Been saying it for a long time, but any 'promise' or 'potential' that Zouma has is not worth it. He's just not good enough. Not trying to pin this all on him of course, lots of blame to go around from this one but Zouma, man, it's just time for us to move on
Zouma is apparently a great character on the training ground. A personality. Not sure why we never see that side of him in the games that much. To be fair his job is to be the under-study for Rudiger. The sooner we get Rudiger back the better. Rudiger and Tomori just makes us all breathe easier.
That's the tough thing about all the 'We need to buy a CB!' reaction to this game. Zouma and AC is our backup pairing. Still think we need to do better there, but anyone we buy would be intended for the first team, no? It's a tricky situation
Again, Kepa kept the West Ham game at 1-0. Could have easily been 6-0. The giveaways in midfield with a lousy CB pairing behind is more concerning than Kepa trying to save every 1v1 that comes his way.
No idea what you’re on about - third goal was a result of an insane pass out the back by him straight to the opposition. Not really sure why one sentence picking out his error meant I don’t value him as a player?
As Lobo mentioned, the goal was more on Zouma just standing there instead of being aware where the ball was going. Replace Zouma and have Tomori and Christensen as backup and we get better defensively. Sancho makes a lot of sense to give us something different in attack.
Much as I like Fik, this is probably the answer. Seen some rumblings about Umtiti but not sure he's the answer there either. Haven't seen much of him but the reputation is not exactly sterling in terms of defensive solidity. Anyone have a more informed opinion here?
The goal doesn’t happen if Kepa passes to.. a teammate. This isn’t something I’m going to debate lol... Anyways.. my feelings on Zouma have always been clear. Not remotely good enough to be a starter for us.
When we signed Kepa, the whole thing was about how great he was at distribution, but I have not seen a lot of it. I am not talking about the pass today, seems he is good for a few questionable passes every game and a couple overhit long balls. I just haven't seen a lot of the type of passes that were seen on his "highlight" reel when we signed him Hate to make a big move for a CB until we see what Rudi has on his return. LB meanwhile...
Ties into the lack of calm at the back as a whole. It's been happening all season, Zouma and Tomori playing some absolute horror balls (horror balls luls) to each other and to Kepa. There's a lack of confidence back there. Frank adjusted for this by switching to a back 3.. surprised we didn't see that make a comeback against Everton tbh. He's been making some great adjustments all season so I have faith he will react well to this.. our players just need to pass it to each other and all will be well
The Chelsea teams of old and the teams that Lampard was part of as a player were often impressive and were able to out-pass and out play other teams. But, if the situation required it, Lampard, Didier Drogba, John Terry and the rest were willing to sacrifice style to scrap it out with any opponent. We have not been doing that. More so in the West Ham game where we did not commit a single foul according to the stats, but also in the Everton game. A little controlled aggression in a game is not a bad thing.
StamBriLion is right. We need a nasty edgy, bit of a Costa-unt, physical player somewhere, cb or mf, with all the top class other skills mind you and more "controlled aggression" when needed everywhere as you said ... Jorginho may be our nastiest player, which says it all really.
i'm so tired of other teams playing out of their skins against us, and then we get a no manager bounce. seriously that's the most life i've seen in an everton side in two years. i'm happy to see everyone is rightfully slating Zouma, has no business being such a locked first choice that he's been for us. some of us have been saying that for a while too. BUT, let's put some things in perspective real quick: without a transfer window, and with key injuries that impacted the first 8-10 game and our best defender still not able to feature, we are currently 4th. i think the way we've played so far and the success we've had on the back of those things has upped our expectations a bit, and i think we're all anxious to solidify our hold on that 4th spot. that's a good thing. we have been inconsistent, but lets be honest, we ALL expected that this season. we are heading in to winter and hopefully getting rudiger back (this should be a dramatic improvement) and a transfer window to maybe strengthen a bit, we'll see what's available in january or not, i think frank wants to only strengthen with real quality. in other words, we've so far gone through the part of the season we all thought would be the most volatile and are looking pretty good. Pulisic is showing that he's going to have a real go in this league and will only get better. seriously some of the things he's doing on the field are a direct replacement for hazard. i don't want to oversell it, but watch how he tries to turn and drive forward almost any chance he gets, and his dribbling is better than i thought (i already had a pretty high opinion of him but didn't know how he'd step up). he's drawing a ton of attention and in the long run that should free up other players. we need our best CB back and we need to find who partners with him best, and we need a LB.
Glad I'm not going crazy in thinking the same. The almost goal against Villa was it? was insane. Goes from dead stop in the box to turn with a burst of pace, beats two guys to get the shot off. He had no business doing that. Christ. Give us more please
i don't want to get carried away, but even the games he's not contributing to a final end product i've been really impressed. he does a lot of little things i don't think get attention, but his little faints and misdirection's are really effective and his use of the ball to draw people in then move really only has hazard to compare to in our recent squad. i hate making that comparison this early but he's forcing me to make it really. of course he can still improve on a lot of things but all the signs are there, but as many times as i want to say he dribbles in to blind alleys, an equal number of times he manages to wiggle free and get one extra touch near the touch line to create a chance or half chance that i wasn't expecting to happen.
Is doing well and I am not going to say anything else about it. Just keep on doing what he has been doing and he's going to make some history. I am not going to jinx him with praise. But, he is on course for being Hazard and maybe more. Well the 4th spot would be nice. We have dropped six points against West Ham and Everton. Citeh, Liverpool and Leicester are on course for those top 3 spots. Spurs, Man United and even Arsenal are starting to get their shit together and are right behind us. So, yeah we are anxious to solidify that top 4 spot. And we have been dropping silly points of late. Well it is never great to slate one of our own, and I do get a sense that Zouma is loyal to the club, not like that idiot with the silly hair who is currently on the bench at Arsenal. Zouma is the back up for Rudiger and Rudiger have been injured and we have not been able to buy a replacement. In Zouma's defence he is still young, just turned 25. He also turned into Messi once and ran at the defence [old age means I cannot remember the game, but y'all know the one I mean] and that was quite something. But yeah Zouma is the weakest link in our team right now and that is worrying as a CB is a key position for any team. Rudiger back fit, will be like a great new signing.
agreed, just saying those are points that we could have expected to drop earlier in the season and we didn't, i think we overperformed against our expectations going in to the season. however, GIVEN our early season form, those are points that seemed totally wasted now and we really shouldn't have dropped them. you're right, my points was that i'm glad we are all seeing the same thing, and that is Zouma not quite being good enough. and as i mentioned considering we've been playing this season with basically a back up and a new to the league/young academy player for our CBs, we've overall done quite well.