The commentators made the point that Everton had lost 19 points from winning positions before this game.

Now make that 21.

Matthew and Eric, the statistics you quote are correct and the coaching staff are hopefully working on a solution.
Based on live screening and replays the problem centres on a mid field that loses its intensity in the closing stages. It is particularly noticeable that one or two players quite clearly run out of steam.
Those players can be seen to occupy space and because their legs have gone their only chance of making a challenge is if the ball lands in their zone.
We need a tiger on the bench raring to be unleashed, someone in the mad dog a or Carsley type.

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What are the points lost for the teams around us? I don't know what average is, but there's so many lost in the last five minutes this season.

Also, what are the points gained after being behind. We're very high up the table in this respect too.

Yep, sailing to 2-0 victories isn't a luxury we have.

Nick - commentator on Sunday said we are second behind Utd for points gained from losing positions. How many I don't know.

What's that old football adage? 'let the ball do the work', unfortunately we don't keep the ball long enough to be able to do that, consequently we are always moving and running to defend rather than making the opposition work. It is perhaps because some of players are limited in ability and this is exposed when we run out of steam in the closing stages especially away from home.

Matthew it cuts both ways. We were 1-0 down at home to Spurs entering the final minute, and walked away 2-1 winners. How do you think that made Spurs feel? I don't think it's accurate to say we should easily have had 6 points.

Years ago, in certain forms of fantasy football, the best goalkeepers to have were the Alec Chamberlain's of Luton, rather than the Schmeichal's of Man U. The reason was the 'keeper was going to have to be a lot more busy, with a weaker outfield in front of him struggling to stem the opposition attacks.

We've conceded a lot of goals this season, and partly I think, the number of individual errors comes from a backline that is having to face a lot more. That kind of pressure isn't going to develop Jag's passing game any.

My point is I think whilst we've gained something going forward, team-wise, we've lost something going back - we are rarely able to press higher up the pitch, or sustain it. More often we retreat and end up in a backs-to-the-wall situation, like we did for a period in the 2nd half on Sunday.

Whilst that's our set up, and until we're able to continually improve the quality of the squad and its depth, there will always be days like these.

We don't have it in us to finish teams off. How many times do we beat a team 3-0? hardly ever. It's not the Moyes way and we aren't set up like that. As soon as we go ahead its back to the wall and defend the lead.

Matthew, forgive me but I haven't seen you post much in the past, actually I haven't seen your name appear in many threads, I can only surmise that you have been digesting and formulating your own thoughts based on what you see of the Mighty Blues and what you read in these threads.

Whatever, you should post more often, IMHO 100% accurate, and a point I made (or at least tried to make) many many years ago when we qualified for the Champions League qualifiers with a negative goal difference, when the first rumblings of a Moyes Out Brigade started and before the Apologist tag was borne.

You see the game and the bigger picture, I look forward to reading more of your insights, keep posting.

COYB

The loss of points also comes down to the strength of our bench.... when we take Mirallas off...we have who to bring on? Naismith? or if Pienaar or Fellaini comes off, Oviedo, or Barkley or Hitz comes on. We would not have lost those points with either better defensive, or preferably, better attacking players to bring on.

And here cometh the Apologists..........

Who bought Naismith? Who bought Oviedo? (Who looks decent to me anyway), Who bought Hitz (A bloody good player actually)......... And then doesn't play them?????? Except Naismith, of course.

Cap'n Pip just announced he's leaving in the summer - 2 years too late & £5m in wages wasted, but I will miss his floaters down the line!

By 'floaters', I presume you mean shit passes????

Put me off my toast there Robbie! Neville only had two passes, 5 yard square ball, or his chip down the channels.

A distinct weak spot in our manager's running of the club, keeping players too long, and not refreshing the squad.

Moyes has lost us 21 points from winning positions? Boo! Moyes out! Oh wait, Moyes has won us 21 points from drawing positions! Er...Hurrah! Moyes in!

The game is 92-96 minutes long. It ebbs and flows and to make an assertion that a game like the Spurs game was points lost is just an excuse to have a go. Was it points lost from a winning position? A point gained from a losing position? A point held on to from a drawing position? It was all of those things but don't let objectivity get in the way of throwing your shit at David Moyes. He earns £4 million a year, you know.

Yeah, and he gets full support from the chairman, John! Unbelievable!

How much???? Sack the useless overpaid bastard immediately, and I mean that sincerely.

Moyes Out

Sorry about that Kevin :)

To be fair, Moyes and Neville have put me off more than my toast for a bloody long time now.

..... And don't forget the Defence splitting 30 yard incisive passes, backwards and to the opposition, or the own goals at Anfield.

Waiting for the thread to open on that one Sam, should be interesting!

