Le Journal

Everton went into the last international break of 2025 with an encouraging home win over Fulham, with David Moyes’ decision to move James Garner to right back giving the side a lot more balance. However, when questioned after the game, the manager did indicate that in more defensive-minded games he would go with Jake O’Brien who provides more of an aerial threat as well. Manchester United have experienced a resurgence in recent weeks, and Ruben Amorim’s persistence with a 3-4-3 has paid dividends on the attacking front. Given that, we should expect to see Garner returned to his midfield role next to Idrissa Gueye, and O’Brien regaining his spot on the right side of the defence. Who’s Out? Per David Moyes in his pre-match press conference on Friday, Jarrad Branthwaite and Nathan Patterson are both out after surgery, with midfielder Merlin Rohl joining them on the sidelines after a minor hernia operation. Everton squad available vs Man Utd Goalkeepers: Pickford, Travers, King Defenders: Keane, Branthwaite (INJURED), Tarkowski, O’Brien, Mykolenko, Coleman, Patterson (INJURED), Aznou Midfielders: Gueye, Garner, Iroegbunam, Dewsbury-Hall, Röhl (INJURED) Wingers: McNeil, Ndiaye, Grealish, Dibling, Alcaraz Attackers: Beto, Barry Tactics and Formation Everton will likely stick to the 4-2-3-1 they’ve used so far. Starters (likelihood of starting rated out of 10) Jordan Pickford – 9/10 Vitaliy Mykolenko – 7/10 Michael Keane – 9/10 James Tarkowski – 8/10 Jake O’Brien – 8/10 Idrissa Gueye – 8/10 James Garner – 8/10 Jack Grealish – 9/10 Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall – 8/10 Much better showing from KDH against Fulham Iliman Ndiaye – 9/10 Thierno Barry – 7/10 The striker is getting closer and closer to his first Everton goal Bench Mark Travers Tom King Adam Aznou Seamus Coleman – After a couple of solid showings during the international break, are we ready to see Coleman starting again? Tim Iroegbunam – Will be unfortunate to miss out after a good performance last time around next to Gana. Carlos Alcaraz Dwight McNeil Tyler Dibling Beto

The sky is falling! Sound the alarm! Catastrophize! Dear God, why isn’t anybody catastrophizing? That’s the vibe on Rockets X. The Rockets lost by three points to the Denver Nuggets. So the logical conclusion is that the entire season is wasted. That’s obviously absurd. Rockets fans should leave that for Stephen A. Smith and other purveyors of chicanery. Take a breath. Touch grass, as the youth are keen to advise. It’s going to be OK. That said, a measured critique of this team’s approach is fair game. The Rockets are good, but they’d like to be better. There’s some low-hanging fruit to pick: And I’ve got a strange hankering for figs. Rockets need to move the ball more Here’s the most negative thing I’m comfortable saying about the Rockets: The offense is a bit gimmicky. It is! Yes, the Rockets still boast an NBA-best 122.5 Offensive Rating. That’s great, but winning regular-season games was never the objective in 2025-26. The regular season is a time to theorize. In the playoffs, it’s time for application. So, here’s the question: Are the Rockets’ playoff opponents going to let them pummel them on the offensive glass for four to seven games? That’s been the fundamental basis of the team’s success. The Rockets don’t have the league’s best offense because they run a sophisticated strategy. Their historic 40.9 Offensive Rebounding % simply allows them to get a lot more shots than their opponent every night. Strategically, the attack is rudimentary. The Rockets’ 57.1% Assist Percentage is dead-last in the NBA. Their 34.6% Pass Percentage ranks 26th. In a vacuum, that’s fine. Aesthetic and function can be uncomfortable bedfellows. Just ask my wife, who prefers to have roughly one million pillows on the bed so we can spend a few minutes taking all but four of them off before we sleep every night. In theory, fewer passers mean fewer turnovers. Some coaches opt to sacrifice ball movement in the name of ball security. Their offenses are designed to get their best scorers in isolation, using screens to make space for them instead of passes to create easier opportunities. Only, the Rockets’ 15.7% Turnover Percentage ranks just 21st. This offense lacks dynamism, and it’s not even reliable enough to compensate. Is this the worst best offense in the NBA in NBA history? Rockets need to make small adjustments To be clear, the sky is not falling. The Rockets remain one of the best teams in the NBA. There’s plenty to be excited about. Alperen Sengun is approaching top-10 player status, Reed Sheppard is approaching potential future top-10 player status. Sure, Amen Thompson has regressed. It’s likely part of the issue. His usage has spiked 17.2% to 20.3%, and so far, he’s not justifying the increased responsibility. That’s a fair but overstated concern. Thompson established a high baseline in 2024-25. If the Rockets decide to abandon the point guard project at any point, they’ve got a perennial Defensive Player of the Year candidate with secondary playmaking on their hands. Durant’s regression may be a larger concern. Don’t look now, but his 24.6 points per game would be his lowest since 2008-09, and his 61.0 True Shooting % (TS%) would be his worst mark since 2010-11. At 37, it’s fair to wonder whether this is his new form. Yet, neither of those marks is poor on league-wide standards. As far as the long-term plan goes, Durant was always a stopgap. As for right now, the Rockets still flipped Jalen Green for a much better shot maker, so everything is roughly on schedule. The Rockets’ Offensive Rating may be, to some extent, fool’s gold, but pyrite is often found near real gold, too. It’s good to dominate teams on the glass, and the Rockets will do that all year long. There’s no reason to make sweeping changes, but sharing the rock a little bit…

