Great fightback by the lads, sadly the game was lost in the first half.

I made a vow to myself not to make critical comments regardless how the the game went. There is just one that I cannot resist. It is not why did Moyes take 45 minutes before working out that the dreadful Osman needed subbing? I would ask him why in hells name was he on the pitch in the first place.

As in Lisbon he was totally exposed by his lack of strength or bite in the tackle and would have to be the slowest and worst midfielder in the prem. Modric of Spurs is much smaller in stature yet He was able to easily bundle Osman of the ball and covered twice the ground. Only when he departed did we get any kind of foothold in the game.

I don’t care who we have or have not got to replace him but I sincerely hope never to see him ever again in the shirt.

3 away wins all season is simply not good enough. Stark contrast to last seasons away form. We’ll do well to get a point out of both Villa/City away.

We seem to have far too many hangovers after a Europa League game. Playing crap teams like BATE and Athens really doesn’t help us.

This Europa League is devalued and doesn’t generate any income whatsoever. I’d rather we wern’t in the competition next season and instead pushed on for 4th which would be a lot more interesting.

Victor was way off the pace which is understandable, but he is nowhere near ready to start a game against a good side like Spurs. Rodwell is also not ready to be starting againt top class prem teams. Osmen has always been inconsistant and Arteta did quite well but he too wont be at his best for a few games yet, and the same goes for Jaggs.

All in all injuries yet again have cost us. We can not afford to have players like Saha, Cahill and Fellaini missing against the better sides and have to play people out of position or rely on other players who are a long way from match fitness. Perhaps being out of Europe is for the best as It looks like the tough scheduale is finally caching up with the players and we need to re-group.

Moyes was tactically pretty good today! Are you on another planet? They have the slowest full back in the league in Bale and he puts a half-fit Championship player against him. He plays Arteta and Osman in the middle against the strength of Spurs middle 4 so by half time we have lost the game.

Then the mighty Moyes gets his tactics right and we play much better with Heitinga giving us some strength in the middle. So why the fuck didn't Moyes do that in the first place — that would have been tactically good not doing it when the horse has bolted. Moyes has as much tactical nouse as my granny.

Can’t agree with you Joey, Spurs had their chances in the first half as well and could have killed the game off.

Forget any chances of us finishing above Spurs, Man City and the Shite, it ain’t happening! 7th? A distinct possibility but I expect Villa still to win the majority of their games. We’ll battle with the Brummies for 8th... :)

Jagielkas 2nd half performance looked like he had not been away - it looked like we could handle counter attacks better - so my point is now should we move Heitinga in to centre mid and have a nice balaced right foot anf left foot of Jags and Distin at the back? With no Felaiani this season i think Heitnga could be the next best option.

Mick Wrende ... "They have the slowest full back in the league in Bale". Which game were you watching? Tell me I’ve missed the sarcasm .....!

Dick Fearon , Osman was on the pitch at the start because his recent performances have been superb,(sporting aside, although everyone was poor there), cant understand how you can pinpoint the blame on Osman for the first half, then again I suppose you woulf blame HIbbert if he was playing.
Distan fell asleep for the first goal and Johnny changed his mind when tracking back and the other goal was sheer class, with Everton chasing shadows.

Mick I didn’t say he didn’t F it up it the beginning... but if you’re telling me you’d have known putting Johnny in the center of the park instead of at CB and having Jags on would have worked from the beginning then you have my vote for next manager.

All I am saying is he had the subs right this time. Usually they are less effective but this is two times in as many weeks Moyes’ subs have changed a game. This time they just didn’t change it enough.

We came up a little short against a good spurs side who were not suffering from a humiliating Thursday away game in PORTUGAL. I can handle this loss. I’m just glad Bily didn’t get a kick. Hopefully he pulls a Pav next season.

Oh and his thought with Anichebe was putting a big man on the smaller Bale. And a few times it worked very well with no end product. I recall Arsene Wenger doing the same with that giant oaf Bentner on Baines and him earning man on the match pretty much.

