FAN ARTICLES
Reassure us on the pitch, not in the press
Comments (37) : On the pitch Everton continue to waste golden opportunities to score or are either handing them out to other teams. Phil Neville after the Brentford humiliation said Everton had no more excuses and needed a kick up the backside. Well, no-one seems to have delivered that kick as Everton still can't buy a win and even at some points in games look amateur.
Another poor result against Fulham later and Everton are still trapped in a black hole and don't look like escaping anytime soon. Some would think a point away from home is a good result but it wasn't; we needed a win badly against Fulham and didn't get one. Phil Neville again spoke out, saying the team needed to roll their sleeves up and get our season going. But I have a different suggestion: instead of repeatedly saying the team will soon improve ? how about going out on the field and actually doing it!
Everton are notorious bad starters and this season has been our worst start in decades. The players keep trying to reassure with their wisdom of the squad and the game by saying we're in a false position. But you know what? We're not in a false position because face facts, we've been the worst team so far this season and the table at this moment in time correctly reflects that. But, while Phil Neville and others are busy trying to brush the whole thing off and tell us things will soon change, they don't seem to be actually doing what would assure the fans ? and that is start playing the way they can.
So I say to Phil Neville and the others who echo him, whether it's one of his teammates or anyone else connected to the club, instead of opening your mouth and going off about how Everton fans needn't worry about our predicament as we'll soon get going, why don't you actually go out on the pitch and do what would get Everton out of trouble and put the fears of loyal Evertonian who have endured the misery of this campaign so far to bed ? start playing like the real Everton!
I say, instead of talking about it, do it! I say, put up or shut up! We badly need a win against Birmingham at the weekend; otherwise I believe we're doomed to the humiliation once again of losing the derby and being bottom of the league for a long time. Unless we go into the derby on a win, we've got no chance. Unless we get a win against Birmingham, I fear we'll get stuck in a scrap with the lower teams for a long period. Unless we get a win against Birmingham, we'll be facing the very real possibility of becoming relegation candidates.
Reader Comments (37)
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2 Posted 30/09/2010 at 08:14:11
What was a bit odd was the soundbites from Distin last week. Does he even sound arsed?
3 Posted 30/09/2010 at 08:40:31
As for slagging off the Fulham performance ? did you actually watch the game?
4 Posted 30/09/2010 at 09:06:18
5 Posted 30/09/2010 at 09:46:44
6 Posted 30/09/2010 at 10:14:17
The ultimate Warrior! ha ha Neville you tit.
7 Posted 30/09/2010 at 10:55:53
Disagree about two things:
A point at Fulham is not a bad result. It's not great and yes we needed 3 points but not many teams will dominate Fulham at Craven Cottage the way we did.
Not picking up 3 points at Birmingham does not mean we are in a 'relegation struggle'! There's 32 games to go!! If we are still thereabouts at Christmas THEN we are facing the possibility of a relegation struggle. Till then we have had an awful start. Nothing more.
8 Posted 30/09/2010 at 11:07:24
9 Posted 30/09/2010 at 11:09:29
10 Posted 30/09/2010 at 11:11:02
Get a life please, this happens at every club all the time, they do pre game stuff on a Friday, post game on a Saturday and have a media day on a Tuesay - every week.
As a result, the local press will print the interviews so what else do you expect him to say -
"My goodness we are crap aren't we, personally I'm not sure how I get in the team when St Seamus is around. Talking of Round have you seen the Yak these days still at least he can pass the ball better than Jags - I mean I don't see why we arent in League 2 based on current ability!"
11 Posted 30/09/2010 at 11:13:26
That Osman should never again play on the right? That Distin should be dropped? That David Moyes should play players in their proper positions? That we should bring on a second striker in games, not just substitute like for like?
Criticise Moyes' pre-season preparations?
Now that would've raised a few eyebrows........and surely done wonders for our dressing room spirit. :-p
12 Posted 30/09/2010 at 11:25:37
He is club captain and has to give these daft interviews. I wish they would also shut up and just get on with playing football.
Old Red Nose has it right but unfortunately isn't there a clause in the $ky contract that says teams have to do these daft interviews?
13 Posted 30/09/2010 at 11:32:28
From then on, he appears to pop up most weeks saying this or that and I just think (especially at the moment) just shut up! Go and get it done on the pitch and then talk about the game afterwards, safe in the knowledge that you will not look like a tit by making stupid promises or predictions!
14 Posted 30/09/2010 at 11:55:20
15 Posted 30/09/2010 at 11:56:27
If we dont beat Birmingham (and I've got a horrible feeling it will finish 1-1, hope to f**k I am wrong), again the same old bollocks will be spouted to the press, except it will be intensified with the Liverpool game coming up.
