[revel911]

We cannot expect to make top 4 hanging on to matches like this.

Why? That's exactly what we need to do. After two weeks ago blowing that game from Leicester a team we should have beat 4-0, grinding out games and the defense holding on is a very good thing.

 

[vidic blood & sand]

Why? That's exactly what we need to do. After two weeks ago blowing that game from Leicester a team we should have beat 4-0, grinding out games and the defense holding on is a very good thing.

Obviously it's not going to be like this all the time. We have important players returning, players getting used to the new team, the team settling into VG's instructions. It isn't clicking properly at the moment, but it will eventually.

 

[Dobba]

DDG has 96% of the MOTM vote.

 

[iAm20Legend]

We need to grind out the wins on the not-so-good days and get a decent run of wins. That's when the confidence starts to build.

 

[Yorkeontop]

Strange game. For all those saves De Gea made, I never felt Everton were worth a point. They looked rather jaded,especially in the first half.

 

[Raw]

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[Red_toad]

De Gea isn't human

Had a fair few stating him as being out of form last week. Shows they know feck all!

 

[nemanja15]

We're in a good situation. Won our most difficult game of the season so far (on paper), and we should have Jones, Smalling, Shaw and Carrick back for West Brom. Rafael, McNair, Shaw, Blind and Di Maria have impressed me a lot over the last couple of weeks and that's been without a fully firing Falcao and van Persie in front of them (thus far). It's the most content I've been with our situation for a while.

 

[Cheesy]

Strange game. For all those saves De Gea made, I never felt Everton were worth a point. They looked rather jaded,especially in the first half.

They improved towards the end, although you could arguably say we let them improve by dropping off and playing deep. For much of it though, they didn't impress me at all.

 

[Sam]

Played well-ish for the first 75 minutes. Should have taken a few more chances, then just fell apart in the last 15.

 

[Ramshock]

I fecking love Van Gaal

 

[Winrar]

Had a fair few stating him as being out of form last week. Shows they know feck all!

To be fair they weren't all that wrong about De Gea being out of form. He has certainly turned himself around going by today's performance, though.

 

[OneUnited24]

We're in a good situation. Won our most difficult game of the season so far (on paper), and we should have Jones, Smalling, Shaw and Carrick back for West Brom. Rafael, McNair, Shaw, Blind and Di Maria have impressed me a lot over the last couple of weeks and that's been without a fully firing Falcao and van Persie in front of them (thus far). It's the most content I've been with our situation for a while.

And we have a manager who knows his best formation and players to use in it.

 

[revel911]

Obviously it's not going to be like this all the time. We have important players returning, players getting used to the new team, the team settling into VG's instructions. It isn't clicking properly at the moment, but it will eventually.

Oh, I get that. I was commenting on people who are complaining that we are winning this way. For me what matters is the mental desire to be up, lose that lead ..... and not give up like we did against Leicester. To then get the goal, and grind out the win.

 

[Feed Me]

Had a fair few stating him as being out of form last week. Shows they know feck all!

Not really. He has been out of form. Today, he did what a world class player should do.

 

[Yorkeontop]

They improved towards the end, although you could arguably say we let them improve by dropping off and playing deep. For much of it though, they didn't impress me at all.

Everton to me this season look like they may be trying to bite off more than they can chew.

 

[Ramshock]

Everton to me this season look like they may be trying to bite off more than they can chew.

My missus has the same problem.

Everton tbf are missing a few regulars. Coleman would have given ADM a sterner test and McCarthy usually plays a solid game against us

 

[bleedred]

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Glad he sees that..

 

[Red_toad]

Not really. He has been out of form. Today, he did what a world class player should do.

Out of form? How exactly wasn't making errors, just because he's not pulling off world class saves every game, doesn't really say he's out of form, more he's playing a standard game & today he excelled.

 

[walkinhop]

Should have brought on Januzaj for Falcao first as he is more tactically flexible for me. Still that was fine if you wanted to keep Wilson central on the counter but he then didn't take off RVP but shifted Wilson out wide where Januzaj is much more natural. Wilson made 2 key mistakes tracking back which could have been costly and his pace went out of the game.

And Fellaini should have come on for one of RVP or Mata. Probably RVP so we could hoof it to him and let Wilson play off it.

Instead we ended up with RVP who was a passenger by that time, a struggling Fellaini and Wilson struggling out wide.

I like your assessment a lot. I feel that LvG experimented quite a bit. Reminds of those changes and team sheets I was used to see with Sir Alex. So many time i couldnt understand why did he sub or pick a particular player and we still won in the end. So, I dont know

 

[Mockney]

Feels a bit werid (good weird) to see match reports with the names Angel Di Maria and Radamel Falcao under the score. Feels like I'm playing FIFA.

 

[The Man Himself]

Good win but without DDG brilliance, it could have been worse. We need to bring more calmness and composure into our defending. Thought Blind was good today too.

