Spare a thought for the biopsychosocial male

But hey, you can probably read anything you want into that masterpiece!

Waste of a page Nick, could have summarised it in about 3 lines.

If that is true then it makes it even harder for me to understand those posters on here who in the aftermath of the Wigan game tried to "put it in perspective", "a bad day at the office", "can't blame it on Moyes", "just a one-off", etc etc etc, and find it even more difficult to understand when the manager, in the aftermath of the Wigan game, tries to find excuses rather than just come out and say "We were an absolute disgrace and I apologise to all the supporters for embarrassing this great Club."

I think your article should be pointed at the players and staff. In my opinion, it is them who should galvanise the crowd — not vice versa or a joint effort. As you said it was the Neville tackle, The Donovan and Jelavic signings. Things initiated by the team/Club.

All these arseholes are only passing through; we're stuck here forever.

I swear you write this stuff just to elicit a reaction, Nick.

Here we are at Easter, being urged to demand a 4th place finish with a team that should have if managed correctly and backed financially have finished in 3rd place. Let's see what demands are made on the players tomorrow against Stoke, then we'll know whether City was just a guilty reaction to Wigan or a serious assault on CL football.

Not only have you used it in the wrong context, what you wrote is a load of bollocks as well. Then again we must all be fucking radio rental to put with the shite and lies dished up season after season.

COTB

Seriously though, a very good diagnosis of where we went wrong.

You continuously mock Moyes and the teams he plays at Anfield with regular venom. I have to ask, have you been to Anfield? Have you maybe gone to just 1 of the 11 visits Moyes has made for EPL or cup games?Or are you basing all your email posts on last years 3 nil loss?

The Anfield game is always fucking shite! The atmosphere makes it the most intense and ugly game of the season, with most players looking to survive 90 minutes without getting kicked or booked or both. The 2004 & 2007 games both ended 0-0 but we had penalty claims turned away that were so obvious it was laughable, but hey, every fucker was kicking the shite out of AJ. The 2010 and 2011 games should have both been stopped after 5 minutes as the ref was allowing almost anything, hence we lost Fellaini for 3 months and several players to red cards. So how you can use words like "shit house" tactics when blue players are getting kicked to fuck is beyond me.

I can see you are no Moyes fan, I can also see that you have no time for his game plan. But rest assured, I doubt he tells his players to pop out and get yourself kicked to shit by Stevie G or Carragher.

Shithouse tactics at Anfield - Never.

Presumably lifted straight from the pages of "Teach yourself Psychology in a Day."

I once had a mate who wanted to be an accountant; and, study as he might, he kept getting the basics wrong. Then a wrinkled, old book-keeper told him that "the debit side is always nearest to the window", he's done so well since that he'll probably be the next Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Now that it is posted, however, there is little wrong in telling Mr Entwistle that he is wrong in his understanding of the theory, is there? Or, even, that his post has the appearance of pretension?

Ought to have been posted on ToffeeGeek, not ToffeeWeb.

There is something complicated in why those results happen and I think you have had a fair crack at explaining it. Of course, I might be miles out on this and I'm sure you'll let me know if I am.

Is it pretentious Ken? At a time when TW opinion is no more entrenched black and white mud slinging I know this wouldn't be accepted by many. I had tried to keep it as neutral as possible. But then what is an individual if in fear of his own opinion? So posted it was.

Admittedly lengthy, I'm not so technically minded to know how to upload photos to keep some with limited attention span interested. Perhaps asking them to look at something shiny along the way would have helped.

There are a number of points being made:

(1) the culture of the club in not having success for a very long time does little to help push the team onwards, unless roused by such a horror show as Wigan that was an affront to our history. Hope, expectation, demand. Whatever resonates at the club has its effect.

(2) We are in contention for top 4 no matter what you think of the manager and players and all the complaints that dismiss Everton's challenge are replicated at our competitors.

(3) And, though Sean thinks I'm trying to elicit a reaction, our history does count for nothing with today's players. 26 years of mediocrity resonate more than the 4 years of success that preceded it. Then how many more years do we need to go back?

Like I said, without a dynasty of success, not having a demanding culture... well, now we're back to Number 1.

You say "Tony JW has it right on the negative comments towards this piece as none of them actually counter anything".

Well that is sort of true, but only because there's more or less nothing TO counter.

