Chelsea loss a reminder of Everton's full-back failings

As you said, O'Brien was excellent in his proper position at Bournemouth, his pace, touch and height are badly missed in the centre.

Our centre-backs are too slow -- that's why we're so deep and on the back foot.

So go back three of:
O'Brien, Tarkowski, Keane, with wing-backs:
Garner and McNeil;
Centre midfield of Iroegbunam and Alcaraz
Forwards: Dibling, Barry, Grealish.

Just an idea.

Definitely Jake in his best position at centre-back and for this game a 3 at the back.

I'd drop both the strikers -- they are both dogshit and never will make Premier League strikers two goals between them this season is a disgrace with the amount of chances we have created more a less every game.

I'd play Charly Alcaraz as a striker or false 9; he won't do any worse. As for Barry being very young -- he's actually older than Charly. Bambi and Bambier are clueless.

Then someone suggests using McNeil as a wing-back. Like that's going to inject pace defensively!

And even then, that's only if Grealish is fully fit. If he isn't, we should save him for the FA Cup game and play the “usual” back four.

Buy or loan some full-backs in January.

Sort the midfield out and we won't need to talk about 3 at the back. I hope to God Röhl will recover and show us why we bought him.

Patric in his wisdom has irrefutably labelled Mykolenko with sole responsibility for that first goal. Personally, I don't even give partial blame... but the fact he absolves Gueye especially and Keane suggests he is trying to play to the gallery and make justification for this pathetic article.

Mykolenko is certainly not a top-class full-back, attack-wise he is a limited footballer, of that there is no dispute. But in my opinion, he has been head and shoulders our best defender this season. In fact it's not even close.

He has come up against the majority of teams' most dangerous player, whether that be Mbuemo, Salah, Wilson or Semenyo, and always come out on top. The one time he hasn't is against Neto, who has blistering speed and skill -- a combination which is the most likely to find Mykolenko out.

This constant narrative about Mykolenko is one which has been perpetuated by that numpty Ped on Toffee TV. The hilarious thing was, after he destroyed the player, he read out his stats for the game. Won 5 out of 7 duels, blah blah blah. He almost stopped reading them and dismissed them as they totally countered his argument.

Even if Patric gets his way and we get a modern full-back in January, will that improve the team? Kirkez was one of the best last season and he is complicit every week. Truffert is excellent going forward but again is powder puff defensively. Careful what you wish for.

It's funny that the best team in the league play with Calafori, while Man City won titles using Ake and Gvardiol. No great assist makers there. Grealish hugs the touchline... so would a modern full back be made redundant anyway?

Perhaps, Patric, you could have asked: Does playing Keane hinder us?
Is Gueye the force of old?
Is Grealish's influence on the wane?
Is Moyes's approach to the 2nd half a reason why we are 0-5 with the Champions League teams with an aggregate of 1-13 goals?
Is the formation Moyes used against Chelsea symptomatic of why we are one of the worst teams in the league for chance creation and shots on goal?
This Chelsea game could have brought up so many questions or articles.

Mykolenko got embarrassed by Neto just as Garner got done twice at Fulham. The difference: no goal came from it. Likewise, Myko skinned Gusto; however, Chalobah bailed him out with the block on Alcaraz. Garner rightly got the plaudits for his performance, no one even mentioned it.

After every game this lad gets hammered yet, even the other day, it was him driving forward in the last 10 minutes, giving everything to get a result. I don't get it.

As I played left-back all my life, I always watch ours when I'm also a fan of Mykolenko. But I don't think he's been at his best this season, albeit far from as black as he's painted.

I have a theory that he is confused or put off his stride by Grealish's style of play in that Jack, as observed by many on here, does tend to slow the ball down and turn into the middle.

Dewsbury-Hall has used Mykolenko on the overlap on occasion but I think Mykolenko sees himself as the back door option for Grealish and hesitates to burst forward. I noticed in a couple of games that he "lingers" behind Grealish on the touchline, going neither forward nor back, especially in the Newcastle game.