Tenth and out of all competions with eleven games left. All in all a very poor season with a smattering of good results. I just hope we can keep our best players because if we have another Lescott situation then we can expect more of the same. Having said that there are some winnable games ahead just hope Moyes can motivate them to do their jobs.

tactically Moyes did pretty good? He created the problems in the first half that he needed to correct in the second! Victor was clearly not ready to start a prem game at right midfield, he was blowing out his arse after the first 20 minutes. Moyes’ negativity in the first half was the mirror of the Sporting game. Hes too interested in what the opposition can do to us, rather than what we can do to them. In the second half when we went after Spurs we were by far the better side. But still we waited until the last ten mins to put a second striker on. i’d rather get beat 3-1 and have a fucking go! And No Coleman on the bench, if ever a second half was crying out for his attacking threat down the right side. But at least we restricted them to a 2-1 win, hey David?

Hetinga replaces Osman and the game is turned on its head. Pity Moyes didn’t work that one out when he selected his starting eleven. Hardly rocket science, Osman up against Palacious and Huddlestone, he’s got to be having a laugh. Bale had a field day, what a contrast to the last meeting in the league when Coleman ran him ragged. Does make you wonder what might have been if Coleman had been an option.

A lot of controversy surrounding the opener as to who was responsible but what on earth was Neville doing? How could he not see the danger posed by Pavlyuchenko and yet there was no urgency to get into the box. So much for all the recent hype about how well he communicates with others in the team, surely he could have given Hetinga a call as it was clear he was totally unaware of the player ghosting in behind him.

On a positive note, Jagielka’s return will surely strengthen things at the back.
On the whole disappointing, though, if Moyes had got the team selection right from the start we could well have won this one.

How does conceding 2 goals in the first 20 minutes mean Moyes was tactically pretty good? We have got to start playing from the first whistle. Every fucking game we give the opposing team a head start. Distin is more error prone than Yobo. Whatever Moyes’ pre-match routine and preparation is, it needs changing. We can all point at Donovan’s miss but going 2 goals down was a far worse crime. Our defence this season has been woeful.

And anyone who thought we could catch 4th is in cloud cuckoo land. After that Man U game we still had to play Spurs away, Birmingham away, Villa away, Man City away and Stoke away. I’ll be surprised if we even finish 10th as someone else pointed out our away form is dreadful.

Hang on " there 2nd goal was against the run of play " how do you work that out, they dominated the 1st half and could have been 4 up? Also, I wouldn’t say we dominated the 2nd half, we were probalby the better side, but we far from dominated, they had a few chances themselves to have put the game to bed.

On the substitutions, whilst we looked more solid when Heitinga went into midfield, Anichebe should have been subbed after their 2nd because he looked way off the pace, and Bale had him in his arse pocket for all the time he was on, also Bale was a huge threat going forward. When Donovan came on, Bale, apart from 1 goon run, didn’t get forward as much.At the end of the day Donovan should have been on a lot earliar than he was, because apart from Moyes, I, and I can imagine a lot more could see Anichebe wasn’t up to it.

I’m not going to slag off Osman today and say it was to be expected as he was up against bigger midfielders. As he’d played great against Chelsea & Man Utd superior midfield.

The problem we have is we are not as good as we beleive. We are capable of good games but equally as capable of rubbish. The biggest problem we have is our mental attitude. Torres and Gerrard, aside we are more than a match for Liverpool but mentally they are much better, they would not have lost to Lisbon or Spurs today.

We had momentum now we’ve lost it again. When it's crunch time we need more big game players.

Jesus apparently I watched a different game. Forgive me I had to get up at 5 am to watch over here. Just trying to be positive because I decided after Sporting I would not let Everton ruin my weeks any more.

get a piece of paper, write down three headers, good, crap and indifferent and then list all 2009/2010 games down the left hand side and tick accordingly...............................its quite surprising isnt it?

