Ultimatt

Sacking Puel was the wrong decision, a year after a bunch of wrong decisions in the 2015 summer window. Mane £37m Pelle £14m Wanyama £13m Juanmi £4.5m = £68.5m in Boufal £17m Hojbjerg £13.5m Redmond £12m McCarthy £4m =£46.5m spent Mane/Pelle/Wanyama were all key players for us when in form. Boufal/Hojbjerg/McCarthy have been benched by 2 consecutive managers and in Redmond's case the fans desperately want to bench him. That 1 window moved us from best of the rest to lower midtable.

Does a full top to bottom clear out include our impetuous overentitled fans? It's so easy to call for a managers head without thinking about the £7m compensation we'd have to payout Pellegrino added to the £5m we paid Puel, or the fact that we're not a drawcard for a top tier manager and would just replace with another mid-tier manager. Koeman had his playing pedigree but no notable managerial pedigree. He had a good squad here that did well in the league but bombed out in all the cups including Midgetland. He's assembled the 12th most expensive squad in football history with Everton (same value as Bayern Munich) and has scored 2 less goals than we have. People seem to overly attribute our success to him and Pochettino but they had some seriously class players that are playing week-in week-out at big 4 clubs. Pelle became the 4th highest paid player in the world in China. Puel had managerial pedigree as a cup/European manager which is why he got the nod (we were in Europa league). He'd taken Lyon to a champions league semi-final. We deserved to go through our group based on all the stats (way more shots taken, way less shots against) but after an appalling summer window where we topped the net spend chart and actually made transfer profit when the TV money kicked in and other clubs were spending tens of millions, we had JayRod/Long leading our line. The club threw him under the bus. We swapped Mane for a player that wasn't even a starter for Championship Norwich in Redmond. We swapped Pelle for the inferior Austin. We swapped Wanyama for a 21yo non-starter in Hojbjerg. He lost some of the dressing room from the start when he had to stand up to billy big balls Fonte after the Euros and not play him in Europa. We had VVDs injury and played half the season with our 3rd/4th choice CBs. Puel was totally thrown under the bus by the club/fans. IMO Puel overperformed with the squad/circumstances he had. We had a chance to have a decent run in Europe and the club decided to save money instead. Pellegrino doesn't have the same pedigree as Puel and based on his record was always likely to be a worse manager. He's got a stronger squad this year with Lemina/Hoedt + VVD back now + no Europa league + our young squad all a year older. The expectations on him should well and truly be higher than what was expected of Puel. Nonetheless, the midfield still lacks creativity/goals. He can only do so much with this team that's mid-table at best. Sacking him achieves absolutely nothing as we're not a drawcard for someone better. The money needs to be invested in the squad. We need better in the #7/#11/#10 roles. We need proper attacking players instead of Redmond/Davis who offer next to nothing in the final third.

Everton haven't won away since January (13 matches ago). Spent as much on their squad as Bayern (thats a fact) and only 5 goals in 8 games.

Glad our fans had the foresight to realise the players/squad were the problem and not the manager. Oh wait, most are still oblivious.

Pelle: 3 shots per game. 31% shots on target. 0.34 goals per game. 0.12 assists per game. 30.76 passes per match. Lambert (@Saints): 2.63 shots per game. 42% shots on target. 0.37 goals per game (6 pens + 4 FK) 0.24 goals per game (no pens or FK) 0.20 assists per game. 31.24 passes per match. Pelle and Lambert pretty similar overall. Pelle a few more open play goals and Lambert a few more assists. Gabbiadini: 2.11 shots per game 34% shots on target. 0.28 goals per game 0 assists 10.22 passes per match Long(Under Koeman): 1.67 shots per game. 37% shots on target. 0.25 goals per game. 0.15 assists per game. 17.22 passes per game. Gabbi and Long shoot way less. Pass way less. They're not suited to being an isolated lone striker. Puel tried to play Redmond as a 2nd striker which failed because Redmond is no good (if he had Mane/Pelle instead we would've seen way more success) but this year Redmond is sitting a lot further back while Tadic and Davis have always stayed back. We need a change of style or we need to go back to the Lambert/Pelle type of striker.

Boruc Clyne Alderweireld VVD Bertrand Schneiderlin Wanyama Lallana Mané Tadic Pelle Subs: Forster, Lovren, Shaw, Cedric, Romeu, Davis, Lambert. Would put Bertrand ahead of 18yo Shaw. Tadic would be a menace with the linkup/movement of Pelle/Mane/Lallana around. Pelle for Lambert. Just feel that Pelle had that slight extra quality about him and wouldn't need to be as mobile as Lambert with Lallana/Mane in behind. Early days but Lemina looks likely to at a minimum make a bench but maybe much more.