The Rockets are now 10-4, having lost to Denver in their third NBA Cup game. This probably will keep them from advancing in Group C, the Group of Death in the Western Conference. Since nearly everyone professes not to care about The NBA Cup, I’ll just say it’s better to win things than lose them, and the NBA Cup is in fact an actual competition with something to win. Maybe people don’t generally value it very much right now, but give it time. At one time people didn’t value the NBA all that much, and look where it’s ended up. In addition to being an NBA Cup game, with a chance to win a very respectable retired racing falcon from the UAE, it was also an NBA regular season game. The Rockets lost it by three. Their four losses this season have been by 1 point (Thunder), 4 points (Pistons), 11 points (Spurs), and 3 points to Denver, tonight. Like all but perhaps the Spurs game, it was a game the Rockets could have, and perhaps should have, won. More remarkable in this case was that the Rockets were in it, and even lead it at all. First the Rockets started dismally. They made almost no shots in the first quarter. Some shots were bad, many were open, and good shots, ones you’d want someone to take. They made very few. How few? They scored 12 points in the first quarter to Denver’s 25. Twelve. This for what has been a top ranked offense in the NBA. The defensive performance was decent, and Denver missed some easy looks, too. Then Ime Udoka put in Reed Sheppard. It sounds like nothing much, but it turned the game around. The Rockets went from scoring a dozen points to a bit over three dozen. They went into the half with a three point lead on Denver. They’d lose the third by five, and the fourth by one point. They might have won the game, there were many lead changes, and the Rockets had chances late. Those chances were marred somewhat by Reed Sheppard, who had 27 points in 37 minutes, missing two of three free throws late. Reed needs to stop deferring to Durant and Sengun, especially when he’s hot like tonight. Durant and Sengun need to look for Reed more. Reed needs to stop gambling so much on defense. He’s still not connected up to the defensive scheme, but he’s improving, guarding better straight up. But Reed (9-13) wasn’t really the source of the Rockets troubles. These came from Sengun, Durant, Jabari and Amen. Durant was 5-14 with two turnovers, and more hopeless passes and dribble attacks. Sengun was 6-15, with some truly awful turnovers, and what seemed like fairly obvious pressing to perhaps prove something against Jokic. What he proved was that he needs to quit attacking double and triple teams, pass out to open teammates, and generally calm down. He had six assists, and five turnovers, many of them dispiriting. Jabari was 7-20, despite many of those looks being close, and open, he just didn’t drain them. Amen Thompson was 10-18, but two makes were more or less desperation three point attempts very late. Right now Amen as point guard is showing real limitations. The Rockets could use him causing havoc from the dunkers spot more often, and ending being neither great attacker, nor great distributor quite so much. His best passing comes from his attacks, which he’s not doing decisively right now. He’s really not the guy to survey the court from the top of the arc right now. He might be one day, but that day doesn’t seem close at hand right now. Really, though, the problem came from the Rockets two main offensive engines, Sengun and Durant, going one on one, and creating from there. Or in the case of tonight’s combined 10-29 showing, not creating, and combining for 7 generally awful turnovers. I’ll make my joke about Ime finally having his dream, a high scoring offense that still runs no plays, makes nothing easy for anyone, and spends a lot of time looking broken. Part of the problem is having a bunch of forwards and bigs initiating the offense pretty much all the time. The only answer to that is more Reed, right now, with…

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