Towel Chucked?

Hello Andy, Good reminder in case we'd all forgotten, what went down on Saturday, and how a number of us still feel...

Classic rant!
Exactly how I've felt for years now with the intemittent ray of hope and sunshine (the AJ derby) thrown in.

Loved this line:

"In fact only Neville seems to be arsed and he's shite."

made me chuckle despite the overall mood of the post!

When Moyes was first appointed a neighbour of mine who is a Preston season ticket holder told me he is clueless and tactically inept; hence, 4 years on, I gave my season ticket up because of boring sterile 1 - 0 home wins and lack of Plan B or C ? also allied to the fact the cost for three season tickets for me and my sons... I decided holidays were better and more exciting.

Having read a lot of emails and comments on this site and others, it seems my neighbour's words may have some truth about them. Three wins from 17 games ffs... if only Sir John was still Chairman.

"It's the kids I feel sorry for", to coin a phrase. We could win the Championship again, but only if we have a Citeh-type benefactor, and in all honesty would I really want that ? But then again, I've seen us win Championships so I couldn't let my moral qualms stand in the way of the younger generation. So come on you sheikh !

I've got a lovely picture of my baby daughter (now a fully-grown woman of course) with the Championship trophy. I'd love to think that some future dads will feel the same pride.

Andy, I wonder what the reaction would be if all the players and managenent were forced to read your post. Would they care? Maybe Phill Neville. You know what the problem is. In the stands we have decent people who would play for this club for nothing. On the pitch we have many players who don't give a toss for £30k plus a week. Why don't you send your post to David Moyes?

Watching the Man United game against Arsenal yesterday and looking how Arsenal approached the game was exactly like Everton set there stall out ? pretty passing and not one shot on Van der Saar the whole game.

Please, Everton, try and learn, even from Bolton, and change your tactics.

Great post - sums up more or less exactly how I feel about Everton right now AND the game in general.

I WILL be going on Boxing Day... but only because there'll be a pint in it (and because, by Boxing Day, I'm always gagging to get out).

I totally agree with the article and I believe that money is no longer an incentive as they are already millionaires..eg; Tevez. We are now in a situation where the top few clubs can buy virtually anyone who can control a ball and sit them on the bench so they cannot play for anyone else. Many players are earning so much that they are quite happy to bench-warm and no-one is ever dropped to the reserves.

A lot of players are only asked to play 15 or 20 minutes if their side are losing or holding on to a one-goal lead so they don't even need to be super fit (or young). Just look carefully at the benches that the top sides have and you will see I am right. Loyalty is no longer an issue for either club or player and footballers nowadays are travelling contractors, as I was when I worked in different countries for the best pay.

Any supporter who thinks any different is naieve... the mediocre players stay at their clubs as no-one wants to buy them; the better players only stay at the clubs who have realistic chances of winning trophies. (My nutshell opinion.)

I probably agree that the problem is football itself, but if that's so then something like a FIFA induced salary cap is really the only solution. But the current climate might make that impossible.

For my money I still enjoy watching other teams play football and still get excited to watch Everton. I think this season is just really starting to prove what we all knew for too long, without money you can't win in football anymore. But I would still sack Moyes.

This rant has shown me how i will feel in a few years. It's getting harder and harder to get excited about Everton. I will be there on Boxing Day though. I haven't given up yet. Come on Blues!!!

I will be there on Boxing Day just to have a little bit of quiet.

I wrote a mailbag article a month ago on the Psychology of EFC. Got a mixed response but I think the title of your article, "Towel Chucked" is in similar vein.


Disillusioned - and sick to death of only getting half a season out of highly paid, badly prepared, false-dawn, soundbite-infected, so-called professionals (and I include the boardroom and management in that as well).
I'm not anti BK/DM but something about us is starting to smell a bit past its sell-by date.

Hear, hear ? good post.

Andy Callan

Very well put.

I've wrote a few times about the lack of hope under this regime, I know more fans who've walked away from Everton for this reason above all else.

Trouble is I feel only the meltdown of relegation will wake the owners up to the seriousness of the fans distaste, unfortunately it'll be too late.

Brian #2 I disagree. I think we have every chance of winning the Championship in the next couple of years....after we get relegated. We've no chance of winning the Premier League.

