been booked long before he was which is Zouma was losing his rag.

There is no belief in the team, the defenders clearly do not trust Pickford and this is part of the problem with set pieces.

It's the same every time as Silva throws on his subs and the team resort to hoofball, but even then our buffoons up top can't get anything on target.

I watched Silva's interview in BBC online and he doesn't make any sense. He went straight down the tunnel and missed Zouma's rant at the ref and only has Zouma's word that he saw one yellow, but not the second. It's an utter shambles. If this is how the coach communicates then it is no wonder that the team look bewildered. He makes Martinez look like Stephen Fry.

I want to see him sacked tonight. Any muppet could do better. He seems unable to get them fired-up, his selections are patchy and he still persists on one up top when both incumbents need help.

I can tolerate mistakes but not the same mistakes every week.

For whatever reason Silvas stubbornness is going to get him sacked. If or when it happens he can blame nobody but himself.

As the, to some, anti-Christ, Allardyce said we have to get some clean sheets and build from that. Right now Silva wants to play like Keegans Newcastle without scoring!

With relatively little in the way of personal financial resource, when compared to those running the majority of larger clubs, he managed to steady the ship and took on huge financial risk by remortgaging his house to raise funds to acquire Johnson's shareholding.

Despite the lack of any significant funds available to invest in the team, he was, with Sir Philip Carter and others, able to preserve Premier League football for the supporters with the appointment of David Moyes to succeed Walter Smith as manager. The club could quite easily have gone the way of Leeds, Sheffield Wednesday, Birmingham City, Sunderland etc without his stewardship.

The position the club finds itself in now cannot sensibly be attributed to Bill Kenwright. He brought in Farhad Moshiri, with his substantial financial clout, wanting only the best for the club. Recent management appointments and signings have proved ill-judged but we are where we are with the present situation.

In view of the poor performance of the present incumbent, it's imperative now that the search for a new manager is commenced, is extremely rigorous and if necessary lengthy. There are many suitable candidates for a caretaker role who are capable of achieving the points necessary to secure Premier League safety.

Time is of the essence and delay over concerns about compensation for contract termination may prove financially disastrous if, by any chance, however seemingly remote, we fall through the trap door into the Championship.

This won't make me popular on here.

I do wonder what would have happened if the club had of come to another conclusion about Sam Allardyce.

Along the lines, he's kept us up, we're stable, it's unlikely he'll get us relegated, let's give him a season.

I thought all he really lacked was a forward, his tactics weren't the most adventurous but sound, I think he'd have done better than Silva, given the chance he might of opened up a bit and gone on to the offensive.

Everything I've said is nullified by the fact that these days clubs generally don't put huge bundles on the table to spend unless they think they have the right superstar potential manager. They would never have done this for Sam.

Although they've done it three times now with Bobby brown shoes, Ronnie K and Silva and got it wrong.

Just know you’re history before lauding it – a deep cancer at the club, clinging on like some titanic leech. Get rid of him and the rest of the crap, including Silva, and see if we can salvage something out of this train wreck.

It really is desperate isn't it?

What on earth has gone wrong? What has turned Richarlison into a pathetic shadow, Bernard (who was great in the derby) into an erratic duffer, Gomes into a shell of himself? And so on and so on.

Fear is the answer, we are stuffed with it, it's always there in this club waiting for us whenever we get too excited, like rising damp. Fear of the critical moment. How do you fix that? You need nasty, ruthless winners and we have none. Even with such players, we are a long way off, I know, but the fans would live with that if they saw hardness of mind and toughness of spirit.

I suppose you might say that the people at the top of the club are indeed ruthless winners given the money they have gained from their involvement or expect to gain – Kenwright most disgracefully; the greedy, useless, fraudulent bastard. Their bank accounts are full and our trophy cabinet stays empty.

As for the bulk of the players, they are are a continuing embarrassment; let us not hear from these shameless fuckwits about how much they care. They really, really don't care a jot. That is why I think the fans should back Silva: he shares their desire to win even if he's currently struggling to deliver. Can the same be said of the players or the idiot board who have failed to provide a walking, talking centre-forward for two years?

Fuck them all. The fans are, to borrow a phrase, lions led by donkeys.

Neil Warnock – love him or hate him – is a war torn savvy football vet and will know how to set about Everton. They are in a fight for survival whilst we seem to think we are safe. You can guess the rest of the script.

I am dreading 26 February… At least it's not on TV

The fella’s occupancy has been done to death on here so I think you need to trawl through the various debates. This is my favourite video of him: lying through his teeth..

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G7HQFLkxr2g

I'd have him back in a heartbeat over Silva. They'd atleast show some fighting spirit.

That team that beat us tonight is a championship team having a lucky run. And it's this that we now have to be to survive, we have to fight like a championship team.

Our dandies, Richarlison and Walcott etc aren't doing for us, it's now a straight fight.

We have to start worrying about what's below us and forget about what's happening above.

