Abject Everton somehow hand toothless Saints first win

The ginger twat has to go. I would rather have no one than this joker. If we are playing shit, would we be that much worse with two up top? We will never know as this idiot seems to think the tactics he has used for the last 2 years are working.

We play with one up front whilst most other clubs play with three up front and we wonder why we struggle in front of the goal?

I don't give a shite if he kept us up – he's been well paid… he needs to go now – he's a fuckin embarrassment to the fans.

Go now, Dyche!

Calvert-Lewin was supported by Ndiaye, Lindstrom and McNeil, similar to how other teams operate.

He truly is the most inept bullshitter I've seen and heard in football.

Same crap tactics. One up front and little possession. Hoping they get lucky. That's all he knows.

Our standards are slipping and have been for a long, long time. We accept staying up as enough to keep a manager in a job, first season maybe, not subsequent ones.

Keane over Branthwaite — he should get the sack for that alone.

He's been here almost 2 years and I don't think there's even a Plan A. It's just try to bang the ball as high and long and hard as possible and get a corner or a set piece and try and nick something.

It's absolutely abysmal, and this isn't a knee-jerk response, it's a very level-headed assessment of the shite we are being served up and told is the best available to us… Bollocks it is.

Tell that to clubs like Bournemouth and Brighton who continue to churn out good managers, despite losing good players and many changes.

Tell that to Nottingham Forest who have had Nuno Espirito Santo 12 months and already had changed the dynamic at that football club.

We are sold a shite product every single year and told that we should expect nothing better. From Day 1, this manager has spoken of relegation battles even despite finishing on effectively 48 points was it, last season – the first words you hear are survival, avoid relegation, struggles.

This has been poor for far too long and some section of the fanbase will have you believe he's doing a great job; they isolate 5 games we had in April and choose to ignore that we didn't win a game of football between December and April last season.

People say possession in football doesn't matter; well, it doesn't as long as you actually win the game, but too often this surrendering of the ball to shite opponents is resulting in us losing those games. It's time for a change now.

I'd give the job to Moyes until May and that should give us plenty of time to really work out where we need to be going as a club when we move to Bramley-Moore Dock.

The Friedkin takeover can't come soon enough, I just hope they are actually going to act and show some genuine ambition.

Only in football. Any other walk of life, you would be long gone with your P45. Get rid now.

Please, please, please – fuck off The Ginger One!

If Dyche had a team of superstars, he'd still play this turgid, cowardly, feeble, timid, brainless, moronic, clueless, idiotic, mindless, boring shit that he serves up every game.

Why do I say this? Because he's an extremely limited manager whose highest achievements in football are surviving relegation battles playing the above mentioned style of “football”.

But, stay or leave, we will stay up this season, despite Dyche. However, this is untenable in the medium-long term. The players will keep us up.

Man City have Haaland, and two of too many to type.
Man Utd have Rashford, Garnacho Holland.
Chelsea three of 42 players.
Arsenal have Martinelli, Havertz, Saka.

Some may call some of them wingers but are all direct threats to goal on their own; if needed, all go down the middle and all seem to score!

Do us a favour, mate, get us to that 30-point mark as soon as possible so you can fuck off out of this club once and for all.

Only then will Dyche's future be determined. Meanwhile, we can only expect him to do his best to save us from relegation!

'Rock and a hard place' syndrome, methinks.

Nearly every club voted to keep VAR so they must all like those incredible borderline decisions that take 4 minutes to decide, but it meant Beto's goal never stood.

Beto should have definitely scored another, their keeper possibly got lucky with Mangala's shot, made a world class save from Michael Keane, who was then inexplicably pulled up for a foul, and how Jack Harrison never hit the target after having so much time to follow the ball, is beyond me.

So definitely enough chances to convincingly win the game, but I think most Evertonians want another change of manager because they are fed up with the lack of creative football?

I think that's part of the problem at Goodison, the current manager has little incentive to do well, as it would seem given the sentiments on these pages and elsewhere, he knows that his face doesn't quite fit at Everton.

He can trundle along in the almost certain knowledge, bar a disastrous run of form, that he will survive to the end of his contract and go on his merry way. Quite a few of the players also find themselves in this position too, which isn't ideal for the club.

