The People's Forum: When we finished fourth, it feels like we'd grind games out

Then Osman would leather one in late on. No reason we can't do that again, if we have difference-makers like Ndiaye, Alcaraz (Grealish?!) in the team.

But we can't just focus on how we didn't score, in a season that included half the games under Dyche, who was actively looking to not attack. Then ignore the good defence as if that doesn't matter. Then ignore the first few games of Moyes tenure, as apparently they don't count either.

I don't understand how Evertonians can't look at the end of Goodison, the away wins and feelgood factor of the new stadium and owners, and not actually think, 'do you know what? I'm quite excited to see who we sign'.

Instead we're shit and we're staying shit. And the stadium isn't decorated how I like. And the walk from town is too far. And I don't like the new shirt, even if it's fake. And the friendlies are too small. And the new membership is shit.

Previous Message

but it's obviously a lot easier if you score more goals. As highlighted by the limited number of outliers already posted.

Are we anti goals now?

Previous Message

more goals usually equates to a higher league position and vice versa.

But as Spurs discovered last season you also have to limit the amount you concede

Previous Message

It’s possible to buck the trends but it’s unlikely, hence they are trends.

I’d rather Moyes wasn’t hoping for a freak season but planning to add more goals.

Previous Message

There seems there’s an expectation that the Summer will bring in a whole new revamped team that will be filled with of goals and creativity and rocket us into the top half of the league.

I think it’s nigh on impossible to make such a big leap. It’s not the league position of 13th we should concentrate on, it’s the number of goals we score.

We were the 4th lowest scorers last season with only the 3 relegated teams scoring less than us. In 23/24 we were the 2nd lowest scorers and also 2nd lowest in 22/23.

Look at the league table attached here and the correlation of goals scored vs points won. In most cases it’s 1 for 1 i.e. 1 goal scored is 1 point earned.

Over the last 3 seasons, you need to score approximately 60 goals to secure a Top 10 finish.

We’ve averaged 38 goals over the last 3 seasons.

So if you believe we can “challenge for Top 10” what in effect you’re saying is we can go from a team that’s more or less averages 1 goal a game to one that average 1.5 goals a game and approx add 20 goals on top of what we usually score.

Think about that for a minute.

We’re potentially expecting a whole raft of new players to come in and gel together quickly in a new stadium and outperform all previous seasons since 16/17 when we scored 62 goals and Lukaku got 25 of them.

I say it’s nigh on impossible to make such a big leap in a year of transition.

I’d gladly take 13th again whilst hoping to improve our goal output to be more in line with points earned. We’ve got a huge amount of points for our goals scored these last 2 seasons.

What about you? Are you really expecting an avalanche of goals and a Top 10 finish?