 Welcome to Toffey TV. It is the match preview Everton vs Manchester City in the quarter-final of the FA Cup at Gotherson Park. Oh, so excited for this one, pass. Just one step away from Wembley. Two steps away from an empty Wembley. Two steps away from a partial. It's going to be a very difficult ask, isn't it? Yeah, it's going to be. Sitting here now, I can't say with any confidence that I can see Everton winning this game. And that might sound negative to people and some people will take offence to that because they take offence to a lot of things. But I just can't. I watch football, I watch a lot of football, I watch Manchester City this week against Munch and Gladbach in the Champions League. The 14 points cleared in the Premier League. They've had 25 clean sheets this season, which I think doesn't get spoken enough about how good a job defensively they've done. So when you look at it like that, Everton have just lost their home to Burnley, who City comfortably beat. So when you look at it like that, you kind of go, yeah, no chance. But the caveat of that is the FA Cup and things happen. You know, we've seen Man City, I saw Man City dominate Arsenal in an FA Cup semi-final last year. Battered them at Wembley and they got beat 2-0 because on the day Arsenal took their chances, defended brilliantly. And City had one of those days where, you know, you score because you haven't scored for a bit in back heeling it when you should have been very Arsenal like towards the end of the Wenger era. So Arsenal got lucky that day. For Everton to win, they wouldn't need to be the same, I think, I think. They'd have to be awful. I've worked out Manchester City to kill his heel. I know how to beat them. Go on then. One of Manchester City, not that good of penalties. They're not good of penalties, Addy. They're not good of penalties. So let's get them to the penalty sheet out of good of some part and I think we've got a chance. I think we've got a chance. I think that's the game plan for me. Get them to survive 120 minutes of combination. Of not conceding and get them to pens and I think that's where we become the favourites in this game. I still wouldn't say favourites, but that's the main game. I think we saw it in the league game the other week. We haven't had a game plan for an hour at 1-1. It was working, wasn't it? You know, they had, don't forget, coming into that they hadn't conceded for nine games and everything's good. So. Again, do you want another big piece of good news for this game? Go on. You can have five subs. That means they can have an extra five first teamers coming into the game. And we can have kids in Kungu. I guess though. How many goalies do you think we'll have on the bench for this game? Probably only one. Unless Olson gets fit because obviously we won an hour of them at me. Listen, it's a game of football and every time you take the pitch it's an opportunity to beat the opponent. City of Brilliant is one of the best Premier League teams we've ever seen. Paul last season, he's recovered fantastically well this season. Dias has come in and has made them incredible. Look, they've got the port. John Stones has been brilliant for them this season, really has. Do you think they'll play their strongest side because they're going into an international break and there's an opportunity for someone else's problem, isn't it, at the end of the day? Or do you think they've played Europe in Europe this week? Okay, it wasn't much of a stretch for them, but with the travelling and stuff, do you think they'll have a slightly weak inside? I'm looking for positive bars, come on. Possibly. I mean, they'll probably have to play like a guero. You know, they only come on for 20 minutes last night. He's scored a penalty today as well. I imagine there'll be changes, but the problem is Manchester City's changes are still brilliant. So it's going to be difficult. I think Raheem Stirling was only sub in months in Gladbox where he'll play. Listen, I don't look at it like that. Whoever they put out, it's a bad evidence. I think, listen, if we are going to be, if we are talking about how we would beat them, we've got to get off to a fast start. I think Manchester United showed that, and Manchester United are better team than us. But Manchester United showed that. They have to have them straight away. They got the yearly goal, the penalty. And then they soaked up the pressure and broke the look. Of course, you've got a right, listen. To beat Manchester City, you've got to ride your look. Of course you have. But if we could do that, if we could get a goal, and then start frustrating them by getting men behind the ball, that's got to be the best game plan, surely. Because listen, when we play, for me, the biggest problem is, for this game amongst a lot of problems is, when you play Manchester City, you want to be at your best. You want to be at your strongest. And everything clearly aren't at their best and clearly aren't at their strongest. Jordan Pickford's out straight away. You know, you're number one goalkeeper. And then you've got the likes of the Coray out. Number one midfielder. Yeah. Hamas Rodriguez number one creative player. So there's three parts straight away of your team. And then you look at the bench and you know that you're going to need to freshen it up because the way Manchester City wake the ball, it's going to tie you out as well. So that's the thing as well, who do you bring on in midfield to freshen it up or even in defence. So it's going to be, without making excuses, because I don't think they are excuses. They are factual things. You need to beat Manchester City. You need to do