You're right - Moyes should take lessons from Mancini on how plucky little Man City managed to shake off their inferiority complex. It was just down to a change of attitiude...

It is desperately frustrating that we don't seem able to beat these teams on their own grounds, and I do agree that a lot of it is down to Moyes' and the players' mentality in these games.

However, citing Sunderland, Wigan and West Brom's victories away at top 4 clubs goes to prove the point that they are incredibly rare and memorable. Freak results, one might tentatively suggest....

The point is, these results were huge one-offs in what were largely average to poor seasons fighting relegation or drifting around the middle to bottom of the table. What would we choose for ourselves? 5th or 6th in the league without a win at these places, or 12th or 13th with one big win at The Emirates to reminisce about for the next 3 years? The latter is the definition of a small club mentality.

One last point: Why are our wins at Man City constantly ignored when mentioning this failure to win at top clubs?

Damian, is this the Man City who's record against us over the last 12 games is W2-D1-L9 ? Yes? If I were a City fan I'd be asking why Mankini can't do better against our small club, wouldn't you?

Yep, its all down to the attitude and nothing to do with the £300M squad!
Football is a funny old game as they say. Why do we seem to have the wood on Man City over several seasons? According to this thread on GOT, we do ok against the top teams:-
http://www.grandoldteam.com/forum/threads/55057-Top-6-Table

One point I do agree on, is our recent record against the Shite. My theory is that, as they steadily declined and we have improved, then they have been more "up for it" in recent years. Previously, when they were doing well, it was us trying to stick one up our uppity neighbours. Now, in a perverse sort of way, they are paying us far more respect. Still, we do need to man up this time and get in their faces. We need a Man City type performance.

Of course the size and cost of the squad is important, but I listened to Gary Neville last night before the game and he was speaking about how Mancini was bemoaning not adding the likes of RVP to his squad, Neville reckoned that Fergie would never big up a player that he hadn't signed as that would signal that his current players weren't up to the job. The point of all this is that attitude is a big factor in any walk of life and if you feel inferior you probably won't come out on top, ability is obviously necessary but without the right attitude it can be undermined,
Last night Man City had the right attitude to go with their ability at Goodison last month they had the wrong attitude and Everton had the right one.

It's all down to the money I tells ya...... Erm 30 million for Rooney, 24 million for Lescott, 15 million for Rodwell, net outlay 4 million, net income 65 million, all spent!!!!!

It's the money I tells ya,!!!!

Of course, United, Liverpool, City and Chelsea have never paid over the odds for any player have they.

It's all down to the money I tells ya!!!

We're taking a knife to a gun fight.

It's the money I tells ya!!!!

I admire your attitude, Matthew. You point to a problem that sums up Moyes in my view.
Though he is a good manager, he is not among the best.

He lacks that fire in the belly that drives winners to do that little extra in order to win.
In the Spurs game the team sat back after taking the lead, which we typically see when we are playing top 4 teams.
A draw against Spurs is somehow okay for Moyes, a loser mentality in my view, he is settling for less then optimal in truth.

Anything less then winning at this point in the season is not going to do it.

Why be pleased at losing 3 points? We were pushed back in the second half and Moyes did not make the subs needed to either hold onto the lead or score another goal.

The proof is in the pudding, and Moyes refuses to keep attacking and keep the ball in the team when going one goal up.
Moyes always prefers to defend a one goal lead in these top 4 games then try to kill the game off by scoring another goal.

Moyes is the perfect manager for a club that wants to stay around 6th to 8th in the league, but when you start demanding that he finish in the top 4 then Moyes has problems as he is not attack minded enough.

I think of Wenger as a better version of Moyes and Everton should start to aim for a manager more like Wenger.
Wenger knows what is needed to win and he also does the job on the pitch, he takes chances on young players and is not afraid to go all out attack on other top 4 sides.

Overall it is not just against the top 4 where Moyes pulls back and defends a one goal lead, he does it against every team in the league and it ends up costing us many points.

If Moyes is going to stay then he needs to know that he can get to buy quality, or the club will stagnate or stay still.
I agree with Moyes in that he needs new quality players.
A defender, 2 midfielders if Fellaini is sold and a striker, a goalkeeper would be nice too.

