There were also games where we just had no luck at all, and combined with the lack of a decent, reliable striker meant points where given away all too readily. Villa away, probably the most one-sided game in a long while, and yet we somehow contrived to lose it. The annual poor start was well and truly in motion and, with each passing game, the hope and excitement evident in August had now well and truly evaporated.
It seems the fans that purchase half-season tickets have the right idea; the Christmas period tends to coincide with our yearly up-turn in fortunes. There are numerous reasons offered as to why we are so bad and then so good each and every season. The season began with poor results but at least an attempt was made to pass the ball and not descend into the Stokes, Boltons, Blackburns, and Birminghams of this world.
Recently, with a large part of our first team missing, we have seen a 7-game unbeaten run. This was ended in a rather depressing manner by Man Utd on Saturday. The 7 previous games had seen 5 wins and 2 draws; in all honesty, we could have won all 7. However, this was achieved by a more direct method as this culminated in a period were our pass completion was at its lowest of the season. This raises the point of style or substance? Outlines the argument of results vs good football? I firmly believe we are capable of both ? good football and good results.
Who is to blame though? For the past three or four seasons we have been well below par till November/December time, results-wise. A record of 6 wins in the first 26 games this season tells us all we need to know. Then we have picked up results as the season progresses, often ending the season as THE form team or at least one of them. Do we blame the manager? Is it the board's fault? The chairman must shoulder some blame? The players ? do they do enough?
I do not blame Moyes for anything relating to the size of the squad or transfer etc; this is down to Kenwright and the directors. Although we have directors who are all worth a pretty penny, I have yet to account any of them investing or contributing towards the transfer budget of the manager. I think it is in everyone?s best interests that a buyer is found as soon as possible and the major shareholders follow Bill out of the car park, in their undeserved expensive vehicles.
On the pitch, I see it as a different matter. The blame falls squarely at the door of Moyes and his assembled playing squad. I think the mindset of the current squad/ managerial staff seems to be one of ?play to not lose? instead of ?play to win?; mostly against the ?Top 4?. This was especially evident in the surrender witnessed recently at Old Trafford. People may say ?but he had no options?. I agree, at the moment the team more or less picks itself; if you?re fit to play you're probably going to get a game. Many people have put forward the point that Moyes was telling the team to push out and get up the pitch. So on that point, it isn?t Moyes fault. Surely though it's Moyes's fault that for every single one of their 13 corners we brought everybody back, inviting them to build another attack as all our clearances would end up back at their feet???
The options at present are very limited, although I do believe that Moyes could have still adopted a more adventurous approach. Most of the ways and means of how Moyes could have changed it or made us more attack-minded have been done to death, with opinions equally different and disagreeing.
I also believe that the players have to take much more responsibility. Neville may be a fantastic captain and I do not dispute that for one moment; I believe as a leader, he is one of the best at getting the players going. Playing-wise, he needs to do much, much more. Yes, we all know his limitations but, in the centre of midfield, he has to take on the role of a central midfielder. This means that he can?t back off players the way he does when at right back; doing this whilst in the middle is a much more dangerous tactic.
In my opinion, the main responsibility of a player, playing centre-mid or anywhere for that matter, is that they have to want and show for the ball. I could probably count on one hand the number of times Neville and Rodwell showed for the ball at the weekend. Whilst they are employed as central midfielders, surely it is expected that they should at least be a marginal representation of a midfielder? Granted this central midfield partnership is forced on Moyes and I don?t believe that it is either of their best positions; I don?t know what Rodwell's best position is but it seems that it is not centre-mid. They should however try and play as central midfielders to the best of their capabilities. For the record, Rodwell is clearly not the player we thought and I don?t think he will ever be a dominant central midfielder the way Fellaini is. Should Fergie come waving his chequebook then I would gratefully accept anything upwards of £15million.
There is a feeling of ?small mindedness? that seems to linger over our club, especially against the bigger teams. I feel this also contributes to our poor starts as we don?t seem able to handle the pressure of expectation. We always play better when there is no expectation on the squad; namely after Christmas, when all hope of success has faded. The recent surrender at Old Trafford and other performances against the bigger teams smack of a ?make sure we don?t lose? attitude.