Seriously how does one counter a tome of fluff other than by saying it's..erm..a tome of fluff?

If you were saying something OTHER than 'We can't play like we did against City every week' and/or 'believe!' or some other stating the obvious 'point' - sorry I (and it seems a few others) missed it.

(out of interest - when you had written 'sociological' for the FIFTH time, did you not think "Maybe this could do with editing"?).

We are ALL guilty of writing/posting bollocks from time to time.

Facts, humour, grammar, spelling etc, but at least (usually) these posts are not physically draining to get through.

So deflect all you want (ie: talk of limited attention spans) it is absolutely legitimate for readers to point out what a waste of time it is when a piece that says so very little, takes so very fuuuuuuucking long to read.

What the hell does MUGs stand for? Moyes Unites Gingers in the best I can do.

As 'MUGS' like you are fond of saying "BELIEVE!!"

Maybe a few less next time mate.

Like any other club, each group of players / manager / board can set their own culture irrespective of what has gone before, that is why clubs rise and fall. It is unfortunate that huge inbalances in resources have skewed things in favour of a smaller group of teams in the premiership years, but it remains a fact that for each game the players and manager have the opportunity to directly influence the result.

It is personal passion and pride that has motivated any player throughout history, not the idea that you have to live up to the expectations of the institution that employs you; a psyche that casts a glance at the stature of the previous club heroes and the opponents on any particular occasion and is then more determined to prove themselves equal or better. That should have nothing to do with whether you won last week, last year, or for the ten years before that (except that prolonged failure should act as an extra spur if anything).

/>Personally, I believe that DM and BK have established a dynasty of their own, but it is one of success at a level that doesn't bring trophies and championships, and so - unless we are all to accept that as the be all and end all - then a new dynasty needs to be established.

Most of us would prefer to give DM a chance with a very wealthy (and spendthrift) benefactor, but if that isn't going to happen then we are left with seeing if another manager can bring whatever is required to ensure that the players understand that beating the likes of Wigan and Citeh is something that they have control of.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and after reading your post again, I have to say you obviously put a lot of thought and effort into it. Honestly, it didn't do much for me but it may have been of some interest to others.

Perhaps I should have kept my mouth shut (@755) but then again the nature of your post did remind me of the style of the one "with the blue eyes". He bores me to tears.

Not one of the mob. NOOTB

Did I agree or disagree with the article? immaterial really. Any meaningful discussion has been quickly squashed by the "you're an idiot for posting this" attitude of so many people.

Abraham Lincoln once said -
"A drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall."

Is it just me who switches off as soon as the gall starts to be thrown around?

After reading Andy's post I'll be very careful about trying to express my sense of humour or opinions over the internet in future.

If I have offended you I apologise to you and anyone else on this site who is offended by my comments.
COTB

You obviously spent a lot of time and energy composing your article/essay and that in itself deserves credit lad!

Looking over it, it's so easy to chop every paragraph by 50% and still retain the meaning but, if it's not 'Moyes is shit' then it will get criticised either way.

I think you touch on the classic Nature/Nurture debate. The relative quality of a team's players are obviously essential in achieving success. But the question is if it's more important than other factors such as the way in which the team works together and the culture of the club? The extremes (e.g loads of quality but no culture of success and vise versa) may not be sufficient so it's where the balance lies.

The main points you raise in the post are interesting and I think I can appreciate them as contributing factors. Hopefully I've understood you correctly. Man Utd are undoubtedly the giants of English football. Liverpool are the closest in terms of history while Man City are the nearest challengers currently. Man Utd have the expectancy of success. The minimum for their players, fans, manager is a trophy - no win is a failure, and this stems from their illustrious history. The culture surrounding their club is victory - coming close is a failure. Man City definitely have the quality of player available to them, but they don't compare in terms of their culture of success. They can get by with getting close and, although disappointing, it's not a total disaster. Liverpool were like Man Utd one day so I suppose to an extent that culture still exists, but it is nowhere near what it was. The longer it goes on since their club was at the heights it was the less, I would imagine, they would expect to achieve. Look at them now - Just being in the mix for Europe is a success.