I hope Moyes stays true to what he knows he needs in order to sign a new contract, if he backs down then I think that shows that Moyes does not have a real ambition to win things.

Kenwright has to give in, there is no other alternative to him then Moyes, and Kenwright will be the one that either helps the club forward or makes it stagnate.

It will be fun to see if Moyes really wins out in the end.

Ray, City's record against us might be poor, but it does contain a couple of wins. The main point on here is we've not won away at the clubs mentioned in 11 seasons

John, although I accept that City, with the most expensive squad in history, HAVE had a couple of wins, their record, all things considered, is certainly unacceptable to the City fans I know.

Robbie Shields,
£65m! All spent! On what, Robbie? The Shite have spent £20m+ in January and are planning another spree in the summer. They've invested more in their Ladies squad than we have in the last 12 months. I think you'll find that the majority of the £65m you mention disappeared down the back of Bill's sofa.
So, yes, it's the money I tells ya.

I believe we are a much better team than Moyes believes we are. If you take this season, how many of you believe we should be at least 10 points better off? How many believe some of the squandered points dropped were very avoidable?

The problem I have with Moyes and his setup is the lack of belief from Davey himself. Moyes appears to be so scared of failure that it limits his ability to test himself and his players further than they do. We always shut up shop when we take the lead and we never ever really go for the jugular. Hence Sunday and all the other games we have chucked away.

The little bit more Moyes needs from himself to give us that little extra to push on a bit just isn't in him. Shame really when we keep coming so close.

The thing is Tony, we believe we should be 10 points better off because we're looking at it from an Evertonian point of view and see the ways in which we were unlucky or 'chucked it away' and not necessarily the other side of the coin.

I would imagine, for example, that Sunderland, Spurs, Villa, Stoke and Liverpool will believe they deserved more than they got at Goodison this year, while Wigan, West Ham and Southampton will feel they were hard done by at their place. While we see the game on sunday as 2 points dropped because we were ahead so late, they see it as 2 points dropped because they were ahead after less than a minute and had most of the ball.

Jimmy, if you look at the points WE have dropped, then Tony is right, we should have harvested more than 10 points if you consider Fulham (a) QPR, Newcastle, Swansea (H), Norwich (H+A), all games we should have gone on to win but didn't. And the sides you mention apart from the RS, who, if you remember, were outplayed at Goodison and continue to bleat about Suarez's "goal" despite the foul on Jags and the free kick that wasn't and the fact that Ratboy should have been red carded much earlier, would get little sympathy for trying to claim more than the point they got, simply because they didn't deserve more. And I'm not wearing blue tinted glasses, here, take Fulham, for instance. Jol came out for his interview struggling to believe his luck at stealing a point, declaring that "Everton passed the ball like Barcelona, passed us off the park". Swansea, totally outplayed, were time wasting at the start of the second half, and had two players booked for it. Newcastle required the most incompetent refereeing display imaginable to get a point. I'm struggling to recall a display as undeserving as those above when we've stolen points we didn't deserve.

Teams will always drop points when winning, even the champions. Its the number of points dropped in the last five minutes that have me annoyed. Sitting deep did it again at Spurs.

We were looking equal to them all match, and sitting deep gave them and the fans something to go for. We surrendered two thirds of the pitch for the last 30 minutes.

I agree Ray we should have had another 6 points on the board which would have put us on 58 points level with Spurs with a game in hand. Fulham and Newcastle were the obvious ones and perhaps another couple of points from either Wigan or Swansea. Having said that we have had a wee bit more luck of late with opponents hitting the woodwork rather than hitting the net.

But we are where we are and just have to hope we can get many more points on the board.

Patrick, I think I've read recently that we've hit the wood work more than any other team. Anyone else recall those stats? Whatever, you're right, we should be level with Spurs. At least!

We can exercise the money cliche again but Swansea have won at Anfield and Stamford Bridge this season, so why can't we? If Moyes actually had some courage, we coul have finished Spurs off on Saturday and I'm sure if he bothered to attack, we could be Chelsea as Soton and Swansea have won there so I'm sure we have a chance there, but Moyes needs to grow a pair between now and the end of the season if we are to get the CL.

Tony Marsh 360

I second that.

