Everton could only huff and puff after early loss of Dewsbury-Hall

15 mins since line ups were announced and not a comment on this thread, sad times.

Agree with the line-up and feel with Caicedo out we have a chance. Great to end the hoodoo here.

As much as I like Gana and his influence (usually) in midfield I can’t see the sense in disrupting a winning side to accommodate him for ONE game. He will be off to AFCON after this, as will Ndiaye so we will have to improvise without the pair, so why not start now?

Not being ambivalent but I applaud keeping Ndiaye for his last game as he has the skills that could be important today. At least only one keeper on the bench, but scant consolation.

I don’t think the return of Gana will change much here. Everton do not have the midfield to compete with Chelsea and I will be very surprised if we get anything from this game.

Yes, that’s a very negative comment but the record at Stamford Bridge is abysmal and, whilst we have gotten some results lately, we are still lacking a lot to compete with the likes of Chelsea.

It will be a backs-to-the-wall set-up by Moyes which doesn’t give me any confidence despite the result at Man Utd.

Where’s Kieran Kinsella?

He’s gotta share Kansas City with a pretty ugly pair of fat Gunners fans. Scary!

You’re not alone, Derek.

He is like a long-haired Pepe.

Get Beto on second half!…

Barry does fuck-all.

Both our full-backs are so awful going forward. Neither can make a useful cross to save their own lives. We would be so much better with a Baines or Coleman type of pairing there.

All teams can double or triple up on Jack and Illi, cos there is no need to watch Mykolenko and O’Brien.

Top priority in January, alongside the sack of coal we have up front

Kireran.

You work in Kansas City? What the fuck.

We could’ve been ahead if we had a proper striker.

Barry is garbage.

Well, that was an almost unmitigated disaster after what was a really promising first 20 minutes.

I really wanted Alcaraz to come good for us but he just does these utterly stupid things.

Agree with the full-backs. Embarrassing. Waste such good openings.

Missing Dewsbury-Hall. Call out for Gana who didn’t track the runner for both goals.

Hasn’t been a 2-0 on balance. They’re clinical; we’re wasteful.

At times, we have played some nice stuff but with no end result, and we have given away a couple of soft goals.

We’ve also tried to play out from the back and at times it looks as though we have no midfield as the defence playing out don’t seem to find anyone and Ndiaye and Grealish don’t seem to come for the ball but, with Gana playing and Dewsbury-Hall off, we tend to look a bit disjointed.

And another first-class display of inept refereeing missing some obvious fouls and also looking like a bit of a homer.

As we could have scored a couple ourselves, the game isn’t over but you wouldn’t put your last on it.

Both goals 100% Mykolenko half-asleep yet again…

In fact, there could’ve been another couple due to his inability to smell danger.

Agree Eric, he had a disaster in the first half.

Asleep for Cole’s run for the first goal and shrugged aside by Neto for the second. He is completely average in every aspect of the fullback position — defensive positioning, awareness, tracking runners. His offensive threat is non-existent.

I wouldn’t dispute the benefit of signing Dewsbury-Hall, but surely allocating our budget has to start with our main priorities.

Our primary weakness has been evident for everyone to see for the last few seasons: we’ve needed two full-backs and a striker. Not addressing it is costing goals at both ends, as is evident again today.

O’Brien is not much better than Mykolenko and could’ve cost us a couple of goals as well, and the least said about Barry, the better. Other than that, we’ve performed reasonably, even without the in-form Dewsbury-Hall.🙄

Gueye heading off on Monday so why change a winning team?

Keep Dewsbury-Hall at No 8 where he excelled in Gueye’s absence. He is a massive loss now, after doing his hamstring.

Ndiaye and Dewsbury-Hall, two of our best players now missing over Christmas.

You’re only going to get occasional 2-game winning runs with Moyes — then the slump.

We get all excited and optimistic. The life of an Evertonian.

Second half seemed a bit of an anticlimax but I thought it was a game we could have lost 4-0 or with a few slightly better moments we could have won 2-0.

Not too sure the midfield was improved by Gana’s return but we certainly missed Dewsbury-Hall and a top class sniffer if not outright striker. Interesting to see what we do when the African Cup of Nations is on.

Plenty of chances but no one to put them away.

Barry is shocking — whoever scouted him needs sacking, and I thought Gana and Keane were poor today.

Kieran, You are in KC!!

Gather the biggest selling item are Patriot Shirts as everyone jumps off the Mahomes/Kelce bandwagon and back onto New England one.

Phil

lol all the locals are in mourning at present

BBC have Ashley Williams saying Everton offered too little too late.

Glad he isn’t still in our team — he’d have put his shirt over his head, thrown the towel in after 10 minutes and made sure it was a 0-6 loss.

Not sure how he qualifies as someone to bring insight into analysis after his largely unsuccessful career.

it’s amazing that we’ve got to where we have with those fullbacks. the difference to the side of putting two good players in there. Very dispiriting to lose by those goals. It felt easy for them. Just a gentle press on the pedal, and ‘goal’. I suspect we were a bit more adventurous than we would normally be coming here, and maybe played ten yards further up, but of course when you do that, if the players aren’t concentrating the whole time, you’re dead. Myko will have nightmares with the way that guy strolled past him.

Ndiaye terrific throughout, Jack really should have had a goal, a little bit disappointed with him today. Not a bad little cameo from Dibling, he’s still got his confidence, I think we’ll see a lot more of him in the next few weeks.

Pickford rolling the ball out is too much for our defenders.

