The problem with Everton is we do not get the luck that the likes of Liverpool, Arsenal, M.U, Chelsea get.

I know we were slightly fortunate with two goals v Chelsea, but that is the exception that proves the rule, bring on City, surely our luck must change??

Well done Davey, more of the same please.

Landon had a good debut & worked / muscled for every ball (surprising for a Yank) & where would we be without Pienaar?

Also the best show of away support I’ve seen at the Emirates this season... Lots of bodies, lots of noise.... respect to the couple of lads with their tops off!! It was freezin!!

I just hope Mr Moyes sees this as a wake up call, we don't need to be scared of these so-called Big 4 teams. If Rooney still played for Everton we would have a better team man for man than Man Utd, the same applies to Liverpool, apply the same injury scenario as Everton have had to them and they would get relegated. Bear in mind we have had to do without the equivalent of Carragher, Gerrard and Torres for a whole season, plus another 5 or 6 players on top.

The only explanation for me is the overall approach to playing the game, which is something that comes from Moyes. We play in his image. We don’t know how to go for the jugular.

The back four were excellent although Bainesy wasted too many crosses. Donovan did well considering he hadn’t played for 2 months. He will certainly help in the coming weeks. Pienaar’s return has helped the Blues tremendously of late but are not South Africa involved in the African Nations Cup, and if so, why is Peanuts not picked? Not complaining though.

I watched the game in the pub with a mate who hates Phil Neville; any errant pass from Cahill, Fellaini, Osman or Pienaar brought no response, while any mistake from Neville brought howls and abuse.

It's just how it is... MK will try to justify it and, while we all have our opinions, Everton were blatantly a superior attacking force throughout the majority of the game... was this down to Moyes "positive" tactics? I believe so... others will say the fact we conceded two, in my opinion, lucky goals... will also be blamed on Moyes. Makes me chuckle to be honest....

Everton came out full of purpose and nullified that attribute to great effect for long periods. Unfortunately the added injury time was mostly for the injury to an Arsenal player at a time when Everton were pressing strongly.

I got stick before for describing Donovan as the new Andy Gray. I didn’t mean it in terms of ability but as a catalyst. I think he will turn round our season.

Two lucky goals, you say, "because that’s the way Arsenal play" say others. Bollocks to that. It’s because we didn’t score enough goals. It was the same in the Cup Final, it’s the same in almost every big match we play. The team show they can play football but they cannot close the deal; it is clearly not through lack of ability, no matter what those of us carping on about the perennial excuses of money and injuries will say.

I’m talking about the game as its played on the field by the players who are out there. It MUST be the way they are trained day-in day-out by the defensive genius that is the Moyesiah. Nothing else makes any sense.

Fellaini just keeps putting in decent shifts. A lot of what he does seems simple, but he constantly shows for the ball, gets his head up quickly and plays a simple pass. Add to that, his bite and height, and he’s now reminding me of Vieira in his pomp. He was once again the dominant midfielder today and funnily enough, is exactly what Arsenal are missing. To me, Fellaini now looks really good business at €15m.

Overall, I thought it was a great performance. Already, the media has marked it down as a typical Everton "battling" performance. It was anything but that. We played with a lot of skill and composure and looked the better team for most of the game.

Also, Lucas Neill put in a great shift. He joined us as a stop-gap but it’s going to take someone special to knock him off the team sheet on current form.

Fellaini was absolutely immense today with Heitinga not far behind, even Bily did well when he came on after Landon had nullified the threat of Traore and Diaby just because they realised how quick he was. Superb all around in my book. The tactics, the football, effort. We were unlucky, simple as that, nothing to do with Moyes’s mentality. When you are wrong just admit you’re wrong.

In the home leg, we’d lack ideas and probably concede a few soft goals. The start of the season was testament to this. After the 1st goal we should've just realised Arsenal were on top then tried to keep it at 1 instead we open the game up and concede 4 within 50 minutes.

Whatever people say about the FA cup final we were playing a team who had no injuries and we have an awful record against. Chelsea deserved to win the game but everybody knew it perhaps was Moyes last chance to win something. If we’d beaten Fiorentina we’d of gone to Manchester instead of Rangers.

But the main reason we lose points is that we never finish off games. If Vaughan had scored we would've been leaving with 3 points. We keep on missing chances.

As for hoofing the ball, I have seen Moyes's face countless times when the ball has been hacked up field in desperation, his face cringes up as he likes to play flowing football. I can remember the Everton which were longball merchants up to Ferguson every time we were in posession.

