The Mail Bag
Win the battle; lose the war
Comments (16)
I found I had mixed emotions following the Everton game today. Obviously I like Everton to win but I really thought the best result for our long term future would have been a defeat.
I have lost all confidence in Moyes; I felt a defeat would have hastened his departure. Typical of Moyes, he always comes up with a win when he's really under pressure. It will just continue the In Moyes We Trust mentality of the Everton fans who think he is a good manager.
From the reports, it could have easily been a comfortable defeat. I've supported Everton for 40 years and I don't think I've ever felt as alienated from other Everton fans as I do now. I believe we should be doing better than we have in recent years. I remember us being the best team in Europe in the 80s...
I could go on but I don't want to. Moyes is a loser and Everton will be losers until he is fucked right off.
Tom Sullivan, Posted 08/11/2009 at 19:54:07
Comments
Note: the following content is not moderated or vetted by the site owners at the time of submission. Comments are the responsibility of the poster. Disclaimer
You are clearly living in the past and need to except we are are not the team of the 80s, the team was destroyed long before Moyes got here.
Moyes took an Everton team that was down and out and has slowy stedied the ship to making us a consistant top 5 team. We all want us to be number 1 but Rome wasnt built in a day. Without big investment it will take years to develop a side that can challange for trophies.
The fact is under Moyes this team has progressed and progressed more than any other team in the league, and we will continue to improve with him in charge, just because we are struggling now does not mean that will be the case by the end of the season.
To lose Moyes would be a complete disaster for this club and we would end up like the Leeds, Charltons and Newcastles of the world.
Just a few days ago Villa came to Upton Park and lost 2-1, where we won. The match before that they went up to Sunderland, a solid side this season, and got a 2-2 draw. The match before that they played Arsenal, and came back to get a 2-2 draw. Early in the season they were poor, but in recent weeks they have been playing much better with some good results. And Everton went there with half a squad and got a 2-1 win.
Tom Sullivan, you say Moyes is a loser and Everton will be losers until they get rid of him. So using that logic, you’re saying that with the exact same resources at his disposal another manager would have Everton winning championships over the past seven years. Are you insane, or have you just not stopped drinking for more than an hour this weekend.
Our football is terrible. I don’t accept that there aren’t better managers than Moyes out there.
I am not saying that we will win the league but surely we can play better football. We want a manger who coaches fast flowing football. They are out there. Watch Spanish football on a regular basis and you will see how dreadful the Premier League is.
In the transfer windows we have all prayed for the fast wingers and the commanding midfielders to be signed and what do we get — defenders! OK we might improve but the bottom line is that we are a boring team to watch.
Without Steven Pienaar, we are clueless in midfield and he is only one player — we don’t have anyone else apart from Arteta who is probably not going to feature much this season. Bad times... not as bad as the Walter Smith days but still bad times.
Other clubs of our stature would not accept this but, for some reason, everyone seems to think that if Moyes goes we are doomed. I disagree; I think that we will get better. If you look at Europe, many of the teams including Benfica have a less expensive squad than we have playing good football.
It’s the coach!
The answers to it all are in your post. We can play better football, but like you say we need our better footballers such as piennar and Arteta in the side. Any team would struggle without their best players. The reason Benfica beat us was because as you say our best players are out.
I wouldnt exactly say we have fallen from grace, we are only a few points behind 4th place and we have had most of our squad out injured for most part of the season. Imagine where we would be with a full squad and our best players on show, especially considering all the games we have lost and drawn apart from the Arsenal game have been very close. All those draws would probably be wins and results like Bolton would probably be at least draws. Suddenly we are looking at CL qualification.
Moyes is slowly bringing in good, passing players like Arteta, Pienaar and Billy, but until he has a nucleus of these players on the pitch at the same time it would be suicidal to try and play passing football.
Everton have improved year on year, sometimes slowly, sometimes we have stuttered, but overall we have improved. Whether this season is the end of our improvement we will only see at the end.
Personally I believe that Bily was the final piece of his midfield jigsaw, with Arteta, Pienaar and Felli (or Rodders) whether these play behind a proper front pairing or behind Cahill and a single striker, who knows. But if you take a step back and look, it makes sense.
This would include Barcelona, Man United, Real Madrid, anyone at all. Man City can’t win and they’ve got almost everyone available having spent God knows how much in the summer.
