OTF

Didn't enjoy being felt up by Mike Williamson

Pointing must be an indication it's a shoulder injury. Probably code with the physio's for doing a Stevie Taylor.

Spare the first 10 or 15 his midfield has been dominated and he's failed to do anything about it. It was the same with Hughton last week, and for us even though we largely dominated the second half we couldn't get the goal and they grabbed a second on the counter putting it to bed. Here's hoping we can do the same.

What a difference from last week. Amazingly our midfield has it all over theirs which is where their strength normally is. Tiote so far looks excellent, and exactly what we need. Good movement, hard but fair challenges, good in the air despite not being particularly tall, smart passer, looks comfortable on the ball, can dribble and get forward. What a strike from Ben Arfa! Barton is having a reasonable game, and even Nolan in a deeper role is doing a prettyt good job of breaking up their play. Here's hoping it continues in the second half. Thus far we've clearly been the better team, they're surely somewhat shell-shocked at this point in time. Whatever the case they have plenty of dangerous players who could easily change the game if we drop our concentration and give away cheap balls like Williamson did with almost disasterous results. Anyway, smiling for now

That post, yes. But more so the first part of it in relation to the club being in three times the debt that we were when Mike Ashley took over. All good points you have raised above, however like I said I was mainly wanting a response to the first part of my post.

I'm genuinely interested in seeing the source stating that we're in 3 times as much debt as we were in June 2007. Are we now in £180m debt? So in June 2007 we were in only £60m debt? Is £100m of our debt interest free and owed to Ashley himself? I thought the general concensus was that the club was £100m in debt when Ashley bought it? Isn't the biggest issue that the majority of the club's debt was for the redevelopment of SJP and that it was financed on easy to manage terms for the previous board but once twat face Ashley bought the club it was repayable immediately? TBH, Ashley has no one else to blame than himself - the stupid cunt should have completed a thorough due diligence instead of bumbling his way into town as the new sheriff, here to save the day. Fuck I hate what he's done to the club I think prior to Ashley the club was tenuously balanced near enough the edge of a cliff face. Ashley, by virtue of incompetence not only pushed us over edge but did so with such gusto that we didn't come to a stop for some time. What would have happened if Ashley hadn't bought the club? Noone knows, but the mere fact that he was able to do so with such ease, particularly given his apparent lack of professionalism to me is a huge marker that the current owners wanted out. The redevelopment of SJP wasn't greater than £100m so it doesn't really matter given that £100m is the apparent figure than the club owes to Mike Ashley that is not being charged interest on. However good the finance for the redevelopment was, it wasn't 0%. Perhaps that is the mystery £30m that Ashley was not aware of when he purchased the club - the initial redevelopment costs were £42m in 2000 so it's feasible that there could still have been £30m owing some 7 years later. I still want to see peaspud's response to my post BTW.

Cahill's undeniably been a lynchpin for Everton's recent period of success. Anyone who says otherwise, knows nothing. If they say so as an Everton supporter who has watched plenty of their games then they're a moron. Has plenty of limitations but he's nothing like a Nolan in that respect. Moving on, this should be a win for Everton, but you never know your luck. There's word about that Cahill won't be playing, so they may start an unfit Yakubu. Coloccini is weak sauce and Williamson is no hulk, but speed is definitely their kryptonite and against a huffing and puffing Yakubu they should be alright if they don't give him a chance to get clear off the ball. Even though Beckford is quick, I'm not so worried about him because he's not a great finisher (watch me be punished for that comment). Basically I'm saying that at the moment they have a pretty toothless attack up front. Their midfield is where their class is, which is worrying considering the likes of Smith and Nolan are a decent chance of featuring for us. Please oh please let us play Tiote and Ben Arfa from the get go. It may not change the result but at least should make it a watchable game. Some random Everton fan had this to say about our last match: Spot on about Perch thus far. Seems out of his depth. How is it that this random Everton fan can make that obvious and factual statement about our midfield, and yet our manager persists with it? Interesting that he's thankful that Guthrie is out. Guthrie being a better player than many give him credit for. On point three, Ben Arfa was on the left for us most of the time.