"Spurs were there for the taking yesterday. " - Stopped reading after that!!

We just don’t have a good enough midfield to hold on to the ball or a forward line that can hold the ball up.

Ozi (but not just him) is a major problem defending a lead away from home. He runs out of steam after 50 minutes but he hardly ever gets subbed!

Moyes should look at subbing earlier, fresh legs even if they don’t have the quality can at least close the opposition down.

This season has been a very strange one. If you look at it overall I think we have more often than not tried to play better football, yet my level of satisfaction is down. I think that it is just that ability to close games out. We have only lost five league games, which in fairness isn't bad considering we have changed our approach. Thirteen draws is the thing though.

"Who bought Naismith? Who bought Oviedo? (Who looks decent to me anyway), Who bought Hitz" - The only player "bought" was Oviedo for an undisclosed fee, which means peanuts usually for us.

That's the problem Robbie, we have to take cast offs or loans because we get no money for transfers other than when we sell our best players.

Keiran, you will also find the posters who said all they wanted was better football have changed their tune to all we want is better football and more points......it's great being an Everton fan, we do fickle like champions (me included)

Tony you are right about us being fickle. If we were to look at this season more objectively, (and yes I know that fans don't do objectively) it has been more of a success so far than we have thought. We are still in the same position in the table that we were this time last year but we have played better football. It is true that some things have not changed for the better, e.g Moyes' substitutions and cautiousness, but we have stayed so focused on the negatives that we don't see what has been better. A by product of that is the fact that we have dropped so many points. While this sounds like a contradiction, it's not. It is something that can be improved on again next season to hopefully add to what we have learned this season.

Tony

The better football was a long long time a go now, it was the beginning of the season. Some people go on like the football has been great all season. The way I see it, since about November the football has been mostly functional with short patches of good and bad play.

I agree Paul, but there is still less hoof ball than we used to have. We are still "trying" to play better footy but we seem too tired at the moment.

Robbie...Naismith and Hitz were free... Oviedo, who is clearly for the future, came for less than 2 million. Are you not even self-conscious about what you are writing? are you under the impression that we would have settled for Naismith and Hitz if we had more than a pot to piss in?

And Hitz is a bloody good player....have you been watching the Sky re-runs of the early noughties?

I can (As I'm sure everyone else on here) chat all day about the if's and but's of this season, just the same as every other. Save our best performances against the big teams then let ourselves down against a minnower the next (e.g. reading away).

Winning from losing positions and vise versa is part of the game, but I have been concerned with our 80-90 min record this season.

Newcastle (H), Fulham (A), Norwich (H & A), Totten (A) has resulted in a lost of 11 points.

Totten (H) and Villa (H) has meant a gain in 4 points.

Still means we have lost out on 7 vital points purely on our failure to see games out this season.

Which would put us on 59 points and 3rd place (although this doesn't factor in Totten's gain in 2 points if we only played 80 mins) not actually sure what everyone else's record is for the last 10 mins, but I'm assuming that's one of the worse records.

I agree Everton do not have the players who can win the ball often enough in the midfield nor can they hold the ball long enough. This is what mainly sets them aside from the top clubs.

Until that is changed we will never look commanding. One always had the feeling Spurs would grab a point in the end.

Everton did look decent early season until we lost Gibson and then ratboy took out Miralles. They have come back well and we can only think what might have been but Moyes has been loathe to play Vellios, Oviedo and Duffy etc and I believe that variation may have helped instead of Anichebe, Naismith etc.

He has stuck with his favourites even when out of form. Distin should follow Neville out the door. He is now a liability at the back.

Paul (318) - Agree.

We are, right now, playing a much patchier game.

On Sunday, first half, I would really have liked to know what Jags thought-process was with those balls that were giving away possession time after time after time.

I remember watching Howard in a game against Birmingham a few years back, kick the ball out of his hands and right down their centre half's neck about 20 times in the first half.

I wanted to get him in a room, show him the vid and scream "107?...304?.....How many fucking times do you need to see something fail before you think 'this isn't working'?

I like our honesty and endeavour but I really don't think we're the..um..'smartest' of teams.

I really enjoyed some of the stuff we played (or attempted to) first half of this season and latter part of last.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't/don't think playing this 'brand' would take us much higher/lower in the table than (what I see as) the percentage stuff (or give us more/less wins) but the experience was/is so much more enjoyable.

I have 'accepted' the chance of me ever see an Everton side win a trophy again are exceeeeeeedingly slim and I know it it WERE to happen, it wouldn't be the title.

I don't however think I'm being demanding or being unrealistic to ask for Everton to adopt a style of play that is more inventive/exciting.