If the team was to go on a massive points-gathering run, it would surely accelerate the end of Dyche's tenure/. Only Everton could be in such a ridiculous position and as others have said, the takeover can't be ratified soon enough for all concerned.

I firmly believe this is a mid-table team with a Bottom 5 manager.

There almost zero percent chance he's getting a contract extension so he knows his time here will be up in May.

Maybe he wants to keep his stock at the lower echelon clubs by not suffering relegation, but there we are again, we keep coming back to that word, relegation.

For what it's worth, I believe he would have got relegation with Burnley anyway in 2021-22 before they sacked him in the April.

You are not alone. They aren't very good. Southampton played with one, sometimes none, up front. They had five at the back, doubled up on Ndiaye, who took a knock early in the game, and snuffed out our lame attacks in the first half.

We improved the output after the changes on the hour but not the end product. In the key moments, our players simply lacked the quality to finish chances.

After Dyche was sacked, the temporary manager moved the midfield further up, to involve them in the game more.

He also said they were laughing joking and didn't seem to be bothered about today's result. Defeat doesn't seem to bother them.

Tony 17 We all want a better brand or style of football. Some expect a new manager to turn the same squad into Man City or Liverpool.

We are a bottom 5 team. Ipswich, Southampton, Leicester, us and Wolves will be battling it out all season to stay out of the Bottom 3.

We played Fulham last week and practically all of their players get into our starting 11.

If we swapped Dyche for Fulham's Silva, what do you think would happen?

We have England internationals, Senegalese internationals, Belgian internationals, Ukrainian international, Denmark international players at our disposal.

You would think Dyche was managing a Sunday League team in the FA Cup 1st round the way some paint the picture.

The key as you say is getting the TFG takeover done as quickly as possible. If it's the rumoured 10-12 week period for completion, then that surely takes us to the takeover being completed end of this month or latest by the second week of December.

Maybe they already have plans to replace him in time for the January window to open. Either way, TFG will have a good 6 months to get some of those building blocks in place off the field and turn attention swiftly into bringing in a new manager should they decide to stick with Dyche for the duration of this season.

January will be another key milestone for this club, I feel.

All teams in the Premier League are full of international players. We have a group of functional stoppers that lack guile and quality.

Even when we create chances, we need 4 or 5 to score a goal. What team and formation would you play to get the best out of our internationals?

Do we have a Cole Palmer or a young striker in the U21s who can come in and hit the ground running?

I can accept the low block, men behind the ball, try-and-nick-a-goal approach against better teams. But against what is probably the poorest side in the league, it just seems disingenuous.

With Branthwaite at centre-back, we could have played 10 yards higher and taken the game to them. But we just retained the same shape and did nothing. Passive and reactionary.

Today was 3 points thrown away – simply down to an inability to alter the gameplan, even just slightly, in the face of poor opposition.

We play the game in fear of everyone. Are you happy with watching that?

Are you one of those people brainwashed by the media or the club, keep little old Everton down there where they belong?

When I'm seeing clubs like Bournemouth have managers that are bold, have bollocks about them, it tells me something fundamentally is wrong at Everton that we have to tolerate such loser's mentality football.

Modern football is about pace; until we bring some pace into the team, I think we will continue to struggle, whoever is managing us.

Just getting a bit more pace out wide, would make a massive difference to our team, I'm sure.

Calvert-Lewin last week and Beto this week are apparently 1 or 2 millimetres offside. Last week, the linesman flagged, whilst today he didn't. Are they obvious errors – no.

VAR is crucifying and taking the ultimate joy out of football. Just ask the Coventry supporters, who were denied an FA Cup Final and lifelong memories when VAR denied them a last-minute winner versus Man Utd.

As for Dyche' management style, Everton are in such a mess, they most probably can't afford to sack him until TFG is in total charge.

The players are better than he believes, in my opinion. Why he won't play 3 in midfield and give us a chance to win the midfield battle in matches beats me.

Gueye, Mangala and Garner when fit. Ndiaye a free role and Calvert-Lewin or Beto up front. McNeil in front of the midfield 3. Lindstrom subbed in for McNeil.

