Everton vs Crystal Palace (H)

After the disappointment of an appearance on Monday Night Football, that was redeemed only by an excellent retrospective with Duncan Ferguson, Everton grace the UK’s favourite football channel once again as part of Sky’s Super Sunday when they take on Crystal Palace at home this coming weekend.

It’s Part Two of a Hill Dickinson double-header. This should be a great springboard for Everton’s new squad to relish in the progress they are making up the Premier League table.

Micheal, am I right in thinking you are being sarcastic? Shame on you.

It’s not in my nature to be sarcastic, true and honest be the way I say.

Tell it like it is.

You don’t like David Moyes, do you?

I think he lost the dressing room when he told the players, “I don’t have the time or the crayons to explain it to you.”

Love a new match thread.

It’s a great opportunity for some to get the excuses in early… and often.

Looking forward to see the suspended Dewsbury-Hall replaced by Tim Iroegbunam.

You’ve heard of ‘unconscious bias’ — I may well be prone to unconscious sarcasm, Paul, but it depends which part of the intro has triggered you?

Sincerely, I really did enjoy the feature they made of having Duncan Ferguson on the show, and going over many of his fantastic goals for the club, especially the headers. It actually brought a tear to my weary eye, I have to admit.

Or was it ‘UK’s favourite football channel’… yea, I would say there is definitely more than a hint of unconscious sarcasm there…

No? Then it must be ‘the progress they are making up the Premier League table’. But it depends how you look at it. We jumped back up into the Top Half after that fabulous draw on Monday — that you cannot deny.

But we had rather been dropping like a stone from the heady heights of 4th or 5th that we briefly attained. I will try to do better, Paul, to emulate your impeccable writing style: truth and honesty.

Micheal, cheers, you are my favourite anti-sarcastic.

People say sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, that’s why I don’t use it, and you obviously don’t.

Steve 2, Tim is only one option, and he hasn’t done himself any favours recently.

Tyler on the Right, Illy in the middle?
Jack middle, Illy left, Tyler right?
Keane centre-forward with two 9s on the bench?

We do have a squad with options, but not at full backs or centre-forward, so let’s try and find goals another way. Jack needs to mix up his game, swap wings in-match, go central, get the goals from the middle?

Stop being predictable and mix it up in-match; otherwise, we get 2 or three on Jack to neutralise him. Illy gets squeezed too, and the Moyes gameplan remains rigid and ineffective…

Let’s see, eh!

Given how conservative Moyes is and his lack of options in some positions, I expect only one change for Dewsbury-Hall and I suspect that will be Alcaraz, who is wasted out wide, where he has played many games.

The word is Dibling is a future Number 10 but perhaps that role comes too soon given he has hardly played yet. Maybe Jarrad gets 20 minutes or so at the end.

As a long-standing supporter, and having thus enjoyed the successes back to the ’60s, it pains me to say it, but Palace are clearly a much better, more coherent team.

That it has come to this. However, we will catch them at the best possible time, 3 days after a long trip and hopefully a tough run out, so you never know.

I predicted a win for Palace. But I forgot they have an away game in Poland on Thursday, so won’t get back till early Friday morning.

Then they travel to Merseyside on Saturday. Hopefully they’re knackered come kickoff on Sunday.

I’ve been calling for a false 9 set-up for a while now. Drop Beto and don’t use Barry, play as any of the forwards, take up the striker role and confuse the opposition.

Just try it, Moyes. It’s called Plan B, or in your case, Plan C.

Mark 6.

Yes, Palace are at the moment a better side, but that shows you what can be achieved with a positive attitude, instead of a safety-first playbook.

Palace only have a ground capacity of 25.486, so on a record revenue of £190M last season, which was mostly from broadcasting, they are Top 4 and winning trophies and in Europe.

It can be done, Mark… but with Moyes, I don’t know if we can. Keep hoping.

Michael, you say that Moyes demonstrates stubbornness to use his fringe players, but when he did use his fringe players against Wolves, they lost.

Also wasn’t the majority of criticism from the fans on that game that he should have played his strongest side? You go on to state that Moyes will play Dibling against Palace and once again overlooking Alcaraz, just a reminder Alcaraz started the Wolves game and was so ineffectual he had to be subbed at half time.

Same can be said for McNeil another whose woeful performance against Wolves led to him being subbed.

I would also suggest that he is far from happy alternating Beto and Barry but, seeing both are useless, he doesn’t have much option.

Need someone up front that the ball does not bounce off and go straight back into Everton’s half!

Someone who can jump, pass and stay on their feet for fuck’s sake! Keane for me!

Neal, he’s our best defender right now.

Until Jarrad returns, I wouldn’t move him out of that spot for all the grits in Georgia.

This will come down to managerial acumen.

Palace boss has it in spades, Davey Boy has a teaspoon of it in comparison.