John,
Your welcome to your view. So are you saying that the tactical change of Hetinga for Osman had no impact on swinging the game in our favour?

God we were all at sea in te first half but fair play to the lads a) for getting back into it and b) to Moyes for making the change - bringing Jags on and moving Heitinga (awesome) into the midfield to get a grip - that enabled us to do it.

I cancelled my ESPN subscription after the game I was so disgusted by the bias of the commentary - they couldn’t have creamed themselves more about Spurs from the off if they’d tried - Modrics goal "touch of genuis" / "contender for goal of the season" FFS. It was a great build up, good turn and a fine finish but goal of the season? It’ll have to get past Pienaars v Arsenal first.

Our problem is up front. Keep Louis and offload the rest - Yak, Anichebe, Vaughan - and invest in two quality strikers.

Soon after Yak scored he lost the ball by the rhs corner, STOPPED and walked up the pitch watching Sp*rs take the ball up the pitch. It was disgraceful.

Good points - fight, never say die, Mikel coming back game by game but we need to strip out the dross in the summer and start adding quality up front, I reckon we’re there or there about elsewhere.

Straw poll please, vote a) or b)

a)we play better when we attack
b)we play better when we defend

Many thanks

ESPN were a disgrace. The commentator asked Waddle if we deserved an equalizer and he said no. I hate the whole plucky everton attitude in the media.

Alan Codling

I wouldnt take any notice of Dick Fearon, His critical comments go way beyong honest observations, ask yourself why TW has been Dickless recently, could it be Ossie’s MOM preformances ? but the minute he drops below the appropriately named Dick will be on like a shot overlooking everyone elses substandard performances, to put the boot in, you can expect Gerry Western and Ciarán along any minute, both singling Osman out whilst overlooking abject performances from other players. worse still they willl even manage to convince themselves its "reasoned crtitism" . I’m convinced they actually want Osman to play badly so they can post the venom.

Everton played 5 men across the middle today, but it was purely Ossie who was to blame

Fucken disgraceful

Sorry Gerry I missed your post, I should have known you would have been in like a shot to blame your whipping boy.

And Gerry, if your looking for a reason why we got stronger in the second half, he’s a really novel idea for you : we scored early and were back in the game, possible ? Na not as far as you are concerned, you have all that blame to apportion and we all know which direction your accusing finger is pointing . . very sad

Charles King

a)

I was a humble amateur footballer, rising to Semi-Pro for a couple of years and then called it a day and took up golf. I never took any badges or whatever but I know that Everton ’s ONLY way forward is to always attack slowly, play the ball square , then back slightly and finally over to a full back and then to try to get round the back using the full backs overlapping Pinnear or Donovan, by which time the opposing team has got 6 back into the box to thwart any cross. I think we scored more goals from set play than any other last year - terrific !!

We seem incapable of quick movement around their box , exploiting space, good passing interchange which leads to a clear shot on goal - like Modric’s today and for that matter a lot of Spurs type goals,also like Lisbon’s 1st.

Once we come up against reasonable full backs like the Spurs pair today we can t get behind and even though we have a huge amount of possession we actually create little. Our goal was a set piece , Pinnear’s chance a poor pass by them , a Jags header from a set piece . ONly Donovan’s chance was from a string of passes.

Modric and Kranjar (how did we miss out on this guy earlier in season) technical levels were way above anything we had even arteta !!

We will be fighting Brummie for 8th lol more like holding off Fulham for ninth the league has been as competetive as i can remember, creaping up the rails aint gonna happen, but with a couple of additions (wingers please) and off loading of a few players-Yak Vaughan, anichebe, cahill, hibbert,osman -should get 20 mill from that lot, a couple of loans, as well as two 8 mill -players from europe, and we have a genuine chance of silverware !

Considering our "terrible" record at Spurs, if we had won today, it would of been our fourth win in a row there.

That game pretty much defined Everton under Moyes, always making work for ourselves and then trying to fix the mistakes when its too late.