Branthwaite plays from the start. Can you imagine Liverpool not picking St Virgil van Dijk if he had been injured and was back to full fitness?!?!

I don't forget the way we took the game to Liverpool at Anfield (the infamous Origi crossbar derby)

He had one poor spell in October and November 2019 but his problems began with the loss of Gana on the cheap to PSG and Kurt Zouma's loan expiring in summer of that year.

Trigger happy Moshiri should have backed him but gave in too soon.

If Everton do sack him: Who sacks him? Who comes in now? Who gives the money to buy new players?

Like Man Utd, we'll have to sell. Who is going to buy some of this deadwood? Players have got to take some responsibility as well.

Short passing we see every week in the training videos posted on YouTube… nowhere to be seen in game situations.

Ndiaye stuck on wing with McNeil in the middle when each has a skill set that says that should be reversed.

Subs rotten again as Lindstrom should have been off for Harrison in a straight swap. The bench had zero depth.

Dyche has to go. His position is untenable. Dare I say that anyone of the posters on here could get more out of that team than he could?

The Dyche quest to average 1 point per game, 38 points (or better) in total, suffered a minor set back.

Other than a bit of a drop the 'feel good (or lack of) perception' vibe, not much has changed (??)

To the uninitiated, Dyche's team selection is all over the place like a mad woman's shit... he did make early (for him) changes though.

We're still shite to watch, keepers mostly seem to up their game against us... or do we just keep hitting it straight at them?

A corner for us results in a goal for them.

A player who hasn't scored a goal all season, yet again breaks his duck courtesy of the County Road Casuals.

VAR still hates us.

Beto – depending on your view – either needs to start next week, flatters to deceive, or one day he'll really batter somebody and get one of those hat-tricks where he should've had 5.

Given our luck, West Ham will sack their guy tomorrow and we'll have to face some revved up New Manager Bounce next week.

Everton That.

I don't believe we play with any fear. I believe the manager deliberately sits deep due to the lack of pace in the entire team and wants to hit teams on the break or at set pieces.

I am not brainwashed, I want to see exciting attacking football like everyone else; I know it won't happen with this group of players or manager.

Little old Everton have been outspent in the Premier League for about 3 years running. We have weakened the team year on year. We haven't got a pot to piss in.

We are in a dog fight at the bottom, suicidal football around the back with less technical players only ends in defeat in this league.

We probably can't even afford to sack Dyche nevermind replace him with a named manager and buy players.

We had enough chances today to win that game by 2 goals easy; instead, we got exposed for pace on a counter-attack after Beto hit the bar from 2 yards out.

There is no silver bullet I am afraid.

It was nailed on!

Practically speaking, Dyche won‘t or can‘t be sacked until the ownership transfer is complete. The current owners won‘t sack him given they‘re about to sell the club and the new owners can‘t pull the trigger as they don‘t own the club yet.

At the very least, Dyche will be here until the ownership changes, which is still at least a few weeks away. So, the 'Dyche Out‘ shouts are a bit pointless imo. He‘s here for now. It was a shit result but we could have won had the Beto header gone in, never mind the offside goal. On to West Ham – not the end of the world.

Feels like a lame duck presidency at the moment whilst we wait for the sale to go through. We just need to get through the next few weeks until Moshiri is out.

Please, please – can we put the Moyes back chat to bed. 100% not the manager we need if Dyche is shown the door. Look forward, not back.

One away win in 2024 says it all. Things have to change and change soon.

Spot on.

Put him on gardening leave and ask Coleman to take over until our board is in place. He can't do any worse than Dyche.

That's not to say I was happy with the performance and I dare anyone to challenge the view that, if Jarrad Branthwaite had been in the starting lineup, we wouldn't have conceded, and if Beto had been on from the start, we would have had more chance of scoring.

Calvert-Lewin is just going through the motions at the moment and not imposing himself on games at all. If he has no movement and is not winning and holding the ball up, it puts more pressure on the other players.

How many times today did we see one of our players try to break forward and then find they had no support?

