From My Seat: Man Utd (A)

How we could do with a Van Persie or dare I say a Rooney right now. Can't understand why we didnt streghthen in the transfer window? Yet another piece of piss poor management. Lets just hope we can turn it on in the Cup next weekend.....

COYB!

We did play some fairly good stuff at times but I think it was only because United let us. Jags was magnificent today doing the work of two CB's, Heitinga shouldn't get a game in a Sunday morning pub side, he is an embarrassment.

The Emperor hath no clothes I'm afraid.

Recently I have struggled to maintain enthusiasm because far too often my hopes have crashed. I could deal with those slings and arrows but too often they have resulted from Moyes tactical naiveté and not the players ability.

Saturday's game left me with a sinking feeling that for as long as he stays things will not change. Everton has made him a millionaire several times over yet he cannot boast a single trophy to show for it. Too often when we were in with a chance of winning something it was his negativity, poor use of subs or tactical naiveté that threw it away.

When he came from Preston we accepted that he was on a learning curve. From a total of approx 40 games at OT, Anfield, Emirates and the Bridge he cannot boast one lousy victory. That is quite some learning curve, eh.

Recipient of multiple manager of the month awards yet he is regularly outmaneuvered by managers with less resources at their disposal. If he had a shred of dignity he would demand a decent transfer budget or shoot through. From being one of his strongest supporters, my views have turned full circle.

Watching the game on Foxtel, it looked like we had mostly given up from the start but we got it back together for a while without ever looking in danger of scoring. MU were clearly the better side on the day (no real surprise there!).

Personally, I would have liked to see Davey try something different, at least in the 2nd half. Same old, same old was never going to put us in sight of a repeat of last year. There is a time to try................

Strangely, after all the posts last week........... Jonny was at fault for the tirst and Pip for the second.

Goind forward it looks as if we will be fighting with the team across the park for sixth spot. Arsenal and Spurs are on good runs and with Spurs, Arsenal, Chelsea all away we are unlikely to collect the fourth of fifth spots.

We will rue or lack of activity in the transfer market in January 2013.

Oldham next Saturday, 2 stops from Wembley and 3 from the final.

Whatever way you look at it, the whole debacle from start to finish was either a con job or Moyes eff'ed up yet again.

Another thing that's been mentioned often of late, is Duffy and giving him a game, especially in light of Heitinga being in terrible form for some reason (lets not bother to debate that, it's plain to see he's struggling, and thats enough said). My opinion is this; David Moyes should be taking a leaf out of Alex Ferguson's book with young players. When he has defenders like Rio Ferdinand getting towards the end of their careers, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs close to the end, what he does is buys a young replacement a few years before and gently bloods them by using them in games against the 'lesser' teams. Then he uses them more & more and very gradually phases them in, and the older players out. It's not rocket science but most managers do not do this. SAF has been doing it for years in all positions, and it's the basic reason why Utd have had such prolonged success.

You can't just 'give Duffy a go' against Utd at OT and expect the guy to succeed - he has to be gently introduced, and Moyes fails to do this with ALL our young players, so when they do get a game (generally because his hand is forced), they so often fail to do well and then he discards them.

It's this bloody mindedness that is Moyes achilles heel, and shows a lack of flexibility and fore-thought.

Look at players like Chris Smalling and Phil Jones at Utd - both young Internationals who have been gently bedded into the team, while Ferdinand has been slowly eased out. It also keeps players as happy as they can be kept and doesn't rock the boat or cause a huge amount of instability. Moyes needs to be more flexible and have more faith in his younger players, especially on a tight budget.

If he drops Duffy in at OT, he'd probably get crucified by Rooney & Van Persie, but ease him in and he'll succeed - the kid has talent, it just has to be nurtured in the right way before it's too late and he slopes off to the lower leagues or becomes error-prone due to inactivity and not having his skills polished in the first team.

If you've ever watched any of the reserve games on Everton TV you'll see that none of the Duffy's, Barkley's, are anywhere ready (and maybe never) for the PL. If you think Heitinga positional play and speed is poor, Duffy's exactly the same and his distribution is woeful. This is Moyes dilemma, we are still in shout for some sort of European place (probably Europa Cup) and whilst we are Moyes wont give any young lads a chance. If we drop out of both - he'll have to as the likes of Fellaini, Baines and Heitinga will be gone next year.

You could well be right about Duffy but out of him and Heitinga only one could improve with games.

The problem I have with your comparison to Fergie is its far easier to blood youngsters when you're playing with the players Utd have and are 2 or 3 up at half time.

Plus the fact that Smalling and Jones cost over £ 24 million to buy and had played over 40 games between them for their previous clubs.

As I said though, there has been games where we could have brought youngsters on (Cheltenham) but Moyes chose to bring on the usual suspects.

Promoting from within should be the name of the game for a club like ours, but all we ever seem to do is bring in young players to warm the bench. It all seems a bit pointless to me. Baxter/Oviedo/Guaye/Duffy/Barkley/Vellios etc etc have simply not been played enough in games where we should use them. Players need experience, otherwise they stagnate, don't develop and simply leave or get sold for next to nothing, leaving us further exposed.

In his 11 years at the club, who apart from Osman has come through, made an impact and stayed in the first team? Rodwell hasn't exactly set the World alight, and was sold at the right time so that one went pretty well!

