ToffeeWeb - Season 2007-08

The Mail Bag

New-found optimism

Left it late today but there were spells in the game where we played some very good football, particularly in the build up to the first goal; terrific interchanging of passes to score the simplest of goals.

Pienaar for me was outstanding. Forget about Fernandes, this kid is truly exceptional, quick and intelligent passes coupled with a tremendous work effort and real desire to win. It will be absolutely criminal if we fail to secure the signature of this very promising talent. Yakubu too was immense today and is getting better with each game.

Carsley put in a great performance reminding us all that he truly is an unsung hero. What a fitting finale with the return of young Vaughan who has had a horrendous time with injuries and yet this has failed to deter his energy and enthusiasm for the game another young player with huge potential.

Last but not least a word of praise for Jagielka. He has looked much more assured playing in his more accustomed role as a defender. To cap it all we now have an abundance of riches up front. I suspect Moyes may well be faced with some very difficult selection decisions in the coming weeks — cause for optimism indeed.
Gerry Western, London Posted 04/11/2007 at 01:12:02

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Ricardo Humphries
1 Posted 04/11/2007 at 08:45:38

attached is an address were you can see what we can expect from Pienaar. The clips superb!www.armchairfans.co.uk/videos/Steven-Pienaar:borussia-dortmund.html#

Ray
2 Posted 04/11/2007 at 09:47:30

I couldnt agree more about Pienaar but then I am not really that shocked by what he can do. During the 2003/04 season he was named in the Champions League team of the season and coveted by some of the biggest names around. The only real surprise was that we landed him on loan but that was due to a poor season in Germany. He is a fantastic player and I would really hope if he keeps it going we can afford him next summer.. The other big congratulations and perhaps surprise was the standard of Yakubu’s display..He was phenomenal yesterday and it was one of the best striking displays I have seen from an Everton player for a long time..My only question is to those Middlesbrough fans who said he couldnt trap a bag of cement.. Are you sure boys? He looks a fantastic technical player to me even when he would not chase things he still looked to have that good touch and his link up play with Cahill was so refreshing.. Once again it seems like when Cahill is fit 4-5-1 is our best bet. It was a great performance yesterday and the nicest thing to see was that even at 1-0 we kept the tempo going and somehow when Birmingham equalised you felt we could still win it. We have the best squad now at Everton Football Club since the Prem started. A host of quality strikers which is only a good thing. Keep it going.

Santosh Benjamin
3 Posted 04/11/2007 at 10:08:23

I agree...havent felt this good about our team in ages.I am also looking forward to the return of AJ...will keep our forwards on their toes.Pienaar is starting to show that he really belongs...Carsley should have been in the team on a regular basis and yesterdays performance showed that-he brings grit,hard-work and a good long range shot.Neville was not too bad at right back.Hope Stubbsy gets back soon though coz with all the games,we need a solid defence.Hope to have Baines back soon to provide some width on the left.
Lets build on this good period with solid displays in the UEFA Cup and against Chelsea next weekend.COYB

tony grimes
4 Posted 04/11/2007 at 10:10:14

Gerry I agree with what you say but I see you miss out David Moyes for any praise. If Everton had not won yesterday, I would imagine the first line of your post would have been "sack moyes took us as far as he can" I was at the game and some of comments directed at the manager was a disgrace, seeing we had won three games on the trot and are going nicely on three fronts. You see some of our fans are as clueless as some of the RS kop fans who scream at 606 every other saturday. If we win its the players who are good, if we loose its the managers fault and if we draw well it means the manger got his tactics wrong. Profesional Moaners comes to mind.

Ricardo Humphries
5 Posted 04/11/2007 at 10:25:55

I’ll have to agree with Tony. Moyes at times get it wrong...just like any other manger, but his a very good manager. Just give a guy like him a big budget and can repeat what any other so called "big club managers" can do! If a player miss kicks or gets red carded and it contributes to a team losing, the manager can’t be held accountable for that! If an defender loses consecration and give a cheap ball away, how is the manager responsible for that?

Barry Bragg
6 Posted 04/11/2007 at 11:20:14

I think the really exciting thing at the moment is that the team has’nt even started to gel fully yet. We keep seeing flashes of what they are capable of and this should become more frequent as the players familiarity with each other grows.

Its also interesting to see how the goals are coming from all over the pitch - 6 in a week with 5 different scorers or 9 in 10 days with 7 scorers.

Finally I don’t think its any coincidence that Yakubu is finding things easier at the minute with Cahill back in harness. If you remember last season Johnson only really scored when Tim was playing. After his metatarsal I think AJ only scored once more. Whether its the player or the system he lets us play it means that Jonno should start to score again when he is fit.

As for Moyes he must feel like a dog with two dicks at the moment. After all those years of ’making do’ he is finally starting to see the fruits of his labour with real options opening up. There must have been times when he was really low with everyone on his back but if we are all right about the green shoots coming through he deserves full credit for having the strength of character to stick at it.

Two tricky games coming up this week. Lets hope everyone keeps things in perspective if we don’t get the reults we all want. We are going in the right direction.

Neil McKinney
7 Posted 04/11/2007 at 11:52:45

Tony, Ricardo, Barry - I agree totally. It’s very easy to blame the manager when we lose and compliment the players when we win. Moyes is a good manager and I for one am thankful that we’ve got him.

However, I will play devil’s advocate to the Moyes out brigade on one point. Substitutions. IMHO Moyes left it a bit late yesterday to make the changes (save the forced Jags for Stubbs in the first half). That is just my opinion though and considering we won the game and I have absolutely no managerial experience at any level, I guess I can’t really labour that point too much.

Full credit to Moyes and the whole team for an excellent 3 wins!

COYB!!

Andy Mckenzie
8 Posted 04/11/2007 at 12:44:52

I agree about moyes, deserves credit and rightly so,sometimes he deserves criticism when we play badly so its only fair we praise him when he gets it right.

Pienaar just gets better and better with each game and id say snap him up immediately, it does feel extremely satisfying to be a blue today, roll on nuremberg.

COYBs

Barry Bragg
9 Posted 04/11/2007 at 13:39:48

The fact is the players had plenty of opportunities to have had the game wrapped up by half time. It would have been their fault had we drawn that game yesterday but Moyes would have taken the flack.

Gav Jones
10 Posted 04/11/2007 at 17:40:17

I may be imagining this but when we secured Pienaar on loan wasn’t it reported that we could take up the option of signing him for about 2.5m if he impressed? Don’t know how believable the source was as like most of you I read every single bit of sh*te in all the gossip columns in the summer but it’d certainly be a great bit of business if it was true.
I was really impressed with him yesterday and Carsley too, who I thought had been poor when I’d seen him this season previous to the Derby game. Even when he personally doesn’t seem to be having a good game the rest of the team always seem to play better with him in there. Hopefully he can handle our new schedule better than Stubbs and he can become a permanent fixture in the team again.