But he's an international of some repute, and has played regularly well for us, so I hope he builds an understanding with Jack as the season goes on.

I'm suggesting a back three, with two good defensive wing backs in McNeil (who has performed well there in the past) and Garner, to hopefully keep Saka busy with defensive duties around the half-way line rather than pushing on a regular back four. But only because we're depleted and because, well, it's Arsenal.

If we were playing Wolves or Brentford this weekend, I'd keep Mykolenko in the side. And if Jack is out, then Mykolenko and McNeil have worked well in the past.

IMO, failing injury, our left back position is not a priority -- I'm hoping Aznou is at least good enough to deputise, and it's right-back that is the most crucial area to address.
And striker, natch.

If those issues are not addressed, there won't be much more improvement on where we are now.

Mykolenko against Spurs had to make underlaps, meaning he was ending up on the edge of their box. This is not where you want this player.

Ndiaye has been terrible defensively against West Ham, Man City and Bournemouth, which magnifies the issue of our right-back. O'Brien for his part was badly exposed against Chelsea both ways.

I agree with you that Mykolenko would be optimal in a back three; however, for this game, I want him on Saka as I think he can snuff him out.

Before we start talking about the deficiencies in the squad, I feel we must try to find solutions for getting the most out of it. Moyes will go with Jake again and I think he may be right on this occasion as he will face Trosard; I think he hasn't the pace to trouble us and we will need his height.

Against Burnley, however, I would like to see Garner at right-back, O'Brien central, Ndiaye left, Grealish as a Number 10 with either Rohl or Iroegbunam sitting.

I don't think Barry is the biggest problem as neither Grealish nor Dewsbury-Hall give him any service.

Ndiaye wants to cut in and shoot, allowing Mykolenko to get into crossing position and stopping Ndiaye from being doubled up which Grealish creates.

On the right side, Garner will provide width with Dibling cutting inside.

When Dewsbury-Hall plays at Number 10, he never looks up to play Barry in or find Ndiaye. He tries to play a one-two with Grealish. Having Jack central would make him harder to mark and he has the ability to open up the right side as well as go past players himself.

I think that team would be more balanced, offering a threat from both wings and being more creative centrally, giving Barry the type of service he thrived on at Villarreal.

The striker's job is to find the net but he can't do anything without chances. Barry has found the net 3 times but only one counted. Against Bournemouth, he did everything right with his chance. He only missed one sitter against Sunderland.

Bambi and Bambier have missed enough chances to have at least 10 each.

As for Ndiaye not defending, he's our best attacker but still tracks back... unbelievable. By the way, he won't be playing against Burnley, he's at the African Cup of Nations.

Dewsbury-Hall is doing well considering he doesn't look up. He's got three more goals than either of them poor underserved strikers you mention.

Mykolenko is a Championship defender. I'll give you one though: Grealish as a Number 10 is fine.

Barry's xG (for what it's worth) is 2.7 meaning he should have scored between 2-3 goals... You can name the ten sitters he has missed if you like.

Your disrespect for our players says a lot about you, Paul.

As for Ndiaye, I forgot and meant how I would like to be played all this season.

Dewsbury-Hall has 2 assists. One came when played as a Number 8. If you look at how his form improved when he played as a Number 8, he will score as many goals coming from deep.

Ndiaye is much better on the left; go back to those goals against if you disbelieve.

I tell you now, Paul, the next striker we sign won't score a lot of goals in this set-up, just as Calvert-Lewin has already scored more than last season playing under Dyche's set up.

I obviously sit in a different stadium to you if the one I'm in Bambi has missed more than 3 and that's just at home. He's crap, simples.

If I'm disrespecting him for stating the truth, so be it. He's on £40k a week -- £39.5k a week more than me -- so no sympathy here.

