At home but where is the comfort?

[supertom]

Players need to start playing with their fecking heads up. All our midfielders (and Gabby and Weimann) seem to play with their heads down. No one looks up to consider what's around them. Doing just that is what got Everton their two goals. A bit of vision, a well picked out pass then a composed finish.

[PaulWinch again]

We need to get out of the culture where losing is acceptable.

[Ad@m]

We need to get out of the culture where losing is acceptable.

Are we in that culture?

I'd suggest a significant chunk of our fan base needs to get out of the culture where every win is a fluke and every defeat is because the players just aren't good enough.

Yes, our home record is shite but yesterday could've been a whole lot different if our strikers had stuck away the three golden changes we had before Everton scored.  How often is Benteke going to miss a penalty and a one-on-one in a game?  It was just one of those days.

And please don't take that as a culture where losing is acceptable.

[PaulWinch again]

I think there is a general acceptance of home defeats, because we've experienced them for so long. You tend to get grumbling immeadiately after the game, and that subsides into 'ah what do you expect' etc.

[PaulWinch again]

It's not just the fans either, there seems to be a sense of it around the club.

[Ad@m]

I think there is a general acceptance of home defeats, because we've experienced them for so long. You tend to get grumbling immeadiately after the game, and that subsides into 'ah what do you expect' etc.

Well I don't accept them.  There are a few kids around where I sit and I feel so sorry for them having to deal with our home form.  They're too young to have ever seen us as anything other than a push over at home.  I think that if I was their age I'd have told my dad I was busy playing on the Xbox or something the next time a home game came round!

That said, I still don't and won't boo the team.  I think the only time I've booed the lads in as long as I can remember was at the end of the Bolton game in the TSM season.  But on Saturday you could just tell the Holte was itching to boo at full time and sure enough they did.  That can't help the morale or motivation of what is essentially a very young and inexperienced side.

[supertom]

We need to get out of the culture where losing is acceptable.

Are we in that culture?

I'd suggest a significant chunk of our fan base needs to get out of the culture where every win is a fluke and every defeat is because the players just aren't good enough.

Yes, our home record is shite but yesterday could've been a whole lot different if our strikers had stuck away the three golden changes we had before Everton scored.  How often is Benteke going to miss a penalty and a one-on-one in a game?  It was just one of those days.

And please don't take that as a culture where losing is acceptable.

We're not creating enough decent chances, or hitting the target nearly enough. Home or even away to be honest. Now this might improve in the coming month with us playing so called lesser opposition, but I worry about the mentality we seem to have in some games.
We might be getting a few chances but we're wasting far too many through having no composure, or just players unable to control the ball. Unless we start creating more we're going to struggle for goals. If we struggle for goals we'll lose more games than we win, and that puts us in the shite.

I honestly can't see how some of our recent performances can be put down as acceptable. Has it really come to this? We've deservedly been pretty well beaten by Spurs and Everton all told, at home. I don't like that Spurs, Everton and now Liverpool just look beyond us. We've let these teams overtake us. We've not just fallen a little behind either, we're way off. The way some people have talked about our start makes it sound like we've faced a gargantuan challenge. But really? City are inconsistent. Chelsea haven't been spectacular by any means under Jose 2. Liverpool have started well and are kicking on this season after a couple of really average years. Everton are a solid if unspectacular side breaking in a new manager. Why should we be lowly underdogs on our own turf against these sides?

We can play the IF game if we like but the fact of the matter is we've won 3 games, drawn 1 and lost 5. If we're talking about being unlucky, I think genuinely the only game I've felt unfortunate or robbed in was Chelsea. By the same token I thought we were very fortuitous against Man City, so that evens out I guess (and if we can feel hard done by against Everton, surely City fans could feel hard done by for losing to us? They were camped in our half for 80% of the game).
The other games we more or less got what we deserved. Liverpool we plodded along without doing much. Liverpool didn't do too much either but that one moment of quality told. Again, if you're at home and you have only 2 shots on target, you can't feel too hard done by if you lose. 5 home games and a grand total of 13 shots on target tells you everything. It tells us we're not creating enough, we're not composed enough when we get those chances, and we're not scoring enough.

Something needs to happen with our home form, because we can't just rely on our away form. It would seem things will be a bit harder this season away from home. Teams are more wary about our threat now and I'm not sure Lambert has another plan up his sleeve right now.