Lose two more and we're well and truly in it.

And now we after getting our dream of a billionaire owner to take us to new height’s we are a total mess!

How has this happened??

Anything worth a try now.

I'm nervous about the table and our up coming fixtures, I just can't see where the points are coming from.

He can't be any worse than Richarlison.

Another option might be (try not to laugh too much!) Siggy, he's a big lad, he knows where the net is and might make a nuisance of himself?

Only a game or so ago, plenty of were posters stating, "at least we won't be relegated", "at least we are safe", etc. My own incredulity began before this guy was even appointed.

It was incredulous, given his record in the Premiership, that he was even considered for the job. It was even more incredulous that he actually got the job.

It was even more and more incredulous (given his relegation with his first club and relegation form with his second) that he was appointed with the possibility of a points deduction in the future.

And now a lot of us have forgotten that possible scenario. I may be wrong (maybe someone could fill us in?) but to date I have heard nothing official from the Premiership, stating that the possible points deduction aspect is closed and will not happen.

Or am I being too 'negative' again?

It was only two games ago I wanted to give him until the end of the season, He's hung onto Zonal marking and is basically playing the same tactics with minor changes.

I just thought (naively) that he would take a step back and think "I have to do something different here.", but he hasn't.

Tom, the players have to take some of the blame also.

One day and that may well be soon the fanbase of this club might ALL finally wake up and realise we should of treated him like Tricky Dicky Nixon and hounded him the fuck out of OUR club.

Jeez whatever happened to the 'Blue union'
Oh I know they ran headlong into the thick brick wall of the apethetic.

I would not be surprised in the least if Cardiff stayed up, they are starting to put a run together, and pulling off some hitherto unexpected wins.

I never liked Allardyce, and made my feelings known on that, but in retrospect, yes we would have been better sticking with him, as he is still effectively being paid until the end of the season, as opposed to this charlatan we have now. Never, ever thought I would say that!

It's easy to be wise in retrospect though isn't it? We have all done it in our lives in one way or another. The difference being that we have control of our own decisions, rightly or wrongly, but we are all united in supporting Everton, in which we have little or no say at all!

We need a top class striker, why can't they see the obvious? . We finished 5th when we had one .

season 2013/14 Lukaku 16 goals
season 2014/15 Lukaku 20 goals
season 2015/16 Lukaku 25 goals
season 2016/17 Lukaku 26 goals

It is clear as daylight !, why cant the board see it ?, no more wingers or no 10s ! buy an inspirational striker .

Until that happens, expect more of the same.

Desperate times!

I'd play Unsworth upfront if I thought his beer belly wouldn't get in the way too much!!

I find it hard to see much hope for Silva’s long-term future as Everton manager, though even now, I hope I’m wrong. He seems to have several fatal flaws.

A stubborn blind spot - the set piece saga and his refusal to acknowledge or address it.

A degree of Starstruck-ness - Gylfi, Jordan, Theo, Richarlison, Seamie, Gomes have all held, or been given back their starting places when form hasn’t merited it.

Tinkering - since the Derby he hasn’t been able to settle on either a formation or a preferred XI for more than a game. (Even allowing for fixture congestion and rotation). Having employed a 4-3-3 against City on Wednesday that acquitted itself well against an outstanding side, I was amazed to see the formation tweaked again today and Dominic dropped.

But of most concern is the apparent inability to get the players playing for him with any consistency. A committed but futile display against City sandwiched between an abject performance against Wolves and a slightly better but insufficient effort today. In fairness, confidence is low and there’s a fear of mistakes. It doesn’t help either that a lad who has fought like a tiger over the last three games and added a bit of bite is slagged off for misplacing the odd pass. Tom Davies represented exactly what we need and yet gets abused by people who should know better (you know who you are).

Moshiri and Silva need to stew in their own juices until the end of the season. If we rally and Marco turns it around Howard-style, then Hurrah! If it stays like this, then it’s over to Brands and here’s hoping he casts the net wider than his mate Cocou and that he’s a better judge of a manager than Moshiri is. Thankfully, only extreme Doom and Gloom merchants can truly see a path to relegation from 33 points when you look objectively not just at us but he teams below.

Finally, all the anti-Kenwright stuff is pretty much irrelevant and historic at this stage, he’s not pulling any strings these days.

If we’re going to sack Marco, and I’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion it’s not working we need the new manager lined up so he can spend the rest of this worthless season working worth the players, preparing them for his way of playing next season and deciding who he wants to get rid of

By God we need to get the next appointment right though

I will be castigated on here for saying this, but I can't help wondering where we would be if he had seen out his contract this season. Sure, we would all, in every likelihood be baying at Moshiri's door, but possibly, just possibly, with a little less pressure and the support that Silva started out with he may have got a tune out of these misfits.

It was after all a final chance and a final big opportunity for him.

I was part of the mob that called for his dismissal also, I agree with you entirely.

I'm feeling a pang or two of regret about SA.