Especially when we KNOW (see first half of this season, second half of last) that it is just as successful (or unsuccessful if you like) than the alternative.

I agree Eugene, and to be honest you could probably use a hundred examples of Howard doing that.

I do think though, in fairness, that they are trying to play better football but the limited ability of some players makes it very difficult.

I was watching a game a couple of weeks ago (possibly Stoke, I think i've blocked out Wigan reasonably successfully) where it reminded me of trying to build a break in snooker. You play one bad positional shot, which in turn makes your next shot harder, and so you run further out of position, and eventually you end up without a ball to pot. This was the same, ball goes from Howard to Distin fine, then Distin takes a poor touch and gets closed down, under pressure he slightly overhits his pass to Baines who has to play it first time to Osman. Back to goal, Osman has to lay it off to Jagielka, and because they've pushed up the pitch he knocks it back to Howard who is useless with his feet and so boots it straight down the middle - ball lost.

The fact that Distin, Jags, Neville, Howard, Hibbert etc are not particularly comfortable on the ball means they are prone to play long balls regardless of whether it's a plan or not.

I was talking to a Wigan fan the other week who was saying exactly the same about their team - he reckoned they end up giving away throw ins in their own half 10 times a game due to the defenders not being able to pass.

We were heading for victory until Moyes filled his pants and sat back at 2-1. Unless Moyes grows a pair between now and May we have little chance of winning against the RS, Arsenal or Chelsea.

Let the exodus begin. Neville, Moyes, Fellaini, Baines, Hitzlsperger, Oviedo, Mucha, Jelavic, and Mirallas. Add Duffy and Gueye.

Robbie – you are right, I do tend to keep quite a low profile on here despite being a regular site user! I like to take in the opinions of fellow Blues before unleashing my own thoughts!

I'm glad to see that you agree with my opinion and yes I will try and post more from now!

Matt – when saying that we could have had 6 points, I was basing this on the fact that we already had 3 in the bag and 6 were there to be had.

Tony – did you not think they were there for the taking?

Kevin #294 – keeping players too long and not refreshing the squad

Refresh it with what? A round of cold beers? Do you think it was Moyes who said in January "No thanks, I'll just stick with this stale squad"?

Sure he can get rid of players who are past/reaching their sell-by date – Neville, Distin, Hibbert etc – how much will that raise to buy replacements and refresh the squad?

You've inadvertently hit the nail on the head there Damian.

Moyes knows he has to trade players to generate transfer funds. Now, it may be the case the bank would just keep any money if he did sell certain players.

Let's say that is not the case though. I think he would keep the squad from ten years ago, if he thought it would keep a steady ship.

I don't think Moyes would willingly sell Fellaini for £25m – it will always be the players choice.

The Lescott transfer is a case in point, £24m was brilliant business, but if Moyes had the choice – he would have kept the player.

We could have got £10-15m for Cahill a couple of years before he left for the States, we got nothing, and spent a fortune on wages in the meantime.

We've got no money, so we have to trade players to refresh the squad, or it becomes tired and stale. We also lose out in the transfer market, because they are worth nothing when we have finished with them – see one Phil Neville.

Wenger has been selling like this for the last 15 years.

"We could have got £10-15m for Cahill a couple of years before he left for the States" From who Kevin, just because we may have rated him at a high valuation, doesn't mean anyone else would. You need offers before you can sell.

And Matthew, no I didn't think the side that was in third when we played them were there for the taking. We were also missing a couple of important players too.

The man himself said he had offers from other clubs Tony.

I agree with you, Kevin.

The key to it is does he see he would get the money – otherwise, just hold what you've got. We saw what happened the Bily window where he got the money; we also saw what happened the Arteta window when he didn't. I don't believe he ever truly trusts what he will get.

Having said that I also recognise his innate conservatism and that he would rather stick than twist – your Lescott example illustrates this perfectly. It is always easier though to keep things fresh of you just do a redknapp and spend money like water

I know what to do: play an 18-year-old out of position, watch him have a stinker and ruin his confidence. Take him off, then move our slowest player in Osman onto the left, which aids their quickest player in Walker running 70 yards past him for Spurs's equaliser with Osman blowing out his arse.

Same old shite: mistakes from our tactical amoeba of a manager...

Apparently, we're the only side in the league who drop points from winning positions. Yeah, right... that's why we're still in with an outside chance of claiming a Champions League spot. Analyse any league in the world and you'll find there's a lot of sides who do.

The only major catastrophe was the Wigan game. Yes, we've had some iffy results, but then again, what side hasn't? Southampton have beat Man City and Chelsea; Norwich beat Man Utd; QPR beat Chelsea away. If football went to form, we'd all be rich off our fixed odds coupons every week.