those things. But if you're going to win the cup, you've got to beat a team like Manchester City. I mean, you've got to. And I would rather play Manchester City at Godderson Park than at Wembley. Any day of the week. I'd rather play at Godderson Park where at least we feel a little bit of comfort. Changes are nice. Did we feel comfort at Godderson? That's not saying the changes are nice or what. So have you been better playing at the end? To be honest. But I'd rather play at Wembley in a semi-farn. And you've got to have that bit of luck. And I think you've got to have that bit of luck to beat Manchester City anyway. So this is a free-it. This is the definition of a free-it. Because nobody expects us to win. Everyone expects just Manchester City to roll us over and move on to the semi-finals and go and win every trophy known to man. And we have to use that to our advantage and hopefully just frustrate them and use what we've got, and use what we've got to do to our advantage. And I hope that the luck falls our way. Yeah, we've got to break the game up as much as we can. Slow it down as much as we can. And try to frustrate them. The biggest thing you can't let them do is get into a rhythm of playing. Because once they get into their patterns of play, they're very difficult to stop. But like I said, we kind of done it and we got to 60-65 minutes on a marysgwrth of a fantastic goal. Don't take Tom Davies off. And I put them back in front and after that we threw caution to the wind and he scored again, didn't he? And it was done. So it will take that. You've got to concentrate. You've got to be very best. I think Gary Mayn will come back into the side at the weekend and obviously in the league I only lasted 10-15 minutes in that and went off. I think he'll come back in. I would be tempted, as I've probably said a million times, before to put one of whole gates or got three in the field for this one. Because it is a lot of running, it's mobility is what you need and everything. And midfield of Alan, Alan Davies and Gomez against these is asking for trouble. Because you need mobility in there. The other, Alan and Davies can't work hard for you. No problem with that. Gomez hasn't got the legs although he does take care of the ball better than the other three probably. Do you think for a game like this though the diamond could actually work? It's making city quite narrow, aren't they? People like Márez wants to come inside on his left foot. He does. They don't really get run on the outside. The full backs go obviously. They add centianco he does and he does. I mean, me personally, I would play. I'd almost play 7-0-3 and just try to miss the midfield out. It's not the football I want to see long term. Oh, it would be going long anyway. But just bang it long to them and get runners. Get runners. Let's see how good stones is against them all. Let's see how good Diaz or the Port is brilliant in here. If we try, if we try... How football them, can we? But if we try and play the ball out from the back against these you're dead, you're a dead man walking. They'll just push up. They've got so much energy. Well, they're just brilliant suppression. They'll just push up the brilliant energy. They know every bit of the pitch. It's broken down into a fling. So our job is, our job is, is simply to go long and I'm not asked. You go long, you use them and then you try and get the charis and nothing. Tainly if, cos hammers is not available, depends what gilfee is, whether they go well. If gilfee's fitting my playing to him at the top of the diamond and he tries to get all of the knock downs to get between the lines. Then you're looking for a charis and to make those runs on you. But I would bypass the midfield all day with this because actually I think the midfield is going to need its energy to defend rather. No, that's what I'm trying to say. You can almost. You can almost. It is. It's not what everything should be doing. Spent the money. We are where we are. We haven't got, you just mentioned it. Three players who would be in everybody's fit. Not everybody. But being the majority of Evertonians starting 11 went fit. Four. Pickfoot would be probably most Evertonians pick over Robin Olson. And don't forget Olson, he's fighting to be fit anyway. The core I've been every Evertonians team. Hamers, Rodríguez have been every, I fit Hamers, Rodríguez have been every Evertonians team. And so going through a midfield like that. And that's where you kind of need it. I think that if you, maybe, what you could look at doing is let the midfield stay really narrow and just try and block the gaps. That's going to take a lot of effort. If it's like you, the main of this, you're two centre back. Yeah, we call three right back. I was thinking, go frame the field. Well no, I know you think that. No, but you know why. No, but I'll actually tell you why. And especially if we were going to try to play a flat three in front of the back four to block the passing lines off. Cos he's actually one who could break. Do you know what I mean? He's one who's got legs to break forward. So if we did go long to them and we needed to get people up there, he's one who's actually got speed. I do think that he might, I think he might bring Sheamus Cullman in actually though. I think he might approach it like the Derby and say you're going to have the ball. This is an away game. Like four. This is an away game. They're going to have the ball. They're going to have the ball. They're going to have the ball anyway. And say you do a job on say whoever is stailing or whoever, you do that job. It's difficult with City because you know I've always