It makes no difference anyway. I have read thousands of passionate statements and interviews from players of every club, the day before their team loses in a dismal performance, with the interviewee being particularly inept. there was even a sort of curse associated with the Observer newspaper, whereby whichever player had a 2-page interview on a Sunday, his team would inevitably lose that day.
16 Posted 30/09/2010 at 12:03:35
17 Posted 30/09/2010 at 12:52:50
Blabbing to the Echo about as pointless an exercise as I can think of.
Give them the injury list, who is fit and who isn't and fuck them off.
I think there's some PL rule about someone having to talk to Sky after the match but that's about it.
Surely "We're going to to..." blah blah blah, is just putting extra pressure on themselves.
And Chris Briddon, you ask 'what do we expect him to say?'
Er I think point being made is say fuck all.
And while I'm here, what the fuck does 'get a life' actually mean?
Someone has a point of view and posts it on TW.
You have a different point of view and post it on TW.
But somehow, they don't have 'a life' and you're living in a 1970's Martini ad?
NOBODY said it was a 'shocking revelation'.
We know WHAT happens, the question is WHY.
18 Posted 30/09/2010 at 13:37:50
Players nowadays especially captains are obliged to do more media events. The media and football teams and players go hand in hand.
Anyway what do you want them to say when someone puts a mic to their face? No comment???
If that were to happen then most of you lot would be slating the guys for being w*nkers for not saying much and not giving the fans insights into the club.
In fact most teams have a class setup to teach their kids how to handle themselves.
It's modern day football.
So GET OVER IT!!!
19 Posted 30/09/2010 at 13:43:31
The fact is we have played reasonably in every league game except Newcastle without having the goals that a fully fit Cahill, Saha or Yakubu would normally convert.
We all know that the defence and the RM should have been beefed up in the close season but with "Black Bill" in charge that was never going to happen.
The support at Fulham, unlike some of the posts on here was first class and is needed to help make up our deficiencies.
So my message is stop moaning and get behind the team at least until we're in a respectable position.
20 Posted 30/09/2010 at 14:18:45
If you read the London local press or the Birmingham Press ot the Sheffield Star they are always full of inane drivel from players because unless you have a midweek game there is chuff all to say yet the press want to here it anyway!
If clubs don't talk to the press ? then the press stops being their friend and it makes life an awful lot more difficult generally for both parties. The current arrangement suits almost everyone (but for a few on here who like to have a go at minor insignificant things that really affect nobody).
It's similar to Bill Kenwright ? people say why do you only see him when we are winning or spouting nonsense when we are bottom? ? Well, funnily enough, being bottom or winning lots are the only times Sky are remotely interested in our football club, and as such the only time they want to talk to the chairman of it!
You only see Dave Whelan when Wigan are crap or on a good run - same applies to chairmen of Bolton, Stoke etc. If you are in midtable not threatening anything, nobody else in the country is remotely interested.
21 Posted 30/09/2010 at 15:01:19
22 Posted 30/09/2010 at 14:45:45
And if there are 'posts like this every week' it must be obvious that many people think it's NOT a good idea, despite you insisting that it is good to be 'friends' with the media.
And presumably, using your logic, we must have done something truly horrible to the national press, as they spent the summer telling us 'Jags for Gunners', Arteta for Barca' and 'Pienaar for everyfuckingoneelse'
Oh and now after your 'get a life', we get Steve Collins telling us to 'get over it'?
What is this Vally Girls? (Everton Valley girls?).
What next - "you should like SO totally not even go there"?
Steve Collins, you say..
"If that were to happen then most of you lot would be slating the guys for being w*nkers for not saying much and not giving the fans insights into the club".
Really?
Is that REALLY what we'd be saying about 'the guys'?
Funny that because that's not what we said about Duncan's refusal to engage with the press?
Think you'll find it was actually more along the lines of "Fuck em' off big man, tell em' fuck-all, shower of gobshites'.
I suggest most Everton supporters, indeed most football supporters are fully aware that what they get from the media by the way of 'insights' is asinine, pointless, NON-insight cack.
Paragraphs full of words that tell us....nothing.
But I'm happy to be proved wrong.
Maybe you could give us some of these 'insights' that have resulted from our captains seemingly endless prattle.
What's that, Osman is nicknamed 'Ozzie'?
Rodwell is a 'level-headed young man with a big future'?
Exactly.
But I'll tell you what, in the spirit of compromise, how about this.
Everton players continue to answer questions from the press but ONLY if the questions are not stupid, inane and/or lazy.
So, the first question/statement along the lines of "So Phil, you can't be too happy with the start you've made", it's fuck off Echo time.
23 Posted 30/09/2010 at 15:50:34
You ask them to prove it on the ptch, well there is only 1 game week while newspapers an Sky news are pretty much 24/7. thus you get these pointless filler articles.
