While I see where you are coming from Sean, and with all due respect, let's wait till something like that happens before you make that authoritative claim ie watch everton win a trophy "ugly". Your sentiments might not be what you say. It's easy to say that what we will feel if this or that happens; fact is it hasn't.
Fact- many fans don't care how we put one over the Reds. We instead will justify it on bragging rights, blos and thunder football etc.
Did we win the 95 FA cup in the school of science manner? We have a short period of passing football in the first half, a brilliant fast break that almost didn't reap its benefits. Then it was scrap and back against the wall till the 90th minute.

Sean, if a manager deliberately plays dour, smash and grab tactics every week and nicks narrow wins as a result, then I might agree with you. However, if it is a one off victory against a supposedly better side that's achieved with solid tactics, fair play and dogged determination, then sorry, the theory is bollocks.

What would anyone have expected Chelsea to do against Barcelona - other than what they did?

However, playing no attackers away against a team at the bottom of the league, now that's an entirely different matter!

The game has changed dramatically in the time I've watched it from the School of Science where Everton dominated and played marvelous soccer to today where playing good adventurous soccer is the easiest way to oblivion. Players are fit now and the simple notions of pass and run into space just don't work because space is filled in and players with the ball are closed down quickly. We have to accept now that players have to pass back and sideways to try to pull players out of position, even the best teams haver to do this at times. I'll make an exception for sides like Spain who are blessed with a crop of great players but for sides as cash constrained as Everton and the vast majority of the EPL keeping it tight is essential most of the time. Today not losing is the success criteria, winning but playing well isn't.

Ray, come on, now that's just not at all and you shouldn't really exaggerate like that.

The team was second from bottom!

Sean; I sympathise. Ray; pretty much spot on, it's about balancing the 2 now. Like it or not the game HAS changed as it always does, tho' seemingly quicker and not in some cases for the better.

Thing is it is not likely to change back to how we think it should be on it's own. The only thing that MIGHT drive it would be falling revenue, which would force the powers that be to start, under pressure from the Paymasters to tinker with the Game...and do you or anyone else trust them, based on their previous record to do anything constructive...If FIFA were a Football Club's Board they would be EFC and we know just how good they are don't we.

Often beautiful wins, but sometimes ugly wins. This unpredictability is what makes football so great. But no-one would want to watch a team that plays ugly all the time.

A lot of the despondency on this site has come from the fact that we've often played ugly and not even won; you need at least one or the other. At the end of last season we had good football and good results which is clearly the ideal.

As to which of the two is preferable, as we are Everton, success relative to the other 91 league clubs (merely staying in the premier league) is probably more important than good football. Who would be happy watching Everton playing like Barcelona in the Blue Square Premier?

However, supporters of many lower league teams, whilst aspiring towards success, would probably be content to see fluent football and exciting games in a stadium with a great atmosphere, even if this sometimes results in cavalier defending and more defeats. Would you rather be a fan of Blackpool, who got promoted to the premier league, played exciting, entertaining, though sometimes naive football and got relegated, or Villa, who maintained their status in the top tier through boring other teams - and their fans - to death?

I've played local football for years now, and have seen no end of teams deliberately lose end of season games to avoid promotion - they prefer to play in a league where they have the time and space to express themselves and win more than they lose, rather than getting pasted each week and being immediately relegated.

The angst of being an Evertonian - the fear of relegation, the continuing, yet frustrated high expectations of success, the demands that we play in a certain way despite the paucity of our resources compared to our rivals - can be painful. But when we do next win something - and it will come - it will be much sweeter to us for all the intervening years with a trophy, especially if we do it before a major financial investment.

Beauty unfortunately is normally reserved for those with beautiful bank balances... and don't start quoting Swansea at me, because whilst they were marvelous on occasions, they were also bloody frustating on others.

Similarly, Spain, who were so so glorious in the Euro final, bored most of their TV audience to tears against France, and similarly against Portugal, because they lacked incision... a similar criticism of Arsenal in recent years.

What is beautiful? goals and results ultimately. If Everton had the liberty to attack and attack ,it would be great, but when we have to bring on a Scottish sicknote in on a free as currently, our only likely business until the sell... whilst the Shite can consider a £15mill swoop for an okay right winger, Spurs are considering a deal for Hulk, Chelski are buying every midfield that moves, Arsenal have brought the leading scorer in France last season and a seasoned German international, United buy one of the most attacking midfielders in the world, and have a £29mil bid rejected for a Brazilian who looked extraordinary in only 15mins-ish of play the other night and then there's City... well our only chance is to play carefully and cleverly. And if we pull off a win against City or Spurs or Liverpool or Chelsea doing it, not one person on here, however idealistic in theory, will care or complain.

I doubt we'll ever see School of Science under Moyes but to be fair I think most managers are a lot more negative than they used to be.

There have always been more defensive-minded midfielders but they were still midfielders expected to contribute all over the park but now having a 'holding' midfielder who never crosses the half way line is the norm (two in our case). I can understand weak teams employing one but why do the top teams need to play one even against piss-poor teams? Why is it all of a sudden that playing with two strikers is seen as being naive and asking for trouble?

Results will always come first but I think managers also have a responsibilty to entertain the paying public. The Premier League now is less exciting than 10 years ago, even 5 years ago, as more managers adopt a saftey-first approach.

Beauty every time. Barca will be back just as strong whereas as Chelsea won't get near it again. They were amazingly lucky at times and sometimes thats just all you need but it will only happen once.

Love good football, despite all their success I only gave Liverpool credit when they had Beardsley and Barnes playing some decent stuff.

Can't stand the overcoached catenaccio of european football much prefer the South American tricky skilful stuff.

