Two teams well drilled in defence but weaker in attack and 0-0 was always on the cards, particularly without crucial players Olise for us and Doucoure for them. Eze had another poor game, like against Chelski. Shirked possession and easily lost the ball in the first half, poor free kick but was involved in our best effort at goal. Can't understand why we can't move the ball out quicker from defence ? Henderson is a good goalie in shot stopping etc. but is too slow distributing. In the first half he high fived a defender when he had the ball and then caught another chance but didn't try to distribute it quickly. Needs to work on that as well as the players moving into possible positions. Hughes also lost possession in the majority of cases albeit in his cameo at the end and Ahamada didn't look comfortable on the wing. On the plus side Franca got some minutes and was prepared to move forward and could be a handful. Good introduction to the physical side in the PL. Also Mateta continues to up his game and work rate. Suspect the replay will be decided by a scrappy goal, 1-0 either way.

“ [T]here are known knowns; there are things we know that we know.There are known unknowns; that is to say there are things that, we now know we don't know.But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don't know. ”
—United States Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld

I think you have just explained what we are all unhappy about. I think the point is that we shouldn't be in the least surprised about it. There was an inevitability that given another season in charge that Roy would revert to type. And so it came to pass.

Whenever the TV cameras were on them they seemed to be looking at their phones. Probably got a WhatsApp group going.

SP “why doesn’t he bring Wilf on”
MB “he doesn’t play for us any more Steve”
SP “is there anyone else”
MB “er this is it Steve”
SP “I’ll go back to looking at plans for the new stand”

The only real conclusion I drew was that there was a horrific lack of attacking talent or quality on display from two so called Premier League teams but despite that Everton managed to fashion three very good chances which they wasted.

I thought we were shocking, absolute dog food, Everton had a game plan, teamwork and focus - we couldn't get to the final third without going route 1 and scrapping for knockdowns. Can't put all the blame on Roy, it's the nature of the squad, we didn't just miss Olise we missed Ayew massively, you can get away with a few Hughes, Schlupp's or Riedewalds if your key players are in the team, without those leaders even players like Lerma can seem ineffectual - the Richards experiment in midfield doesn't work unless you have the attacking options to offset the lack of creativity in central midfield - we need better more quality back up, be they talented youngsters, loan players or whatever, and as for Eze he is all icing and no cake, he needed to help Lerma and Richards, dig in and take the game by the scuff of the neck, but he can't do that, he plays like a boy not a man, pointing to his pretty face when he scores, they should hire Neil Warnock as a personal mentor to threaten him when he disappears up his fundament, that's why Vieira stopped picking him, he needs to play with much more responsibility not just rely on others to do the dirty work. It's not Roy's fault, the back up players are limited and when we miss enough key players their limitations become cruelly exposed - that was the worst display from a Palace team I've seen since the 0-4 v scunthorpe - they were booed at the end - rightly so.

Did you listen to the FYP interview with him this week? I do miss him. Such a character. I also liked what he said about the importance of man management and just giving youngsters the confidence to give it a go (providing they work hard for the team). He may have been tactically limited, but we could perhaps do with a man motivator like him in the coaching set up.