Other teams have 5 or 6 players running into the box. We must have the lowest rate of goals scored from open play.

Enough of my rant and on to West Ham who, with 2 recent red cards, are going to be a bit depleted… but there again, so were Southampton today due to illness in the camp.

We are a club that has never been relegated from the Premier League, this club is not staying up because of Sean Dyche, we will stay up if Sean Dyche left tomorrow and we brought even Lee Carsley in.

The decisions of the man baffle me. He won't play two strikers up front but he is happy to play two up front when he throws Michael Keane up top with Beto… what the actual fuck is he thinking?!?!

Leaving Branthwaite out, what other club in the Premier League would do that?!?!

Let's keep thinking we can't do any better than this incumbent, that's fine. We can stick or we can twist, if we want to persist with this mind-numbing dross until May because we have nothing more than fear overriding what may happen, let's all jump on the masochist ride.

1. He can't be sacked because there's nobody in the club with the authority to do it except Moshiri, and he's in the final stages of selling the club. Any major financial moves he makes would require renegotiating the deal.

2. Moshiri is also pretty much busted, so he couldn't afford to hire anybody decent anyway.

3. Friedkin can't sack him because he doesn't own the club yet.

4. Friedkin won't allow the hiring of another manager because he will most assuredly want to hire his own... and he can afford to hire pretty much anybody he wants.

5. Friedkin ain't stupid enough to hire Moyes.

Obviously we should have won this game, and obviously we could be starting the New Year in the Bottom 3. But a panic buy of an unemployed manager who could himself be shitcanned when the new owner arrives would be patently ridiculous in my view.

We're just gonna have to ride this out and hope we can scramble a few points along the way. I happen to think Dyche's the best qualified to pull that off. But if the Friedkins don't share that view, we'll know before the next window opens.

The cold reality is that we have 12 players out of contract next June. Add the manager, his staff and the DoF. Braithwaite and Ndiaye will be sought after. As the weeks will pass, these players and staff will be more as likely interested in their futures rather than their present.

Some may see this uncertainty as a motivation to secure their futures. Others are rich enough to down tools. Certainly the manager will never need to worry about paying his mortgage.

Hopefully the takeover will happen… but when? In time to influence the January transfer window? Perhaps… but we are more than likely hamstrung by the Financial Rules.

The new ground can save us financially but will take time to do so. All-in-all, can we stay up bearing all this negativity in mind?

December to me seems to be the defining date. There are only 2 games left in November, I believe. December looks like Armageddon fixture-wise. By the end of that month, we could easily be in the wrong place in the table. TFG may well have taken over by then.

That for me is decision time. We may not be so adrift from safety. There will be 50% of the season left. Perhaps a new manager can motivate this bunch of underperformers to secure enough points. Ideally there might be some wiggle room for 1-2 new players.

In conclusion, our recent record of hiring and firing managers has been appalling. Dyche may be able to pull the proverbial rabbit out of the hat. However, failing that unlikely scenario, I am afraid TFG might have no choice but to let him walk into the night with a large cheque in his back pocket.

I don't imagine that either would see it as a dereliction of duty; indeed, quite possibly the opposite and, given that the matter is awaiting only Premier League approval, I can't see that it would in any way affect the agreed sale price.

Or do we all believe that the (acting?) CEO and team manager are both lame ducks?

You really do talk some shit.

A fabulous new stadium, money to spend, and hopefully eventually a new tactically savvy attack-minded manager…

That's my dream anyway.

Everton spent the entire summer telling everyone that Branthwaite was a 70/75 million pound player

Can’t get in the team 😂

If that was the case, why is Dyche playing Calvert-Lewin?

If, allegedly he is not playing Branthwaite because he wants away (understandable, but not approved) then why is he playing Calvert-Lewin?Who obviously want's away as he is refusing to sign a new deal.

Admittedly there are fewer options in the striker's role, but Beto seems to be doing better, although I don't think he's the answer long-term.

Getting back to centre-backs and Keane, still slow though, has been playing well, but Tarkowski is well below his usually dependable self, and allegedly playing through the pain barrier.