But the Germans are the object lesson they blend the 2 better than any, always have done, they're athletic and strong but have the basic skills nailed down.

Only the truly great teams (Brazil teams of Pele or zico and AC Milan of Guilit) can claim beauty, the real target is effectiveness. We had it with Reid, Bracewell and Sheedy there are signs we might have it again as long as Moyes doesn't do his usual "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory" bullshit.

If we had success playing defensively most would fall in line - just look at liverpool and their mind numbing european campaigns - but we don't.

Sean, I completely agree with you. I'd prefer to watch beautiful footie everytime but it is also a balancing act. I've been a Barca fan since Lineker left us to go to the Nou Camp and watched them every weekend on Sky since Guardiola took over due to their incredible style. However, Guardiola left last season due to it being a disappointment and ultimately failure. Not because they lost the league and Champions League, but because Madrid were actually the better side.

As mentioned, we won the 95 Cup Final with a Dogs of War attitude. Would you rather we lost that but played a brilliant game?

The ideal scenario is to win by playing beautiful football. Unfortunately the ideal scenario is not always an option.

Slightly off topic, but assuming we sign pienaar, would you take benyoun from Chelsea on a free?

Think the OP misses the point a little. Whether you play good or ugly (usually) should depend on who the opposition is and which players you have available. Chelsea did not really have much choice in how to play against that Barca side. Also you need a lot of luck to win the CL and they got that, both against Bayern and Barca - was simply their year, fair play to them.

Can hardly accuse chelsea of playing shite football on a consistent basis with some of the players they've had in recent times - like we consistently did in the first 5 months of last season (without the results!).

Martin (#081) – What is 'soccer'? – is that some sort of American sport. I would love Everton to play beautiful football every week but it is not going to happen. We are no Barca so you play to your strengths. You would've loved to do what Chelsea did and win the Champions League.

Ian (104) YES!! wages apart doesn't that equate to getting Pienaar for £2.5m

Although the 95 FA Cup win might have been Dogs of War in the final (or KITAP1 I believe is the current acronym), it has to be said and it should not be forgotten that, along the way, Everton played some brilliant football – most notably of course in the semi against Spurs when the so-called Famous 5 were taken apart.

Last year Man Utd came and parked the bus kept it tight and nicked one. Wasn't pretty and Arsenal did the same. So sometimes it's a results thing that gets you the rewards. It's a new season and we really won't see a new tactical regime from DM.

I expect more of what was served up last term. Expect the 40-pt bullshit and the piss poor refereeing decisions we get when playing the so-called bigger clubs. Don't expect a go for the Carling mug... in fact I don't expect a lot of difference from the top 8 clubs. I think the bar coded Geordies will struggle.

Sean Patton - I think you've got it right there. School of Science vs Dogs of War? The contest doesn't exist.

Many members of the great 60's teams were hardly Lionel Messi waiting to happen, and that applies to the great 80's teams as well. In the mean time, we've had some great players who haven't had very good teams around them, and some very poor spells where we lacked quality all over the pitch and were lucky to survive.

The Moyes era has been built on solid defence, and it has succeeded in the prime directive. Don't get relegated. And now we've got Jelavic, Fellaini, Baines and we take on the ManU's, ManC's, Chelski and Spurs of this world with some success. Shame about Bolton. Perhaps a bit more ugly required.

Stuart Hall, when I'm unfortunate enough to hear his so-called reports on us driving away from the match, uses the phrase 'School of Science'. Like him, it should have been thrown in the skip years ago.

Keith 195; SoS is NSNO made flesh. At least Stuart Hall 'gets' SoS, he's seen it, too many people don't and haven't; ( not withstanding he now is a parody of his original self ), his flowery prose was inspired by SoS.

There is nothing new in SoS, all it is is our term for the 40's and 50's Push and Run, the old standby of Pass and Move, the 3G's ( get it,give it,and go.) fast forward through Puskas, Pele, to Peter Reid's comment 'It's all about the ball'.

Most people have agreed it's about balance, for example Gabriel and Kay could play abit as well, but when the going got tough they got going, Kendall and Harvey, Reid and Bracewell...maybe even Fellaini and Gibson.

They were called winghalfs then, the name might have changed, but the role is pretty much still the same.

Where we fuck up is ( sometimes I know it's all we had ) trying to make silk purse wnghalfs out of the likes of sows ears like Neville Bily Osman etc.

Moyes is sometimes victim to his versitility fetish and yes we know why he has to do it but he doesn't have to turn it into a Jack of All Trades - Master of None, wankfest.

The big issue for me is that being negative and defensive doesn't necessarily make you more likely to get a result. How do we know Chelsea wouldn't have won 3-0 in the final if they'd gone for it, attacked, and put pressure on Bayern from the start. To play the negative way you have to get lucky, the opposition have to miss chances (Gomez x 3), penalties (Messi) and all sorts. If you play the way we did at the end of last season things happen for you by sheer weight of probability. ie. If you have one or two attacks all game, you probably won't score. Have twenty and even if the other team defend well, your chances of getting lucky once have increased massively.

You don't need to throw caution to the wind and be Ardiles' 90s Spurs side, you just need balance and that includes plenty of attacking intent. We showed we can do it in the last few months of the season, anything less than that style and intent is now completely unacceptable for any reason.

I love it when we win. West brom away at new year oh what a terrible terrible game but I was so happy at the end.

Winning champions league beating Barcelona twice scoring two beautiful counter attack goals when with 10 men and then your talisman scoring equaliser and deciding penalty at favourites own stadium in final and winning your first champions league. Oh yeah I'd be well gutted

Brian 116 - his wages would be high but he's still a class act that Chelsea will want off their wages with the new batch coming in. I'd consider him if Cahill goes.