Cahill's undeniably been a lynchpin for Everton's recent period of success. Anyone who says otherwise, knows nothing. If they say so as an Everton supporter who has watched plenty of their games then they're a moron. Has plenty of limitations but he's nothing like a Nolan in that respect. Moving on, this should be a win for Everton, but you never know your luck. There's word about that Cahill won't be playing, so they may start an unfit Yakubu. Coloccini is weak sauce and Williamson is no hulk, but speed is definitely their kryptonite and against a huffing and puffing Yakubu they should be alright if they don't give him a chance to get clear off the ball. Even though Beckford is quick, I'm not so worried about him because he's not a great finisher (watch me be punished for that comment). Basically I'm saying that at the moment they have a pretty toothless attack up front. Their midfield is where their class is, which is worrying considering the likes of Smith and Nolan are a decent chance of featuring for us. Please oh please let us play Tiote and Ben Arfa from the get go. It may not change the result but at least should make it a watchable game. Some random Everton fan had this to say about our last match: Spot on about Perch thus far. Seems out of his depth. How is it that this random Everton fan can make that obvious and factual statement about our midfield, and yet our manager persists with it? Interesting that he's thankful that Guthrie is out. Guthrie being a better player than many give him credit for. On point three, Ben Arfa was on the left for us most of the time.

I'm genuinely interested in seeing the source stating that we're in 3 times as much debt as we were in June 2007. Are we now in £180m debt? So in June 2007 we were in only £60m debt? Is £100m of our debt interest free and owed to Ashley himself? I thought the general concensus was that the club was £100m in debt when Ashley bought it? So instead of the debt tripling it has increased by 60%. Certainly not a good thing, but an increase of £80m is not as bad as an increase of £120m, and is quantifiable by virtue of the relegation. If you compare this season to 2007 & 2008 I would say that our wage bill would be a much lower percentage of our turn-over. Our turnover may be lower, but the decrease in corporate revenue may be slightly balanced by the increase in television revenue. I'm not defending anyone here just wanting to get a full picture. Given those actions that were taken, how do you think we can start to operate at a profit? The difference in winnings according to the position on the league table is very small. I guess the only way would be to improve the corporate revenue. Performances on the pitch may go a large way towards doing that, but given the changes in the financial climate it's to be expected that there would be a shortfall in that area by comparison to 2007-2008 and before. You have to have questions about other clubs in the league - are they operating at a profit? If so how?

Annoying how he has several 'articles' on .co.uk after the loss telling people not to be worried.

Yeah he was definitely having an off-game. Looked a bit complacent at times going forward. They did a good job of double teaming him quite often though, obviously being aware of how good a player he is. Bit of shell-shock maybe. Was annoyed at him for their second goal, he went to the effort of motoring back there to cover, then didn't do nearly enough to block the shot. Even still, having his worst game for quite some time he was far from our worst player, and still stood out head and shoulders above Perch.

Totti was an exceptional player, not so much now, but still a very good one.

He persisted with Nolan for a very long time last season, and he eventually started scoring goals again after a horrible patch through the middle of the season. You would hope that he doesn't keep the same line of thinking, given the vastly superior opposition we're now up against, but his track record is very worrying. If he is played in that position where he gets to do fuck all and just pop up occasionally at the end of a flick on or similar then he will score some goals and get an odd assist even at this level, but the negative impact he has on the team will far outweigh any positives. There will be times and places for him this season, but playing as some sort of lazy shadow striker isn't going to be one of them in my opinion. If we're going to play two up front them we need someone pacy alongside Carroll, someone who will make the run off the ball to give an extra dimension to our attack. Routledge is capable of sliding a through ball in front of someone like Lovenkrands as he showed on several occassions last season, I would think that Barton too would be capable of similar and so would Ben Arfa.

You're not wrong. Early in the piece it looked like Routledge was going to be a thorn in his side the entire game, predictably though Routledge disappeared from the game and our attack either went down our left, or tried to go through the middle. Some of that may be attributable to Perch who really just plain isn't very good. They don't play the ball out down the right hand side for that reason. Down our left with Enrique and Jonas we can comfortably play our ball out from our own ed (lets not talk about what happens once we're at the other end though). Even still Hughton should have been screaming at our players to play down our right.