Why not slot Branthwaite in for Tarkowski? Which brings up the question marks over O'Brien, why (over)pay £17M for a player we didn't really need at the time, then again not play him? He played well in the pre-seasons and got a few goals too!

Conclusion: Dyche is first and foremost stubbornly arrogant, and once he gets an idea in his head, right or wrong, he will refuse to either admit he got it 'tits up' or just blame the players for not carrying it out!

That is an embarrassing post which just highlights the effect this manager is having on the mindset of our fanbase.

Yesterday, we had the best young centre-backs in England and Ireland sitting on the bench. Both are different level to Bassey and Diop – two very poor Fulham centre-backs who started against us. Bassey was often embarrassed by Celtic strikers up in Scotland while Diop couldn't be kicked out of West Ham quick enough.

Our squad is so poor that our third-choice central midfield player under Dyche is now the undisputed first-choice for Aston Villa, competing with Bayern Munich s finest.

The very same team had a Top 8 squad but hired a joke manager who brought them to a position similar to us; then they got a top-level coach who brought them into Europe immediately.

I'm not comparing our squad to Villa's but highlighting how the exact same players can look shit under one manager and like world-beaters under another.

Many of the players who supporters of Dyche use to berate our squad and lack of depth are the very ones he favours or has signed, such as Young, Keane, Harrison, Doucoure and Beto.

Frequently, Blues on here have highlighted full-back as a weak area and, without many of our midfield options yesterday, a coach with an ounce of tactical acumen would have seen Southampton as the perfect opportunity to adopt a 3-4-2-1 system and take the game to them.

He could have played O'Brien, Tarkowski and Branthwaite to allow them to play further up the pitch. McNeil and Harrison are suited wide in a midfield four because they both get up and down and aren't creative enough to be wide attackers but both can deliver balls which would help Dominic.

Then you can play Ndiaye and Lindstrom with freedom in their favoured positions so they can express themselves rather than doing the hard yards which takes away from their key strengths.

That team would have dominated Southampton and if you need a goal, you could revert to a 3-5-2 and play Beto alongside Calvert-Lewin. If you need to be more solid or fresh legs, you can replace the wide midfielders with Patterson and Mykolenko or Young.

If you need a little more experience at the back to see out the game, you can bring on Keane or Coleman. They are some decent options despite having Chermiti, Broja, Garner, Doucoure, and Iroegbunam still to come back.

Our league position is atrocious considering the fixtures we have played and the manager who once was an asset has become a serious liability.

This is the best squad we have had since Ancelotti's and looks worse than the poor bugger Benitez who had Demarai Gray as his star man and fuck-all else.

He deserves credit for the previous Everton rescue mission, pragmatically keeping us up, but he's lost that credit. Teams like Bournemouth, Brighton, Forest etc made positive changes and are getting far better outcomes from limited squads.

We need to do the same. His tactics, approach, management style are outdated and stinking the place out…

New owners, new manager…

Time will tell I suppose – hopefully Branthwaite will want to stay put until we move to the new stadium and have new owners, then look at it again.

I think half the squad have no time for him, they don't believe in his style. It's so embarrassing. I've seen some poor Everton sides in my time and some of the players we have now are a lot better.

So fuck off, Dyche, useless twat. So negative, week-in & week-out, made Southampton look like a good side yesterday. Dyche ain't fit to be manager of Everton FC… I can't stand this no more.

Big Nev said it a few years back: Everton back in the day went into every season to win the league. It should be the same now then you see where we end up.

Dyche has no ambition; we just plod along with his excuses and crying… Get out now. I can't see where 3 points are coming from if he stays another month. We will be playing Championship football this time next season… The nightmare continues — I've had enough!

And what's happened to O'Brien? He must be well pissed off!

West Ham away next, a team with a soft centre, so hopefully we will try and exploit their weak spot by having a night go at them.

Another waste of £16 million, might as well just kept Conor Coady.

After some serious thought I pinpointed that it often coincided with watching an Everton game.

Think I know what it is, the G P replied, " you are suffering a severe case of Dycharrea ! :-)

Better posters than me have already set out the reasons we won't be losing Sean Dyche at this moment in time.

PS - I'd also forgotten about O'Brien.

