Sheaf Saint

Not that I'm aware of. More a case that he doesn't suit their system according to a Villa supporting mate. All the comments I'm seeing on here about him being past it, too injury prone etc... it's exactly the same guff that a lot of people posted when he signed first time round.

Elyounoussi I hope.

He's injured both his legs? Must have been a really bad tackle.

Me neither. I guess we've just got so used to being beaten at Goodison that it just looked right.

Jones called him "one of the best technicians in the PL". Hard to disagree - his technical ability has never been in doubt. Prior to Ralph's tenure, I always thought his best position was on the right of a 4231 and he wasn't suited at all to a deeper role. When Ralph first moved him there and paired him with Romeu, he initially had some good performances there but he can't play that role without a Romeu type alongside him, and he had begun to regress badly. Now we've got Lavia which has allowed us to play JWP in the more advanced role and he's clearly relishing it. Almost like having a new signing in AM. Hopefully when Orsic gets up to speed they can form a lethal combination.

Will be a tougher test than Everton, but there's plenty of energy and fight in our recent performances. A win would be very welcome though. Forest have shown that however poor you are, a couple of wins back to back will push you up to mid table at the moment.

So we've broken our Goodison Park hoodoo. Can we go and do the same at SJP in the second leg?

Lampard now has Everton's highest loss percentage and second lowest win percentage of all their managers in the PL era. See ya Frank.

Looks like it was the latter then. Just found this nugget on GOT... "When Iwobi is the 'star' the standard has been set."

Grand Old Team is a fun read this evening. here's my fave comment so far though...

What could have been if we had managed to beat Forest instead of gifting them a win.

He actually got a touch which was probably enough to put Godfrey off.

Oh Diallo. What a waste of a good position.

Tater on my stream just made an interesting point... Last time we won at Goodison we had a manager called Jones. An omen perhaps?

I'm not going to single out Ely, but our entire front line has been completely ineffective so far. They haven't created anything yet, and they make it far too easy for the Everton defenders to play out and set up an attack. I don't get Jones' thinking. He finally dropped the players that have been underperforming all season on Wednesday and it worked. So why on Earth would he bring them back in again for an even more important game? We've even got two new lads on the bench but he still sticks with the players that should be nowhere near the pitch. Baffling. If we lose this (which we're obviously going to - it's Everton away) it's all on the manager.

He didn't even get a great contact on the header but of course it was still going to beat Bazunu. And now they're all over us FFS. Gonna end up 3 or 4 nil at this rate.

Wouldn't have dropped Mara myself, but I'm not the manager and I haven't seen them in training this week. I'm sure he will get some minutes though. Happy with the Lavia, JWP and Diallo midfield 3 again. Makes us much stronger as a unit and much less easy to play through.

I have a close family connection to someone in their squad, but admittedly I haven't watched much of them this season because he's out on loan at the moment. Iwobi was awful last season and rightly criticised by a lot of fans, so if he's been their best player this season then he's either had a miraculous turnaround in personal form, or it speaks volumes about the quality of the rest of their team.

He's crap anyway. He epitomises the overpaid dross they have filled their squad with in recent years. Much like Redmond with us, he's had one purple patch with them a few years ago and has been extremely poor the rest of the time. Watch him come on as a sub and score the winner now I've said that.

So back on to the topic of 'rain'... Lorraine Kelly is 63.

Yep, agree with that. Che would never have had the foresight to make the run in front of Walker. And even if he had, he would most likely have just hit a tame shot straight at the keeper. I remember watching Mara's highlights reel when he signed and the composure in his finishing really stood out for me. Until Wednesday he hadn't had much chance to show it because he had mostly been played out of position. If we play him as a proper striker I genuinely think we'll get more goals from him than we would from Adams.

Indeed. He's made an impression on Football365 anyway... https://www.football365.com/news/opinion-nathan-jones-southampton-part-brendan-part-sherwoo

Chelsea are currently 10 points away from the CL places, and with the form they've been in they will be lucky to make the Europa League. Will the new owner be as ruthless as Abramovich was, I wonder.

Am I right in thinking we won the last ever league game there?

So the rumour about Tino damaging his other knee is true then 😟