Have a sense of perspective, its dull, its frustrating, its annoying, but with this many players missing, we just have to get on with it and do what we can. At our full strength we’re still a couple of players short of what I’d like, but we’re barely playing at half strength at the moment and we’re still a mid-table team. As for hoping Everton lose, I’d suggest you don’t come on here and say that too often Tom.
As for those who judge football by who passes it around the most, I’m afraid there’s simply more to it than that and always has been. Apparently West Brom passed it around beautifully as they were comfortably relegated last season.
When we have Arteta, Pienaar and Bilyaletdinov in the same midfield (having two of them would be nice) is the time to judge the type of football we play, not now.
Take a look at yourself.
Just like the nonsense about Arteta never coming back on another thread.
I wonder if any Newcastle fans hoped they would be relegated to teach Ashley a lesson? Surprise. surprise, he’s still there and so is the Manager. A fat lot of good that would have done you. They may be top in the Championship now, but a few injuries and enforced sales in January and it could all go wrong for them just as it could hoping to see Everton do badly.
I have been an Everton fan for over 30 yrs, I have watched over 500 games in person and viewed many more on TV etc. From this fickle dedication to the club, I feel I can, hand on heart, say we have a poor team who play poor football (I was brought up on the mid 80's team, style and guile from Bracewell and Reid, strength and pace from Ratcliffe, Watson and Mountfield, pace and creativity from Steven and Lineker. Today we just cannot compare.
Moyes has taken us as far as he can on the limited money that cunt Kenwright puts over, Moyes is clearly pissed off and has given up. Who could replace the great ginger one? Paul Bracewell?
However, I gotta tell you, along with many of the other older farts who keep harping on back to the 80s, 60s or whenever as justification for that higher standard, it cuts no ice — just makes you out to be an arl arse... probably well before your time. Stop living in the past. There are enough imperatives to require better quality than what we are currently getting.
But what I really take exception to is you using this website to call someone a cunt... the Chairman of the club no less. There’s no need for that.
I was at the Benfica game, and they only really started to zip it around and get in behind us on the deck when Aimar came on. I would even venture that there was more hoofball in the first half from them.
It’s not me wearing tinted specs mate!
There is nothing wrong with scoring a goal via an accurate pass forward as Villa did and as we do sometimes.
The point I was making is that Everton at present have very little idea as to how to get the ball to the forwards apart from hoofball. This is why we make very few chances.This is why forwrds almost invariably receive passes (I use the word reservedly!) with their back to the opponents goal. This is why we have difficulty scoring goals. This is why we have scored so few this season. Hoofball can be an effective tactic...Manure use it effectively when they need to as do Chelsea. But as far as Everton are concerned it is all we have at present. If you can’t see that mate you need glasses...tinted or not.
As for Benficca, they were very clever last week. They knew they would be put under pressure and soaked it up in the first half relieving it with a long ball game. Once that pressure began to ease (because Everton’s hoofball was getting us nowhere) they started to play. The only real ’chance’ we made in that game was Distin’s instinctive turn in the second half.
Benfica (without being worldbeaters....just competent) were far superior and highlighted our shortcomings. You are fooling yourself if you refuse to see that.
Add Your Comments
In order to post a comment to the MailBag, you need to be logged in as a registered user of the site.
Or Sign up as a ToffeeWeb Member — it's free, takes just a few minutes and will allow you to post your comments on articles and MailBag submissions across the site.
-sm.jpg)
-sm.jpg)
-sm.jpg)
-sm.jpg)
1 Posted 09/11/2009 at 14:33:09
Report abuse
I appreciate the difficult position he is in with the lack of investment, a small squad and current injuries but other clubs have these problems too yet week after week we have to watch our opponents play more joined-up football than we ever do consistently, especially in midfield where it counts most.
And it is not only the Benficas of this world either. Portsmouth played all over us technically and we were lucky to win. Villa were shite by their own standards but they didn’t resort to hoofball. We were poor but lucky yesterday and West Ham are a club in the process of imploding! Just about everybody passes the ball around better than we do and it is getting embarrassing.
It doesn’t need investment or a huge squad to get a team to at least try to play pass-and-move football but pass-and-move football is a concept that just does not seem to get a look-in at Everton nowadays.
Sad.