I think there seems to be a bit of an "ah well..." mentality. An acceptance that getting to 40 points with plenty of time to spare is a good season. That we can almost write off games against anyone in the top 6 and be satisfied because we had 15 minutes of dominating play without really finding the target. Picking up results against bottom half teams might even prove tougher. It's a kill or be killed mentality down there and teams from aug-may are scrapping for their lives. Results will be inconsistent as we'll no doubt see over the next couple of months. An "easier" set of fixtures coming up is a possible beacon of false hope. Among that is a tough West Ham side who could well bully us. Cardiff who have looked okay in a few games without getting results (much like some of us think of ourselves) and could pull off a few positive results. Then there's West Brom who have the upper swing over us lately. Derbies are always very tough. Form doesn't often come into it, so it could go either way.

[Ad@m]

A more positive spin on things might look like this:

Arsenal (a) - won and scored 3 goals away from home against a side that's been in the Champions League every season for the best part of two decades;
Chelsea (a) - cheated out of victory through a goal by a player who shouldn't have been on the pitch and a blatant handball in the box not given against the home side;
Liverpool (h) - neither team played well and we were undone by a superb goal that most teams would've conceded;
Newcastle (h) - bad day at the office - no excuses;
Norwich (a) - away win against a struggling team - can't really ask for any more than tha;
Man City (h) - victory against a team that's spent over £500m in the past few years and won the title just over a year ago;
Hull (a) - neither team played well - better than losing a game like that;
Spurs (h) - beaten by a team that was better than us last year and spent £100m over the summer;
Everton (h) - should've been out of site but for poor finishing.  One of those days.

In addition, I reckon if you went through ours and Everton's first 11 and chose the best one in each position you'd struggle to pick many Villa players yet we were the better team for most of the game.

So it's really not as bad as some would make out.  Yes it needs to get better but it's not going to happen overnight.  Have some patience.

[supertom]

Honestly the Everton game I thought was pretty end to end in the first half. We could have been away and clear granted, but we rushed chances and lacked composure. Our most dominant period was the first 15 of the second half I felt. We created less chances in that period though ironically.
But we were also at home. Having more chances than a club like Everton, who are good but not great, should be a given. Our response when they scored was the most disappointing thing. We were wretched from then on and never looked like doing anything. For me Everton gave a solid away performance. A clean sheet (with a little luck and a class pen save) and two well taken goals. Job done and deserved. I've no complaints on that one in all honesty.

Spurs and Liverpool might have far better squads but that we created so little of note is a worry. The least you should expect on your own patch is to get half a dozen shots on target on average in a game (as opposed to our average of under 3). I don't think there's actually a prem team these days that should be completely feared either, not like the Utd of 7-8 years ago or the Arsenal of 10, or the Chelsea under Mourinho in his first spell.

Chelsea is the only game that really sticks in my craw. We were robbed by awful refereeing.

I'd agree on the Everton team though. Man to man they're better in all but two-three positions. Keeper and center forward, though Lukaku won the day on sat over an unfit, below par Benteke. Delph I'd possibly have in as well.
To think it wasn't long ago that you'd look at our side and Evertons, player for player and you'd not fit many toffees into our line up. How times have changed.

[Brend'Watkins]

It's fairly obvious to me why we are so poor at home and have been for the last 3 seasons.  We simply don't have the quality of players to impose ourselves on good or half decent opposition.  Lambert has to recognize this and has to do something about it in January. 

[saunders_heroes]

It's fairly obvious to me why we are so poor at home and have been for the last 3 seasons.  We simply don't have the quality of players to impose ourselves on good or half decent opposition.  Lambert has to recognize this and has to do something about it in January. 

The main problem with that is getting Lerner to release the funds.

[ez]

I remember a poor run of home results under Graham Taylor. I believe he started booking the team into hotels on Friday nights and travelling to VP by coach to try to solve it.

[Ads]

Playing the likes of Cardiff and Sunderland is likely to be a decent remedy for the home form.

[ROBBO]

Most of our players are not good enough it's that simple.

[Phil from the upper holte]

I remember a poor run of home results under Graham Taylor. I believe he started booking the team into hotels on Friday nights and travelling to VP by coach to try to solve it.

O'neill did that anyway didn't he?