Mine: Harper 6 Perch 4 Enrique 6 Williamson 7 Coloccini 6 Routledge 5 Smith 3 Barton 5 Jonas 6 Nolan 4 Carroll 6 Early in the piece Routledge looked like he'd be a key player for us, his pace could have caused their fullback all sorts of problems, but like he has a tendancy to do he disappeared and most of our attempted attack came down the middle. Nolan did one or two ok things in attack, but did plenty of horrible things. More importantly he did fuck all for us defensively. A luxury player when we really can't afford one. Needs to be someone quick making runs playing alongside Carroll, if we want to play through the middle. Perch is still not good enough, and makes horrible challenges. He's not really that quick - either that or he just couldn't be arsed getting back on several ocassions which is a worry. If you're not good enough, at least try hard ffs. Coloccini and Williamson if they're still together at the back against the likes of Arsenal are going to be in danger of being completely embarrassed. The way Fabregas can weight a through ball lofted or otherwise will split them constantly and expose their lack of mobility. Jonas needs player to come to him when he has the ball. We know he's a weak crosser of the ball, but if you come towards front post you'd be in with a shot. Could do with some better support inside.

I hope we don't get ahead of ourselves, and go out there and win the game before we worry about any sort of pretty play, or player debuts. Most important to us is getting 3 points.

Still waiting here as well

....and one here too please Thanks in advance

If only he'd had the same thoughts in regards to Best.

Not a bad article.

We mugged the Spurs with the sale of Bassong BTW. He's been ordinary for them. He looked better than he actually was for us simply because he's a vastly superior athlete compared to Coloccini and Taylor who he was playing alongside. I'm not saying he's bad but he definitely has a lot to learn. He has a very nasty habit of using his arms when defending, which can be very costly - remember when Heskey (I think) made him look like a complete mug? Was sent off rightfully so. I'm hopeful that Sol will be superior to Bassong for this season. If not Williamson I think is a better reader of the game, but lacks the pace and power of Bassong. Coutesy of Beye though they were technically a better set of players on paper. In practice Enrique wasn't as assured and attack minded as he is now and Coloccini's confidence was shot midway though the season and continued to get worse. Depth wise we're certainly better off with four central defenders who should be comfortable starting in the league. In addition Kadar has developed nicely. Right back is certainly a pain point. I don't care how much better Perch has looked in the last two games when he commits a foul in the box like he did against Wolves. Thankfully the ref missed that because I doubt we'd have got anything from 2-0 down.

Of course this would be better served at the close of the season, but unfortunately my Deloreon is getting its timing belt changed. On paper our 2008/09 team was better in some areas (right back, striking options) but weaker in the key area of midfield. That's before you look at how things actually went throughout the season. Even still I couldn't resist commenting on the performance of the players in 2008/09. Something that did strike me as noteable out of this whole excercise is that with any sort of decent investment we would have a squad that easily eclipses the one we went into the 2008/09 season with. When I say decent investment I'm talking only half of the funds raised from the many outgoing players from 2008-2009 - Milner (£12m), Given (£5.7m), Beye (£2.5m), Martins (£9m), Bassong (£8m), N'Zogbia (£6m), Duff (£4m) = £47.2m. That's before you consider the massive wage savings of our current squad compared to the 2008/09 one. Owen, Viduka, Martins, Geremi, Butt, Duff and Given were no doubt on very high wages. Milner would have been on a tidy packet, likewise N'Zogbia and Beye. Edit - Agree there JawD, but was talking specifically about the playing rosters here. With a relatively even squad our expectations going into the season have been set somewhat lower than going into the 2008/09 season.