We only started playing in Lisbon when we was two goals down, can’t count the other times when we begin playing when its too late.

Dave, there you go shooting from the hip again. If you read my post you’ll find I haven’ t actually criticised Osman’s performance. I’ve simply said Hetinga was much better suited to combating the power and strength of Huddlestone and Palacious. I don’t see why Hetinga should be denied praise.

It’s interesting that a really good recovery in the second period is completely ignored by both your posts above. Care to explain why? A little churlish of you don’t you think

Mike Oates - if you’re refering to Krancjar how do you think we missed out on him?

I’m not sure Goodison featured on the "Fratton Park to White Hart Lane" taxi rank - "All fares and backhanders paid in full by Mr H Redknapp Esq."

One thing that strikes me about most of the posts, is that nobody gives other teams any credit. I thought Spurs were very good today, their passing was pretty slick, and they attacked very well. When they are playing like this, its hard for any team to show their game, you just end up trying to neutralise them. Moyes got his formation and personnel wrong in the first half, there is no doubt. But he changed it around, and got us back in the game. Thats life, we aren’t the first team to be beaten by Spurs. They have had a good season up to now. To suggest we created no chances from open play is absolute rubbish. Pienaar created his own chance by intercepting, Yakubu created space for a shot by himself and put it over the bar, and Rodwell’s shot was saved. And Donovan should have scored. There is 4 shots from open play.

Osman was only playing there as Fellaini is out. And quite simply, he is not as good. Considering it was on the back of a heavy defeat in Portugal, I don’t think it was the worst performance I have ever seen. It could have been a lot better in the 1st half, and Moyes needs to learn from that.

Dan - you’re right - maybe one of the boys should have ruffled Modric’s hair after twenty and said "you’re having a great game Luka, got for it!" too.

In a letter I wrote AFTER Ossies fine game against Man Utd I did say that he is not a 90 minute player on a regular basis and should be kept on the bench and brought on if games are not going well...Heitinga is better in midfield for away games with Jags and Yobo behind until Fellaini is back..that seems common sense to me !! Ossie is a decent squad member but not a regular starter..Im afraid that our captain is definitely being shown up for lack of pace and needs a rest...another candidate for the bench !! Try Coleman for a few games. My present team would be Howard, Coleman, Jags, Yobo and Baines. A midfield of Donovan, Heitinga, Arteta,Pienar with Cahill and Saha up front..the bench would be Anichebe, Turner, Osman,Rodwell and Neville.

Type or paste your comment here. No txt-speak, please try to use proper grammar, all-lowercase posts are likely to be deleted

Mike Oates you’ve hit the nail on the head. exactly what I was saying to my dad whilst watching the game and also what has been a fault with everton under Moyes. We take too long to create chances by which time the opposition has men back. we need more dynamism and pace.

Also got to say the game totally passed Rodwell by. he is simply not ready for these kind of games yet. Donovan or Vaughan should have started the game.

Oh and Howard WAS at fault for the 2nd goal. I can’t recall the last time a goalie was chipped/lobbed from inside the 18 yard box by a shot which barely went over his head. A shame as he’s had a good season overall other a couple of bloopers (see anfield)

Other than that pleased with the fightback and Piennar back to his best again eventually. Jags looked good too. We desparately need a good striker or two in the summer though..

Dan
I have to agree with you.

I believe our goal was the first scored against Spurs for the last 10 home games.

Appy Arry and his coaching staff have obviously beefed up Spurs defensive qualities and their forward play has never been in question.

I just wonder however if Coleman had been playing instead of Neville would Bale have been able to go on those runs and would we have conceded the first goal.

I still think that with Felli, Saha and Cahill back we would be a match for Spurs.

Awful 1st half...We cant keep saying we fought well when we were 2 - 0 down..We should never get to being 2 down in the first place...