This is the partially manager's fault as even when we have a fully fit team we seem to turn up and be overawed and just retreat onto our own 18 yard line and hope for the best. I believe that it falls on Moyes to get them out of this mentality and instil some belief and confidence in the team. I don?t recall too many occasions we have played with them two this season. Yes, on occasions ? Spurs at home, Liverpool at home, City away ? we have done this. For a club like ours, these two factors in our play should be the norm... not the exception that they seem to be currently.
As I said in the previous paragraph, though, it is only partially Moyes's fault with this seemingly inferior mentality. A large portion of the blame falls with the players; they seem to have this ?effort is enough? approach ingrained into their minds. A quick look through the recent press comments of some of the team from Saturday highlights this:
Hibbert: "Coming here it wasn?t that we were going to defend for our lives, we came here to win. It might have looked like we had to have 10 men back; we actually had a game plan to win. As it pans out it looked like we were defending all the time, but we wanted the points."
Jagielka: ?We had a couple of decent spells of possession, Jack Rodwell came close and we had a few corners.?
Referring to Hibbert?s statement, it worries me that apparently we had a plan to win the game ? given that, after about 15 minutes, it was clear that we had nothing on our minds other than defending. I don?t doubt that we had a game plan, but what worries me is how easily it died off. The responsibility of the manager is to ingrain this plan into the players and the players? job is to carry it out. Too many times this season, our plans have failed to work and we look lost or one-dimensional. Even more worrying to me is Jagielka and how he takes the ?positives? as a bit of possession, ONE shot and a few corners!!! Made even worse by the fact that, in fact, we only had ONE corner ? not a few.
People may claim that it was only Vidic missing. That holds no water: Fabio, O?Shea, Gibson and Anderson are not first choice... and to say they are is naive. The United team was missing Evra, Giggs, Berbatov, Scholes, Rafael and Carrick. We were also missing numerous players, but how refreshing would it have been to go there and have a right good go? The match had an unerring inevitability about it throughout; we seemed to just be waiting till they scored. Given that we haven?t won there in 19 years, it would be much better to go down fighting than the heroic, yet ultimately failed defending. On MotD2 last night, Moyes made reference to how he enjoys golf in the summer break; when he tees off, do you think he drives the ball backwards? No, is the obvious answer. Yet, metaphorically speaking, we do exactly that when confronted with the bigger teams.
If only we had a bit more belief and confidence within the club and the players. I haven?t written this as an anti-Moyes article as he has done an unbelievable job for this club; I just think he could be more ambitious. The players are equally to blame and I just hope that they can work together to try and remove this ?play to avoid defeat? mentality. I firmly believe we can go places if we keep this squad together.
We are just a few good additions, mainly a proven striker, away from being much better off as a team. The team and manager have shown at times that we are capable of rising above the better teams through a combination of good football and endeavour. This has to be achieved more often though if we are to progress. We also need to put away the ?lesser? teams at home; that has cost us big time.
Hopefully, Bill can find some funds for Moyes and if we can ship out a few of the loaned players. Given a more ambitious mentality and a lack of fear when playing teams, we might just be able to have a whole season when games such as Spurs at home and the Goodison derby become common place. Come August, we may just have that flying start that we all pray and wish for, well maybe, just maybe...
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I always feel Wenger couldn't believe his luck when he walked in on English football. He took one look and realised the English game was festooned with managerial sheep, inept people, mostly ex-defenders whose nemesis through their careers had been skill. They had no understanding of it, so all he had to do was bring in some athletic players from abroad, where mastery of footballing basics still prevailed, and he was quids in ? it really was that simple.
Of course we're so insular, why should we learn from jonny foreigner? Compare Arsenal and Everton historically ? both institutions ? along with Villa, perhaps the greatest pedigrees of any English clubs but post-Wenger we've disappeared off the footballing map by comparison.
It is the difference one man with vision and ability can make, and before the boots go in, of course he's not perfect, his stubbornness in copying Barca hasn't worked, but I'd prefer to be in and around the top 4, challenging, playing decent stuff, than watch the brain-numbing rubbish that passes for football under Moyes... and, before that, Smith and many other sheep who masquerade as managers.
Personally I think he drifts ? without vision ? but provides Prem survival... and, if we're honest, the majority have bought in to it. I rail against it because I don't believe any club should have that attitude ? let alone my beloved Everton, it makes cautious cowardly football acceptable and I despise it, particularly the killing off of creative players.
I have said throughout that I think our long haul pre-seasons are a waste of money and the team generally start slowly probably due to the lack of decent opposition and the 'holiday' atmosphere.