If you want your stats, Jack has created 34 goal scoring opportunities this season, according to Sky, and Dewsbury-Hall plays with his head down.

Oh and Rohl, another of your players, has been injured all season... back to Germany in January.

Can you tell me a chance he has created for either Barry or Ndiaye?

Hopefully you can do better than you did for Barry.

The xG stats aren't my opinion -- they are the opinion of others.

The difference between you and I is that, if I criticise a player, I do so professionally, not a childish personal attack.

Good luck listing them.

Not my stats.

Again, not my stats. No assists for 14 matches exactly. Bambi and Bambier not putting them in, for fuck's sake!

That may sound a bit harsh on some of the players we do have and have given us some really bright moments this season but you cannot be up one week and down the next. It's just not acceptable in this league.

We can only hope that next month sees improvements in the personnel to get us into the Top 6 or 7.

There are some players who have not risen to the call and a few others yet to be given a real run in the team that may make some difference but, without a really class striker, it will remain as it is right now.

That's a load off.

I'm sorry you don't like my comments but I can only say what I see and these stats say. But suppose I'm being disrespectful to our players.

Don't look at the stats. Tell me all those chances for Barry you've seen from your seat in the Hill Dickinson. Tell me all those chances you've seen Dewsbury-Hall create for our other two attackers. Tell me if I'm wrong, why our chance creation is among the lowest in the Premier League.

I will check in tomorrow for your extensive| report...

Don't choose to ignore it -- you asked for the proof... there you go. That's 8 big chances, not just chances. Do you actually go to the game?

I have little faith in some stats because it depends who or what is recording them and what action they are judging. Taken wirh a pinch of salt in my opinion.

I actually don't like stats myself but when you get people saying "prove it" etc, you have to use them. But the facts are best.

And the fact is Barry and Beto have 1 goal each. For a team 8th in the Premier League and playing very well in a much improved team. Worst two strikers in the Premier League... fact.

It's early days for Barry but I don't buy into it. He's 23 -- not really a kid -- and if he's a Premier League striker, I'm a Ballon d'Or winner.

Hopefully he scores a hat-trick this weekend; we can all dream...

6 shots on target all season from Barry and Beto, but others aren't much better... For context, Haaland has had 35.

We've lacked goal-scoring chances, and we've lacked clinical edge. Anyone who watches the warm-up attempts on goal pre-match won't be surprised by the stats. The boys collectively can't hit a cow's arse with a banjo.

They're good on the eye but watch them closely and they wouldn't improve us. There must be better options out there, but not those two.

You began with an inflammatory and disrespectful post whereby:

1) you claimed Bambi missed 10 chances so my defence of him was wrong. Unfortunately, you embarrassed yourself when asked to name them.

2) You had a problem with the claim in certain matches Ndiaye let us down defensively. You failed to give evidence that this was wrong and spoke about his obvious attacking qualities... pointless.

3) You had a problem with the suggestion Dewsbury-Hall lacks the vision of a Number 10 to play in Ndiaye or Barry. Your challenge that he scored four goals... again pointless.

4) You had a problem with my defence of Mykolenko. Despite him stifling some of the most dangerous players in the league, your challenge? Just the claim he is Championship standard. Again, no evidence — just nonsense from out of your mouth.

The next time you wanna say you've never heard such crap in your life, make sure you have a bit of a credible argument before you address me like that again. OOtherwise I won't be so measured.

Incidentally, Lewis Miley just scored the winner in the Carabao Cup in the last minute. What the hell was he doing there? He should be at Portsmouth or Birmingham learning his trade, improving against inferior players, with a smile on his face.

What is Eddie Howe thinking keeping him at Newcastle this season, doesn't he know about Seamus Coleman?

I'll cancel the pressies... the knuckleduster for Conor and the cosh for Paul then!

In recent times for full-backs, we have bought Mykolenko, Patterson and Aznou. I appreciate that latter has time but that is not great purchasing given time is not on our side. It means we basically don't even have a reserve or second-tier right-back and thus play good players out of position, when they are better elsewhere.