535 mile round journey to watch absolute crap.

Give Alan Stubbs the same deal as Oli at Man U, and I might change my mind.

At present admitting to bring an Evertonian is embarrassing.

After 55 years supporting the blues I've had enough, and reluctantly will watch from my armchair!!!

We were then told that we haven't seen this significant difference because his players were injured / previously had an injury / hadn't played for months – take one or all excuses.

We were told when all his signings were fit we would see a difference. That hasn't happened, in fact it's probably worse

Then when we still hadn't seen any difference it was because we were in transition and/ or fatigued.

Now we are told it's the players and referees fault.

Maybe all or some of the above is correct but then maybe Silva is just a shit manager.

Whatever it is we fore sure know he is stubborn, he is not for changing anything and he appears to accept no responsibility whatsoever.

The myth that we were playing this great football before the derby is just a myth. Some of the games were appaling. The few we won we couldn't play a full 90 minutes and the one we won convincingly at Burnley could have stretched our delicate nature if the open goal they missed which would have made it 2-3 had it gone in.

A strange appointment making stranger managerial decisions. Rubbish.

You've done your bit for the club and earned your armchair, you shouldn't feel guilt or anguish.

The whole thing has turned into an ironic sick joke.

Will Hughes from Derby? I'm sure he was signed for Watford, by Marco Silva?

I'd sooner we got rid of most of the players, than the manager, because the only players worth their salt at Everton are a few of the kids and the ones who joined us last summer.

It shows we care; now for the club to face reality, and get a grip, before this season ends in total failure.

This mess will not improve until we change the manager.

Do you applaud him for announcing to anyone who asked in his 20 years in control (sort of - BVI aside of course) that all he ever wanted to do was find someone with the wealth and heart to cherish Everton as he swears he does.

Did you applaud when one after another potential buyers left scorch marks on the club tarmac a day or so after they began a week's due diligence into the club books?

Did you applaud when he refused to hold AGMs at all, or explain the bizarre accounts he had presented when deigned to have one? Some might say he had a lot to hide.

And then he met Moshiri, a billionaire with so-called football savvy courtesy of always having been outside Arsenal's boardroom whilst those in there took all the decisions. I think we all now have to realise that Moshiri knows as much about football as I do about top-end accountancy. Zilch, if you're wondering, but to Kenwright he was everything he'd dreamt about for the whole of his tenure. Manna from heaven, for Bill and all his ex-player cronies "coaching" at Finch Farm.

Moving on, perhaps naively given the way Moshiri went about trying to sign Silva, I assumed he'd been in close liaison with Brands, even though he was at PSV at the time, on just who would be the DoF's choice of manager as he plotted the next three years of his wholly unsuccessful first three years?

It now seems from what's suggested on here that Moshiri once again took the lead without reference to the guy he was going to make responsible for every aspect of the football in the club. If so, Moshiri is bizarre, and scarily so.

Is there a bigger laughing stock Club in the League?

This undid his attempt to counteract the overrunning of midfield that has blighted numerous Everton performances since Xmas. To top it all, he undid his midfield with the substitution, Walcott the touchless.

There is only Zouma, Keane, Digne, Kenny and Davies who can compete in a battle. Everyone else is either physically or mentally weak even Gueye who never stops is too small and slight to be the be the lynchpin.

The most important player for us to sign this summer is Zouma he is a beast and twice the defender Mina is.

Then it has to be Doucoure or a strong centre mid of his ilk and then obviously a physically strong centre forward who can hold the ball up and lead the line aswel as take a chance.

Get the spine and shape right and we might have half a chance.

Rob @258, yes of course the players are to blame as well. But, I have read some posters on here stating that 'the game has changed' since the great 'man-managers', Clough, Shankly, Ferguson, Kendall et al. Words like, 'How do you motivate a bunch of pampered superstars?'

I would argue that in this day and age, simply because money and material needs are more than taken care of, that there is more need for a man-manager like Cloughie etc, as opposed to a great 'tactician'.

In my opinion, 'tacticians' are greatly overrated. Football is a simple game. There is too much emphasis on 'philosophies' and 'tactics'. A great man-manager will override the lot.

For example, Bielsa is hailed by some as the Messiah who others have followed. So, where is he now and what has he won compared to Kendall et al? Today, some people want to reinvent the wheel in every aspect of society and the simple game of football is no exception.

Getting back to the subject of players though. Once again, a lot of people on here have invested a lot of faith in Brands and his ability to find players for us and seem certain that he is a massive improvement on Steve Walsh and therefore will not spunk ridiculous money as Walsh (is reputed) to have done on the likes of Sigurdsson.

The first signing under Brands was Richarlison for a similar fee to Sigurdsson. To my mind, that was just as ridiculous as the Sigurdsson fiasco.

I also hear and see people espousing that we have 'good players', 'someone should be able to get a tune out of them' etc. Of course, any appraisement of a player is subjective but I don't agree that in the main, we do have good players.

