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A time to be cautious perhaps?

No, I am not advocating that Moyes throws away his seemingly new-found ideology of encouraging good attacking football. That is exactly what most of us have been crying out for, for what seems like an eternity.

Ok, we haven?t quite mastered the golden rule of keeping possession and passing in quick decisive movements yet, but that may have something to do with a lack of a central lynchpin in midfield ? we all know that we need one and I am sure Moyes knows that too. But there are signs that the players we do have possess ability, combined with fitness and determination, to start playing the type of football that most of us Evertonians want to see. Having said all that, looking at our next 2 fixtures, Nuremburg and Chelsea away, I think a return to packing the midfield with strength and endeavour is called for.

In support of my reasons for advocating what could be viewed as a negative approach is that, if we approach either of those games with a lightweight midfield that contains both the skilful Osman and Pienaar and the ineffective Neville, we are in grave danger of being out-muscled and then out-skilled by technically better opponents. We will need to dig deep and tackle everything that moves in true Dogs of War style. It isn?t pretty on the eye, but we can?t let all the good work that we have done in the last couple of weeks be thrown away by tactical naivety. There is a time and a place for showing off your silky skills with little flicks here and there, but I suggest that next week's fixtures are not one of them.

It would be lovely if we could travel to these two away games and go at them from the start, but I fear to do that would be far too risky, especially against Chelsea, who seem to have found their scoring boots recently. I am not suggesting that we go with a game plan to play for a draw by stifling the opposition. However, we must limit the amount of space and time that we give them in midfield.

I watched Luton and more recently Birmingham nearly exploit large gaps in our central midfield area, and better teams would have punished us for it. I am confident that we can get decent results in both our following games if Moyes picks the correct teams. I never thought that I would see the day when I was actually asking Moyes to be cautious but that is exactly what I am imploring him to do.

The time will come soon I hope, when we can attack any opposition either home and away from the start and let them worry about the threat that we carry, but I fear we are not quite at that stage yet. New found optimism aside, we need to push on this season and next week's results with be a good measure as to how far we have progressed now that the majority of our squad are fit and available.

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