I really don't understand the failure here. I know strikers are tough to get but full-backs much less so... and if we had better one — or two — I think even our donkeys upfront might get a few more goals.

If you get Darren Hind/Dave Cashen/Dave Wilson to show up, I'll be there with my knuckle duster to celebrate, mate.

I agree with you that Barry hasn't had ten chances and that Everton create very few. But good players create their own, see Ndiaye and Dewsbury-Hall.

Personally, I don't dislike Mykolenko, but would I swap him for a Cucarella? Yes.

Right-back is the big issue, how we don't have a natural fit is beyond daft. Seamus faded as a player and we used Ashley Young, who defied his years. Patterson has sadly never looked the part, and Kenny fell short too.

I had really expected Moyes to sort this by now, as our defence used to be his bedrock. A quality right-back and Branthwaite back, with O'Brien, will transform this defence, allow more freedom to play further up the pitch, and give license to our more creative players.

Strikers are another matter altogether...

A lot better off, I'd say!

But you cannot be up one week and down the next. It's just not acceptable in this league.

I think you sum up the problem a lot of clubs in that thick middle spread in the Premier League table have at the moment: up one week and down the next... because all it takes is a win or a loss.

Then you say "It's just not acceptable in this league". Yes, we all want more consistency from our own team, but aren't we quite happy that this inconsistency others are showing actually gives us a chance at the big time?

It may only last a week or two if we lose a couple and drop back down again but unacceptable? Perhaps in the sense of the great Sir John Moores, and his quote in the Everton History video is what you mean here, and that something must be done to improve results so that we don't keep bouncing up and down the table.

But to a large degree isn't this what you buy into when you agree to compete with other teams in this league?

You say it can't be done with the current squad, and hold out the hope that improvement will come in the next transfer window, but there are a load of games to play before that closes and have you not noticed that the hopes stacked up for each transfer window never seem to be quite fulfilled?

Meanwhile, this current squad has shown that it can win. And these current players (Afcon notwithstanding) are the ones we have to compete with the rest. What I find 'unaccptable' is when that very limited squad is not fully utilised.

I'm very suprised how well we have done up to now this season considering all the injuries and apparent dodgy signings that have been made.

I think maybe 2 or 3 of them will come good in time, but as usual our recruitment has left plenty to be desired.

Maybe we have been lucky or the players are better than we give them credit for! Then again it could be down to the old dog we have as manager.

Yea, the problem with the Edit facility has been reported.

Getting these annoyances fixed is proving to be harder than I expected... Sorry!

If it ain't broke, don't fuck with it?

A while back, I penned an article. In all honesty it was a little bit ranty, probably more of a thesis than an article, done in frustration after a tough spell watching the team. You would have hated it, Jimmy, and would have been one of the first to put the boot in, but it was at least thought-provoking and debate-stimulating if nothing else.

Back a few years ago, there would have been 10 better on any given week. It needed a good dollop of TLC to make it even remotely presentable but little did I know Michael was in the middle of a shit storm so making it legible would have been the last thing on his mind, even if his want.

The next day I clicked on and a new article was up and I was surprised thinking perhaps it was better than I thought. No disrespect if the author wasn't a paid member but it obviously wasn't mine, this was a bland, sterile, unemotive piece with little insight; I had nothing to be disappointed about but I was.

I knew I could never pen something like that, nor would I want to put my name to it and in that moment I knew I wouldn't be putting forward anything again.

Over the next few months, I've seen many posters whom I respect leave one by one but I thought it was important to continue to post as most would be back after the teething was sorted out in transitioning to new ownership and I was convinced the new group would be rethinking some of the clickbait articles and opinion pieces which had replaced those that elicited some great discussion over the years. I felt a sense of loyalty to a site that had been good to me and tried to encourage others to remain.