Of course, some would argue that 'on paper' our squad is good but, as some wise person once said, 'We don't play on paper, we play on grass'.

Make of it what you will, but to me, the ingredients of shite manager, shite boardroom, shite player recruitment, shite players (in the main) and a fanbase that 'appears' to be getting used to mediocrity (or has never known nothing else), is a sure recipe for disaster.

Incidentally, where are the people who used to 'call me out' on such 'negativity'? Your silence, speaks volumes!

There is no time to waste, Kenwright!

We were not in a financial mess when Kenwright took over and He did not remortgage his house.
He inherited a net asset position which within two years he turned into a net liability of £30 million.

Unexplained operating costs jumped from £1 million a year to over £20 million a year. We had to sell Rooney to stabe off the banks who had no confidence in him.

So much for sorting our finances out eh!!!

Even Paul Gregg – who was prepared to underwrite Kings Dock and had been a close friend – asked him to stand down as chairman but he then came up with bullshit to discredit Paul Gregg and convince people he had investors and their cheque would be in the bank in the morning. We are still waiting....

If you're not Bill Kenwright in disguise, please don't discredit yourself by assuming these total lies have some basis. They don't.

Biggest disaster to hit Everton is Kenwright.

Incompetent and incapable of doing the right thing.

We have made zero progress, gone backwards in fact, and incredibly are getting worse. We always think we are too big to go down. We aren't. It's not stupid to suggest there's a chance we won't win another game. I can only see us winning one, maybe two. Hope I'm wrong but I think we will be desperately fighting for draws.

Time for Dogs of War? Not in Silva's nature is it? I'd drop and not play three or four players right now. I'd take a daft chance with involving Fraser Hornby. I'd lob McCarthy in alongside Gana.

As I enter the text above, I think, this is just what Allardyce would do. Win the ball, defend with two in front of a five. Long balls. Dull? Maybe but I cannot see how this is worse than what we have now. Sigh.

To quote Michael Dunford a while later, the club spent money which the club did not have, thus placing the club in debt. That was why Duncan Ferguson was sold to Newcastle for £8m behind the manager's back while we were playing them at Goodison Park. The money was used to pay off some of the debt incurred at the start of the season. Two days later, Johnson resigned.

At the end of that season, we were forced to sell Dacourt and Materazzi for just short of £10m. We were also unable to meet the contract demands of a number of players such as Jeffers, Barmby and Ball.

When you see what games we have left, we cannot afford to mess around anymore. A new manager needs bringing in now to grind out two wins and some draws.

And we need battlers on the pitch, not hiders.

I am, however, someone who believes totally in the British sense of fairness and being able to put forward a defence of someone who I believe is arguably being subjected to unfair criticism.

I used the word "arguably" in my initial post @236 and again in this post, a word which is used to qualify my statement of opinion, ie, that I fully appreciate that there may be other contributors who disagree with my views and, of course, I understand that they are able to express a contrary opinion .

In my post, I think it is perfectly clear that I believe the current manager is not up to the job and that there should be a rigorous selection process for a new manager, with the objective of appointing someone who can take the club forward.

John 292. Michael Ball was sold by Walter Smith for not toeing the line. Kenwright got the club second time around because he lost out first time to Peter Johnson. The Moores family would not sell to Kenwright in 1994. I often wonder why?

Keeping Silva at the helm whilst we descend the league is going to require serious brinkmanship. We could go down.

It's popular to bag the players, but for me, this is all on the manager. We don't need a mass clear out, we just need someone who knows what they're doing. Can we get Solskjaer in?

A big show of almost begging banners!

Most teams below us have a game in hand. We are 9 points from 3rd from bottom, I can't see another win this season.

I am afraid Blues... very afraid!

My missus asked me what do they do at half-time. I said today they had a cup of Horlicks, Marco read them a bedtime story and they took a nap. That was plan B. Plan A is to meditate and do yoga.

The brilliant Alan Myers is calling this right on Twitter. The owner and or Mr Brands really need to get an urgent grip of what's going on. They need to speak to the fans direct and not thru Jim bloody White on Sky. They need to show that they see the seriousness of our situation and the danger of freefall into a relegation fight.

Behind the scenes you have to pray that Brands is stepping in to council Silva if he's not sacking him. Someone, somewhere, has to persuade the manager to drop his disastrous zonal defending, and take out at least three or four from that squad and take a couple of measured risks with promoting Hornby and playing Lookman and giving it a go, with Jagielka making a return to try and steady that back line?

Judging by the lack of appreciation of the English Language in regard to syntax, grammar, spelling et cetera, I have a mental picture (nee, a vision) of all the Blues fans who are first in with the boot. They will be struggling to grab their iPhones and stab the keyboard as fast as possible in a manner, metaphorically, a knife & fork in hand ready for the cannibalism that ensues. Some with a dessert spoon as well.

