We won?

By Stefan Tosev :  01/10/2007 :  Comments (6) :

I have always liked Moyes; in my eyes he has stabilized us and moved forward, he improved the personnel, lowered the average age of the squad and broke into that ?top 4?. However, I think that he needs to improve and needs to improve big time if we are ever to challenge the existing order.

Yesterday was a shocking display, by every standard. In the first half Boro were all over us. The played better, kept the ball on the deck and if it wasn?t for some really, really poor finishing they could have been 3-0 at the half time.

Between the 15th and 30th minute we never managed to put together 3 passes (count it if you can see the replay). Howard and our defenders were constantly hoofing the ball upfront where Yakubu in his role as target man was very ineffectual; when the second balls dropped occasionally to our central midfielders they promptly gave possession away. As Walter would have said: ?disappointing?!

During that time I understand why Moyes relies so much on the workrate: due to the constant loss of possession our very limited central midfielders are left to be chasing shadows ? hence we need warhorses. There was a big hole in the middle of the park yesterday but I blame neither Phil nor Jag because they are defenders and not central midfielders and it?s not their fault that they are played there.

Was there anything positive? Yes there was ? Arteta and Pienaar; when these two got the ball you could sense that something was going to happen. There were 3-4 occasions when they pulled some magnificent moves and the build-up for our second goal was pure class. No hoof ball, no fighting for scrappy second balls, no fluke ? pure magic.

This leads to the question: Why can?t we do this more often? For me the answer is Moyes. It's obvious that the defenders and Howard are told just to punch aimless balls up front and there is no space for any kind of build-up. I know it's early days but for me Yakubu will be a failure at Everton and it would not be his fault either, he is not the typical target man, he can't win headers as Dunc, he can't guard the ball as well as young Victor. The guy is natural goalscorer but he is lacking service and the way we play suits Victor more than him hence the former looks better whenever he comes on.

Yesterday he had only one clear cut opportunity, which he should have scored but that was it. Only one created opportunity in a home match? Its no coincidence that our leading scorer is Lescott. We are tough to beat, well organized team which scores 70% of the goals from set pieces, nothing more. And when Mikel is injured or has an off game we can't score, simple as that.

Moyes is in his 6th year in charge, I can?t accept anymore the cliché that he is young and learning. Even if we buy Ronaldinho, Henry and Messi they would be failures because of our style, can you imagine any of them chasing endless hoofballs down the channels, or expecting them to challenge strong Premier League defenders in the air? It's brainless.

Boro don?t have better personnel but in the first half they pulled some amazing moves playing fluent football. With organization, team effort and workrate this is the maximum we can achive, if we are to progress we need to change our playing style, otherwise there will be more European embarrassments.

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