The position Everton are in is similar to Liverpool's. The immediate history is pretty fruitless. Liverpool have won the odd (sometimes huge) trophy while we haven't won anything since 1995. Neither of us have achieved much success in the last few years. There is no expectancy to achieve anything. We look at that 4th place finish in awe - a replication to us would be amazing. There isn't another Everton squad in recent times in which surpassing their league position would be of any real difficulty.

This is just one of many interpretations of what we can all observe, and anyone can argue for or against it. As with any science, in psychology you need to try to isolate potential factors in an attempt to find a causal relationship and hopefully achieve parsimony, although you can't really manipulate any variables in football so assumptions have to be made. Most likely though, as with anything, there is an infinite amount of variables at play.

As for me not being a Moyes fan, I get frustrated at him big time and the one thing I hold my hand up to Our Chairman is his patience when things have gone pear shaped on the field, that's about it for Bill though, Moyes though I give him 7.5 out of 10 he has done a good job but actually think he could have done better with more balls and I include those Derbies, you can call me all you like but the proof is in the pudding, you can give it all your chip on your shoulder stuff about us getting nothing off the ref etc but he goes to that ground and no matter how good we are doing he will change to a defensive strategy every time, he shows them too much respect whereas they show us none.

What are your views on those eleven years going to that shithole and never winning or the semi final defeat, are you willing to believe the bollocks of little Everton never get a decision?

I'm sorry Mike but you have me wrong, I hate 11 years of going there and just for once try and attack them, don't be intimidated, but we are Mike and I am not the only blue who thinks that.
I don't dislike Moyes, I just think he can be better, he has it in him.

Any team is a group of individuals and some become more than the sum of their parts. The driving force behind that is each individuals willingness to work for the good of the team to make the team successful and that competitive spirit does not come from outside.

The managers job is to identify players with the ability and the requisite passion and pride to apply it unselfishly and unstintingly. The culture you are talking about is not based on history (recent or not) though that may be used to fan the flames. If a player doesn't have the innate ability to rise to the challenge of proving themselves to be as good or even better than the club's / nations / their own heroes they will not simply absorb it from their environs or their club-mates.

Alex Ferguson did not walk into a successful club, he walked into one that had mediocre performances on the pitch despite the belief in their own superiority. It took him a while but he eventually created a successful team and has continued to do so by recreating it appropriately as players have come and gone. When he leaves, if they do not appoint someone with his ability to identify the right players then they will quickly fall to Citeh's level or below.

Diet, training, facilities, etc can make athletes perform better, money can by you the best natural ability, but the qualities that make a team successful have to be an integral part of the manager and all the players as they can only be evoked, not pumped in.

However that is only one match, and I didn't even mention substitutes, managers tactics, or occasional red cards. Over the course of a season other factors come into play – depth of squad, suspensions, injuries, fan influence, managerial policies etc. like you said

What I was trying to say is that there are countless variables at play, and Nick raised an interesting point. I don't think this factor is a major one by any means – I think the better team (quality of player x interaction between those) will generally prevail. But there has to be a reason (/reasons) why we see such a gap between two teams of seemingly similar quality, I.e. Man Utd and Man City. United have outperformed them in every tournament this season, and considerably so in the most easily measurable of them – the Premier League. Again this is probably down to the interpersonal relationships and the better complimenting of players as well as perhaps better management of Man Utd, but could the culture of success not play at least some part?

In a perfect world we would be able to engineer two squads of exactly equal quality of player, who work together as well as each other. We could account for all injuries and red cards so neither team receives advantage due to either factor. Both team would have the same number of players and be managed in the exact same way. The only thing that would be different would be the history of the club – one extremely successful and one distinctly mediocre. If they were put in the same league, playing other teams whose variables also remained constant throughout the season, it would be an interesting experimenter to discover whether or not that factor would make a statistically significant difference. It may help them, maybe pushing them on to glory, there may be no difference or maybe it would hinder them, the pressure perhaps being too much. Obviously this is all hypothetical and totally impossible but in my eyes an interesting discussion nonetheless.

He brought success to that club beyond anything that had gone before and has proved himself by continuing it for decades. Okay, the strong financial base helps but initially, at least, he wasn't able to out compete people by dint of his transfer kitty alone.

A lot was written about Olympians last year and there must be many of those to admire for their ambition and desire who don't come from a great tradition.