Quite a while ago (I think it was in the Kooeman era) I read a recommendation in a TW comment on a game. The author recommended the following comedy starring Michael Palin:--

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8O1pH-NEa6I
"Ripping Yarns Series 2 Episode 2 Golden Gordon"

I pass on this same information in the hope that, certainly all you 'early ' contributors every week, will take it in the manner it is meant.

ps: Please leave your cutlery at home.

pps: Many thanks to those rational TW contributors, normally further down the comments list, who have given some consideration to what they write.

The way the game is going now, in 20 years time the coach will have a degree in sports psychology and the tactics will come from the players.

Basically (the coach) a stunningly beautiful bird will whisper nice things into their ears with sensual voice to pep up their egos.

The players, then pumped up, will decide who plays and how to play, because they're so powerful and now have all the authority of the old type coach.

We'll either have 11 players running around with hard-ons trying to win the game or they'll have a bad hair day and need consoling by their psychologist. Also a quick look at their bank accounts online should cheer them up and get them ready for the big Saturday night out.

Marvellous!

As for a successful, experienced manager, nobody of that ilk would consider taking the job at this stage of the season. Could you imagine say Bielsa leaving Leeds when he has done most of the groundwork and looks to be promoted anyway or even my choice, Simeone, walking out on Athletico Madrid now? Ringing agents to sound out if their clients may be interested in next season is something that should be done.

Whoever, we will get the same sort of comments that he needs time, 27 transfer windows to assemble "his" team, where's the striker we need, and look at the rubbish he's been left by his half-dozen predecessors. Also, any new manager/coach seems to want £300 or £400 million for transfers and somehow I don't think we are likely to raise that amount from transfers.

So, where do we go. How about forming an unruly queue down at the Liver Buildings?

Peter Johnson had underwritten the clubs overdraft facility and was no longer willing to do it because he wanted out following threats from so-called supporters.

All he wanted was his £20M back and so the deal was done with Kenwright, who did not have any money in the first place and quickly turned the club into a net liability position, resulting in Rooney's sale while putting the story out that the club was in a financial mess and he had to rescue by remortgaging his London flat — which was only worth £1 million then and was never remortgaged.

He does not get the name of "Billy Liar" for nothing.

Can't be definite that Arteta would leave Man City at this time but it's definitely worth a try. He always came across as being intelligent and articulate when interviewed and I'm sure he has learned a lot from working under Pep.

Like the last time when we brought in Allardyce, going back to Unsworth would be another mistake. One thing's for sure, Silva being so clueless needs replacing as soon as possible.

However, the question remains, would any successful "name" manager/coach step up at this time of the season or wait until it ends?

I would not advocate Stubbs as manager but for sure he'd be a good shout to help out as defensive coach.

As regards to failing at Hibernian, we'll you couldn't be further than the truth.

How have we ever sank so low? No doubt another shed load will go on getting rid of this total fraud and appointing someone else, whether it be permanent or temporary.

We are a joke in Football!

Pickford
Coleman, Zouma, Keane, Digne
Gana
Lookman, Sigurdsson, Bernard, Richarlison
Tosun

Get the first and second goal, then start playing tactical...

Brilliant!

Not sure about a "splendid attack force" though.

I always say it – they can perform absolutely diabolically and still go home and pick up their £90k a week pay cheque! Scandalous!

On the same matter – how can anyone on this earth (ie Sanchez) earn in one week what an average guy earns in 10 years? There are no words for it.

We're looking to Brands... isn't he another Moshiri man?

Thing is – why would he leave Leeds to come here?!? (Apart from money...)

"Gueye was immense"???

Oh my God! What game was you watching??? He was okay – nothing more... In fact, it was a complete shit show from a team and manager that's sucking the life out of me. Gueye might be okay at breaking up play etc, but his passing is atrocious and he (and he's not alone here) offers nothing offensively.

"Immense"?? — no, sorry; get real.

I'm no sports psychologist but it looks like he has detached himself from the players. If so, there's only one outcome.

You do the maths!!!

Have any of you actually seen his managerial record? Couldn't get Hibs out of Scottish Champo – fair enough: won the cup – and then been sacked by Rotherham.

Yeah, he should be given a Premier League job. Far out.

We need real expertise at Everton, not people's votes.

Mike Bassett couldn't do any worse than clueless Silva. It just proves how desperate we are. He has no more to offer!

I don't know about Everton having offices in the Liver Building surely the only place Everton should have premises is in Hope Street.

Over 330 posts on this thread, yet one man still Conspicuous by his absence.

You know who you are...

We are waiting to hear what utter drivel you have to say with regard to Silva's defence...

Moshiri has spent enough, £300m on players £300m on takeover, debt and equity and with another £100m to come on the ground. There is no way at all he's going to waste another £20m on redundancies and another £150m to get a new manager a new set of toys to play with. He'd rather sell than put up with another failed manager.

We go the Spurs way, Brands to find the "gems" for peanuts and the gems to be happy with a meagre £50k a week instead of £100k+ a week to Walcott, Schneiderlin, Ramirez, Tosun et al.

