Talking points in the aftermath of Liverpool vs Everton

Fingers crossed that Barry comes good, but it will probably take time. However, with only Barry and Beto as centre-forwards, I do wonder whether the club will feel it necessary to go back into the transfer market. I just hope that we don't have to sell before we can buy.

£20-30M does not buy you a Premier League striker... it buys you potential, if that potential does not come to fruition, then it's wasted money, keep your money in the bank!

We have not had a striker since Lukaku in 2017, nearly 10 years ago. If we had saved all the money we have spunked on strikers since then, we would have saved enough to buy an actual striker. Until you find the man you want... keep your money in the bank!

We can all be keyboard managers, but all of us keyboard managers are saying the same thing!

Also, Branthwaite can't come back quick enough, as well as Keane has deputised, Liverpool don't score that 2nd goal if Jarrad plays, and at least 1 of the Wolves goals would have been prevented.

It's only because it's 'them' that people get so emotional about losing to them, and as a result we dissect this game more than any other. TW is full of post-match threads which is the new clickbait style the site is going for because it creates more hysteria, more footfall, and more site hits.

Every thread is full of the same comments -- it's smart site marketing and whips up an even bigger frenzy than it usually does.

On the game itself, I thought we were decent, especially after the RS could have blown us away in the first half. 2-0 was reasonable given how good they are, and how awful we are up front.

This to me is our key battle this season -- we have a good side but 2 ineffective strikers. I don't care what people say about how Beto tries hard because there can be no doubt, he's extremely limited as a footballer. Barry is very young and very raw, and could come good in time.

Our problem is not our team, nor is it our manager, it's our 2 strikers. Top strikers are very hard to come by unless you're A) a top-of-the-table side, B) loaded and can spend upwards of £70M, and C) in Europe.

We're none of those things... hence why we have Beto and/or Barry up front. It's the very reason why we'll likely finish in mid-table this season and feel frustrated often in games because we simply don't have a finisher up top.

Neither of them have particularly good movement either which doesn't help us. Beto tries to make runs but he often runs looking over his shoulder for the ball, rather than making runs with positive intent.

Pickford booting over the top isn't helping either because Beto has an awful first touch and wins next to nothing in the air. Barry looks better getting the ball to feet but, against teams like the RS, we're always going to struggle to get balls to feet.

We will pick up most of our points this season against the lower- and mid-table sides. If we somehow manage to pick up a quality striker in the next couple of years, then things will start to change.

Yes, they are streets ahead of us but, based on how the game went, you could visibly see that they were coming off the back of a hard game on Wednesday night; in the second half, they faded and were looking jaded.

We do what we often do there early on and get lost in the start of the game, we always seem to be drowned by the pre-match noise and chanting which soon dies down.

When all is said and done, I'm glad to get that fixture out of the way early. It's done with, over, 2-1 loss not that bad... sad we have that mentality but our Merseyside derby record for 25 years has been atrocious.

On to Tuesday night when we must win.

These next two matches do concern me a bit though because they are two typical "Everton that" matches where the opposition are dreadful and on the verge of sacking a manager, then along comes the football doctor Everton to temporarily ease woes.

We'll see how far we have come in these next two, I dare say.

Are you related to the former Everton player? Cheers.

We made a game of it from just before half time and -- despite all this “they're light years ahead of us” rhetoric -- I actually don't think our best eleven is that far off theirs. The problem is our best eleven doesn't have a competent striker. Beto is just not good enough.

On the other hand, I am very excited to have Grealish, Ndiaye, Dewsbury-Hall, Alcaraz and Dibling in our squad and I hope Röhl will prove just as promising. Get Branthwaite back in the side and we can win games like this.

The rest of the country just sees that result as expected, and perhaps we should take that view (for now) .... but this infernal wait for us to win at that place is weighing heavily on our shoulders.

Step one now is for Moyes to win that first trophy so they can shove that piss take up their collective arse, so let's hope Tony's preference of a win at Wolves comes off.

In summary, I'm disappointed but defiant. UTFT

We are desperate for a trophy, to shove the 95 shouts down their throats.

The established elite couldn't have come up with a better system to keep themselves on the perch if they tried!

He is 23 next month. Not that young nowadays.

My son is a massive apologist for Beto and has always seen a player in there. Indeed, many on here pointed to his goal scoring record vs Calvert-Lewin and called it an upgrade. But even he admitted after 50 minutes yesterday that Barry had already done more in the game than Beto had.

Barry's lack of bulk worries me. He has the thinnest legs I've ever seen on a striker. But what he does give us is a get-out ball.

I called the 2nd goal before it happened because by then Pickford had stopped aiming his kicks at Beto, knowing the ball would come straight back and tried to pick out (I think) Dewsbury Hall.

As it was won on the half-way line by a red, I moaned about the lack of a Number 9... seconds later, goal.

Barry has some good moments and I believe that he should now be our starting striker, at least until Xmas to give him a chance to learn and improve.

Beto has always looked to me like a poor man's Ellis Simms.

Playing Beto alone up front is useless. He tries hard but is just not quick enough off the mark, especially against the likes of Dick Van Dijk.

Add to that the officiating which has never been kind to Everton at Anfield.

On a side note, once again, Man Utd got the benefit of officiating that only they and Redshite get when they were given an offside goal which many other clubs wouldn't have got.

Everton needed to get amongst them. When he did make some type of attempt in the second half, Liverpool looked like Leeds. The only difference was the underhand play which featured highly in their play, which you would not have got from Leeds.

Grealish needs to wise up supporting Moyes's narrative regarding injury time. Moyes working out with 4 minutes to go that they were there for the taking was just too late. He should have known that in the first 4 minutes of the game.

Liverpool are in 4th place behind Real Madrid, Arsenal and Man chester City. Their squad cost €993M to assemble.

We are in 26th place, with a squad that cost €330M to assemble. We are behind (in reverse order):

- West Ham
- Bournemouth
- Brentford
- Crystal Palace
- Brighton
- Aston Villa
- Nottm Forest (€453M)

...and then the rest of the Rich 7 starting with Newcastle at €730M.

It's only Fulham, Wolves, Leeds, Sunderland and Burnley (€234M) that have spent less than us assembling the squad.

It means that we're closer to Burnley (gap of €96M) in this respect than we are to Forest (gap of €123M). The gap with the poorest in the Rich 7 is (gap of €400M). The gap with Liverpool is €663M. Much more so than anything tactical, that goes a long, long way in explaining the dynamics of the match yesterday.

In a one-off game, we can overcome the huge disadvantage that the spending disparity creates now and again. And yes, Moyes should have bucked the trend by now.

But the only way we are going to properly resolve the crappy situation we are in is by sustained spending to close the gap in quality between ourselves and those at the top. There are clever ways to spend, optimising the bang for each buck, but we do need to spend.

And for those who like to claim that it's the wage bill that makes all the difference (for whatever reason), the story is the same.

We're 11th in the wage bill tables at £73M pa. But we're closer to Brentford in 20th (£59M) than we are to Forest in 8th (£93.2M) -- and we're absolutely miles off Liverpool in 3rd (£172M).

Realistically, we can and should win some of these one-off games -- but each win will generally require luck, a fully fit first XI and some underperformance by the opposition. Although we're so much better than last season, we still lack quality in Premier League terms.

It's become de rigeur to keep slating our two strikers who cost just over £20M each; they are okay players... but what chances did they get to score? Not one decent chance that I can remember.

We lost the game, as most predicted, but we were not disgraced.

The team is still a work in progress which is no secret to anyone, but with PSR we are prevented from buying the two or three players we need to get us challenging at the top of the league.

In individual sports, you all start in theory with the same chance but you certainly don't in football; some teams have a built-in advantage which spoils it as a fair competition.

From the little I've seen of Barry, he looks out of his depth. Bizarrely for one so tall, I don't remember him winning a single header. But the striker position is what it is and, given we've seen plenty of Beto to understand his serious inadequacies, I see 3 options:

1) Play Barry as first choice, give him some serious game time to settle, and see if he really is out of his depth. Maybe he can surprise us but I agree with another poster that, at 23, he is not at the 'promising youngster' stage. I think we would need to keep our expectations low to begin with, he is not going to tear up trees; on the other hand, he just has to do as well as Beto, so it's a low bar.

2) Play him in a 2 with Beto. Granted that will force a complete change of formation and tactics but that is how Barry has generally been used, as a second striker. But I can't see Moyes doing that, he is quite inflexible.

3) Put Ndiaye in the centre and Dibling on the right. At least then we have someone able to control the ball as well as being arguably our most natural goalscorer.

I suppose you have to start with 1) but I would definitely try 3) at some point, even if only in game.

Can I also add that I can see no good and much bad in making substitutions in the last few minutes, if you are behind. It's usually what the winning team does, to run down the clock.

Hopefully the new ground is going to be a catalyst for our resurgence, but it's incredible to see how much our standing in the game has diminished since the start of the Premier League.

Looking at the list, then I think it's only West Ham who haven't spent at least a couple of seasons in the Championship in the last 10 years, but they all seem to be doing better than Everton!

You say, 'this infernal wait for us to win at that place is weighing heavily on our shoulders.'

Remember that we did win there in February 2021, admittedly no fans present, but a win is a win.

We know from last season (and generally) that we're much better when Branthwaite plays because it fixes a lot of structural problems with the team. So improvement will come there.