Moyes really needs to rethink his line up...Neville again was a shambles today, booked after just 9 minutes. When will he ever learn ( and why cant he just foul them instead of going through them for a certain card)

Frustrating and painful with not too many pluses except for Jags looking as if he never left and Johnny in midfield looking like Mad Dog Gravs, but honestly Big Vic was poor, the Yak not in it and was it me or did Donovan look miffed and disinterested? He didn’t look his normal buzzing self and he just wasn’t tuned in, most odd..
Another game we lost rather than got beaten. Tactically Moyes got it wrong to begin with, he could and should have changed it after the first goal and certainly the second..

Ok Gerry

I’ll try to explain how the modern game works for you, A team, any team has to stay compact, a team stretched out 60-70 yards will be destroyed by a skilled compact unit ( see Lisbon + first half yesterday) you have to move as a unit. This comes from the back.
If you’re really lucky you have a big personality in goal who will subtly whisper to his defenders "GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE " we are not lucky , Howard is indeed TIMid.
So you look to your defenders to do it but we have more dummies than Lewis’s window in that department, Yobo, Distin,Baines, Hibbert, Senderous all play the game in Silence, you need your communicators, without them you are not a unit. Neville was run ragged first half yesterday got himself booked and was poor, Johnny was below his usual standard - he actually got worse when he went into midfield.

Enter Jags, full of confidences he pushed us up as a unit, we were no longer stretched.
The defence and the attack were in the same post code as Arteta, Pienaar, we scored a goal and suddenly WHL was given a first hand look at what a good side we are when we are all singing from the same Hymn sheet,we had chance after chance . . and if Hetinger had really been up to standard as a midfield player, or Vic was’nt blowing out of his arse after 10 minutes ( I know he’s been out, but shame on him for not being fitter than that) or his replacement Donovan wast being cruelly exposed as a mere flash in the pan, or Rodwell could find one single ounce of aggression to go with his undoubted talent, or we put any one of the golden opportunities we’d carved out away.
We wouldn’t be having this conversation.

We lost, but this time we lost with a bit of fight and dignity, so While I’m bitterly disappointed, I’m not downcast and the reason I’m not downcast is because I try to analyze what I’ve seen and it wasn’t all bad.
if we have played badly as individuals, or as a unit I will say so, but I will never, not ever resort to this sickening singling out of the same player every time we dont win.

When I applauded the team off yesterday, I had a look around, the Evertonians had stayed to a man, they’d done the eight hour round trip but knew their team had shown great character in the second half.

I never heard a single one of them come out with a brainless " we improved because Ossie was taken off " even though we could all see that he had been poor along with the rest of them. But then again the overwhelming majority are far too knowledgeable to come out with shite like that

Dave, Osman was shit though wasn’t he? And he was shitter than Heitinger, Rodwell and Arteta. He was also shitter than Donovan. The only midfielder not as shit as Osman was Anichebe, who’s just come back from an awful injury but he got taken off as well.

I think people are totally justified to say Osman was shit. Credit to him, he’s played better recently but he has to work on his consistency before people stop pointing out that most of the time he’s shit.

This pretty much confirms my suspicion as to how on earth manure allowed Osman so much time and space on the ball, where all you need to do post a player next to Osman and steamroll him as he collects the ball.

Which pretty much confirms another depressive thought - Chelsea and Manu had an off day.

This game gave me an indication of a bigger problem...most of this season the team has more or less picked itself through injuries, suspensions etc...

As soon as Moyes has what is termed as a ’selecion headache’ - he reverts to his tendency to play people out of position...

Heitinga has been absolutely fantastic in centre half...and what does Moyes do...move him to midfield.

For me, Moyes is a manager who is better when he is forced to pick the best players for the positions..otherwise he starts to fuck about...

Does anyone think Pienaar tries to beat two or three players when a simple pass is on ? I lost count of the number of times he ends up in a heap on the floor, looking for a free kick.

A good player, but that part of his game really grates.

"I’m convinced they actually want Osman to play badly so they can post the venom."

----------

Grow up Dave.

Ciaran - are you having a laugh. Heitinga was moved into midfield as we were getting over run, he played the first 45 minutes in defence.

