I think things are far more rosy than it appears most of the forum do. I think we played pretty well on Saturday for instance, and I thought the defending was very good on the whole. Lallana looks to me like he might be a proper player, and while I'm not expecting Sturridge to solve all our problems, he will sort out a few of them.
I don't know how many games we played last season without either Sturridge or Suarez, but my guess is it wasn't many and we weren't that impressive. Once we have a natural goalscorer in the team, if we play as well as we did on Saturday we'll win most games. Also, I was pleased to see Brendan had another look at the position the captain takes up and when we give him the ball. I was a little surprised people felt Everton "didn't mark" the captain, they certainly would of if he'd sat in the pocket as we have become accustomed to. As it was he switched with Henderson while we were building from the back, making himself very difficult to just drop someone onto. This problem will be solved for a while now I think.
Up top I agree with BBB that Balotelli isn't doing us any favours at the moment. When Sturridge returns, the Italian would perhaps benefit from a period of reflection on the bench I feel. I think he's trying hard and I'm still glad we bought him, but he is a longish way away still from where he and we need him to be IMHO.
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