shot. Cos you don't move from the play, yeah. And then folding if he's there maybe. If he's brilliant. It's hard, isn't it? You go through the team and it's joy to watch. But they do lose every now and again. So I just watched the Derby during the week with United and expected them to roll them over. Got the goal and hung on brilliantly and then broke. What were you saying, yeah? That's what United did though. United went long, okay, different kind of long cos they get out wide. But that's what they did. They allowed them in the field to sit. And then said we'll break us down and the wide men got in and it was very compact and they got the goals at the right time. For every Evertonian I'm sure we'll take us playing long direct football on Saturday night winning 1-0 or 2-1 and getting into their fake-up semi-final, wouldn't we? We're not in the stadium, are we? We've watched, we've said 38% of possession is our sweet spot. We might even, well we'll probably have less than on Saturday. We've lost 6 out of 7 games when we've had more than 60% of possession. We had over 60% of last Saturday and we got beat. Possession is the enemy. Whenever I've said this at millions I might get on a T-shirt. We've adopted Claudio Rangieri's because possession is the enemy because we're not good enough. And they will actually start more attacks from our possession then we'll start attacks from our possession. That's a fact. That's a fact. Less than what was it, 28% or 24% was the one in the league. So if you're going to lose the ball, lose it on the edge of the box after you've gone long and done to flicked one on. See I just think if you, I know it's very basic but if you sat three lads in front of the back four almost and you're making them passing lanes difficult to play through because they barely did it to us at the weekend. We're not city's level of course, but it shows you when you compact how difficult it can be just to pass through just because there's people everywhere so your movement might be better but if you do that and then your outball is you're banging it to Dom and you've got people running either side one flicking his in, he might get somewhere. But the derby proved it and I'm not saying Liverpool really really know what city are but Liverpool had a lot of possession that day and all we did was shut off the passing lanes made it difficult for the city a better and then hit them on the counter now again it's come down to the fact that we scored daily and they had a little bit more desperation and we got the penalty at the right time but that's how you, that's how I would set out to play this week I mean obviously you need someone maybe in that number 10 role I know it's different in the derby because we only had one striker on the pitch and it was a little bit different but that's the mindset and I'm not asked that it's at home because that's irrelevant because man's city make every game their game of keeper and you have to just be disciplined everyone has to stay switched on this is the problem with the subs obviously because once you start making subs in it lessens the team so that's why when you watch Carla why he is so looked into making subs he doesn't like making subs because it does, especially away games because it does take away from the game plan so listen we don't have to tell anyone out there it's going to be really really difficult but there's a chance and that chance is called penalties so I've seen it before we've had big games before at this stage and we've won when people didn't think we would and we've won games where we've had to ride our luck and we've lost games where everything was a clear favour and I know it's when we've never been at city level in terms of what they do with the ball but there's a tough upsets all the time man's city were involved in probably the biggest for 30, 40 years when Wigan beat them the biggest mismatch of quality because Wigan got relegated and beat them in the FA Cup final because Joel Robles but Wigan that day made about 8 well class saves city could have won that 8-0 easily and now Mcmanum a mist a gut chance early on but they could have easily been beaten 8 that day Wigan and the young on there got a set play and they win it through Ben Watson and that's it, the last seconds of the game so we've seen it before we've been on the end of teams beating Wigan coming beat us 3-0 everyone was saying I'll be a cricket score so these cup things have happened before but it would be obviously it would be evidently a declare underdogs, there's no question about it but when you've got a striker that's got 19 goals another forward that's got 11 and you've got the quality of Luca Dean with that left foot you've got a chance and evidently let's have it right normally evidently or evidently biggest strength this season has been is to defend when under pressure that's how we will do it we'll need a lot of luck you said it before don't do anything stupid and then hopefully off the set play maybe we might be able to if we can get a corner put them under pressure with the likes of Maynard and Cain in the size maybe but it's going to be very difficult we'll see what happens it's going to be an interesting one there's no your thoughts in the comments on this one do you give us any chance and if you do what is that chance where's it coming from you're going for pens like me make sure you leave your thoughts in the comments give this video a like, subscribe if you haven't already and you want more great videos, exclusive videos videos out early daily live videos join us over on Patreon the link is in the description and it's on the screen right now see you later