Not heard of that. Is it what Dyche speaks after each game?

I'm bored of his tedious “time on the grass” drivel. Just fuck off, you inane, inept clown.

It's been a series of expectation-eroding events and statements from the club. Culminating in the appointment of a guy who is a professional at lowering standards.

Give him his due, he's done his job so well that he had Evertonians declaring survival to be success as early as October. Job done in Dyche's eyes.

This club needs leadership so badly. We're waiting for the new owners and the new stadium right now but who knows whether we'll still be waiting after that?

Wouldn’t surprise me if he lost the dressing room soon.

He's only doing what he's always done in football management. Plod along achieving fuck all. While I would love an elite-level coach and a team playing great football and winning all the trophies, this is not very likely.

But surely there are plenty of more plausible alternatives out there who could do better, even with the current squad of players, than Sean Dyche is doing – and is likely to continue doing for as long as he remains our manager?

People don’t want Moyes though because of the way he left us and his connections with Kenwright rather than his actual performance as Manager. Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face.

He pulled West Ham clear of trouble twice, got them into Europe and won a trophy. Bet West Ham would have him back in a heartbeat now.

He is night and day better than Dyche.

Regardless of whether it should have been, it's just a way of trying to justify why you can't beat a team that is totally useless. It's 11 v 11, that's football – you can't have a tactic of hoping for a man to be sent off to give you a chance of beating a winless club.

Also Nigel #80, I'm not against Moyes for leaving the way he did, I'm against him because (rather like Dyche) he spent years lowering expectations and telling us mediocre was success. But he was better than Dyche. So was Allardyce. I don't want him back either.

And hopefully we can all look forward to appointing a manager who puts the team on the front foot with dominating, attacking football, instead of the awful fear football under the current manager.

I don't think I can take much more of it.

I have an issue with VAR for, in my eyes, Beto was not offside, and the freeze frame did not show the exact timing of the pass. It was a goal!

Whether Broja and O'Brien would make any difference is anybody's guess.

The fact that we have thrown 3 points away to a side that are rivals at the bottom of the Premier League puts us under more pressure.

Sadly, I can't see Dyche getting his marching orders any time soon. Even with the new owners coming in, unless we've bombed into the relegation zone, I think Dyche stays until the end of the season.

And those questioning what was the point of us buying O'Brien:

1) We only have 4 centre-backs at the club. Without O'Brien, a centre-back injury crisis leaves us with Ashley Young playing there.

2) When Branthwaite goes for £100M in the Summer, it means we have a player ready to step in. (You'd think the new manager wouldn't be starting Keane every week!)

The rules don't say the point when the foot first makes contact with the ball. Nor do they say it's the point when there is air between the foot and the ball. They don't say those things because the rules never contemplated someone flicking between freeze frames and drawing lines on the pitch at some arbitrary point.

I think you can make a case for Beto either way depending on when you freeze the image. When you think about it, that's absurd.

I guess if it's consistent then it's at least fair. And the old approach of blatant offsides being missed or clear onsides being incorrectly called wasn't better.

But they've got to take this millimetres stuff out of the equation. Let the assistant call it, then pick a margin of error and run with it. If you're beyond the margin of error then you're offside.

There will still be some very close calls, but, similar to a speeding fine, if you're beyond even the margin of error then you've really got no legitimate complaint.

I was amazed that when the VAR adjudicators were perusing the footage, not at any time did they have in the frame the player playing the ball at the same time as Beto was about to receive the ball.

As Dyche said in his interview, offside is offside. He has taken the officials word for it without viewing the footage himself. He should take a look and make his view known.

Both the Lino and the ref thought it was a goal and, given the amount of time they took to overrule that, it was obviously not a clear and obvious error. So why was VAR even involved?

But somehow Mykolenko has been blamed by some; maybe he was at fault but so was Young who was rooted to the spot.

If a player is level or behind (any part of the body and that is fair) then he is onside. The lines on the replay screen are perfectly valid as long as they show perspective so exact decisions can be made.

No in tolerance for the original decision should be allowed because the arguments would still be applied to the position of body plus the tolerance. Where the tolerance should be applied is in VAR deciding that the decision was clear and obvious and hence the decision should be changed.

