Ribiero is comfortably better than Pickering who was flat than usual today, and a bit hesitant. I don’t get people calling Kargbo raw, absolutely fantastic player. Live wire. Have to start him, and get another outlet on the right. Tronstad Travis and Cantwell as good a three as you find in the league. Young boys did great today! Tyjon dropped a few shoulders, and looked class. Milarky was impressive too. Beto was taking the piss out of Hyam first half. But we won’t see many betos in the championship Feel a lot better after that.

Let's just rely on our medical team.

or we could have Yellow kit as we had before. I bought the away shirt, looks much better in person, quality and its very different to previous away shirts

Love that you added ooooh to it 🤣🤣🤣🤣

deffo has something about him, one to develop and see how he does in. one to keep an eye on for the future

I’d be fairly equal, albeit in putting a lot of weight on Sammy being much better that what we’ve got. If we added a striker and a CB we’d be in a very good position IF we don’t lose anyone.

Yes I do, where did we finish that season ?

A very good performance 1st half as my half time summary posted said. The first 15 minutes or so we can carry that second half. We created several opportunities to attack the Everton backline until the final ball wasn't good enough. After we made 8 subs around the 60 mins then another 3 15 mins later, we became abit disjointed and our high performance dipped abit but the understanding of what their roles were and how we wanted to play where still there to see. We still created some good chances. Tyjon did play a lovely good pass to Millarkey-Matthews who couldn't get the shot off. Karbgo look lively. overall, We had an identity to the team, style and how we want to play, we were well organised and drilled tactically. The players understand their roles within the team. what Ismael wants. Ismael spent time post match on the pitch speaking with Igor Tyjon about his performance. Cautiously optimistic for the fore coming season well worth the tenner it cost to attend and even bought the away shirt post game, Its really smart looking Toth look good, Brittain, Hyam and Wharton very good. Cantwell looks a different player to last one, De Neve look good. took his goal well. my match of the man was Todd Cantwell.

I would say: Keeper an improvement, back four an improvement, midfield about the same, forwards an improvement. So overall a better first eleven.

In the team that avoided relegation on the final day of the season. It's not a difficult argument to make really.

So you think we're stronger than when we had a 27 goal forward on our books? Fair enough.

Did I mention the closure of the transfer window ?

Sadly it seems Pears is injured rather than on his way out.

Honestly it depends how much they're willing to risk on Wharton. Hyam, Wharton, McLoughlin, Carter - with (what looks like 3) Academy players backing them up is fine IF you think Wharton can hold up. As Ismael has repeatedly mentioned that Wharton has only played 4 weeks of football in a year and Carter picks up multiple injuries every season I suspect they're going to look for another CB.

Why is this message board themed in black?

I'd say he's a decent (but honestly not great) shot stopper - but the rest of his game just isn't professional standard. Positioning, handling, communication, distribution - just poor all round. I've no idea how he's carved out a professional career.

Also Wharton is chronically injured, and while Hyam was ever present last season he had serious injury issues year before. Does feel like we are very light if we dont get one more senior CB.

Depends how much value you are giving Sammy, Gallagher and Dolan compared to whichever 3 you are starting up front. Toth is an upgrade. Pickering / Ribeiro I think are interchangeable at the moment.

It's encouraging, but I wouldn't go overboard. This was Academy kids keen to impress v PL players getting minutes into their legs. If points / a place in the next round was on the line we'd have seen a different result. Nobody looked out of place today, but Everton clearly had another gear. Did Montgomery et al?

His basic positioning is terrible, which isn't as obvious as some of the more prominent errors, but is equally contributory. He benefitted greatly from having a more organised defence for periods of last season, but I don't think there's any doubt that Pears has proven his incompetence regularly, across a prolonged period. And hopefully he's played his last game for us.

Having watched the game today the two glaring problems for me are starting RW and backup CM (assuming Tavares is actually any good). We can probably quite happily alternate DeNeves and Kargbo on the left (with Leonard / Ohashi et al rotating in there as the season goes on). On the right though you simply can't go into the season with Hedges as your starter - he offers nothing going forward (but yes I'll concede he works hard to protect his FB). At CM, especially playing this system, you're going to run into the same problem we had at around December last year - we're going to run Tronstad and Travis into the ground. We need two good backups - let's say Tavares is one and Forshaw / Montgomery (I doubt it to be honest) rotate as the 5th option. You need another good player in there who can start midweek without a second thought from the manager - whether that lad from the Swiss league is it I don't know. Buckley needs to be shipped out. Bonus points if you can also snag a striker who can run in behind.

I'm sure there was compilation on here at one point of a bunch of the mistakes made. To be honest, even if you take out the obvious horror shows, the biggest issue with Pears for me has always been his complete inability to handle a cross. So many routine goals conceded over the years just because of that deficiency and the smart teams targeted it.

As in before the transfer window closed, or literally 19 July 2024?

If you care to read, thread entitled, “does the club care?” Ive come to the conclusion they do not. Well, they are grateful for toffees 4,500 traveling fans today.