'Phil Neville after the Brentford humiliation said Everton had no more excuses and needed a kick up the backside. Well, no-one seems to have delivered that kick as Everton still can't buy a win and even at some points in games look amateur.'
There has only been one game since then, and it did apppear a kickup the backside occured. Not a great peformance, but not 'amateur'.
24 Posted 30/09/2010 at 16:43:40
25 Posted 30/09/2010 at 18:15:33
COYB
26 Posted 30/09/2010 at 19:54:42
27 Posted 30/09/2010 at 19:45:30
It's long been acknowledged that our team is lacking in a midfield enforcer and pace, but when he has been given the cash to buy, Moyes has bought Bily and Heitinga, yet plays them sporadically, preferring Osman. He has bought some decent players, but let's not forget Krøldrup, Simon Davies and Richard Wright!!
A good manager manages the club, and Moyes has passed up many opportunities to enhance our finances, eg, Richard Wright being allowed to run out his contract; refusing (reportedly) to cash in on the cripple Saha last summer; letting cash hungry Pienaar run his contract down... It may be sacrilege to say so, but taking a good return on Cahill now because of his age would be good business, and would demonstrate that Moyes isn't scared to 'Manage' our club.
Moyes has done okay, but he's run his term - we'll never do anything with him at the helm, and after three poor starts to three seasons in a row, the total responsibily has to belong to Moyes.
28 Posted 30/09/2010 at 20:12:46
Don't read it then it's just how it is when trying to fill the pages, nothing to get to this level of negativity towards Neville but understand the article's general concern over our position..
29 Posted 30/09/2010 at 21:35:55
30 Posted 30/09/2010 at 21:57:13
Let's keep things very clearly in sight here: Moyes has guided our club to the BOTTOM of the league, in just six games. No wins ? the ONLY club out of the entire 92 without a win. I think he's going to come in for some criticism because of that, and much of the criticism is going to be entirely justified because of our atrocious position and the largely inadequacy of his response in rectifying it... so far.
Things could start to improve ? you claim they have already based on a better performance at Fulham. However, in terms of league position, all we have done so far this season is get worse.
3 points in 6 games extrapolates to just 19 points over the season. Some fans are concerned about that kind of form, and rightly so in my opinion. Having the captain spout so much shite each week just rubs salt in the wounds, no matter how reasonable the excuses may be.
31 Posted 30/09/2010 at 22:24:25
He'd be more useful if he stayed in the hioues...
32 Posted 01/10/2010 at 11:56:38
You didn't hear the bankers coming out and saying sorry for the crisis and recession they have caused.
You just get on with it and shut up!!
33 Posted 01/10/2010 at 12:47:06
34 Posted 01/10/2010 at 23:05:44
35 Posted 02/10/2010 at 04:58:22
Whereas your hypothetical extrapolations are just potential future scenarios, possibilities, not probabilities, simply put: fantasy football that exists only in the mind; based on what may happen, or what may not.
But 3 points from 6 games is the reality of where we are now, and that is the only valid future extrapolation of established and recorded history to date. To come up with anything else and claim it somehow has merit is an affront to logic.
Of course, in the future, as the season unfolds anything is possible, but as of now, there is only one extrapolation based on what is already written in stone in the record books. And at each point going forward, there is only one possible extrapolation. That extrapolation likely changes with each new result, but form any point in the season, there is only one valid extrapolation.
Today, as we stand, that extrapolation is 3 pts from 6 games = 19 pts from 38 games. I'll make a point of calculating it again after the next game if you like. It doesn't mean anything beyond a mathematical abstract; however, under the rules of maths, there is only one possible extrapolation. Not a whole host of them, as you seem to be suggesting.
36 Posted 02/10/2010 at 20:04:46
37 Posted 02/10/2010 at 23:14:34
My possibility is, as you say, potential future scenarios. Your extrapolation is, as you say, based on established fact.
Where does your indication of 'probabilities' in your extrapolation fit? Does 3 points from 6 games mean an actuality of 19 points. Does 'probability' 'exist in a real world.
Anyway, despite my comments, which might look confrontational (they're not meant to be), I love the site. As a Scouser, 4 generations as Blues including marriages, I am all for EFC websites, there aren't enough. So, thank you.
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1 Posted 30/09/2010 at 05:17:43
His latest yapping is about Yakubu getting back to his best and Seamus Coleman being a "warrior"... now regardless of the last statement being embarrassing, seriously who the fuck wants to hear what he's got to say? Also why at the moment is he talking to the media every bastard day, repeating shit he has said for the past 5 seasons?
I'm sick of the fucking has been now ? come on Moyes fuck him off.