Yesterday's was one of several, including one on player ratings which gave Mykolenko a 4.5, which in my view was after one mistake, and this one purely designed for a pile on, aimed for the likes of the Paul Murray, whom I was never even aware of before, to sharpen his knife.

When I see a player make a howler and spend the last 10 minutes of a game thinking he's Gareth Bale trying to rectify it, I think "You'll do for me". When I watch a player like Barry, I know he has the touch, the movement, the quality, the physicality and resilience to prove himself a hit at Everton.

What I didn't know was: Did he really have the desire to get enough goals? Watching the Newcastle game, as angry I was, I let out a little laugh when he celebrated despite us getting tonked. He was so desperate to score yet it was very inappropriate and almost self-defeating to do so and incurred others' wrath. That was the selfishness and importance of that goal I needed to see after proving a team player in every other facet of his play. For a second, he had forgotten about the result. Once again I thought "You'll do for me".

In summary, Jimmy, you are probably on the money. My frustration with this site and the type of poster it is intended to attract are spilling over. The relentless drive to tell us we have 4 players who are allegedly the best in the league for creating chances yet every keeper has a cigar out is in my view pointless drivel.

The constant "We are doing better than last season" articles... no shit, Sherlock! Our £12M loan player from Man City is better than a promoted team's outcast... who would have thought?

The drive-by night articles like the one here infuriate me and are designed for the enlightened 'Championship at best' or 'Bambi on Ice' keyboard warriors who deliver it with such pride and brashful originality.

I will leave them to it.

The one poster who left no doubt that I got under his ski, Jimmy, seems more concerned by his dismantling of his argument rather than the 'sheep' comment, in fairness.

Good luck all.

Thanks Michael I just want to say how impressed I have been by you over the last while dealing with all the shit you have had to endure and trying to keep everyone onside. I take my hat off to you.

Just caught up on your passionate defence of Mykolenko and I think you make some interesting points, although you've been a little harsh in your initial criticism of Patric...

Patric in his wisdom has irrefutably labelled Mykolenko with sole responsibility for that first goal

My eyes might deceive me, but I read it as 'was at least partially at fault for both of their goals', which I think most would agree with... 'partially' being the key word.

I can assure you that no pieces are penned with a sole intention of riling up these comments, and are just how the writers have seen it -- just as you have in a different view.

Is Mykolenko limited going forward? I'd absolutely agree with that. Are new full-backs the answer to a much-improved team? Who knows. It could equally be argued that more attack-minded full-backs would unbalance a defence that has been one of the league's tightest in recent seasons.

Don't be dissuaded to submit any rant of your choosing by the way, or a passionate defence of Mykolenko?

It's a game of opinions after all...

Then we can slam each other with empirical enmity.

Take a bow, son!

You're right -- I owe you a sincere apology for not getting back to you over that article you sent in. And yes, it did hit when there was an awful lot of stuff going on that I was trying to fix, but I should have gotten back to you earlier.

What you gave me to look at was a very long piece, and you had unfortunately made it into this strange, rambling rant was very difficult to read. I did try working my way through it but just ran out of time and was barely a quarter of the way in.

The other thing in mitigation was that I think you'd actually covered most of it in a series of posts that you'd put on one or more threads, so there was an element of rehash going on. That and the attempt to make it into some sort of academic thesis with some very convoluted sentence constructions that I was battling to untangle... and failing.

You can obviously write at a heck of a pace, and have a wide grasp of many things that are of great interest to Evertonians. But I would say, keep it simple. Try not over-elaborate. Try and limit it to just say three key points and then call it good. I don't think anyone has much time for the long read these days.

It was unfortunate that Paul Murray started flinging shit at you, although I bet you were glad to get a reaction. Again, I find your very long posts on threads can be tough to respond to, and I would suggest breaking them down into shorter posts.

And yes, please have a re-think about submitting more articles. I'll promise to do a better job in future.

Despite often being irked by his writing style, he's on the money there.