Brian 10 – he does have options by not playing them. Why persist with Beto and Barry if they’re useless?

There are other permutations surely. Paul Kossoff keeps banging on about them.

I’d be inclined to play a false 9 or play both Barry and Beto.

Playing one up top clearly isn’t working, but probably 4-4-2 would highlight the lack of pace.

Playing a false 9 is a message from the manager he doesn’t believe in either. It’s a fair risk.

Beto and Barry, to a lesser extent, has been woeful.

Possibly now time to put Ndiaye on to his preferred left side, Dibling on the right and Alcaraz behind Grealish in the middle.

Palace are playing good stuff all over the pitch so far this season and will give anyone a good hard game. We really have our work cut out to get anything out of the game.

I was hoping 3 points from both Aston Villa and West Ham Utd and at best a point against Palace. Hoping and getting is massively apart.

I think something which is bleedingly obvious but which seems to have been forgotten should be tried and that is starting with Barry.

The young lad was obviously going to need time to acclimatise to the Premier League and so the idea would have been to trust Beto who delivered after Moyes arrival. Unfortunately that form has now deserted him.

Barry has been woeful when coming on and looks like he has struggled to get up to the speed of the game; however, against Brighton and Mansfield, when he started, his performance was a lot sharper.

In addition, Beto seems to play better when the game is stretched and when he can get in behind the back line while also showing improvement when he is angrier and can be impactful from the bench.

Both games where Moyes started Barry and replaced him with Beto, we won. I think the Wolves cup game is irrelevant due to the amount of changes made.

Michael, you’re complaining about Moyes’s stubbornness in refusing to give fringe players a meaningful chance, he got slated for doing just that against Wolves, did you not see the abuse McNeil got?

Moyes has to change tactics against Palace. It’s either Alcaraz or Ndiaye in the Number 10 role with Dewsbury-Hall out. I thought Ndiaye had his poorest game on Monday night, Diouf had a free roll going forward and he gave O’Brien no help whatsoever in the 2nd half, that’s how the hammers created their equaliser.

So I’d play Ndiaye at Number 10 with Dibling on the wing, and I’d tell Gueye not to press so far forward, sit back and let Garner be the offensive midfielder, he was caught out of position so often the other night, he’s best in front of the back four.

I’d also tell Grealish, who is a class act, to move the ball forward quicker, and hopefully Beto can up his game 80%!

Think back to the days of Mark Hughes; if the ball was played up to him, it stuck like glue.

Best player I have seen for holding the ball and keeping it.
Sadly we have nothing like that.

I believe two of our major issues are lack of pace and goalscoring ability and none of the acquisitions remedied either.

Yes, the quality of our football has improved but that is no good when you are blunt up front and error-prone on the counter-attack, or turnover as the Americans have taken over our terms.

The big issue remains at full-back with neither left nor right overlapping very much and then not having the pace or nose to get back when the counter comes.

Palace have a very sound defence and some good footballers, so we will have to be at our best.

Fortunately we have a good record against Palace as their style of play seems to suit us. Let’s hope our form against them continues on Sunday.

Time for a total change in Number 9 though and why not give Ndiaye a try there — at least he knows where the net is and, if the defenders bounce him, we are more likely to get a penalty.

How much time do you give players to develop to Premier Leagur standard? How many players have Everton bought with a view to “nursing” them — only to be discarded having not achieved?

I hope I’m wrong but Barry is looking in that mould. Yes, he’s only 22 and been on the pitch about 8 times and from my observation. has not had a sniff of scoring. Yes could blame the other players not providing a service but CFs also have to make runs and create space to receive the ball – I’ve not seen much of either.

As I say I do hope I’m wrong but I really would love Everton to be buying players who can hit the ground running rather than waiting for the potential happening.

Maybe I’m asking too much?

Frank # 22, I am pretty sure the club would have preferred Ekitike, Sesko and others but we didn’t have much money to spend so we bought Barry.

How long might you need to wait — maybe 18 months or more. It certainly took the likes of Solanke, Wissa and Cunha and others many years to hit decent goal returns.

”rapidly crumbling Premier League campaign”

6 games in – 9th place!?

Really?

I expect Moyes to tweak. the selection a bit, but can’t see him.changing tactics. He might even have Everton play deeper in comparison to the West Ham game

I agree with Michael regarding trying youth.He should have been introducing them gradually, prior to the Wolves game. Throwing them on in the Wolves game really gave us a inevitable result.It probably demotivated them.

Agree with you Paul. I think we’ve seen enough to give serious thought to alternatives and your idea has to be worth a try on the basis of being least bad. Actually I think Ndiaye would make a more than decent striker.

If not your idea, one would be to give Barry a sustained run and see what he’s got. But Robert T reckons we need to give him 18 months. If he’s right, am I the one only one who believes we haven’t got 18 months?