Sorry, that should have been Brian #4.

I wouldn't give up on Rodwell and Fella just yet. It could well turn out to evolve into a fruitful partnership.

It's Arteta that gives me most concern.

If Moyes was to ask me what I wanted for Christmas, I would tell him to play at least one game with Beckford and Vaughan in a 4-4-2 and both stay on the pitch for the 90.

Something has to change so why not?

Glum....

I feel as though even Moyes has chucked the towel in.

When your team is struggling to score goals and win games, surely you need to try something different. Different tactics, different formation, different players. Anything to get a positive reaction. Anything to find a solution that works. If it doesn't work, try something else.

All Moyes seems to do is the same tactics, formation and players. 4-5-1 week in, week out against Chelsea, Wigan or Brentford! The opposition makes no difference. Saha starting week in, week out even though he hasn't scored since March.

If Moyes cared he would do something, something different.

Only a matter of time before that 30,000 crowd barrier starts to dwindle. More and more souls are waking up to this debacle!

Michael #1, you said "Good reminder in case we'd all forgotten, what went down on Saturday"

This is from the BBC text report of the match on Saturday,

0:44 Shot from 12 yards by Tim Cahill. Save by Ali Al Habsi.
30:06 Jack Rodwell takes a shot. Save made by Ali Al Habsi.
47:27 Steven Pienaar takes a shot. Save made by Ali Al Habsi.
49:49 Phil Jagielka has a volleyed shot. Save by Ali Al Habsi.
57:59 Louis Saha takes a shot. Save made by Ali Al Habsi.
58:33 Tim Cahill produces a header from deep inside the area and hits the post.
59:03 Seamus Coleman takes a shot. Ali Al Habsi makes a save.
68:19 Marouane Fellaini takes a shot. Save by Ali Al Habsi.
73:22 Jermaine Beckford takes a shot. Save by Ali Al Habsi.
80:39 Seamus Coleman takes a shot. Blocked by Antolin Alcaraz.

And that's only the one's on target and no mention of Rodwell's or Feellaini's first half-headers or the wrongly dissallowed Beckford goal. Most of these chances came from open play so it's not the tatics, it's the finishing, half of them chances go in and everybody goes home happy.

I agree on the whole, we're fucking boring to watch! Saha needs to get out and give Beckford a shot, 2 goals in a handful of 20 minute appearances is better than 1 (against Huddersfield) in 25 games.

Rodwell and Fellaini looked good against Chelsea and I think we'd be better off with a bit of grit in the middle rather than Arteta, when he returns, having been shit all season!

But on the whole we're a mid-table outfit at best because our tactics are poor and look like we're playing for draws, and with Pienaar and others looking to move on with no suitable replacements in line, that's all we'll be for the forseeable future.

We may have started playing ' Nice football ' but it's so slow, it's like watching paint dry.

It takes us about an hour just to get into the final 3rd, and thats even when we have a breakaway.

Stewart, the problem is you want to judge the game on what might've been... while the rest of us are judging the game as it was.

There has to be an explanation that goes beyond the rather simplistic mis-firing striker syndrome. Somebody's touched on this already, that our build-up is ponderous, and insufficiently incisive, and the shooting is fractionally delayed from the optimum, and the results are poor.

This is a jump, I accept that, but to me it screams of a team struggling to play attacking football under the shroud of Moyes's defensive straight-jacket. Those who may have read my contributions before know that this is something of a theme going back a long long while for me. It's not always been the case, and at times they have broken free and shown us how they can play in the past... but it seems that, this season, there is something seriously wrong with the way Moyes has set the team up.

They only way I can even begin to understand it is that he is burdening them with too much individual defensive responsibility that is preventing them from playing more expansively, moving the ball forward more quickly, attacking with a bit more pace, shooting a fraction earlier...

In a sense, you're right: small adjustments maybe could see very different results. But the history of Moyes destroying strikers, playing people out of position, insisting they "work hard" and do their defensive duties is all too clear to be ignored. I think you have to look a bit deeper than simply having your strikers mis-firing (What? All of them???)

I know my ideas are not widely accepted but that doesn't stop them from fitting what I see when we play... and that to me is far more convincing than assertions that Moyes is a great, attack-minded manager who has masterminded some fantastic victories over the Big Boys...

Now Now Stewart Oakes (#20), you're not allowed to interrupt the grieving process by putting a positive spin on the Wigan game. So far we?ve been told that we were played off the park by West Brom, Bolton and were lucky against Wigan.

Honest gents the problem is that our forwards who are paid really well, are highly respected with a great pedigree have for one reason or another decided to down tools. However, Moyes is certainly at fault for persevering with Saha when it is patently obvious that he?s lost it ? Jesus, he must put in a shift and a half in training.

Good post, agree with everything said... Andy, if you hadn't put your name on, I'd've sworn it was written by TM... nail on head mate.

I'd have gladly given my ticket away saturday. Nobody wanted it!

This article and most of the comments sums up how most of us feel at the moment. The feeling of total despair and apathy on Saturday during the game was something I haven't witnessed in a long time at GP.

My son and I are season ticket holders in the Lower Gwladys and everyone amongst us where having a general rant at halftime on Saturday. My son then came out with a very telling comment 'Dad, at least you saw Alan Ball and you have seen Everton win everything in the late 80s. All I have is Everton losing to Chelsea in the Cup Final.' I was speechless for sometime and then felt very angry that my club for all the reasons we know so well has got to the state it has.

So we supposedly cannot win the Premier League but can we not play with some pride and passion? Can we not do the basics right? Pass and move, press the ball when not in possession, and play our squad in there proper positions. Also, can we please not bring everyone back for corners and not take and eternity to take a throw-in.

Finally, DM/BK ? can you remember our motto: NSNO ? you are only guardians of our great club so let's start living up to our great history.

Not to spoil the funeral, but a little perspective might be helpful here. Who else would you rather support right now?

Man City: enough preening divas to fill about 50 seasons at the Royal Opera House
Man Utd: unfathomable financial chaos; hard core fans defect to form rival team
Chelsea: endlessly re-running Sopranos episode, in a language you can't understand
Blackburn: owned by someone who saw her first game of football in August THIS YEAR!
Toon: and you thought Blue Bill was a self-serving buffoon?
West Ham, Wolves: toast
WBA, Stoke, Blackpool, Wigan, Bolton, Birmingham: just a matter of time before toast
Sunderland, Aston Villa: really more attractive to support than Everton, even now?
Spurs: look great now, but will all end in tears, as it always does



RS: n/a

This leaves only Arsenal, in my book, as a team that one might truly envy, not coincidentally the only team that has anything even close to Everton's remarkable record of consistency and integrity since the nineteenth century. And personally, I still haven't got over the sale of Alan Ball, so they're out too.

I don't love how we are playing right now. I don't love DM or BK right now. And I hate what has happened to football worldwide in the last 10 or 15 years. But our club has somehow retained a certain class and dignity (relatively speaking, at least) throughout these years, even if we haven't been as successful as we would all like. I also believe that we have an unusually large number of players of integrity who actually CAN be "arsed": Neville, Jags, Howard, Cahill, Osman, Hibbert, Baines, Pienaar, Beckford, Rodwell, to name just a few. Even if they are all "shite" right now.

So I wouldn't want to change places with anyone else at this point. And after supporting the Blues for more than 40 years, it's not as if I really have a choice anyway.

Barry #15 - I am using the word 'Championship' to mean the top prize in English football. And I still do. Nothing irks me more than hearing everything cast in terms of the Premiership (eg - "This is the first time X have beaten Y in the Premiership" - so fucking what).

Still, eventually us dinosaurs will die out, and nobody will ever believe that football existed before 1992.......

Greg #28, good post.

Perspective is everything, otherwise this could just eat you up. The game has been completely stitched up for the last ten years or more. Im staggered at some fans inability to even vaguely see the bigger picture, and Everton's rather depressing place in it.

Top English football, the media, its money, its attention and effort is totally directed on a few winners. Its self perpetuating and uncompromising. Everton's place wont shift upwards without sustained major investment, regardless of who is manager. It the same for all teams, there have been no exceptions to this. We've probably come closest to breaking the monopoly.
What some are complaining about is nothing compared to what every other team (bar the chosen few) has complained about in recent seasons.