Thirdly, people who slag off Moyes need their heads taking for a shit because would you rather us go back to the days of Walter Smith or Mike Walker? No? Me neither.

Football fans are very fickle and Evertonians are more so than others we put ourselves on this mantle of greatness our history is exactly that: history. We have not won a domestic trophy in 14 years; if it wasn't for Moyes, we would be in the same realms as Newcastle, Forest, Shef Wed or possibly worse, Leeds.

The man has turned this club from relegation Dogs of War to a team filled with talent who push for England places, regular internationals instead of retired Scotsmen and foreigners no-one has heard of (back of the Echo and Mikael Madar!! To name a few...) who now compete in Europe. Granted, it is not Champions League yet but he has done this on a relative shoestring budget compared to mega bucks City.

Now I know Moyes hasn't won silverware, but look at it this way: I would sacrifice a League Cup or FA Cup any day of the week for us to be the way we are now (excluding injuries) — look at Boro!!! Moyes will win something, I feel he just needs the luck and also a few ££££ to get the last pieces to his puzzle.

Stop ferking whineing. Aresnal got lucky, two deflected shots, two goals.
Everton played great. For fuck's sake concentrate on the positives, of which there where plenty, and dismiss the negatives of which there where few. Why oh why do you continue to say what if we had done this and what if we had done that.. If my Aunty had balls she’d be my uncle. The team where magnificent today... end of.

Fellaini put in another big shift, harassing the Arsenal ball players whenever they took possession and using his height at both ends of the pitch. Donovan showed touches of classs in a promising debut, and proved that class, if we can ever afford it, is the way forward.

Gutted at the end that we didn’t get our just reward against the title challengers, but isn’t that in itself a reflection on an excellent performance? C’mon folks, time to give credit when credit is due.

We probably get what we deserve, and David Booth feels that the majority view is this was a wonderful point won off the Arsenal. Well, excuse me if I don’t join in because I know it was very clearly 2 points lost.

Why are we "duped" by the pundits that we should lose to Arsenal? We all know our football, they are one of the continents top sides who have a formidable home record. You are astounded that many of us are happy with the result, too right, I am made up with a point. More delighted with the teams display though, we looked a cracking team there today.

It was 2 points lost but Moyes was not to blame. We were unlucky, simple as that.

Unless something is done about them, nothing changes. If you are happy with that, so be it. I do see it differently; I’m definitely not happy with it. And not winning a game we could and should have won crystalizes it all for me.

Thanks for giving us an insight as to what is said at training Mike. What rubbish your comment is. Just because in some circumstances it appears to you to be the case does not mean this is a tactic that is drummed in to the players at training. Your assertion that Moyes is a manager without a winning mentality is ridiculous. It is the sort of comment I expect from grandstand managers when things don’t go our way. If JV had scored when clean on goal what would have been your critique then if only one piece of luck was the difference between winning and drawing?

Sure you are entitled to your opinion, as am I and in my opinion, your summary of the events at the Emirates is breath takingly pathetic. And to label so many of us who give an alternate opinion to you as "But the fact that so many of you spouting this stuff are avowed Moyes acolytes" is offensive. I too felt it was points dropped but it was not the manager's fault in any way. Just because most of us thought he and the team did a top job today doesn’t mean we are Moyes acolytes.

And I would also like to say i thought Tim Cahill had a great game today. One or two errors but overall he was fantastic setting up both Nuts and JV as well as running his socks off all game.

There were so many positives about today that it’s so tough to take on some of the negative comments here. The simple fact is that a club with limited resources played one of the title contenders off their own park today. Furthermore, they did it with a combination of skill and work ethic that neutrals find refreshing. Just watched Johnny Giles and Eamonn Dunphy on the Irish version of MotD (Giles leaves Hansen et al in the halfpenny place when it comes to analysis). Both were effusive in their praise of Everton and remarked that the season is turning as injuries abate.

Might be too late to get a top 6 spot but, on the basis of today’s performance, I believe a couple of good cup runs may be ahead.

Let’s not lose sight of the fact that we had the best players on Arsenal’s pitch today (Peanuts, Felli, Heitenga) and by far the classiest goal. I wish all the Moyes haters would take off their Arsenal glasses and watch the game, not fall back on their own negative assumptions about Moyes and Everton.

