The Mail Bag
Pre-season preparations
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Can anyone shed any light on why Everton are always so badly prepared for the start of the season? I wrongly thought this year would be different. There's no Lescott problem this year, no long-term injuries, no contract situation for Moyes, no midweek qualifying European fixture. Our top players, Pienaar aside, have all signed new contracts each stating their love for the team and manager.
Putting the tactics to one side and the selection of Osman on the right wing, the players didn't look up for it on Saturday. This to me is absolutely criminal. How can our players not be arsed about the start of the new season? This is far more of a fundamental problem than whether Neville and Osman play. If we'd have lost by an awful goalkeeping error but the team had shown some fight, I think a lot more of us would have been a lot more forgiving and left feeling more positive about the Wolves game.
So why the hell can't Moyes get his team properly preprared? Considering Blackburn had a very similar pre-season in terms of the standard of opposition they played (they also went on a tour of Australia), why were their players up for it and not ours? It has to be far more to do with getting the players right mentally, which Moyes obviously has trouble doing.
I've not lost all faith in Moyes because this team will still come good but we may well have lost too much ground on the likes of Spurs and City by that point. I'm getting sick of our season not starting until November and I'm sick of reaching May and saying if only we'd have started the season better.
Alan Clarke, Posted 16/08/2010 at 12:49:58
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Which placed huge pressure onto our shouldersand ,like Arsenal yesterday, struggled to pick the lock. Arsenal got lucky. We weren't so fortunate.
Frustrating, but no need to pour over it in minutae... 3 points next week! COYB!
You can speculate about who should or shouldn't have played on Saturday, but to accuse the players of not trying is ludicrous.
Blackburn are well drilled and organised outfit and lost three home games all of last season. They won on Saturday courtesy of an error which I would not expect to see repeated again this year.
It's a frustration I agree, but by no means is the result of 'poor preparations', steady on.
My concern was Neville's comments today about Saturday being a "kick up the backside". I find this completely ridiculous. Didn't we hear this almost exact response after the Wolfsburg defeat?
First day of the season where we are all so excited about our prospects. Not that far to travel, unlike a trip to London, against organised but pretty average opposition. And they couldn't get going? I feel more gutted about each defeat more than ever now and will more so this season, because right now I expect more from them.
Whilst we don't tend to make a very good start to the season, we seem to finish very strongly where typically in the past few seasons City/Villa have fallen by the wayside. We all want to start well, especially with the obligatory pre-season optimism we all seem to get carried away with every year, but let's just see where we go from here. Hopefully this is the kick up the backside the need.
From a still daringly optimistic blue!
Due to the 24-year thingy, we're nailed on for the league title and Sky have asked DM to make the boys look crap.
The "come from behind" title charge is a ratings blockbuster and I reckon DM said he'll try his best to hold back the brilliance till the last minute.
....hiccup!
I thought it was a poor game all round for both sides and but for an absolute howler it had 0-0 written all over it.
If it had finished 0-0, would we still be seeing these knee-jerk reactions?
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The problem is that you can expect the same crap from Neville after every unexpected loss this season...
It's the mental part, the movement off the ball where we constantly fail and have done for years.
Osman on the right of a 5 is nonsense. As far as I'm concerned a 5 is also nonsense. There is some deja vu here from when we had the injuries at start of last season. Moyes was bemoaining our lack of wide players and persisted with a middle 5 that didn't work. Other coaches may have looked at it and thought, hmm, well I've got no natural width or pace, we're conceding silly goals too, reckon I'll play more narrow to suit teh players and stick 2 guys in the danger area to snuff thigs out in front of the defence.
Yes, we should have been playing 4-2-3-1 a year ago and we should certainly be playing it now. I guess this is the last hurdle for DM. I mean, we clearly do hit our stride at some point, but it's almost always too late. But also changing things in the game itself tends to come too late or not at all. This MUST change.