I don't deny the positive effects of inspirational surroundings and shining examples, I just feel that it is next to useless if the player doesn't have the capacity to respond to it consistently and in the correct manner. It is also probable that the best places / set-ups / managers attract those with the ambition to match. It is then up to the manager to weed out those who look the part but lack the spirit.

I think you may have touched on subjects that explain the feelings and frustrations of many life long Evertonians at the present time. My views on on David Moyes and the past 11 years are more or less in alignment with with Paul Galdwell at #108, although the last time I was at Anfield we beat them 4-0 with a team that looked like it "had no chance".

It is an inescapable fact that individual leaders have, in all fields of human endeavour and throughout the course of history, inspired people to believe that they can win and believe that they can change their circumstances against all odds.

Ho Chi Minh did it for the Vietnamese people, Winston Churchill did it for Britain. In the football context, and as you have quite rightly pointed out Sir Alex Ferguson did this at Man Utd and dare I say it, perhaps the greatest example of all of this sort of influence, was Bill Shankly for our arch (footballing) enemies in the sixties. What a leader of men he was!

In my view, this is the crux of the matter (leadership) and why I live in the hope that, as my dad always used to tell me "we will be great again".

We have all seen the football the current team is capable of in the first half of the season. We gave Man Utd a footballing lesson at Goodison so there is no reason why the players shouldn't believe in themselves. The question is: Can David Moyes lead them to finish in the top four (again)? A winning attitude and total committment will be required – is this team capable of beating, Spurs, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea away from home. They are the obstacles standing in our way of a top four finish.

COTB

True, when our backs were to the wall, Winston was the right man at the right time.

Rather like Moyes arrival at Everton.

We were certainly staring down the barrel then so to speak.

Of course once the war was over, what I consider to be the most intelligent electorate in British history voted Churchil out sharpish.

Everton need another Clement Attlee imo.

To be fair to some of them, it was a long article by Toffeeweb standards, a bit like subjecting a Daily Star reader to an article in the Guardian I suppose. Somebody mentioned Peter Reid, and funnily enough a quote of his probably sums up your argument fairly neatly: "90% of football is played in the head."

So your take that no recent history of success tends to encourage that to continue is backed up in my opinion by our record at Anfield where too many of our fans now expect a nightmare afternoon and the Manager is often too cautious. A couple of other quotes that also back your theory are, "the first trophy is the hardest to win" and "nothing to fear but fear itself."

I don't think football supporters are thick as you put it, but some are exceedingly rude at times. If Nick's article went over your head, then why not ask him what he meant instead of just dismissing it. He actually makes some good points even though it is a longish read.

Evertonians and toffeeweb readers are usually more intelligent than your average fan in my opinion, just for the record.

Joe Royle would know what I'm going on about.

As for Liverpool... ughhhhhhhhh. But then he pulls out a 343 from no where against Stoke so who knows what his approach will be?

Steve (384) So do I. Spot on and personally, I'd have Joe over Moyes right now.

Not saying he's a genius or anything but he'd never do the 'knife to a gunfight' routine.

Yes maybe there should be some kind of medal cast for this brave act.

I'd suggest something in cast-iron with all the words of the original post on it, but then he'd need 12 big fellers to move him every time he got off the sofa.

Jesus, the Private Godfreys are out in force today.

If you believe that criticism (nb: and importantly WHY you're being critical) is 'rude', then maybe you should stick to helping your sister Dolly make upside-down cakes (nb: that's not 'abusive', it's gentle sarcasm and is generally accepted in critical pieces intended for adults).

Nick himself proved the piece was ridiculously long-winded by writing it again in just three paragraphs in post 864 (points 1,2 & 3).

And Karl, you ask if anyone would complain to the editor of the Guardian if an article was long and complicated.

Well if it was long and complicated and said very little - yes, I imagine they would.

As a reader of that particular newspaper, I certainly would.

I also think it's pretty clear what Nick is saying: support your team to finish in the top 4 — and they might just do so!

Now I KNOW Brent Stephens isn't your real name.

A scintillating response (and congratulations on being the first person to use the F word on British Television Mr Tynan).

Of course there are also plenty of Private Frazers on here as well telling us we're Dooomed! You kind of remind me of the Vicar's sidekick, the Verger, for some reason!

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=u_oSDSPEEdw&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Du_oSDSPEEdw