Ross, everyone has teams they can't win against. I have mates who are Sunderland fans who refuse to waste time going to Goodison now as they know they will lose — they're pretty much desperate to get a draw away to us.

The not winning away at the big 4 is a bit lazy against Moyes — it's a big 5 now, we have picked up several wins at Spurs and Man City. We've had several close run things away against Chelsea and Arsenal and often win/draw the home games against the top teams now. Against Man Utd we get their big game team now whereas, a few years back, we used to get battered by their reserves. Some of the smaller teams that have won there were against weaker elevens — we showed we can beat their weaker team in the semi.

Where I agree we do bottle it is against the RS — we definitely have an inferiority complex against them and Moyes has to carry the can for it. There are plenty of sticks to beat Moyes with don't just go for the cheap shots.

Tony if our team is better than what our league form suggests then who is responsible for that? Who has assembled that squad? People just act as though Moyes inherited the 1987 team and is running it into the ground. If you think this team is better than it is, it's only because you've seen them be better under Moyes.

Why do people think it's so easy just to put the best 11 out every week in the right formation and we'll just magically win every game regardless of the opposition. We're a stonesthrow away from Arsenal and Chelsea in the league. Wenger and Benitez are two of Europe's top managers marshalling players such as Wilshere, Mata, Hazard, their squads should be light years away from ours. t's not that Moyes hasn't got the best out of the squad, it's that he's bled them dry this season.

Osman and Gibson are our starting midfield, on paper its nowhere near the calibre of the teams above yet they're expected to boss every game. Anichebe has come through the ranks and has obvious shortcomings but is somehow expected to be the new Drogba. Distin is a journeyman pro, Coleman a young RB, Pienaar wasn't wanted at Spurs, Jelavic has gone off the boil.

This isn't a top squad? Is anyone seriously looking at our midfields in comparisons with Chelsea and thinking that they're in any way comparable? Its a lose lose because if you do then it was Moyes assembled it and if you don't then you need to ask why they're as close as they are to them in the league?

It's because of Moyes that we are so high in the league — not in spite of him. You all are so quick to criticise the points he supposedly throws away through substitutions yet the credit for putting out a team capable of getting those points is never given to him.

If individual errors from key players had been less this season our points tally would be ridiculously high, even with Moyes's perceived tactically inept substitutions. A few CB errors that didn't happen and we'd be right up in the top 4. At what point do people look at the manager and give him any of the credit for this?

James, if only Moyes could eliminate some of the basic errors from his gameplan, we could have a manager who could take the final step.

Yes what you say is right... but also Moyes makes too many clangers when games are there to be won. Moyes ends games with the 11 who should've started far too many times, usually when it's too late. The constant use of the sole striker even at home against lesser teams and his insistence on sticking with his out-of-form Blue-Eyed Boys all help to negate the good work he does.

We all know about his steady stable approach but sometimes he needs to let the dogs off the leash. Moyes has taken us to the brink of success; now he needs to grow a pair and take a risk or two for the final push... He who dares wins???

Good post James

City owed their fans a performance, whilst united are sat pretty. The result last night was where the smart money went.

Once would be good

Bingo Tony, Moyes has done great things here over the years, no doubt, but he hasn't progressed, grown a pair, still makes the fundamental errors that undermines all his good work (recounted too many times on this site to be repeated again) etc. etc.

That is what many of the MOB complain about, we're not saying 'everything' he's done is crap, far from it, just that he has proven he can't, won't or simply refuses to change, which is not good enough. In this game, like in most things in life, one thing you can count on is change, Everton failed to deal with that as a club in the early EPL years (and by God have we paid a heavy price for it over the years, and continue to do do) and Moyes has failed to change, adapt and grow during his time here. In fact, you could argue quite the opposite, he's actually gone backwards in many ways.

Get rid of Moyes & Kenwright and watch us fly high.... and then turn up at Goodison and pick up the pieces of the wreckage

The reason Man City won at Man Utd is in part due to their £27 million striker Tevez, not to mention the free signings of Aguero £28M, Kompany £15M, Toure £22M, Silva £32M.

When we went to Man Utd, we had Anichebe, Jelavic, Osman et al. Perspective maybe... as for all the "Mancini is a tactical genius" bullshit, the guy still has the nerve to whine about his lack of transfer funds.