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Sick as a Parrot

 
Moyes: A fan of the injury-time substitution

Everton are unbeaten in their best Premiership start ever, and their best season start since 1986. But after the dismal culmination of today's game against Manchester City at Goodison Park, six points dropped from the last three totally winnable games represents two defeats in the cutthroat competition of today's Premiership.

I have always hated this silly business of pushing on substitutes in added time, under the ostensible rationale that it disrupts the flow of play and allows your team to play down the game and secure whatever result they have achieved. Only it totally and comprehensively backfired on David Moyes and Everton this afternoon. Who benefited form those ridiculous substitutions? Certainly not Everton.

Increasingly under the cosh from a rampant Man City team, Everton had failed on numerous occasions to drive forward with determination and kill off the game. Indeed, on occasions they had ridden their luck and could easily have been looking at defeat rather than victory as the minutes ticked away.

But as the game entered the last 10 minutes, Moyes's failure to have done anything to freshen things up looked like it could well gift the game to an increasingly adventurous Manchester City side.  So the substitution of Victor Anichebe, on for the ultimately disappointing James Beattie, seemed like a good move, even if it did come at least 25 minutes later than it should.

Anichebe couldn't do much at that stage, and Manchester City somehow sensed that a direct approach could well unsettle their previously confident and buoyant hosts. They attacked with greater conviction.  But perhaps the crucial substitution came on 89 minutes, with the useless Davies replacing Arteta. Still Man city attacked with increasing fervour as the games entered three added minutes of stoppage time.

So, in the infinite wisdom shared only by football managers, who understand this stuff far better than we mere mortals, David Moyes decides to make his third and final substitution 2½ minutes into that three-minute period of stoppage time.  What does the ref do?  Well, of course he adds on another minute of stoppage time (yes, we could perhaps moan that it should only have been 30 seconds) and, in the fourth minute of the now extended stoppage time, Man City score their equalizer.

Sick as a parrot!!!