Having said that, hoofing it up to Barry or Beto isn’t going produce much more.

Second goal just before the break killed us; it could easily have been 1-1 @ H-T…

Onwards and upwards, hope we have a good go v Arsenal next week, then take 6 points v Burnley and Forest. 🤞

Beaten by all round better players.

Not our best performance marred by the injury to Dewsbury-Hall; however, despite some average performances, we held our own despite never looking like winning.

Our team spirit is good and we are fighting, for each other as well as individually. There were some good battles out there and I am quite pleased with our overall progress this Season.

Let’s see where we are after the Africa thing.

We all know that we need two strikers at the very least amnd we need a new left-back and right-back.

Square pegs in round holes just won’t cut it now in this league anymore!

Time to spend some dosh in January, methinks… big time!

Two questions – and take off your blue-tinted specs before answering.

Who, out of that Chelsea team, would not have got into our team today?

And who, out of our team, would have got into theirs?

(My answer to both fwiw is none)

In the end, unless you have a genius manager with a brilliant strategy, quality all over the park will win the contest.

No one seems to have noticed the blatant drag to the floor of Ndiaye from a corner but guess what: Stuart Atwell was the VAR so no surprise there then.

Having Barry up front is like playing with 10 men. A lamppost would have done better.

Gana at fault for both goals and Keane was slow to react for the first.

With better finishing, it’s a game we could have got something out of.

Can we please address this in January and not dither. We know where the weaknesses are.

I noticed that, Jay.

The NBC commentator said there was not enough in it!

I’ll never understand how Mykolenko gets away with being unbelievably bad yet gets very little criticism. He’s a total imposter.

Beto needs to be sold for what we can get and Barry loaned with an eye to get a bit of money back. They are obvious mistakes and all we can do is mitigate the situation.

Our recruitment team inspires zero confidence. Let’s hope Dibling isn’t another catastrophic mistake.

Easily beaten by a team who showed more quality and movement in the important moments. Our system relies upon the attacking centre mid while everyone else is stuck to their positions.

Chelsea had greater movement all over the park. I didn’t think we played that badly but just lacked quality.

Their right back moves inside, waltzes by Barry and passes to Palmer to slot home. The same guy hits us on the counter and scores the 2nd.

Our right-back was hesitant to go on any overlaps and, when he did, he didn’t have the quality to play the pass.

Gana drills the ball across the 6-yard box and the ball nicks off the goalie and through our striker’s legs, not a quality issue, more of a timing issue, as any half-decent striker converts that.

Grealish has 2 good chances and couldn’t take either in front of Tuchel.

Garner my MotM by a long way must have impressed the England manager.

I think losing Dewsbury-Hall so early in the game didn’t help the Blues but that was more than balanced out with Chelsea playing a half-fit Palmer for only an hour and he was a big part of Chelsea’s victory.

We had chances, again, but failed to take them and we were badly let down in defence for those two Chelsea goals.

Amazingly we could have stolen a draw late in the game when Mykolenko did well lining up a decent chance for Charly Alcaraz who was denied by a great block.

Also, Ndiaye, who could have had a penalty in the first half, did brilliantly with a lovely dribble and shot that hit the inside of the post. He continues to fight all over the field for the ball and got little help from the referee with the stick he took off that Chelsea full back.

Beaten today by a better team but not outclassed and we will do better than this when we get a bigger and stronger squad, hopefully starting in January and then February when Gana and Ndiaye come back.

Rob (43):

Yes, James Garner a big favourite of mine, another game where he never stops working and taking responsibility for attacking and defending, a real team player.

I made Ndiaye my MotM but wouldn’t begrudge James Garner if he got it.

Dear Santa,

Can we have Jarrad back for Christmas?

I promise I’ll be good.

“I’ll find out later what it is, he had a bit of tightness already and then he felt it during the game,” the Scotsman admitted.

Not great management?

Get @ 47; I watched on delayed replay 7am my time Sunday and saw KDH giving his hammies a good rub 30secs before the kick-off.

I think it was a known problem of the ‘give it a run and see how it goes / how long you last’ type.

Our bench is not well stocked with big time game changers…even less now due to AFCON.

Once KDH went off and they scored I went to the 8 mins highlights…it could’ve been a lot worse…on a really bad day, 4, 5, 6 worse.

We’re in a 5th to 13th-ish very close mini league, wins and losses will have you yo-yoing up and down.

Right back and No9 have been a problem for ages, now the Mid Fields looking a bit thin.

But we can’t bring anybody in until 1st Jan, everybody baring (further) Injury setbacks (hopefully) will be back by Mid Jan anyway…and I’m not even bothering to think about Rohl.

An inspired MF signing who can hit the ground running (without pulling a hammy) not withstanding, it’s going to be a hard, backs to the wall, 4 to 6 weeks.

Given the circumstances beyond Moyeses control – and if you discount the decision to let KDH ”Give it a run and see how it goes’.

Some might say it’s a no pressure, made for Moyes situation.

Derek

Yeah it’s a weird season as you say with the 5th to 13ish though I’d say you could probably expand it to a 3ish to 16ish. Hopefully we whether the storm of AFCON and injuries do come February we are still in the mix for the higher end of the range

Not enough in it Les #41, looked to me like he had Ndiaye by the throat from behind in a Carragheresque ‘tackle’ on Lescott.

Kent Walton could have commentated that game.

At least only one keeper on the bench

I heard the other one was injured Derek #5, splinters in his arse.