And crap though Beto was yesterday, he'll have a role to play in that overperformance. Dibling and Barry too once they have settled in.

If we start spending more competitively, our squad will be much more competitive. It's not rocket science.

Although, we were both born in Worcestershire, coincidentally.

Make a bit of mayhem, anything can happen.

At that size, they are going to be the least effective with the ball on the ground.

The site has gone slow or is it just me?

Yes, I've asked you that question before, he was first cousin to Duncan Edwards.

Regarding our tall forwards, they both prefer the ball on the ground in front of them to run onto. Just the way they are.

Plus heading for goal is an acquired skill, not just a matter of height or winning headers. Barry was I believe the most dominant player in Europe last season in terms of winning duels in the air, but of the 19 goals he scored in all competitions, only 3 were headers.

If you are going to have a pass on the ground definitely the most favoured would be a through ball, that would be favoured by all forwards.

At their height, they are advantaged or should be by a high ball into the goalmouth area -- not tippy-tappy stuff.

You said Barry was good at winning balls in the air last season; I know what I'd be telling him if I was his manager.

I want us to win there, and win well, in front of that baying mob!

The problem with Beto is that, while largely rubbish, his one “skill” is running with the ball and blasting one in. But if you take the average rubbish striker with one “skill”, it's more useful if that one skill is heading.

A lamppost can do more damage than a mediocre runner because the mediocre runner is up against top class defenders. The lamppost is up against shorter human beings so has an edge.

Also, in terms of cost, I'd say Schade and Strand-Larsen, who cost similar, are much better than Beto. The only time we see him do well is in the League Cup versus inferior teams. He's just not good enough and as I say his one attribute is not easily used in the Premier League.

Last season, he chased every lost opportunity, maybe didn't score.

Schade is more of a versatile wing-forward (something we are sorely lacking) than a striker.

But Beto will still play a role this season. And Barry too. And I think there's a good chance Barry will become at least as good as Strand-Larsen but he probably needs 18 months. Beto will not improve, but for the time being may possibly be more reliable / mature than Barry (even though he's also a bit rubbish).

It was always going to be extremely difficult to buy a striker likely to score more than 12 goals this season.

It'll probably be true next summer too.

If a club with world-class players throughout their side and proven winner managers can only get one win, and this during the covid season, the same as ourselves, then why is it used as a stick to beat, not only Moyes, but managers of other clubs in general, when they don't routinely rock up and win there?

If you think the absence of a win in Moyes's personal case could be solved by 'going for it a bit' then maybe you want to lay off the drugs.

I think you are right, Grant, Moyes wouldn't go for it against Liverpool if he'd been on the Charlie for a month!

I checked out the stats and the average added on time for a Premier League game nowadays is 7 to 12 minutes a match. Who knows what could have happened with a further 7 or 8 minutes?

Okay, we may have lost 3-1, but likewise we could have drawn 2-2!

Spurs, I think, have only won once or twice at Anfield, in the Premier League era. [I appreciate football started before 1992.]

He's raw, but the very fact that he can control and pass a ball makes him worth sticking with. We haven't yet seen him in front of goal (terrible effort v Roma aside) so I'm prepared to reserve judgement on what else he might be able to do with a cross, through-ball or pull-back.

As Robert has said, it's very hard to go out and buy a striker who will give you 12 league goals. So surely the alternative approach is to buy a young player and develop him into a player who can deliver double figures? That will take some patience.

Don't get too Saucy :-)

That's where your quick attacking right-back, which we need, comes in, whipping crosses into the box.

They have now decided long throws are okay, get it into the box, anything can happen. It's pathetic football snobbery when they say, "Oh, it's not proper football,' if the ball ends in the net, are we bothered?

I watched bits of a couple of podcasts, and there was a similarity there with all of them, a giddiness which was odd. I don't know if the success they have had has saturated their brains to the extent that they spend all their days on the internet, but it was off-putting.

They didn't have anything nasty to say about Everton or anything like that, they were just wrapped up in this cozy little world of theirs, congratulating themselves, giggling and making banal comments -- but handing them out like they were amazing insights.

20 minutes of “you haven't won a trophy” wore a bit thin!! Cunts.

The main advantage of a better squad is the ability to stay challenging in domestic competitions and also play in European and now a World club competition. Everton having one of game wins in one competition is a reflection on not only the squad, but the manager's ability.

After Xmas, Everton will be in only one competition as they have been for years. If you are only in one competition, why would you need a large squad?

Also, it doesn't make economic sense for club finances. There is no evidence that Moyes has a plan to build a squad to challenge beyond one competition.

Why? How can you say that?