You either buy success, as Chelsea and Man City have done with mega mega billionaires: £1500M each input and hired top top class done-it-all coaches; or take a Silva, Pochettino and let them develop a team.

Pochettino's luck was that he inherited a few better players and had a certain Mr Kane coming through. We don't !! Step in, Brands.

Please explain your comparison with Stubbs and Solskjaer, because Solskjaer did very little before his current revolution at Man Utd.

Cardiff sacked him but that didn't stop United hiring him on a temporary basis.

So why not give Stubbs the reigns on a temporary basis!!!

Hollow comparison.

I completely get your point about the financial predicament facing Moshiri but there is one major flaw with your suggestion: Silva. He has proven beyond all doubt that he isn't capable of managing at this level.

To leave him in place would be the final nail in the coffin of a historic & proud club. Who in their right mind would give Silva the reins for the next 3 years to “build” a team? I wouldn't trust him to build with LEGO!!

In Gomes I've never seen a player look so good then look so off the pace in the space of a few games.

Granted it's hard for any manager to win games without a proven goalscorer, we started the season with probably the worse striker's in the league and we are still no better off.

But it's the woeful set-piece record and the persistent use of the 4-2-3-1 formation when it's not working and the total lack of attacking cohesion throughout the team which is the most worrying.

How can you play together for nearly eight months and not develop a better understanding with each other?

I'd bet you my whole life savings that, if we had a genuine top coach such as Pochettino, he would get a lot more out of this squad than Silva is doing.

We will be very lucky to struggle to 40 points this season – just let that sink in for a minute, struggling to get to 40 points?!! That is the worst it has been for a very long time and in any another season would probably see us relegated.

We cannot risk this happening next season when we might not be so lucky to get away with such a low points haul. Get rid of Silva now and get in someone who puts winning games and amassing points ahead of a pre-defined 'philosophy'.

If Kenwright does not come out with a players' representative and condemns one of the worst, if not the worst, runs of results and performances in the entire history of the club then it must mean he condones them and we can expect it to continue and confirms that this parasite must be driven from our club before he can inflict even more damage.

Immediately.

It's his job and his responsibility. The silence is still deafening.

However, you asked for a comparison, so here it is. Solskjaer was a winner as a player. Stubbs wasn't. Not always a factor in becoming a manager, but doesn't hurt. It also helps that Solskjaer has a vastly superior set of players at his disposal at Man Utd, and they've really had a fairly gentle run of fixtures in his tenure thus far.

Like I've repeated, I am not defending Silva as I don't think he is right for the job, but some of these names being thrown around are exactly what we don't need. If you think someone like Stubbs is fit to manage a club like Everton out of this mess, by all means, keep thinking that. For me, it is that exact mindset that has gotten the club to where it is right now.

The truth is we have a team that can't produce enough chances and if there are any no one in form to put them away.

On top of that we have defenders who seem reluctant to get off the ground and head the ball, so who's to blame there, the players or the manager.

The situation we find ourselves in is not something new, excluding Allardyce, the last two managers experienced the same problems, after a decent start the players could not produce the standard of football that would get us up into a challenging position in the Premier League.

What is this mysterious machine that renders all dissenters into silence and keeps any criticism from fans out of the media?

Even local papers and radio carry on as if this is normal, unlike in the past.

And I thought Men in Black was fiction. Where's me shades?

My point was their comparison as managers, not players.

Everton's set up is the diagonal ball to wings or wing-backs, deep crosses and a knock-downs, that's the way they play. Calvert-Lewin would chest it down and pivot left... it's predictable. That's what he does and he is effective.

Sigurdsson, Bernard and Richarlison are the ones to pick up and do creative stuff but the opponents know that and force them out of position. They need to play together but we need somebody like Giroud to come in a cameo role and mess up data analytics free up the creative players. Calvert-Lewin may be able to do that soon.

Whomever takes over Everton should Silva be sacked has a decent 10 (there's a quality player in there somewhere), fairly good left-back, and a crafty Brazilian who may just be a bit too small for this league. The rest of the squad is either too ripe, too old, or just plain ordinary.

My main point is, Stubbs hasn't really done anything to suggest he's Premier League material, and in our position, we really can't risk another donkey.

I have a sneaky feeling that neither of us will know, and Silva will survive the sword of Damaclese!

We can only wait and see. Again!!

😬

Indeed, this whole crap about so-called football philosophy is similar to the School of Science stuff.

It's a simple game and I would think that haf of the contributors on here would have got this group to do at least as well as Silva. These are talented players, many are internationals. They just need to work as a team to a plan that they understand.

The rest is about creating a happy but hardworking environment in which they can express themselves. We are lacking the happiness, the understanding and any plan is wrong.

So Silva has consistently made a dog's dinner of his task. And to those deluded enough to think he shouldn't be judged because many of these players aren't his. Imagine if this clown brought in more of his picks! It could be even worse.