My fav is "for all intensive purposes"

Lol not true. Do you think it's a coincidence that when Koeman joined we signed 4 players (Pelle Tadic Martina Clasie) from the Dutch league + Dutch international Elia? Or when Puel joined we signed Pied and Boufal from Ligue 1? The board/DoF decide how much the club can spend but the manager has a big say in who he wants. There's been quotes from the club before that went something along the lines of "The manager says he needs a player for X position, our scouts give him 3 names and he picks one." Koeman had £80m to spend when he joined us and got the players he wanted. He's had £220m to spend at Everton and signed 3 #10's when he already had Barkley. He's hugely responsible for agreeing to buy all these midfielders with no money left for a proper striker. He's hugely responsible for having Martina and Williams in his best XI defence. We should be thanking him for throwing Everton's money down the toilet and setting the club back a few years.

£220m spent and struggling to find goals There's a reason why goalscorers fetch the biggest fees and it's because they're the most crucial player. Our goals left with Pelle/Mane and Everton's left with Lukaku. It's criminal they didn't spend most of the fee on replacing him the same way we wasted our £50m on Boufal/Redmond instead of proven goalscorers. If he doesn't turn things round this will be a huge hit to his CV. Clubs will struggle to trust him spending big money.

Can't find calendar year stats, just season. Fewest goals scored at home in a season: 10, Manchester City (2006–07) Fewest goals scored in a season: 20, Derby County (2007/08) We scored 7 in our 10 home PL games Jan-May. 17 goals in the 19 home PL games last season. 3 in our 4 home PL games this season. As shocking as our goal scoring is, it's not quite breaking records, and it's what you'd expect when you replace the likes of Lallana/Lambert or Mane/Pelle with Redmond/Long who average 0.115 and 0.233 goals a game over their careers.

I started a thread about this a couple months ago. We made a bunch of young signings, bloated the squad with "depth" and gave them all super long contracts with a view to stop selling and build stability. Only problem is we decided to do this when our squads the weakest its been since promotion rather than 2/3 years ago when we were full of stars that got poached to bigger clubs. We have so much money sitting on the bench in Gabbi, Boufal, Hojbjerg, Hoedt. So many young players that get barely any game time. The board massively screwed up. We desperately need quality over quantity. Puel was a good manager. A champions league semi finalist and managed some good teams. I used to watch that Lyon side play some exciting counter attacking football. It didn't matter if we replaced him with Pellegrino or Guardiola or Zidane, any manager would have an impossible time meeting the fans expectations with our midfield and attack. Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

We should do a loan swap deal. Long or Austin for sigurdsson. Would honestly help both teams. Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

Good point this. It's basic for a #7 and #11 to tuck in and play like a 2nd striker when the balls on the other wing. It's what Jrod did well in his good year. It's what mane does. Redmond and tadic both sit back too much Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

Couldn't see the game as at a wedding. Did we play well in the 2nd half and force utd back or was the fact they chose to sit back the part that allowed us to play well? I ask because when Watford pressed us we were utterly dominated but we've always looked ok when not getting closed down Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

Because he's young and English. Same reason we signed him. Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

I've been expecting us to go 3 at the back since the window shut. We have 6 CBs on the books with 4 of them being worthy starters at a lot of clubs. Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

Not featuring in preseason promo work. Not playing a single minute of Europa League. Publicly denying the club offered him a new contract when they said they had. Handing in a transfer request. There was plenty of talk on here that he got back from Euro's with a massive ego and angling for a move to Man Utd.

How much of that was down to Fonte acting like a prat from day one? Fonte had a whole lot of sway in that dressing room and Puel had to deal with his childish behaviour through no fault of his own.

Since getting promoted 2012/13: 12,793 minutes played 9 goals scored (1 every 1421 minutes or every 15.8 games) 18 assists (1 every 711 minutes or every 7.9 games) Basically 2 goals and 4 assists a season. That's closer to a DM strike rate than a #8 like Wijnaldum, Fabregas, Ramsey, Yaya Toure etc. You have to wonder why he has to play so deep when he's always had a DM beside him and at times 2 really good ones in Schneiderlin/Wanyama.

Considering Poch played a high press game, Koeman played around with 3-5-2, Puel used both 4-4-2 and 4-3-2-1 i'm going to say no, they're not.

2nd goal. Was well inside the post and he barely moved.

Forster for the goals yesterday

Nice rewriting history. Puel started with 4-4-2 diamond. Changed to 4-2-3-1 and then was reportedly sacked because the club asked him to change styles and he refused.

Is it just me or does he never even make it to the posts? He seems to just fall to the side rather than push off towards the bottom corners. It's not even a case of him not making it in time because he doesn't even make the distance to stop it if its aimed in the bottom corner. I just don't get it...

And we shouldn't forget where the toxic dressing room started. Billy big balls Jose Fonte returning from the euros acting like a child rather than a leader and causing divisiveness between the players and coaching staff Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk