Manchester United continue their era of supremacy with a 12th title in 18 years, spearheaded by the greatest young talent Everton have ever produced; Manchester City have finally ended their 'dry spell' and look set to embark on an era of sexy football and even sexier rewards... whilst even the dastardly and terminally despicable red shower of shite appear to have turned the corner. (In fact, they are so far around the corner that historians and cartographers have denied the existence of the cobbled pot-hole riddled 'Hodgson Way').
All the while, Everton appear to have at optimistic best reached a plateau, at worst started a descent back into the depressing nadir of mid-table mediocrity.
And so inevitably, the sharks ? or the online ones, at least ? are beginning to circle around David Moyes, demanding an immediate scapegoat in the same kind of blood-thirsty manner as those philistine students who ran amok around London recently in protest at government spending cuts.
So what of Everton and David Moyes?
Unquestionably Moyes is a capable manager; in terms of accruing sufficient league points to finish in a respectable position and for delivering results in trying fiscal circumstances. The spirit he has instilled into the squad, in terms of playing and believing until the final whistle, is one of our biggest assets. Think of the games we've rescued points from this season when all seemed lost: United at home, Bolton at home, Sunderland away, Chelsea away, West Ham at home, Blackpool at home, Villa at home, Wigan away, City at home. That's at least 9 games this season where we've clawed our way back into a game late-on. The mental toughness Moyes has instilled in the players is to be commended, and is perhaps the difference between where we finish in the table now, and where we used to finish in the table under the likes of Walter Smith.
With this in mind, it is difficult to criticise Moyes. Everton don't lose many games. We are generally always in with a shout, we rarely lose heavily. Even against the top teams, or should I say especially against the top teams, there is usually only a goal in it.
This resilience is a solid foundation to build upon. The problem is we haven't built on it yet. We showed glimpses a year or two ago when we finished 5th and got to the FA Cup Final, but we still lacked any real creative or clinical quality to win games.
We tend to have a large share of possession but, this season especially, it's been obvious we haven't got a clue what to do with the ball in the attacking third. Our only plan when in possession appears to be to get the ball out wide and swing a cross in; it's this one-dimensional approach which casts doubt over Moyes's ability to take his team any further than a resilient outfit who play pretty football.
He certainly does himself no favours by fielding 7 defenders in an end-of-season dead rubber away at West Brom; these are exactly the kind of games you want to blood 'fringe' players and maybe try out new ideas. The starting line-up at West Brom was bizarre yet still in view of the first half at home to Man City the previous week.
The situation Everton find themselves in is a huge problem. We have a cautious manager who is unlikely to ever allow his team to bare their teeth, either because he doesn't think we have the requisite quality in order to become more cavalier, or simply because it's not his style; the problem is we are unlikely to ever find out which is the case until he is given adequate transfer funds in order to sign the kind of attacking flair players who come at a premium, without having to facilitate these signings by the sale of our 'resilient' players who offer graft as opposed to guile.
To confuse matters yet further, it's also arguable that Moyes's best transfer business is concluded at the lower end of the market spectrum and furthermore, achieves better results with limited options in terms of team selection, which raises yet another question: could he be trusted to invest a significant transfer fund wisely?
Personally, I'm not sure. I believe he deserves the chance, but I am becoming increasingly confident that he won't get that chance and even if he were, we would still fall short.
What is clear is that Everton are further behind the top clubs than we were 2 or 3 years ago, and something must change, lest Everton will continue to find themselves lolling around the Premier League like a buoy in the ocean.
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I watched Swansea v Notts Forest last night and what a joy to watch. Both teams slicking the ball around like Barca... now if that was Everton under Moyes in the play-off and we went 1-0 up, it would've been backs to the wall for the rest of the game trying to hang on...
That's Moyes's way. That's why I want rid of him. He still can't see that the best form of defence is to attack. Moyes will always grind out results but he will never play the type of football our long-suffering fans deserve.
As for #7 ? it was intended as a sweeping generalisation, just a reference to the minority of idiots who used the situation as an opportunity to become Vinny Vandal for the day, just like the sharks circling around Moyes demanding his removal.@Phil #8 Point accepted. Moyes has underlined time and again, on record, that he is all about results; which is a great attitude to have, but I still find his approach can be overly cautious even when results aren't hugely important. We ended up losing at West Brom with his cautious approach anyway, yet even if the game was played again this weekend, I'm certain he'd approach the game in the same manner.
Robbie, good read. Well done. I don't agree that Moyes deserves more funding to prove that he is a good manager though, and the people on here that keep saying "the board should be giving him the money he needs to make us successful" obviously have short memories and low standards.
Whichever way you look at it, any money the club gets from any avenue is the club's money, not Moyes's. That said, this is what his track record looks like when the club has given Moyes the right to spend their money:Beattie: £6.5 mil ? one alright season.
Johnson: £8.6 mil ? two good seasons, then left to rot on the bench. Selling for a profit seems bittersweet now.
Lescott: £5 mil ? great player, good profit made, but handled by Moyes attrociously, arguably leading to a 6-1 defeat at home on opening day.
Yakubu: £11.25 mil ? Best season for a Toffs striker in 20 odd years, gets injured, then is selected and dropped with the logic rivaling Scientology.
Fellaini: £15 mil ?- yet to complete a full season, worth about £3 million at the time, now worth more, but not worth £15 million.
Distin: £3 mil ? has worked out well, but how much longer will we have him for?
Heitinga: £6 mil ? Everton's first genuine player to possess both a winning AND mongrel mentality. Moyes then keeps him on the bench unless completely pressed for a warm body.
Bily: 10 mil ? A great talent, but probably worth £7 million at a stretch. Shows signs of promise then left on the bench and given 2 minutes per game to do anything. To reiterate, Moyes has been allowed to spend the club's money, and quite frankly, has spent too much of it, mainly due to dithering until August 31st, or spent it on players he grows tired of after a season.
Until that point, our home record over Arsenal for a few seasons had been decent enough with a couple of wins. Had we lost that game 2-1 or something, maybe that would have been acceptable, but 6-1, home or away to anyone is bad to a point where the players that took place should not have even been paid their weekly wage. How Lescott behaved in this game was atrocious, and that Moyes didn't control the situation better to avoid such an embarrassing end to a good Everton career was down to ginger stubbornness.
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