This was a tactical change to get us back into the game, as we had nobody else we could play in CM who could beef it up a bit.

I for one, won’t complain at the team to start - if that midfield was good enough to beat Chelsea and Man Utd, why should you question it against Spurs - is their midfield better than Chelseas?

Donovan looked off the pace when he came on, so I can understand why he was left out. Yak did ok, but we lacked the pace and movement of Saha up front and fro the first half our midfield could’nt get the ball.

We play better when the midfield get to support the forward, unfortunately they spent too much time chasing shadows in the first half, so when the Yak got the ball he was isolated.

Second half was better as we kept the ball and had time to build attacks. I thought we deserved a point, and considering the last few weeks I am not too disappointed overall. If you would have offered us 6 pts from Liverpool away, Chelsea Home, Man Utd home and Spurs away, I would have snapped your hand off.

I still believe we have a shot at 4th place given the remaining fixtures of all 5 teams, but we need to make our easier run in count

Chris,

You’re missing my point..one of the major problems that I’ve had with Moyes is his playing players out of position...

Moving Heitinga to midfield was simply another example of this...

Whether it had a great deal of impact on our second half improvement is a matter of debate..personally I think he wasn’t that great in midfield...

The point i’m making is that this move (whether you believed it to be the rigth one or not) is indicative of one of Moyes major tactical faults...IMO...

Anichebe on the wong was another example of it...he’s not a winger, he’s a striker..and his major asset is his ability to hold the ball up and would be a perfect foil for Saha...but Moyes plays him as a wide player with an actual wide player sitting on the bench...

Chris, you’re right we do have a shot at 4th but we have to play pretty much all of those teams we’re competing with for that position away from home. If we win all of our remaining games then we should make it into the top 6 but we’ve won 3 games away from home all season so don’t get too excited.

As pissed off as I am to lose to Spurs the reason we’re in this position now is because we lost to Hull, Bolton and Burnley and we couldn’t beat the likes of Wolves and Stoke at home. We also couldn’t beat the teams around us like the shite, Spurs at home and Villa at home. We are no longer the best of the rest, this season has seen us relegated into that 3rd category where we are now the best of the worst.

"So you look to your defenders to do it but we have more dummies than Lewis’s window in that department, Yobo, Distin,Baines, Hibbert, Senderous all play the game in Silence"

Dave, Isn’t that why a certain Mancunian is in the team at RB?

Anyone think it might be worth putting said Mancunian into midfield for though away games? The football may suffer but it might make us harder to beat. It seems we lack a bit of physicality in MF since Fella’s injury?

Ciarán

Read the first response in this thread, then read Alan clarkes idiotic post, then go on to read Jason lams posts, he has brought this whipping boy culture to a hole new level, When our guy plays well . . . . He blames the fucken opposition ! absolutely incredible.

Now tell me - whilst keeping a staight face - that this is just fair crticism, actually dont bother, you’re every bit as bad

This isnt fair analisis it’s vile toxic shite, I refuse to believe anybody with half of brain who takes the slightest interest in the game can think One man - our best player in February by a mile - can be held accountable for 7-8 other players failing to play to the expected standards

l think the best tactic Moyes could use is tell them they are 1 or 2 down before the game starts because they only seem to get motivated when we go behind !

Dave,

Suggesting anyone wants to see Everton players play badly is ’vile toxic shite’..

Catch a grip.

I have to agree on Ciarans last shout about playing players out of posistion.
Why all the sudden change our whole game plan after one bad performance last week?
The main reason for our good run has been a fairly settled side playing an attacking formation but when I saw Anichebe and Rodwell in the starting eleven I knew what game we would be heading for.
I think he will be a great player, but I am starting to side with the overated gang a bit lately as he is too crab like at the moment and his distribution is not too hot either.
Next Sunday should IMO see Jags and Donovan start and maybe even Bily as we need to just go all out for the win but I am living with the thought of Hetinga and Rodwell in midfield as it appears Moyes has a bit of a thing for Distin.
Moyes has had his plaudits but this past week his starting tactics have been shocking but somehow it’s always someone else’s fault bar his.