 

[rcoobc]

95% of the votes

 

[rcoobc]

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To be fair, we could be 6th at the end of the day.

And Storeytime would probably have us in the relegation zone.

 

[Sparky Rhiwabon]

Smalling should not be played ahead of McNair now

 

[stu_1992]

Good result. It was a decent performance, we were in control for most of the game. Everton only really had a short spell after their goal, and obviously the nervy last few minutes. I think that was more to do with us more than anything though. That'll go away if we manage to get more wins and confidence.

Hope Shaw isn't injured too badly, I thought he's done well in the last few games, bar the penalty obviously though that could be argued, and it would be a shame to see his development hampered just when he was getting a run of games. Happy to see Falcao score, looked like he was trying hard for it and hopefully that opens the floodgates now. Di Maria continues to be involved with anything good for our team. What a player. De Gea was man of the match for me, made great saves at key times in the match. Got us the 3 points today.

 

[Bobcat]

Nervy again, but i hope this will do good for our confidence and it might even galvanize the team a bit.

For once i am happy there is a international break coming up, have way to many defensive injuries now

 

[TheRedDevil'sAdvocate]

A hard earned victory today, after our shaky start of the season getting 6 points out of those two home games was of utmost importance. It's good that we won a game against one of the better sides in the PL and without our attacking triplet having the best of days on the pitch. But still there are many things that need to be improved.

First and above all, a big bow to David De Gea for his role in the match today. He saved Everton's penalty and made two more incredible saves when the Tofees were searching for that late equalizer. He was definitely the MotM as far as i am concerned. He must certainly become better on the ball, but i have to say it was the first time this season that he kept his calm through the 90 minutes, he didn't risk a short pass or leaving his goal line when he wasn't 100% sure he could get the job done. This performance must be a huge boost for De Gea, i really hope he continues like that.

Strangely enough, our best players today were our defensive players. McNair put yet another solid performance against Lukaku this time, i believe he only missed him once in our box. It was one of the very few times in the last couple of seasons when an "athletic" forward who can receive the ball with his back on goal and bring others into the game didn't cause us many problems. McNair was responsible for dealing with Lukaku in our box, Lukaku wasn't a threat in our box, so the youngster must take credit for that.

Rafael was also very good, imo one of our best players on the pitch. He defended his space well and although Martinez had marked him and had chosen to overload that area with attackers Rafael's good positioning, aggression and composure didn't allow Everton to create any threatening situations from his side. Shaw and Rojo did their job rather well, nothing astonishing but good enough.

Blind did a good job keeping the lines close and starting the attacks from deeper positions. His good and quick first pass allowed us to create spaces in the midfield in both occasions we needed to speed things up and get a goal, in the beginning of the match and when Everton had equalized. In between he tried to control the tempo and slow things down and i have to say that for 75 minutes Everton couldn't find any rhythm and didn't deserve anything out of the game.

Still, we face huge problems whenever Blind and Di Maria run out of fuel in the last 15-20 minutes of our matches. Thankfully today we didn't lose our shape in the midfield, we chose to drop deep and defend in a narrow formation, but this is a problem LvG has to solve sooner or later because it's going to cost us.

Valencia did ok tactically protecting our right side, won many balls in the midfield, especially when Everton weren't over committing players up front but he still doesn't feel comfortable enough when he goes forward.

Our creative players didn't have the best of games. That little "trick" of ours with Falcao and Rooney playing close and swapping positions between the lines in order to create spaces in the final third didn't work that well with Mata, who seemed to always need one touch to many with the ball today. Of course he is a different player and brings other things on the table. But he failed to influence the today's game and the fact that he doesn't rush forward towards the ball like Rooney seemed to make things difficult for Falcao too. I'm not suggesting that Rooney is better in the #10 position, i'm just saying that Rooney and Falcao have developed an understanding of each other's game which helps our attacking plays a lot, and Mata-Falcao can't replicate it, yet.

RvP had too many opportunities to make an impact in Everton's box, Di Maria and co. were constantly trying to bring him into the game but he didn't deliver anything good today. Let's hope he finds some form during our next games.

A big "thanks" goes to Martinez for not trying to attack our left wing when Di Maria didn't have the legs to track back opponents, like Leicester and WH, but kept overloading the other wing. When Oviedo was brought on i thought that he would play him on the right wing to give him the opportunity to cut inside, but fortunately for us that didn't happen.

Speaking of substitutions, i don't get what's all the fuzz about LvG's choices. He brought on Wilson because he wanted a second striker playing near RvP in order to keep Everton's defense from moving further up the pitch. Fellaini was brought on to add some physicality in the last minutes, to win some duels and help us retain possession. You can argue that both decisions didn't work quite well but you can't say there were irrational.