I hate the loan system with a passion as we tend to use it to reduce our costs and I cannot accept the reasons given by our board/management that it provides game time for our fringe players. They could get that in the reserves and then they would be available to US in the case of injuries and/or suspensions. Why do we miss out on taking loan players like Sturridge or other decent standard premiership players?
Another example of mismanagement is allowing players like Gosling to leave for free and Pienaar to leave for peanuts (pardon my pun). It's not a coincidence that our star players this season have been defenders... we truly have the worst bunch of supposed strikers available in the Premier League. DM is the Mother Hubbard of the Premier League, it's incredible that we have emerged from this season safely!!
I went to see Everton vs Roar in the close season and they were still crap, but were trying to play decent footy. Once the season started they were still pretty poor, but getting better, and better, and better. The same players playing a completely different brand of football, my kind of football: pass and move, remember that?They then went on a run of 28 games unbeaten, playing great stuff. Got to the A-League final and were 2 goals down with 1 minute to go in extra time. Still carried on playing great footy and ultimately scored 2 great late goals and then went on to win on penalties.OK, this was done in Australia, but I, and many others believe it can still be done in England, I'd like to see someone with the balls and belief give it a go, for me that would be someone 'like' Glen Hoddle. A great attacking flair midfielder in his time who I was fortunate enough to see on a number of occasions, and who turned Swindon, Southampton, Spurs and England into very good footballing teams.Please note that I said 'like Glen Hoddle', I don't want his name to be used by everyone saying things like 'what did he ever win', and 'not that spiritual nutter' because that is missing the point, it is the vision and principles he had that I am referring too, like those Ange Postecoglou has used so effectively here in a short amount of time.
Good god, even Moyes must see this eventually. How many lesser teams have won games against the so-called top teams using a more adventurous approach?
BUT, please don't put all the blame on Beckford etc as the strikers are as good as many others in the Premier League. You know, Man U etc are only a team of individuals who need their confidence denting by attack and not over inflated by continual defence.
He has also got to stop his moaning mentality of crying over us not spending much before a ball is being kicked at the start of the season, as this is an excuse the players could use in the back of their minds; raise expectations and put some pressure on them.
This is the worst league for decades, with what will be the worst champions for years; if it was not for lacklustre displays against teams who have far less quality than us, we would have been up there... So there is no excuse for crying about spending little when most of our failures have been against these such teams who have spent less than us.
Lastly, let's say bollocks to giving all this respect when going to places like Utd. When Ferguson gives all this praise about little old Everton doing so well, take it as a patronising insult, as that's what it is. He only praises teams who he has no fear of, the shite have been shite for how long but go there with an attitude that we should use, they have so many players of a standard of mediocre, yet our Manger still goes there with an attitude as if they still have Cantona and Keane. We got beat, we were shite and he bleats on about what a great performance from Jagielka.
If your leader is pessimistic and gloomy, then that is only going to rub off on the troops, the hard work and change need to start from Moyes firstly.
Barcelona can win playing pretty, it just might be that Everton would be ripped apart every game by trying to do the same with its technically limited squad. We are weak as an attacking force and relatively strong in defence. We surely have to play to our strengths if we do it well?
Totally agree we should have destroyed some of the lesser teams Luke mentions... but United? Do me a favour.
We have Beckford who is nowhere near as good as most of the other strikers or forward players in the division... it's not just about scoring goals ? it's his all-around play that gets him dragged off!!
We have big Victor who has not scored for ages and is still raw even though he has lots of experience.
Get onto Vellios who is very young, inexperienced and really untested!! Name me another side with such a paucity of front men??? (Don't count Yak or Vaughan as they are sliding down the divisions where they belong...)
Get the BLUE TINTED specs off and try to get real! Distin has almost completed a season without injury and always consistent compared to any of the above and he is 33 years old. The defence are carrying us with the present team on the field. Ozzie has been the only midfielder/front man with any form at all of late and I am constantly amazed (and relieved) that we have been able to gain safety with the players available.
I think you aspire, and I'm sure Michael can assist you here, to broadsheet. In my view, if you want to start a debate, if you want to create interest, think tabloid. This site is read by a lot of people and loads of them will disagree with you. Tell it straight. Good luck.
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* Everton deducted 8 pts; †Forest deducted 4 pts for PSR breachView full table
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