I believe that a 4-inch or 100-mm allowance is fair and that, up to this, VAR cannot change a decision but only refer it back. It is unfair on a linesman to be able to get it spot on only reasonably so.

Beto's goal on Saturday should always be allowed to stand otherwise the decision is unfair on the basis of encouraging and allowing free and positive play and allowing what is always a subjective decision to be made without stopping play.

Play should not be stopped to allow the VAR to look at the decision. It could easily be stopped and restarted once a decision is made.

I notice the Rugby Union has changed the red ccard from off to off but can be replaced after 20 minutes. The red card without replacing was always an unfair punishment as it punished the fans when red should be a punishment only on the player and perhaps partially on the club.

Football should adopt this rule unless the offence was deliberate and severe.

It's no the way he left for me. One, just one example of a negative prick Moyes is: Liverpool at Wembley.

They had their third-choice keeper in. We go one-nil up. Put Fellaini from up front to the back second half. Wigan at home in the cup. I can go on.

The only problem I had was the way he left… it was a couple of years late.

And I do stress: only till the end of the season. But anyway clearly too divisive, just like Dyche.

Intelligent and insightful and spot on.

That was a pretty blistering piece by Michael Ball, he usually has something positive to say about Everton within his articles, but this time he's given Dyche both barrels.

Perfect analysis really, isn't it?

At the start of the season, we were all asking for a period of stability amid the relegation, proposed takeover and administration fever that was swirling around the club.

If Dyche maintains his point-a-game standards, however desperate the football is, I'd be tempted to give him the nod until the end of the season. This would allow the new owners to get their feet under the table and undertake a proper recruitment process for a new manager in the summer. Not jerk their knees like Moshiri and appoint the latest flash in the pan. Or go backwards to David Moyes.

If we're in the Bottom 3 at Christmas though, all bets might be off.

Slightly higher than the 0.8 at Burnley when they sacked him. The bar is set so low already and the margins for error so fine.

For me, the quicker he goes, the better. He's too stubborn to change anything so we'll get boring turgid shite hoofball til season end.

If we stay up, it'll be a feckin miracle… he is useless.

We shouldn't even be in the relegation conversation, but we are.

I'd have preferred to have lost to Fulham and drawn at St Mary's as that would have been better for us in relation to the gap between those in the Bottom 3 and ourselves.

The next four fixtures will tell us a great deal, none of them are gimmes but all of them, if Everton have anything about them, should yield a few points.

I'd say, if we get less than 4 points from the next 4 games, then Dyche will have to face the music, whether it causes instability or not.

It's really sickening to think that Manchester United are having their worst start to the season since Everton were last heading for the league title, yet here we are again behind them in the league.

Manchester United on 12 points which Opta, the Premier League's stats supplier, said was its lowest after 10 games since the 1986-87 season.

Whilst Everton are doing what they normally have done for large periods since those halycon days – playing horrible football and occupying an unsatisfactory place in the table.

Would have been much better if we had lost to Fulham and drew against Southampton, now they have a little bit of wind in their sails.

Intelligent footballer. Intelligent fan. He always tries to be balanced and fair but never shy of proper and warranted criticism. His article says what so many of us think.

Dyche is too thick-skinned to take note. He is right. None of us, Michael Ball included, have a clue.

I particularly like his comment about how it would have wound him up as a player being set up in fear of Southampton. I've been saying this for a while – Dyche's message has consistently been that our team is not good enough to play any football – no matter the opponent.

That would absolutely be demoralising. Imagine being up near the top of any profession and being told to take a paint-by-numbers approach to your work instead of using the ability that got you to this position.

Unless there is clear daylight between an attacker and defender when the ball is played, the attacker js onside.

Secondly, if VAR is used, the ball should be deemed as played forward after it has left the foot or head of the player making the pass. A clear daylight principle applies once more.

If the above principles were applied, VAR could be applied with clarity – not absurdity.

Dyche lost the Burnley job for exactly the same reason: poor results, yes, but poor tactics, team selection, stubbornness, and sheer bloody-mindedness.