This transfer window was a missed opportunity, but we could still loan IN the likes of OFOE if we were seriously trying for a euro spot.
FFS we have loaned OUT two of our regular subs so now our bench is a shambles.

I just didn't think the comparison with Utd was right.

It means that we don't get the proper chance to rotate the squad like we could.

Or Duffy gets fed up of never getting a chance even though he deserves it and asks to leave and would go for next to nothing. That could cost the club even more in the long run than letting Heitinga's value drop.

Kieran

If Merson is right then it still makes sense to give younger players a go in the games we're narrowly winning because its inevitable that the first 11 will burn out and badly under perform later in the season. What Merson says could be part of the reason but it could also be that the first 11 know their place in the team is secure regardless of how they play.

The lack of depth is killing us in so many ways. We don't progress as a squad and it's as we all know, a squad game more than ever before, plus our first team are all pretty much assured of their places so they don't compete as they should do.

All the top teams have players with cover in every position so their players put it all on the line in every game, otherwise they know they'll be in the stiffs before they know it - we simply don't have that competition and our first 11 must be knackered by now as Paul says.

We have a burnt out team, with nobody to replace them and it's starting to show.

I still have very little idea how he managed to play the entire World Cup for them. The man is a charlatan who thinks he's something he's not.

To be honest I have never rated Heitinga and don't think he deserved player of the season last year. He simply lacks too many attributes for a CB in the Premier league.

So I think the lack of funds to build a decent squad is now beginning to cost us dearly, I see players who were playing great up to Christmas now looking like they badly need a rest. But with our only chance of silverware being the FA Cup I think it would be a very brave manager who decided to rest 3/4 players against Oldham, then the following week we are back trying to get back into the battle for 4th place so again little chance of resting our better players.

You can't blame players for being worn out when they've been overplayed, and you can't blame the Manager in some respects either. We simply don't have enough depth. That said, Moyes should have been playing players like Duffy to improve him, or at least try to. Again, that said (!), playing Duffy wouldn't have given the rest of them a rest either.

Pienaar & Osman both looked shagged out at the moment, Baines hasn't been his dynamic self of late either and Jelavic, well....

The modern game is intense and all top managers rotate their squad to prevent the type of burn out that Everton seem to have suffered from. We don't have good players in our squad to rotate and our first 11 takes a pretty heavy load. Very bad as some are also prone to injury.

Tiredness is mental and pyhsical. Couple of fresh faces would have lifted the players, provided impetus, new face day to day around the training ground etc.

I also think we don't have the same cutting edge or threat as to a large extent teams have found a way to play against us and we are lacking in other options and ideas.

Groundhog day for the players to a certain extent.

One thing though, we used to be great from corners and dead balls, attacking wise, under Moyes. Whats happened there? The goals used to compensate for our lack of goal threat from open play.

1) We are only now returning to a consistent run of one game a week (assuming no cup replays), which has not been the case really since pre Christmas. That should cure fatigue.

2) Mirallas should come back into form soon.

3) Jelavic should come back into form soon.

4) Moyes may have an epiphany and send Heitinga to the glue factory or Findus / Tesco / Waitrose horse processing depot (unlikely).

5) Gibson should come back into form soon.

6) A confidence building dispatching of Oldham a la Cheltenham (hopefully John Stones will make his debut) can set us back on the right road.

7) Gareth Bale, Santi Cazorla and Rat Face may get crocked rendering our fellow 4th spot chasers impotent (unlikely).

Heitinga is getting dog's abuse and yet Neville to my mind was just as guilty for the first goal and he played RvP on for the second whilst looking along the line. His crossing yesterday was shocking and I fail to see what his inclusion brought to the team yesterday.

After they scored, our play improved as Pienaar and Mirallas swapped wings; we looked up for it and I thought we had a chance. We didn't really see Baines as an attacking threat as often Pienaar ran into the midfield rather than staying wide.

The goal before the break killed us and second half was rubbish at best, from both teams. It is clear to me Rooney and RVP are light years ahead and are the reason why Man Utd will win the league, their movement is immense. Cleverley looks a player but, apart from those three, I wasn't particularly impressed by them.

We don't possess a goal threat at the moment, starting with Big Vic against Man Utd was a joke. Both Pienaar and Osman faded badly as the game wore on and needed replacing. Not sure what has happened to our Kev, he looked a world beater during the derby but since then has gone backwards, possible as a result of working his way into our system of play.

One thing stood out yesterday and in recent weeks: our fluid quick passing has stopped; far too often, when in advanced positions, we stop and pass it back allowing the opposition to reorganise.

I can't see us getting into Europe now and if the players think so too then I can see us dropping like a stone. Sadly all the decent form of our players has gone, only Gibson and Jags played well yesterday and that is not acceptable. Changes in the summer are a must.

Also the weird formation at the start with Pienaar & Mirallas switching flanks; what was the point of that? All-in-all, a depressing performance from a tired looking side.

Gareth #504. You really are feeling negative, mate! Hey, the cup has its surprises. Of course, we CAN win it! Let's get past Oldham first.

David #509. Are you saying that our management and coaching team is a tactic free zone???? Certainly, we've been out-guessed a plenty this season.