Even a player with a possible injury would have done been more effective than the exhausted players we had on show yesterday

Kenwright doesn't feel the pressure, he spends most of his time in London and well away from the rising disenchantment of the supporters. He will carry on regardless, shrug his shoulders and remember the halcyon days of the mid 1950s, forgetting that we are a world away from that era and that in the modern day football you need a hands on owner with a plan and hard cash to maintain your position never mind improve upon it.

His plan will be to sell the stars Felli and Baines, possibly even Jelavic, give the new manager the same old story and buy himself at least another year to pay back the debts and laugh at the mugs in the stands for their loyalty.

Could you really see Moyes taking a team to Arsenal or Chelsea with the intention of attacking them and trying to win? Moyes has never won an away game at these places or Anfield and Old Trafford in 11 years, FFS. Many Evertonians have been brainwashed into thinking such feats are beyond our club.

This argument is stupid. We are 5 points above Swansea and I would bet my house that we will finish above them this season.

Don't get me wrong we were dreadful against United and I was rather depressed with the whole thing yesterday.

Had we bought Fer and then he was lumped with loads of injuries, you would all be complaining that we spent too much on a player we were unsure of. Sometimes I feel like Moyes and Kenwright can't win!

I am frustrated, but we were bound to hit a little slump at some point. If we end up beating Oldham and Norwich, I guarantee everyone will start changing their tune again!

What's interesting is that the Moyes alternative seems to change from season to season. Strange, that. It's almost as if these managers haven't managed to achieve consistency of performance over a longer period of time.

To date - before he's completed his first season - I think Laudrup has done an outstanding job at Swansea (though they have still won less, lost more, scored less and conceded more than us this season). That's not proof that he's a better manager than Moyes, any more than the other flavors of the month have necessarily been better managers.

That doesn't mean that there aren't alternatives to Moyes (though until the underlying systemic issues at the club are fixed, I think any manager is going to be undermined), but let's try looking at it on a more comprehensive basis than "this young manager seems to be having a good season".

Tony, have a look at the BBC report on that game. I watched the match and Everton battered Swansea, even though Swansea had several chances they were lucky to get nil.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/19615118

The difference is that we've gone backwards, they've improved.

James Martin @358

James, yes, we battered Swansea (see above comment) but they came and parked their bus and we had no answer to their tactics. As for Fer, I don't know why we didn't spend the £8m , if it exists, on Holtby or someone else who Elstone reckoned we were looking at.

Maybe I did get my facts a little wrong regarding the Swansea game but that doesn't mean I am wrong about Moyes and his negative shithouse tactics. I am bored rigged watching it. I know what the players will do before the ball reaches them. It's so predictable and stale. The football is all three-touch stuff or lump it forward to no-one in particular.

Can't you see it, FFS? It's gone beyond defendable. It's inept futile sterile crap and it's been going on for a decade or so...

You enjoy it if you must — I won't!

We, on the other hand, have reverted back to type: we play shit unimaginitve alehouse footy, ruin good strikers, stink the place out every game, and play players who shouldn't even still be playing anymore.

Watching Everton during the Moyes years is as much fun as watching a Jim 'll Fix it boxset... Jesus, I can't believe you people defend this crap!

Fair enough we lost and for me it was very lack-lustre, the passing was woeful, but we were only second on goals. The difference was the multi - million £ striker they have, RVP. I thought he had an absolute mare, offside almost every time, poor shooting , appaling corners and free kicks, but he made two class choices and scored one and created another. Bingo!! That is the difference Tony.

Fans use him as a soft target because they can't countenance criticising Moyes, all the re-mortgaging, flogging of assets and debt increase was for Moyes benefit. Factor in Rooney and the miracle of "top half" with no trophies and a decade of 48 attempts at the old SKY4 grounds without a win looks shite.

As for him getting it from the media...forget it. They are pretty much all up his arse.