Thought that it would be interesting to make a comparison between the squad that we were relegated with, and the team that we have now. Oddly enough I feel in many ways that we're in a better position than we were then. Remember at the start of the 2008/09 season everything was looking good after we picked up a point at Old Trafford. Sure we were ultimately relegated, but that did seemed less than an extremely remote possibility at the start of the season. The contributing factors to that relegation extended well past the players, though certainly a decent amount of the blame can be sent in their direction. Goal Keepers We started the 2008/09 Season with Shay Given in goal. Undoubtedly an exceptional goalkeeper that to his great shot stopping. Some may question his distribution and ability in the air. Certainly though he's alround a better keeper than Steve Harper, who has been a good shot stopper, but lacks composure and has had a shaky start to this season. In the reserve stakes we have Krul and Forster, both of whom were around then and now. In that time they have of course improved, with many supporters feeling that Krul whould be given a chance to prove himself. Then: Shay Given (until January), Steve Harper, Tim Krul, Fraser Forster Now: Steve Harper, Tim Krul, Fraser Forster Winner: Then (with Shay), even without. Defenders Three defenders stood out in 2008-09 - Sebastian Bassong, Habib Beye and Jose Enrique. Beye unfortunately missed a crucial period of the season with injury (played 22 games). Bassong started the season in obscurity but due to an injury to Steven Taylor quickly found himself in the first 11, where his pace allowed him to excel alongside the more fancied Coloccini. Coloccini despite a solid start to the season really dropped away horribly. His confidence seemingly shattered he was a mere shadow of the player that he threatened to be. Despite this the Argentine started 34 Premier League games for us, testament to our lack of depth at the back. When Taylor returned from injury he played a mix of central defense and right back covering for the then injured Beye. Steven Taylor, Fabricio Coloccini and Jose Enrique remain. Sebastian Bassong was sold for what now appears to have been an excellent price (£8m). Habib Beye was also sold (£2m). Cacapa was thankfully released. Fringe player David Edgar was sold for an amount in line with his exeprience. In their place we have added Mike Williamson, Sol Campbell, Danny Simpson and James Perch. It's an odd mix of experience and youth. Despite our weakness at right back I feel our defense is now a little stronger (and certainly has more depth). Enrique has improved as a player, and Mike Williamson looks to be a solid aquisition. Then: Steven Taylor, Fabricio Coloccini, Sebastian Bassong, Claudio Cacapa, Habib Beye, Jose Enrique, Ryan Taylor (after Jan), David Edgar, Tamas Kadar Now: Steven Taylor, Fabricio Coloccini, Sol Campbell, Mike Williamson, Jose Enrique, James Perch, Danny Simpson, Ryan Taylor, Tamas Kadar Winner: Now (largely due to depth). Midfielders Our midfield really let us down in 2008/09 with a combination of injuries and a persistance of playing the likes of Nicky Butt. There was no doubt some talented players there with N'Zogbia and Duff, but neither of them had a good season with Duff looking tired and N'Zogbia far from consistent. The Frenchman was sold partway through the season, with £6m and Ryan Taylor going the other way. Nolan also arrived in January, but despite his age looked slow and past it picking up more red cards than goals (it only took 1 red - rightfully given for a horrible challenge on Anichebe). Barton barely featured courtesy of multiple long term injuries. Our current midfield looks superior in virtually all positions. A return from injury for Barton looks to be going well, with the midfielder already contributing both scoring, and assist wise. New signings Tiote and the heralded Ben Arfa look to add more movement and skill. Guthrie has improved as a player, and Routledge adds pace that was sorely missing from our then side. Dan Gosling could prove to be a good pickup, though we'll need to wait till 2011 to see him on the pitch. Then: Nicky Butt, Danny Guthrie, Damien Duff, Kevin Nolan (after Jan), Joey Barton, Charles N'Zogbia, Jonas Gutierrez, Geremi, Alan Smith Now: Danny Guthrie, Kevin Nolan, Cheick Tiote, Jonas Gutierrez, Joey Barton, Wayne Routledge, Hatem Ben Arfa, Dan Gosling, Haris Vuckic, Alan Smith Winner: Now Forwards Talent and experience wise up front should arguably have been our strongest area in 2008/09. In practice it proved to be anything but, with injuries and poor form contributing to an underachieving frontline. Mark Viduka managed just 6 league starts (with 6 further appearances from the bench). The inconsistent Martins started 21 matches with 3 from the bench. Michael Owen, a shadow of his former self, played 28 times, 7 of them from the bench. Later in the season he was deployed in a deep lying midfield position. Owen and Martins were our leading scorers with 8 goals each. In our now side our key forward is Andy Carroll, a player who was a scorer in our then side. Since then he has improved quite markedly and hopefully will continue to do so. Outside him though, the ability drops off considerably. Lovenkrands could be a handy player off Carroll, but take away our number 9 and we're looking at Shola Ameobi starting. Then: Obafemi Martins, Michael Owen, Mark Viduka, Shola Ameobi, Andy Carroll, Xisco, Peter Lovenkrands (after Jan), Now: Andy Carroll, Peter Lovenkrands, Shola Ameobi, Leon Best, Xisco, Nile Ranger Winner: Then (if Carroll stays fit/available it would be close). Agree/Disagree?

That is one weird looking donkey Has the same look in his eye as our Shola after he's just tried and failed at a stepover, or has just kicked the ball out off himself.

I thought it was Des who was shagging Daphne anyway?