Apologies from an ?Apologist?

I freely admit that I expected us to do well this season but never in a million years did I expect us to play the kind of football we have played of late. When I say ?in a million years? I mean this season anyway. I expected us to grind out results as I didn?t think there was enough guile and craft amongst the squad to turn it on consistently.

Even as an ardent Moyes man, I am surprised. And if I am honest I think that we have all been lucky (including Moyes) that Pienaar has been so good and offered real balance on the left wing to Arteta?s right (but then Moyes did this and who am I to say he?s lucky?)

I always thought that he was a good manager. Good in the transfer market (even now under-rated), good financially, kept players happy (Rooney and a couple of no hopers aside, but not in the case of Stubbs which did concern me), very professional, developed the youth side of things and all this within the straight-jacket of Everton's finances. Not to mention the excellent team spirit and hard-working ethos that is the bed-rock of Moyes?s blues.

However, I wasn?t blind (in my opinion) to his shortcomings. My main gripe was that he wasn't great tactically but I "apologised" for this because he was young, he was learning his trade and in my opinion he was setting up our team with the options available to him and had no options on the bench to change the game due to the finances.

But even then I knew that there were changes that could be made (in games or before them) that would have made us play better or limited the opposition more to turn games in our favour or never let them get out of our control in the first place. There have been a few instances where you and I have pulled our respective hair out during Moyes?s tenure over tactics, let's make no mistake.

The other main fault, in my opinion, was that he kept faith with players when it clearly wasn't working but anyway, as an "Apologist" I always thought I could see what he was trying to do.

And I am also aware that injuries and possibly the African Nations Cup could curtail the current optimism pretty quickly. But I am an optimist and whilst we may be playing possibly our best team now I think we could probably handle a few people going missing and it is the quality of our football that would suffer more than the results for I feel there is some depth to the squad.

But in my opinion, earlier this season/end of last season the anti-Moyes lobby were gaining real momentum and I truly feared that he may not last the year if this ill-feeling kept going apace. I, however, still thought that the man had other strings to his bow that outweighed these problems. I still thought he was boss. And I still do.

I could always see what the anti-Moyes boys were on about but couldn?t believe how short-sighted they were and frankly thought they were stupid. The pros clearly outweighed the cons.

But reading the posts and arguments on this, and other, websites the anti-Moyes boys were in full voice and I believe that they were moderately close to turning the tide irreparably against the man. Your average Evertonian in the pub listened to the anti-Moyes men and I think that this was the in-vogue position amongst the fans.

Cutting to the chase my reason for writing this post is to ask :

Is there still a division amongst Evertonians? Between the so called "apologists" and those that want to see the back of Moyes? Or has he had that period now where he has convinced us all and everyone gets and stays behind him?

I'm not talking about following him blindly forever but say he loses a few will any of the anti-Moyes crew seize upon the opportunity and slate him again?

Were you once a staunch anti-Moyes man but now believe he might be the right man for the job? Or do you think the current success will be short-lived or not even good enough? Do you now trust the man with our money or still feel he is not good enough to spend ?a ten pound note? (in the words of one fan to me at the end of last season)?

Personally I think he is the best manager we have had in my lifetime (I say that but can?t really remember the ?80s Kendall because I was less than 10 at the time) but that's very easy for me to say on here now we are winning and let's face it there hasn?t been much to sing about!

I just don?t want our fans to be like the ones that follow Newcastle (or to a lesser degree Liverpool) where we turn from fans that one minute go overboard one way after winning a few games and then overboard the other way after we lose a few.

In the short term we all need to keep a grip. We are playing really well and winning and I genuinely can?t see this run ending anytime soon (even against the Mancs away if we keep our heads and believe we can win) but it will have to end at some time.

And just for the record, we should genuinely be looking at some serious accomplishments this season.

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