Has Davey Stopped Dithering ???

Some think it took the Spurs game at home last season to convince Mr Moyes that, in essence, the Goodison faithful would have accepted defeat that night if only we had gone gung-ho for the three points and been hit with a breakaway goal instead of meekly surrendering, and offering Spurs the chance to win the game by our negativity. This had also happened at home to Man City earlier in the season, and Wigan at home to an extent.

Davey's susstitutions have always been an anathema to me. He sometimes keeps the starting eleven all through the match, when I am a believer in freshening up around the 70 minute mark, so our work rate does not diminish, and we don't end up with players like Ossie out on their feet, and totally ineffectual.

This season, however, we have witnessed over the last couple of games not only the astute (and occasionally forced) use of substitutes, but also, and more impressive to me, the ability to change the formation round during the match. That we came on strong at Bolton in the latter stages was, I believe, down to a combination of replacing the tiring Cars with Tommy, and swapping roles with Pip and Jags, to end up with what I believe is our best formation.

It also suits Ossie's quick feet to come on against tired defenders, and indeed McFadden is best used this way too. Then the big hulk of Vic replaces the battering ram of The Yak, and defenders must be crapping themselves.

As mentioned earlier, the odd groin strain may have forced Davy's hand, but there are definite signs that our leader is growing in confidence. He has stated publicly that we now have a bench that can change a game, but I think that he also now believes that we don't have to win games 1-0, or hold on for a draw by battening down the hatches. My belief is that he thinks with our forward line now, we can actually try and force matches because we are capable of scoring more than one goal per game.

Also, with the squad we now have (with the exception of a Manny type), we should only be looking upwards, and not purely aiming for the 40-point barrier, and taking anything else as a bonus. This means that games previously where we may have settled for a draw as being an acceptable result, we will go for the jugular, and hopefully win more than lose or draw.

If Davey has finally realised that Pip must play right back, and leave Jags in midfield, I think we're in for a roller-coaster season with us playing our best footie for years.

Let us pray.

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