We’ve gone to London (a classically awful place for us to play) and scored 5 goals against Arsenal and Chelsea. I’m just upset we can’t seem to defend leads against this top class opposition after we establish them. But let’s not our disappointment get in the way of seeing what actually happened on the pitch today.

Btw, I agree with Ciaran that it was a pretty even contest.

The ref was awful today, it’s a shame his surname is Walton. At times it looked like the home team could do anything they liked but when a player in a blue shirt just even tried to tackle: freekick for Arsenal.

Heitinga was great today, I think he could be very useful in the future.

Osman played better than he has done for a long while, he defended and scored a great goal. He faded after the first half though.

Neville was better than Hibbo at RB but he’s no playmaker either, just a solid defender but somehow he can force the other players to go on.

Donovan was good too, he brings something new to the team. He really gave it all and had to be taken off.

Baines is kind of lost now, he likes to attack and create but everything he does in offence goes off. Defensively he is ok.

The main thing is: we played well at one of the most difficult places ever to play in, almost won and still got a result. Yeah, we could have won but they got a lucky goal and that’s it. Nothing more nothing less, still I had a very nice afternoon with the persons and the club I love.

Seriously though, although I can see Michael’s point, in that we do not kill teams off, I think blaming Moyes for us not winning yesterday is somewhat OTT. Arsenal only stayed in the game due to two flukey deflected goals. I’m as disappointed as anyone that we didn’t win, but take heart from what was probably our best performance of the season. Things can only get better, especially when the mighty Spaniard returns!
COYB

You need to get over your pathological hatred/dislike of David Moyes. The whole of the football world, pundits on every channel, journalists reporting on the game etc. are praising him, including the likes of Wenger, and even those posters on here who have a tendency to agree with you in general are accepting that he masterminded a good performance yesterday and deserves credit (I’d love to know what Tony Marsh thinks!).

So as I think Kevin said earlier on, for the sake of your own credibility you need to have a think about what you’re saying, as I can see a future where anything you say in relation to an Everton performance or David Moyes will be given a response you currently deserve, and which will infuriate you, along the lines of ’yeah but given what you said after the Arsenal game we can’t take you seriously’.

This game would have been won 1-3 or 1-4 had we continued to take it to Arsenal after taking the lead. We didn’t because Everton don’t do "attack" when we lead, particularly towards the end.

I also don’t think it’s stretching things to suggest we most probably would have lost had the game lasted a further 5 mins.

And what highlights! Michael got it spot on; Gooner attack after attack, at one point the commentator, said how much longer can Everton withstand this pressure!!

Don’t worry Michael, I know everyone else got it wrong; Wenger-it was more 3-1 than 2-2 (must’ve seen it) Gooner websites all stating how lucky they were (all on drugs). Even those two Everton apologists Hansen & Lawrenson incorrectly stated that Everton deserved all 3 points.

So keep up the good work Michael, keep the scissors sharp to cut out all the nonsense that would leave the viewers to believe that Everton were more than good value for all 3 points and were undone by 2 deflected goals.

Last-minute goals can completely change an individual's slant on the performance. Many of us would have clearly been very happy with a draw at Arsenal before the game but, because of how we played, a draw was an insult.

What mighta, coulda and shoulda was not in the end but the biggest positive was the total commitment and overall attitude of the players not seen previously this season. Therein was the victory which should auger well for the rest of the season.

Other teams may now have to rethink their tactics before playing the Blues. Only a few weeks ago, we were a soft touch... but not any more. I too was an Osman knocker but the way he showed determination to score the first goal was an example of the new team attitude and Cahill was a revelation after looking like a back number in previous games. This new Everton is harder to beat so Moyes also has improved something.

The game is about scoring more goals than the opponents with the players you have available on the field on the day of the game. Do that, and you win, simple as. You can do nothing to stop deflected goals that are purely down to bad luck... except one thing: doing everything you can to make sure you score enough goals to counter that bad luck. There are two ways to go about it. (1) You make sure the opponents don’t score (See D Moyes for details); not always 100% effective (2) You imbue your players with all the tools training, inspiration and mental wherewithal they need to make the best use of the ball when they have it at their feet, to make the right choices when they are going forward.