There is absolutely no excuse for how bad we are. It is inexcusable for our manager to be so inept.

We do have plenty of good players at the club and he had to shape them into a decent hard-working team that maybe couldn't get into the top 5 or 6 but certainly not flirt with another relegation worry. It's beyond belief how he doesn't know how to get the basics right.

It was Bill Shankly who said that Football was a simple game, complicated by idiots. He said that in the 60s or the 70s. Not now.

Think about the game. It's a much more complicated sport than most out there. The reason for this is what you are allowed to do. It's got few passing restrictions, unlike rugby, it's got few movement restrictions unlike basketball, it's fast paced unlike the gridiron game of the same name.

The complications come because unlike most sports, there is so many different ways to manipulate the ball. Then the opponent can organise their defence in so many more different ways.

In the 70s, when everyone played 4-4-2 on these shores, it was straight forward. Times have changed... and then some. Managers like Guardiola can change formation 5 or 6 times during the course of just one game. The finest tactical performance I've seen by an Everton manager was Koeman when we beat Man City 4-0. Guardiola held his hand up in a very enlightening press conference as he talked about how his old room-mate was one step ahead in the tactical battle as they both kept changing formations.

Guardiola came to Goodison recently, and I was enthralled at his tactics. He was frequently loading up 3 players on each flank at the same time. The wide forward, the full back and a central midfielder. There was no one in the middle. The guy sat next to me was doing his nut in. For him it was simple, Kenny in particular needed to get wider and "mark his man". City were doing what they were doing to pull our shape apart.

Teams mark up against City in a narrow and compact shape, like we did, with the defence a width of a penalty area apart. If you hold shape, then City cannot get through you. If they then overload the flanks like they do, then they have no one in the middle and are trying to get the ball into congested areas.

In football, there is always space. The modern game is all about Space. You read the latest coaching manuals and you just see page after page about space. The modern buzz word is the "half-space". I prefer the old term, "the channel". Coaches are all about trying to put space between the full back and the centre back to get their wide forwards into this channel or "half-space". Guardiola wrote the book on it.

I really could go on and on and on about this. Football is a very, very complicated game due to tactics and formations and how coaches try to find space, and their opponents try to shut down space and plug gaps.

The biggest failing of Marco Silva, after zonal marking, is that his football is far too expansive, and he is allowing his players to leave massive gaps. That said, I think against Chelsea, Liverpool and Man City, we plugged those gaps and stopped the opponents finding space in dangerous areas.

Football is not a simple game in 2019.

Firstly I really enjoy reading your posts, I'm not a soccer player never was but have always enjoyed and have always followed Everton even though my family here in Ireland are all RS. My sons are definitely leaning to the RS.

I have played a lot of sports, mainly Gaelic Football, rugby and basketball and I can safely say that in any of those sports a coach would be expected to sort this mess out. I was really excited about Silva coming and a lot of that due to reading your fantastic posts about him and I was firmly believing we would be challenging for 6th after the first few months of the season. We don't have the best players but, to me, he should have been able to get this defense and shape sorted by now.

Not all on Silva though, the players are soft, very soft. When I was playing on any of the teams I played on Troy Deeney would have been gone off injured by the 20 minute mark. If it was in a Gaelic match I would have timed it when he caught a ball and landed with it I would've just obliterated him after the comments he made, our lot were afraid of their lives of him. Soft, we badly need an enforcer.

The present younger generation has been bred on a lot of this ''keep ball'' sideways and backwards passing scenario and of course avoiding defeat with the ''park the bus'' attitude.

It's what's brainwashed into the players nowadays and the are frightened to run with the ball from deep or even pass the ball forward unless it is less than 3 yards.

I saw so many times in many games I watched over the weekend players who received the ball running in a forward position and an opportunity to pressure the opposing defence but inexplicably check, go back or pass back and the ball ends up with their own defender in their own box or they turn it over.

Negativity is the order no matter what, but heaven forbid trying to create more scoring opportunities.

Way back we used to criticize the Italian teams who introduced this type of play but was successful for a few of them.

Today only teams with outstanding offensive players such as Man City and Liverpool can have the much success against this type of formation.

Everton, of course, are way behind in that aspect.

Silva needs a shift in his mentality. For me, he's been too reckless at times. He is too attacking, he's trying to win every game. He's always pushing for the next goal.

That's great when things are going well, but they aren't. If Moyes was in charge, and this run happened to him, he would go to Cardiff and bank a 0-0 draw. Silva will do what he did against Watford and go all out for the win. If we don't get the goal early, the players get desperate and bigger and bigger gaps appear. Such tactics will play into Warnock's hands.

Silva knows how to play a defensive game. He did it well against Chelsea, and was so close against Liverpool, and it was working against Man City only for that ridiculous free-kick leading to yet another set piece goal.