He's trying to say we will be out of the Carabao Cup and also won't get far in the FA Cup — even though we are guaranteed a place in the 3rd Round, which (whisper it quietly) takes place a couple of weeks after Christmas.

Here ends today's message from 'Literal Mike'.

A measured and thoughtful contribution; and I agree with everything you say!

We've only been denied that because idiots have run the club for a large part of the Premier League era.

Moyes should have had better results against the RS over the years and has bottled a few big occasions but I don't think Moyes bottled it at the weekend. We were a Branthwaite and a striker of ability away from a very good result. That is all.

And the good news is that the new ownership gives us a decent chance of getting hold of players we need to properly contest these ties other than as complete underdogs. That'll probably happen a bit too slow for Moyes to properly benefit but the next guy should inherit as good a squad as we've ever had in the Premier League era.

Like you, I do believe the new owners will bring about change in the operations at Everton and more real benefits will be derived for future managers to take Everton to the next stage. We will then have a club that can compete in competitions rather than tread water.

But I do think Moyes could have done better at the Weekend. So I agree to differ on that point.

'Literally' after Xmas by the way.

I must conclude that they'd researched this as a possible weakness of Liverpool and sought to exploit it. We tried the quick set pieces quickly so often that it was an obvious ploy.

The fact that the referee repeatedly interfered with this can only be placed into one of two categories.

1) completely incompetent
2) completely corrupt

Both do not go without punishment.

If there is another explanation as to his decision making, particularly one that points to it being an example of competence, then I'd like to hear it.

Mark@44. Still cunts!

Perhaps I am mellowing in old age!!

It was a fair result, they are in a different league to us. Just compare their forward line to ours.

I've now resigned myself to this and will focus on Everton. There are signs of improvement as the last few years we would have capitulated in the second half and lost by 3 or 4.

If we address the lack of a decent centre forward, that will be another step in the right direction, followed by a decent and mobile right back.

Let's be clear; this is always a difficult fixture for us and I wasn't expecting to get much but I thought circumstance had presented a golden opportunity and therefore was unusually hopeful pre-game and not dreading it for once.

For me this was the first time the result for them this season was never in the balance. In every other game they were either needing a late goal to win (Burnley) or or in others they lwere in real danger of losing (Bournemouth Newcastle). After 30 minutes this game was over, this was their most comfortable victory this season.

Moreover, 6 teams played Champions League, they all struggled bar one with our neighbours the only ones to collect 3 points. They had such a quick turnaround that they couldn't have had any preparation time for the game and were understandably jaded in the second half.

They didn't win due to their quality they did so due to their mentality. Our fear stemmed from the top down and we only began playing when the pressure was off, when we had nothing to lose. They were in second gear and scapegoating Beto for this result was ridiculous when he was asked to be like Calvert-Lewin under Dyche (which he can't do). Had Lewandowski or Kane started we still would have got nothing from this game, nor did we deserve to with our white flag approach.

Steve Brown summer it up perfectly there was not a single positive to be taken from this derby and how we approached this game was a disgrace. Man Utd are under pressure but they showed with their early intensity how to approach a game against a team feeling the effects of Champions League football.

This game won't define our season but I found it soul-destroying.

It's just that they are now cosmopolitan strange not local strange, if you get my drift!

"This has always been an incredibly difficult fixture for me because I've always come up against really good Liverpool teams. I think it's easier if you're the team that has the stronger squad, but we're up against it so we have to go there and fight for everything."

Straight from the Moyes 1.0 playbook. Dampen down expectations, talk up the opposition, employ a low block, stay compact, don't press, and send long balls to the lone striker. We've seen it a hundred times… 23 times in the Anfield derby alone.

To be 2-0 down after 30 minutes of the game due to the gameplan was nothing short of a disgrace; feedback from the players at half-time led Moyes to jettison it but it was too late. The scoreline allowed Liverpool to sit back in the second half, reduce the intensity of their press, and attempt to hit us on the break. We had more possession as a result, which is hardly a surprise.

If the manager enjoys analytics, perhaps he should study his own win ratio in games against Top 6 teams when setting up in this manner.

I actually want the manager to succeed. He won't do so with this tactical rigidity. He has to show that he is capable of learning and adapting.

Huff and puff can only get you so far... until we have a quality skillful creative player in midfield providing clear opportunities for a forward, such games against quality opposition will more or less remain the same.

We've already seen how a (football) intelligent skillful player can invigorate a team (Grealish) and give it belief and win games.

Having said that, I do believe improving the squad and making us more entertaining is an objective of the Owners.

In my opinion, for what it's worth, the players' quality counts for 90% and the manager's input 10% in determining the results.

Depending how successful he is, he may be kept on in some capacity upstairs but I think the owners will want a clean sweep and go for someone who's young, upcoming, and hungry for success.