Burnley vs Everton: James Garner the bright spark in a scrappy draw

Inaccurate. He did stretch far enough. The ball bounced over his leg.

I see a decent midfielder who runs around a lot, doesn't score or assist or create chances or run a midfield... but each to thier own.

I'm not saying he's a bad player but I have this argument with my lad everytime we watch the Blues. Maybe my bar is set too high for midfielders.

Try to watch the game with the emotion of an Evertonian and judge with your own eyes before banging these weird ratings based on stats.

The defence was not awful but it was hardly great either, Burnley could have and should have scored and one could have gone to VAR and been given arguably.

The midfield was absolutely nondescript and that's your lot without Dewsbury-Hall, Grealish and Ndiaye -- it's basically two holding players in Garner, who keeps it simple and well but is about as dynamic as a dinner plate full of twiglets, and Iroegbunam is basically Doucoure without the goals, shocking close control and passes like a nervous mastermind contestant.

McSlug was as slow as I always remember him to be, only slower, and his right foot is still only for standing on.

Dibling was semi-decent but not really enough thrust when their fullback was asking to be toasted many a time.

The lack of a decent centre-forward is our kryptonite as I stated.

People try to tell me a good striker wouldn't make any difference; trust me, he would. A prime example is Jelavic being brought in during the January 2012 window, a team that had no end-product and no real clue going forward until a more intelligent centre-forward arrived, making clever runs, knowing how to find space, and one who could finish.

Between Beto and Barry, I'm not being bad here, well maybe I am, but it's akin to going a whole season with just Stuart Barlow and Brett Angell as the only two to select from.

Jim #5, not sure who says a good striker wouldn't make a difference -- of course he would. It just doesn't seem likely we'll get one before next summer, unless the heavily rumoured Beto-Dovbyk swap comes off with Roma.

Actually, both strikers were okay today IMO. Both took their chances well and were denied only by excellent saves.

Burnley had the better chances, but it's a point in the bag in our quest to achieve a decent league position. We obviously missed the Afcon players.

Poor goals return, poor assist return, creativity? Puts his foot on the ball and dictates play?? A top central midfielder does this.

Yes, he covers the ground with a good engine but, for the plaudits he receives, I don't get it.

Like I said, I don't think he's a bad player... I just don't think he's as a good a player as made out. But hey ho -- that's just my take on it.

I've seen many comments of how having Messi up front wouldn't make a difference for us, tongue-in-cheek jest of course, isn't it... but the general feeling from some fans.

They forget how awful we were at times when we had Lukaku up front yet he bailed us out of the fire with individual genius. Or even a striker like Saha, who could pull something from nothing.

Who knows who is available? But it mightily pisses me off knowing we've spunked millions upon millions on shite strikers over the last 8 years.

I get it now why ToffeeWeb had dropped off the cliff.

I like Garner, and think he's improving all the time, especially since we have brought in some better footballers. But I'm not totally convinced that any central midfielder would be able to dictate play the way we are currently set up to play.

Would Garner create more in a more creative team? I think he definitely sniffs out a lot of danger playing in a cautious team.

We have a weak squad and a manager that doesn't produce goal scoring teams.

That's it really, nothing else.

I'm always arguing with my lad (he's 17 just started his match going agony) about modern midfielders, CDMs, defensive mids, creative mids etc...

Maybe I'm old fashioned but back in the day a central midfielder would get up down the field, score, assist, create and defend. Too many intricate nuanced positions in football now.

There were times today when it was just crying out for our players to just keep moving the ball on quickly with pace. Playing little quick passes around the opposition box usually sucks opposing players in towards the ball. But it just didn't look like we had the players with the tactical nouse to realise this is what they should have been doing on a few occasions today.

Our movement off the ball was mostly terrible, and so was the attitude of our midfield players to try and drive forward, which automatically brings defenders towards the ball. The only time it was done properly, Barry nearly scored, but because we are so rigid, the lack of running off the ball dictated the slow pace in which we mostly played today.

I agree, and it was also touched on recently I believe by Owen Hargreaves.

There are no individual players anymore, characters... it's a dying art in football. They are all coached to the hilt to be too robotic and almost too well drilled, there are very few if any maverick players left.

The 90s were littered with players like Roy Keane, Paul Scholes, Dennis Bergkamp... players who could tackle but create and score, like Ince... players who could beat men, like Giggs, McManaman, Overmars... then direct players who went straight for the kill -- our own Andrei Kanchelskis springs to mind, devastating player.

You don't even see players like Rob Lee anymore, box to box, would shoot as soon as the opportunity arose, none of this passing sideways for the sake of it.

Definitely we have lost that mould of player over the years in football.

With the stardust, we'd have won comfortably today, I think.
Garner is a hard-working midfielder, no more than that really.

He blows hot and cold, or to be more specific, he can become too casual, which leads to some unnecessary carelessness.

But the kid works hard and it looks like he wants to do well (to me), so I think he needs to be managed better.

I think some of our players lack the confidence in what they are drilled in every day in training when it comes to the match pressure.

Think Gabriel, Kay, the Holy Trinity, to name but a few.

Proper midfielders.

He actually stated that he picked Beto because " his form this time last year was excellent" or words to that effect.

That's a bit like saying "I've asked Peter Reid to play because his form this time 35 years ago was excellent."

I think an example as an all-round midfielder was Bryan Robson.

It just never came naturally when the opportunity arose (quite a few times) today.

Would you put that down to the manager's instructions?

Those little triangles you talked about should just come naturally imo, though, unless it’s not something that is openly encouraged on the training ground.

I don’t see any reason why this wouldn’t be encouraged, although I suppose it might also depend on how much you play those short, tight sided games in training?

We have 2 or 3 at most who can do this.

No discussion at all of Everton, no mention of the potential handball penalty. Just Burnley failing to hit target from 16 attempts.

But watching the game, we were awful. That's got to be the worst game of football I have watched this season.

I don't get what some fans see in Alacarz: every time I watch him, he is awful. But I didn't expect much with that starting XI.

We need to buy in January. If we had our first XI out, we would've won comfortably.

By the way all the above have managers that a number of people on TF,

think should be managing Everton.

McNeil also was an embarrassment on Saturday, absolutely hopeless, and Barry might not be great but, fuck me, he's better than Beto.

That was a disgusting performance by him on Saturday, in a shocking match between two poor teams.