Silva needs to adopt the mentality that his players are not better than the opposition. They are inferior. They are also not clever enough to carry out his tactics. Silva usually has 3 or 4 formations he switches between (4-3-3, 4-2-3-1, 4-1-3-2 and 3-4-3), yet he said that he could only get the 4-2-3-1 bedded in during pre-season. Presumably due to the abject failings of the side in pre-season, long since forgotten, but some might say the writing was on the wall then.

If Silva adopted the mentality that he needs to be like he was for Estoril and play counter-attacking football, I think things would turn around fast. I have no idea why that hasn't happened.

He has 2½ weeks until the next game, plenty of time to get a change of formation into play. He could also sort out a change to man-marking at set pieces.

There is something very wrong in the dressing room, and a trip away, with the players locked together for two weeks would be perfect. There might be scraps, fallings out, or whatever. But people can say what needs to be said. They can get all the problems out in the open and then they can address it.

Finally, I still think Silva can crack the top six. He needs at least two players to do so. I'm not going to go all "Football Manager" and give you those names, but he needs a Fernandinho type to plug the midfield and provide a defensive shield (that does not move) as well as setting the tempo for the attacks by shifting the ball quickly in transition.

Secondly we need a striker. We need a mobile striker who can score goals. So a Karim Benzema type. Of course, we could never sign those players in a month of Sundays, but Brands's job is to spot players with those qualities and bring them in.

If they can do so, it's a different side for me, and with better luck, and a resolution to our set piece woes, then the "project" is not dead. Which is why Moshiri is trying to secure Silva's position and Brands is no doubt putting transfers into play, as he is used to concluding them before the window actually opens.

"Silva's always pushing for the next goal"... hahahaha hahahaha...

That's a good one. We've scored 3 in our last 5 league games! Rose-tinted glasses evaluation if ever I heard one.

Made my Day that, I'll still be laughing 2 weeks today when we draw another blank against Cardiff.

Yes, I think far too much is made of what style of play a manager likes or what his philosophy is in terms of setting a team up. That is why we ended up with the current manager -–so many fans and the board were seduced by his 'attacking' football philosophy, despite clear evidence from his previous clubs that it didn't really work that well.

As you say, just give us a team that plays together and fights for each other to a plan that works. Who cares about possession stats and how many metres someone ran in the 1st half???

I cannot believe people are saying this season should be a free pass for Silva or to give him more time. The evidence is there for all to see – he is not good enough and we will continue to lose with him in charge. This has been the case for the majority of the season, it is not simply a two-week blip!!

This necessity to adopt a more compact combative and defensive set-up has been evident for some time. Silva is following a far too reckless approach to matches.

A far too expansive set up that leaves us unable to get a grip on a game or win battles. Not many, me included, want Moyes back. But he certainly knew how to set his team up away from home.

He knew how to take the sting out the opposition so the initial confidence in the team turns to fear as the game wears on. He knew Cahill or one of the others could pop up and score a goal from nothing and we could take home 3 points.

As you say, we have not got the players to play the same game as De Brunye & Sane or Mane & Salah. But Marco Silva is still playing the same way with the same players and getting the same result. We are not a class apart from any of our bottom 14 opponents, yet we set up like we are Man City. It is delusional.

He needs to rethink his tactics quick; the Chelsea and Liverpool games are excellent reference. Put in that type of performance against any team and we have one or two players who can grab a goal.

It really is the only way forward for Marco.

I agree completely with your comments, unless making comments is very different now and way to complex for us mere mortal supporters to digest...

Maybe it's just me and about 95% of posters on here, that see football for what it is, 11 v 11 kicking a ball about with the intention of kicking it into a thing called a net

Since when has Nuclear Physics been introduced into tactics.

For those of you who see Silva and his Nuclear Physics as the way forward, may I suggest a visit to Specsavers, Followed by a very large portion of Humble Pie...

But, then again, like the manager, some posters just cannot accept when they are wrong, and are unwilling to change tack...

Silva has to go and go now!

Losing Zouma is going to hurt. They need to play together and the war room need to make tactical changes to play to their strengths.

I haven't yet lost faith in Silva. I can see some of the points you make as valid. A good turnaround of players in the summer, in and out, and I think we will see a big improvement.

We need to keep calm and let the project develop. If it's still not working by the January window, we will then need to address it.

Remember Brazil in those 'Golden days were "the best defense is a good attack", I think Carlos Riviera said that.

Everton has a world-class midfield, we have players that can introduce the creative spark, the midfield is possibly like Ball, Harvey and Kendall days.

They break up play, the hold the ball. They play the short passes drawing in the defense but they are not releasing Walcott or Lookman like Salah (roving). I really think more time playing together would bring creativity.

I think Theo should be his outlet... just like Liverpool, and forget about starting from the back. Develop channels and build these channels. Right now, the only channels are the wing-backs... you cannot win like that in modern soccer. The pace would slice you up.

Link-up play should be Davies, Gana, Gomes and McCarthy. James and Lookman fall back into dangerous gaps in zonal and pick-up