Alan Kirwin: "I was as stunned as anyone to see Pienaar’s goal. It’s true, we just don’t score goals like that because Moyes doesn’t seem to get the notion of counter-attack. When properly executed, it is devastating and beautiful to behold." — Exactly 100% on the nail. That in a nutshell was a wonderful illustration of what we can do... but how rare is it? That rarity is what I’m still seething over. It drives me mad — not just yesterday, watching the missed opportunities to really hammer the Arse off them, but EVERY SINGLE MATCH UNDER DAVID MOYES that, when we get the ball, in defence, with the other side pressing us hard, we don’t mount effective counter-attacks. We dither — in classic Moyes fashion.

If Moyes deserves credit for organizing a solid, impregnable defence then he has to also get demerits for failing to train his teams to counter attack. To me, that's a massive demerit. For those myopic ones amongst you harping on about balance... THAT is what I call BALANCE. A team that can defend AND attack. Alan Kirwin again: "It’s a pity that we’ve drawn a ton of games recently and should have won almost all of them." — It’s more than a pity... it’s a pattern. Here’s why:

For years and years — almost EIGHT to be precise, Moyes has trained the players he has at Everton to defend, defend, defend. My point about yesterday — reinforced sadly by watching far too many games, is that he has seriously neglected to train them in the art of attacking football — and I mean the full deal, ending in scoring more goals than the other side. Maybe he finally started this last week, and that’s why we got the performance we saw on Saturday. Should he get credit now — for finally doing something he should have been doing for the last EIGHT FUCKING YEARS???

He has utterly failed so far to train his teams to play attacking football, and for that, above all the positives that everybody harps on about ad nauseam, I do hate the man. Well, ’hate’ is a pretty strong word... but it’s because to me it’s fundamentally negative. For me, attacking is positive; defending is negative... Think about it. All you people condemning me for ’negativity’... think about it.

Unless you have a positive mindset when you have the ball at your feet in football, you will never really succeed. If you are inculcated day-in, day-out by the negativity of 100% defensive football then you will play just like Everton have played for most of the season, in fact for most of the David Moyes era.

And on the rare occasion when you do escape that straight-jacket and have an opportunity to do it better, you are hobbled by the perennially defensive mindset that has been drilled into you, and you can’t take full advantage of possession when you have it. That is what I saw yesterday and it drove me absolutely fucking mad because I sensed the opportunity was there, and I was (and still am, despite all these posts) 100% convinced that the reason for that failing resides in one location only: the manager, David Moyes.

"The most infuriating thing was the final ball in the last third of the park, it always never cleared the 1st man, or it was the wrong ball to play."

They hold possession to a point but them basically do something wrong. What I’m saying is remarkably simple: if there was less emphasis in training on playing defensive football, and more time spent on attacking football, then the players would be more attuned to taking advantage of attacking situation, doing something creative, an getting the end result that deserves.

After all, if this fantastic defence is a testament to Moyes’s brilliant training skills, then logic surely tells you the corollary — that the general lack of creativity going forward in players that we know have some capability is down to an oversight in their training.

Against Arsenal, we got forward more than normal, but the end result was pretty much the same: not enough goals scored to win the game. That’s my working hypothesis; the Arsenal game was another brick in the wall. It sadly fitted the same pattern I’ve observed, in spite of the better performance against highly vaunted opposition.

What on earth gives you the hutzpah to suggest I can’t make such a comment? You can disagree if you must but if you want to make observations about how Everton played, then you have to accept that I am going to do the same.

So it just makes me wonder... who’s training the team in attacking football? Moyes?!?! Oh dear god...

And watch Pienaar’s goal closely — I have. He really did hit a little bit too softly.

Michael of course can have his own opinion or maybe sees things differently to most of us... I'm really puzzled with his arguement, especially the "Pienaar hit the ball too soft "quote ... It’s football... a goal is a goal. If he can hit another 15 ’too soft’ this season, I for one won’t complain.

They are going mostly on personal ability with little by way of teamwork, tactics, or other structured guidance from a well-respected award-winning manager who you might otherwise expect would be rather good at such things... expect that (to my jaundiced eyes) he clearly isn’t. Hence, despite our play improving since Hull/Liverpool, still the best we can seemingly do against notable opposition is get a draw.

I hate to think how many people would "accept a draw" going into Saturday’s game against City and who will (God forbid, coz again, we really need to be winning games like this) if we get a draw, be satisfied with it, on the basis that it is the best we can be expected to do against such highly vaunted opposition, on our own turf... with our injuries... and our lack of resources... blah blah blah. Honestly, it makes sick to read that defeatist shite again and again and again. If it was even remotely true, how could we possibly have outplayed Arsenal on their own turf?