For the past couple of seasons, fans have begrudgingly accepted the style because it did enough to keep us up. But the results this season tell a different story, one of arrogance, tactical absurdity, poor decision-making.

Get it right and fans accept the reasoning behind decisions made, but continually getting it wrong when all can see why, is suicidal for the club.

Despite the timing with the takeover, Dyche should go now, before December's fixtures. If not, the morale with players will be completely and utterly lost and we will be playing in the Championship next season.

I submitted an article, not yet published, a few days ago stating why Dyche had to go and why I would put Moyes in till the end of the season.

I don't like Moyes but he is a far, far better manager than Dyche, and a better bet to survive in the Premier League. I am not advocating anything more than to the end of season, but he has to be a safer bet than Dyche. If you had to currently make the call between the two and survival, who would you chose?

Completely agree, a much, much better manager with form for taking on short-term contracts, he got West Ham out of the shit twice.

Kudos to the team and best of luck next time.

Just strap yourself in. Cross your eyes and hope.

The referee didn't think it was offside, the linesman didn't think it was, the TV pictures definitely showed it wasn't, but VAR spent 5 minutes concocting a picture that still didn't show it was offside.

When the TV showed their replay, I calmed myself in the knowledge I could see it wasn't offside. Suddenly, this grainy picture appeared, where you don't see the player passing the ball, with this thick line at a strange angle trying to show Beto is ahead of a Southampton defender.

How many goals have we had disallowed in this manner since the away goal we scored when Davies squared the ball to Mina against Man Utd under Benitez?

Since VAR was introduced, we have been hit time and time again with goals being disallowed, dodgy sendings-off, dodgy penalties given against us, nailed-on penalties being denied. The only game last season where I thought we got favourable decisions was Forest at home. The only one. I am sure people could point to a few decisions that went our way but the big ones given against us will tower over them.

If this was just incompetence, you would think the bad decisions would even out over a season and about 50% would be in our favour. But they definitely don't.

Take the Newcastle home game. Pawson, who had ridiculously sent off Dom, using VAR, for a near-perfect tackle last season, gets the nod for the Newcastle game. You could think he would be inclined to redress things a little but he is happy to disallow the Doucoure goal, happy to give Newcastle a penalty and, when the nailed-on penalty comes along for Everton… nah not for me. Wouldn't you think, after all the decisions against us, he would be only too happy to give Everton the penalty? And if he didn't see the foul in the box, why did he say not for me? 

My only conclusion is, so long as these despicable characters are following the Premier League directive, they know they have nothing to worry about.

And they don't need to worry about Everton Football Club kicking up a fuss. It is quite unbelievable that, after all the recent history, the club isn't now going ballistic about what is going on. Even some supporters seem to be in denial that anything dodgy is going on.

And it's not just that another point has been taken from us. Dom had a goal taken off him the previous week and now Beto is denied the reward of two goals in two games which would have boosted his confidence enormously.

For people who deny there's ‘bias', ‘corruption',or a ‘vendetta' against Everton, let me just mention two incidents.

When Harry Kane started the trouble and then dramatically dived to the floor when Doucoure pushed him stupidly in the face, how come no retrospective action was taken against Kane who created the whole mess and then did a delayed dive to get a fellow player sent-off?

When Mane at two Anfield derbies ago, I think, pushed his fingers into an Everton player's face, which could have taken out an eye, and didn't get red carded and then clearly winked to other Liverpool players, how come no retrospective action was taken by the Premier League then? 

You can hide behind opinion or a genuine mistake but, when you are ignoring clear bad conduct, you know something very wrong is going on. 

Look at Liverpool, they get decision after decision in their favour, but one mistake – and for them it will be a mistake – it is like a volcano has just gone off. From the club, the manager as was, the players, the supporters, the media. But the club that has been battered with bad decisions, many deliberate, say absolutely nothing. It is quite incredible.

Where the hell is the outrage? We just seem to sleep walk from one game to the next. A point stolen from us, say nothing, on to the next bad decision.

Any good manager would factor this in. Dyche has seen what happens to Everton, he knows he can't rely on us sneaking a goal. He should be on it.