At the end of the day we should be satisfied, we faced a team that finished 8 points above us last season, we looked like the better side for the 2/3 of the game and we finished the game and got all three points with 3 of our newest youth products, Blackett-McNair-Wilson on the pitch.

 

[mazhar13]

At least we're winning whilst making things difficult for ourselves. This was one notable quality about us in our successful teams, so it's nice to see us win even if we aren't at our best.

 

[Trizy]

With those three points today and Arsenal losing we're up to 4th, its a long way to go yet but Southampton won't be in third for long so at least we're in the right side of the table at the moment. Easy fixtures or not I think we've done well considering the diabolical luck we've had with injuries. We look a different side without Herrera and Rooney not to mention Carrick and Jones are yet to come back, I recon if this victory lifts confidence throughout the squad we should go on run of picking up points, of course the Chelsea game will be a mountain to climb but imagine we grinding out a draw or even an impossible (on paper) win? Could turn around our season completely.

 

[Wumminator]

Pretty happy overall after our injuries to be where we are. Need a good result against WBA.

 

[mazhar13]

A big "thanks" goes to Martinez for not trying to attack our left wing when Di Maria didn't have the legs to track back opponents, like Leicester and WH, but kept overloading the other wing. When Oviedo was brought on i thought that he would play him on the right wing to give him the opportunity to cut inside, but fortunately for us that didn't happen.

I'm not surprised Martinez did this. On the right side, they had Hibbert as the full back, and he's poor going forward. Yes, McGeady's a good winger, but given how well we did to control the midfield, McGeady was rarely involved, so the right side wasn't a threat at all. If Coleman was fit and playing today, I'm sure Martinez would have had Everton work the ball more on the right side and test Shaw even more.

I think Everton really missed Coleman. With McGeady out of the game and Hibbert bad going forward, Martinez' team were only able to go through the left side, and this aided us as we locked them out to the left channel and won the ball frequently over there.

Our creative players didn't have the best of games. That little "trick" of ours with Falcao and Rooney playing close and swapping positions between the lines in order to create spaces in the final third didn't work that well with Mata, who seemed to always need one touch to many with the ball today. Of course he is a different player and brings other things on the table. But he failed to influence the today's game and the fact that he doesn't rush forward towards the ball like Rooney seemed to make things difficult for Falcao too. I'm not suggesting that Rooney is better in the #10 position, i'm just saying that Rooney and Falcao have developed an understanding of each other's game which helps our attacking plays a lot, and Mata-Falcao can't replicate it, yet.

Mata's always at his best when he has 2-3 dynamic players around him dragging the opposition away and leaving him in lots of space. He's not your typical attacking midfielder who looks for the ball and tries to dictate play. He's more of a "final third" player, and even then, he's not a dynamic one. With Herrera, Rooney, and di Maria, Mata gets tons of space and options on the ball. With just di Maria as the dynamic player, Mata didn't have many runners to look to and much space to operate in. I believe he can be more effective if he has one more of Rooney or Herrera in the team to provide him options and help create space for him.

 

[siw2007]

Felt it was a good performance today. Even though it was quite a nervy finish, we created enough chances in the game to have put the game out of reach but unfortunately didn't. Rafael had another good game as did Di Maria. But obviously the real hero was De Gea who kept us in it when Everton were pushing and a great penalty save.

This was on paper at least the first real difficult challenge of the season and it was a good 3 points earned. Let's keep the winning habit going!

 

[mancan92]

WOOOOO TOP 4 GUYZ!!!

 

[Sheikhy]

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Falcao covering his knee with his jacket. I hope that there is no issue there.

 

[kouroux]

Why? That's exactly what we need to do. After two weeks ago blowing that game from Leicester a team we should have beat 4-0, grinding out games and the defense holding on is a very good thing.

Yes we held on but only thanks to DDG, we still retreated into our own half, we still looked panicked, we still conceded tons of possession. Winning this tough match is great and that's the only positive thing. Only DDG saved us from another embarrassment at OT

 

[kouroux]

True. But we're still in the very early stages of this rebuild and transformation. The most important thing for the next 4/5 games is to continue to get the wins and keep up with the front runners. Which we are doing. Once we get players back and in particular defenders, playing consistently together, things will improve.

I don't have a lot of faith in this but hopefully you're right.

 

[bleedred]

Yes we held on but only thanks to DDG, we still retreated into our own half, we still looked panicked, we still conceded tons of possession. Winning this tough match is great and that's the only positive thing. Only DDG saved us from another embarrassment at OT

Its not like LVG sees this as a brilliant performance. He said post match we were playing poorly, so he sees the same as us and will work on it. If he had said, we played well, then you can be concerned.

In the meantime, lets enjoy the result and let LVG worry about improving the game..

 

[Mockney]

Falcao covering his knee with his jacket. I hope that there is no issue there.

Might have just wet himself.

 

[Sheikhy]

Might have just wet himself.

No puddle on the floor