With this phony, it's what Everton can do for him, rather than we he can do for Everton. Who the hell had even heard of him outside Goodison before 1999? Now every football fan in the country knows him and his smug, self-satisfied grin.

DM does not bring in players, the board (Elstone) does.
All DM can do is tell them who he wants.
The scouts check players and suggest them to DM and the board.

I have already said all the same things as this article contains.
EVERY footballer shows up some injury on scans and then play into their 30's.
The Fer situation was a joke and the lad has been playing every game.

This board has let the manager and the fans down and they are the ones that the vitriol should be aimed at.
Who will do business with us in the future if they carry on their shady way of doing business.

We transfer out easily and quickly.
We loan out easily and quickly
We bring players in very slowly and often miss them by being late
We don't loan players in unless they are ultra cheap.
We bring in players no one wants eg; Heitinga, Bily, Beckford, Hahnemann, MacFadden, Hitzelberger and Naismith.

All the above is true.

if no-one else wants them wtf is Moyes doing recommending them?

BTW we don't transfer out easily Bily was polishing the bench with his arse for far too long we had Gueye on the books far too long and there's a few others who are either shit or Moyes is holding them back.

Just errant nonsense.

An advance on next seasons tv money, don't be daft.

That is what truly bugs me; that filthy lucre seems to buy cowardly compliance and mutual back-scratching whilst the hopes and ambitions of the supporters are allowed to wither, due to the failure to invest on the back of the best league showing for 8 years.

There have been many good points raised on this site about the lateness of our supposed big money transfer attempts and the flimsy evidence to suggest that Leroy Fer was a big gamble fitness wise, but the lack of official information or journalistic interest is infuriating. Despite our good league position we have not been included in the TV debates about who is in the running for 3rd and 4th for a long time now. The deficiencies in our squad and the lack of backing to enable something to be done about it is obviously well understood, and yet no-one comes out in the mainstream press and queries why our wealthy board members haven't dug deep in their pockets to at least try to match the manager's ambition at a key moment in the club's recent history.

Buying the likes of John Stones shouldn't be contingent on other deals falling through, as finding young players who will pad out the squad or go on to become saleable assets has to be the core of our team-building strategy for the foreseeable future. In reality we have only two high value players left if our senior squad. How long into the future will that money sustain us, given that at some stage we are going to have to cash-in on Baines and Fellaini and use the money we get for them to bring in two or three players for each of them? Anyone else we sell will simply raise sufficient funds for a direct replacement, whereas plenty of the squad will end up going for very little or nothing at all.

I don't completely agree with the continuous hoofball accusations. We do play the ball on the ground reasonably regularly - at least a mixture of more direct passing. That doesn't necessarily mean it's brilliant to watch; it's often too slow or toothless.

I think Moyes is a conservative-leaning pragmatist. We certainly can play enjoyable football, I've seen it intermittently throughout the Moyes era (and not just the start of this season when people were saying he'd suddenly "discovered" attacking football). And I've also seen a lot of dross.

It is not a black and white situation, it just often gets portrayed as that on TW. Moyes has done a lot of good, and a lot he can be criticized for. I think the last two or three seasons are a good demonstration of the dangers of stagnation or complacency.

I don't know what the solution is, though. Because whether he's stagnated or not, I don't know what the alternative is. I don't say this in a "be careful what you wish for", I say it in the belief that while a new manager might be able to achieve a boost for a short period (as Moyes has achieved in the past), *no* manager is going to instigate any significant improvement to our fortunes over the long term because of the underlying issues with how the club is run, and how that impedes any manager.

We've had these debates over and over again. It doesn't cost hundreds of millions to play with style. It takes a plan and sticking to it. Not reverting to hoofball at the first sense of danger. Our players seem so fucking rushed and nervous and skittish on the ball. It begs me to wonder what the players are really working on for those 42-50 hours a week at Finch Farm. Oh, that's right, we don't have one coach who was a dynamic, offensive player. Kind of like our team.

Again, the problem is the lack of consequence here for the owners and the board.