How Rodwell could be left out staggers me. Fellaini is a great player but he's not yet fit. Playing Cahill in teh hole is ludicrous. That role is far better suited to Pienaar or Bily. In fact I somehow believe it could be the making of Bily.
If this blip persists then this season could be over before the clocks go back (again). Please god Moyes & Round have watched the video and the devout appreciation of Spain's tactics was not just skin deep puff.
I think Moyes made a few tactical errors as well such as playing Fellaini and putting subs on too late.
No point trying to play pretty football if you can't string two passes together!
We showed towards the end of the game on Saturday that we can play football and give the likes of Blackburn some serious problems with our passing game. The problem was that with 70+ minutes gone and them holding an unlikely lead, they stuck ten men behind the ball so creating any kind of chance was difficult. Add that to our lack of width and it was too much for us.
Moyes needs to discipline the squad in how to play their way out of trouble and stay calm in the periods of the game in which we're second best.
At the beginning of each season we see all that is worst about Everton... back to hoofball,a lack of confidence in players to do the simple things, poor body language, and, generally, a feeling of not enough motivation or preparation for the task facing them.
Coincidence? Hardly...
This team is capable of winning games 5 and 6 on the spin. The quality within can take on last years top 7 and in a straight fight player for player and take them. As mentioned by some of the lads, our issue is breaking teams down, usually after giving them a goal start as per the first few home games of last season.
Moyes now has to show his tactical development in picking a team that plays in a way the opposition will least favour. On Saturday we put out a side that held no fear to Blackburn and, after gifting the goal, a gamble was required to change tact. Pienaar wasn't having the best, so Big Sam would not have been prepared if Arteta suddenly went left, a position he graced three seasons ago, Rodwell came centre and was given license a la SG to attack, Bily on for Cahill to probe off the front man or alternating with Osman. All this with the beauty of hindsight, in truth, Saha and Osman could have come off as well, such was the collective drabness from the general play.
It was one of those games that we are unfortuately prone to produce. The key now as noted in an earlier post, is that after 6 games to read won 5 lost 1.
Reality check taken, myself included, that nothing comes easy in this league other than a defeat but to read some of the stuff on TW made a lot of you sound like Kopites and Rafa was in charge. Get behind them, the team will put it right.
if only you were right!!
Arsenal tore a good Liverpool side , motivated by their new manager, apart in the first half.
We couldnt even muster a shot on target until Jags in the last few minutes.
Now if you're comparing Blackburn to Liverpool and 40 odd thousand screaming RS supporters then I'm afraid you are even more deluded than your post suggests.
By ANY standards we were extremely poor against poor opposition as we were against Wolfsburg.
We can all theorise on explanations but we cannot avoid the fact we WERE poor and lost at least 1 point that may be valuable come the end of the season.
No comparisons made with RS and Blackburn at all just the way the flow of the game went in both matches. RS played well but won't maintain that intense level all season due to no squad depth.
Anyway bottom line, we were poor and have to trust Moyes to sort it.
"...to read some of the stuff on TW made a lot of you sound like Kopites and Rafa was in charge." If you have some valid basis to enter the debate and question the opinions provided, then do so, but don't descend to posting stuff like that, please.
Some other points: (1) Gareth Humphreys: "They just got beat - it's no biggy." Do you honestly think many of your fellow Evertonians appreciate being told that? This is along the same lines as Main and Price, suggesting that concern expressed on these pages by others is worthy only of disdain. Please don't post stuff like this.
(2) The crap about "knee-jerk reactions". Again, people are commenting on the game and what they saw. Don't belittle their comments by labeling them as "knee-jerk reactions", please.
COYB !
However, I take your point they are opinions, as are mine.
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1 Posted 16/08/2010 at 13:52:53
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It seems as if Arteta's new contract has had the opposite effect than what was thought.
He looks to have the weight of the world on his shoulders and the other players seem demotivated.
I hope I'm wrong but it doesnt seem all sweetness and light in the camp at the moment.