We've been the best of the rest (not just now, maybe) but don't expect it ever to get any better than that

I listened to the Blackpool game on Radio Lancashire. The two commentators said that Everton were "by far the best team we've played this season", a season when they've played Arsenal, Chelsea, Citteh, the Shite and Newcastle. Mick McCarthy said we'd "passed them off the park", and last season Wenger said we were a "great footballing team" after the away draw. Someone else, might have been McCarthy, compaired our passing to Barcelona but maybe he'd had a drink by then. So I don't know where all this "boring football" talk is coming from.

Sure, we piss about too much in front of goal and make, and squander, numerous chances, but the football is miles better than the shite Smith, Walker and Kendall (in has last tenure) played.Provided we can stop Jags from thinking he's The Kaiser and that he can spray 50 yard passes to a blue shirt. A year or two ago the stats said that we scored the fewest goals , and conceded the most from outside the area. I'd like to see what happens at Finch Farm during shooting practice. If we have any, that is.

Basically an anti-Fellaini rant dressed up as something else, pathetic.

Stewart #20 you copy and paste simplistic items but they don't detail how limp most of those attempts were and how long the defence or goalie had to size up the shot to save, can't see any detail such as a great defensive block or a great save, take it like David you are commenting third hand?

David #24 you've already admitted on another thread you weren't at the West Brom game yet claim some high ground that we didn't get played off the park despite a 4-1 scoreline. This season in the games so far with very few exceptions we have been dreadful, predictable and toothless.

Greg #28 as much as I admire Arsenal's business model please be aware they were invited to join the football league and didn't earn their membership so pedantic as it might be, they don't have the long history.

Look at what has been achieved at Bolton this season. Its too early to know where they will be end of season but things are looking for them. They have more or less the same squad as last season so the manager must be doing something right. They have less resources than us, less talented players, crap fans, crap stadium and no history - Nat Lofthouse excepted. If relegation beckons in February I really think Davie boy could be out. Owen Coyle anyone? Would he come - not sure?

Gavin #33, sure I didn't go to the West Brom game, but I have got a season ticket and had one for many years, so I'm not really living on a desert island, and obviously speak to lots of people who also went to the game that don't suffer from the TW 100% negative mindset, and they tell me a different story. Like Michael Kenrick, I'm not one for stats, but the fact that West Brom had 3 shots on target and an og according to BBS & Sky stats hardly points to being 'played off the park'.

The story of the game I've been given from a couple of people at the game who know their football (one of them hates Moyes BTW), is that we started well, their 1st attack they scored, they got a free kick against the run of play and scored, we then scored and got back into it, and it all went pear-shaped when Arteta was sent off, and we were chasing the game with 10 men. More bad day at the office than piss poor.

BTW I'm neither pro- nor anti-Moyes, which is unusual in the polarised world of TW.

David (#36), I get annoyed with any characterizations that are clearly inaccurate. Your simplistic characterization of "the TW 100% negative mindset" gets me extremely annoyed.

You yourself contributed to a thread recently where fans were invited to chose Stay or Go in regard to Moyes. If, as you claim, this website is "100% negative", then would that not be a clean sweep for the Go vote? Instead, I think the Stay votes edged it at the last count.

And there are countless other examples. Why oh why can't people accept that we publish and encourage views on Everton from across the board? From Tony Marsh to Richard Dodd? Can we please just dump this "negativity" label?

Stewart #20 I take it you didnt go the game with your stats, I must have missed half of those excellent chances. You would make an ideal Spin Doctor

David (#38), due to personal reasons i've had to give up the season ticket I've had since the 1964-65 season so no I didn't go to the game, but I did watch the whole match live on the net. The stats I quote are from the BBC live text report of the game as it happened.

The point I'm trying to get across is that with a better finshing on Saturday most people would have gone home very happy, the ponderous build up play would have been thought of as patient play. Most of the chances came from open play so the tactics worked and would have been considered spot on if the chances made had been taken.

If you look at the chances in the first half the midfield were getting into the box and supporting the lone striker. If you have access to the BBC iPlayer watch Sunday's Match of the Day 2 and see how they present our game.