With all of this coming out regarding match-fixing and whatnot, I'm very surprised more folks don't think that these owners are skimming off the top. ANYTHING is possible these days in the world of scams and schemes and shady finance.

I have never seen a club make so many fuck-ups... and NOT fix them. From the fact that you can't find an Everton jersey despite being in the Premier League for over 100 years, to the fact that yet ANOTHER player was signed yet sent back. If I owned a team, I definitely wouldn't do business with us. It's all smoke and mirrors and we the fans are the one's who are being played for fools. 13 years and counting...

Obviously the Moyes knockers are clouding the real issue which is the BOARDROOM

The problem is twofold. First, we are in such a weak financial position that we can't afford any risks at all. If the player genuinely was injured then I can't really blame the club for wanting to restructure the deal, but I can blame the board for being so clueless and penniless that they leave themselves no negotiating space with their poverty.

More seriously perhaps, Kenwright has lied to us so many times that I just don't know if I can believe him any more. I want to believe that he was being cautious over the Fer transfer, but such is his track record that I really would not be surprised if the caution after the medical was engineered so as not to proceed with the transfer. "Well we tried to get the player in, but the medical threw up doubts and his club would not negotiate..."

If you read his body language carefully, I have never seen Moyes more frustrated than in recent weeks because he knew what the stakes were. The reason why he has not been shouting about it in the media is because the man is a pro and it's not how he goes about things (or us overall as we are a proper club — not a realtime farce like Liverpool).

As for playing with style, what short memories we all have. Some of the football the team played earlier this season was superb; however, it has fallen away over the Xmas and New Year schedule as tiredness set in. Because our squad is so thin, our best players have not only had to play every game but every minute of every game.

I agree with Trevor, failure to reach the CL will be seen as a failure of the board. It will certainly be the tipping point for Moyes departing, which I don't disagree with as a decade without winning a trophy is enough for anyone. However, I think if he does go, he deserves to leave with our thanks and gratitude.

We have that money for him available, and surely more with the new TV deal (and maybe even £30m more if we sell Fellaini), so please, please, please identify the players we want EARLY and get involved in negotiations EARLY and sign those players EARLY so that we don't keep making the same mistakes from transfer windows past. It is really frustrating and annoying!

nb: Jelle Vossen still scoring loads at Genk (another player we were linked with and a Belgian International) and would cost a hell of a lot less than the money we were offering for Negredo, so why not make an offer for him?

What is now clear is that January represented the last time that we could add to this squad – with FFP agreed we won't be allowed to strengthen the squad. Presumably we will need to sell one if we want buy two on the cheap.

In January, we could have borrowed against next year's TV money safe in the knowledge it was coming. And with an understanding of how these new rules were going to be agreed (after all, "we" voted for them) and the impact it would have on us.

What January and the subsequent FFP rules tell me is that our board have no intention of improving the squad – they are more interested in turning a profit; cashing in on the new TV money.

And as for the Negredo link – well, that was just taking the piss. We bid £8 million under the asking price 6 hours before the deadline, on a night when he was playing in a cup semi-final.

Both were PR stunts as were the N'Zonzi and Ofoe 'pursuits'. Can you really imagine N'Zonzi choosing Stoke first, and if we were serious about Ofoe, why didn't we sign him on January 1st? (or have the deal in place before ,like the RS and Sturridge?)

We have no money unless we sell.

Supposing the club gets hold of a large chunk of this TV money and/or sells the likes of Fellaini, then we should really have a fairly substantial war chest. If (as I hope) we bring in a fair few players to strengthen the squad, then that can be seen as showing ambition and wanting us to be challenging for trophies on all fronts.

If, however, we have another "January disaster" then it seems obvious the board are happy to see us plod on – which will ultimately end is tears for all concerned.
All eyes will be on them, they have to choose. I see it as being a watershed moment for the club. I just pray we come out of all this better off.

Without Gerrard they will be nowhere...

Progress? 3 Managers in little over 12 months — as Jim Royal would say, My Arse!