So its now a crime to recognise and expose this spiteful shite ?

being one of the exposed I can well see why you’d like to portray it as such

read the three post I spoke about and tell me these guys dont want Ossie to play badly, or better still, why not let Dick, Alan and Jason come on and tell us they enjoyed Ossies recent good form ?

Maybe they’ll display the moral courage you lack by actually say how they feel instead of hiding in the shaddows of faint praise and back handed compliments

Fellaini and Cahill are both a big miss for us at the moment - the unsettled defence due to inelligibility in Europe has cost us, and both Anichebe & Gosling should be sold/farmed out/binned altogether in my opinion. Anichebe is never going to be any good, he’s lazy, slow, has no pace and seems to not care, ever. Gosling is much the same, bar a couple of lucky goals (the RS and Man Utd).

We always lost to Spurs in London so personally I was philosophical as ever about the result.

Donovan looked tired, hence not starting the game and Bilyaletidinov likewise I assume - both these players have already played a full season before coming to Everton I think so can be excused tiredness.

Its the same old story basically, we lack numbers as a squad and it sometimes haunts us. Moyes knows his players better than we ever will, so when he plays certain people over other, I would assume theres good reason behind it.

He will always pick his best starting 11, dependant on injuries, tiredness, match fitness etc.

Onward & upward.

Ciaron - Chris Briddon’s 100% right.

When 2-0 down and we replace an attacking midfielder with a centre half I wondered what Moyes was playing at but it was a great move, giving us a platform of control to take the game to them.

Dave,

Exposed? Lacking in moral courage?

You need to get out more mate.

or talk to me cat more often

Dave, judging by the virulence of your comments, I suspect your cat already enjoys your confidences.

Assuming you haven’t eaten it.

Ciaran, can I ask what was the last game you attended?

Mike

Good post , my sides are splitting, you must be the funniest Evertonian I’ve ever come across

and Everton ?

Fuck me Dave, what’s your loyalty to Osman? I could count the number of good games that you class as recent good form on one hand. The reason he comes in for so much stick is because the majority of the time he’s crap.

I acknowledge he has had a better spell but yesterday and last thursday he was one of our worst players. This frustrates me more because why can’t he play like he did against Man U and Chelsea every game? He has shown he has ability but he goes missing or is far too lightweight in the majority of games. A lot of people would agree he’s like playing with 1 less man in the majority of games. I am not waiting for him to fail, I am waiting for him to play to his own high standards but he doesn’t.

You, Dave, are in the minority in your appraisal of Osman yet your self-righteousness seems to make you think you can start with name calling to anyone who disagrees with you.

I didn't see the Spurs game but to single Ossie out for criticism against Lisbon is ridiculous. It was a collective dire performance. The entire team was gash.

Alan

Fair play for coming back.
I’m not in a minority, I’m actually with the majority, If I had to choose an Everton team from a fully fit squad, Osman would NOT be in it, however when Isee people singling him or any other player out for abuse I cant help but see red.
Its everyones right to have an opinion of a player as long as its honest.

I think Donovan is being found out, he plays with his head down, he wont have the good fortune of coming up against Garry Neville every week and I just dont think he is prem class.
thats called an opinion, or at least the way I see it
Now if the guy proves me wrong in any games I will be delighted and I will say so, if he doesnt then I wont be surprised, but what I wont ever do is come on here and single him out every time we dont play well.

I can say in all honesty that if I actually felt I should write the sort of abuse you aimed at Ossie in your original post, then I would call it a Doris, if the time comes when my dislike for an individual blinds me to everything else thats gone wrong I would stop watching.

Lets face it I always seem to be in a minority of one when this "whipping boy" issue rears its pug ugly fucken head. so I’ll accept your point that people have a right to see things differently.

But I wont ever like it