Its logical to look at the players available before picking a formation & tactics to suit. Moyes tries to shoe horn his players into the only formation he appears to know - the drab 4-5-1.

On a separate note - where is Osmans best position. He can't tackle, pass over 10 yards, gets knocked off the ball, is poor in the air & has no creativity - he's no midfielder!

On a slightly different note, this made me chuckle: "Great managers who win things on a regular basis, shape the team so it has a sharp, pointy end so they can win games". Leaving aside the razor sharp "pointy end" analysis, can I just point you to Barcelona (circa Pep) and Spain (circa the last 4 years). Both regularly play without a "pointy end" (i.e. an actual honest to goodness designated centre forward). Both have been quite successful. Go figure.

Its not nonsense to suggest they don't fit his shape-just look at the strikers he has bought over the years then asked to run the channels-Yakubu, Johnson, Jelavic to name a few.

When I say a pointy end I mean just that. Barcelona have a pointy end-he is called Messi and scored over 70 goals last season. My analysis was that great managers set the team up from the front end with the purpose being to to score and win Barcelona do it just the same way. Moyes sets his from the back and hopes, cross fingers, that we get lucky and score one. That was the pint I was making.

I agree with this 100%. Where were the our supposedly top 4 players in the games that mattered? Fellaini against Wigan in the cup for example. A joke.

We do have 1 big game player and that is Jagielka. For all his limitations he always puts in a shift and its no coincidence that is wasn't there today and the Wigan game.

Leon's fans talk about his creativity yet he often goes whole games without creating a single opportunity for the strikers, viz a viz yesterday's game.

You wonder what at his best position I say he is I would go further by saying he should not even be in the squad. I concur with Tony Marsh's view that with him in the team we will never win a thing.

You can't just blame the shape of the team when some of the players aren't playing in their natural positions.

Or is it yet another rehash of the same recurring faults that drive the MOB to distraction.

The players have to take some of the blame and Sunderland have to be given some credit.

But until Moyes decides what if anything he is doing next season the real causes of Moyeses inability to change things still sit snuggly and smuggly in the Board Room.

While the much lauded 7th place trophy ( with the odd semi, 6th and 5th place thrown in as icing on the cake ) keeps the masses from going apeshit at boys pen billy ( or the banks pull the plug ).

Nothing will change.

My point though, is that talk of systems and formations is largely nonsense. Messi isn't a pointy end, he's one of the best players ever. That makes a difference. Whether you play him as a centre-forward, a second-striker, a withdrawn striker, a playmaker, an attacking midfielder, a wide-player or a false number nine, he will always cause the opposition problems. Barcelona have played him in all those positions by the way. Notational systems (4-4-2 etc.) are largely newspaper constructs as an easy way to explain team set-ups to readers who weren't that knowledgeable. Despite many teams setting out asymmetrically over the years, no-one has yet found a way to denote this in terms of the comonly accepted 4-4-2 nonsense.

Great managers start neither at the back or the front; they see the game and the team in its totality. They understand and work on transitions from defence to attack, and vice versa. They impose a philosophy on the team. And they get results from them. Moyes, in my view, does not have a philosophy, but he does get results in keeping with, or slightly better than, the ability of his players.

We are a tidy outfit, but can't afford to have Jags out, an unfit Osman, nor injuries to a Gibson and Anichibe, and expect to win away from home. It doesn't happen. The ball was moved slowly in the absence of Gibson, which meant the ball got lumped forward or we got out ratted when it went short ala Wigan. Pienaar was poor, Osman off the pace, basically you can't afford to carry that much in midfield and expect to win.

Arteta talked about training at Everton when you'd have under 10 bodies. This is the issue. We will always come unstuck when we have a real first team squad of 13 players. We know that we miss another striker and someone to pay in the centre like a Fer. Moyes will carry the can yesterday, but not strengthening the squad in the same way Liverpool did in January is the true exposé.

Every time we have a pivotal game the players hardly ever turn up, they're fine at bullying lesser teams at home (but can still never dish out a thrashing) and pretty good at parking the bus and trying to nick one against the big boys (but unless its City almost always come away with a draw at best). I used to think 'glorious defeat' was frustrating but this is 10 times worse, when it really matters Moyes's teams almost never bring home he bacon. Gutless.

This team - these players - Howard, Heitinger, Neville (now gone) Osman, Pienaar, Naismith, should not be playing for Everton next season.
If we are ever to seek top four status - there has to be LOTS of changes - all of which have been discussed in great depths on these boards.
If Europe is the aim we should only have one aim and that is graphically etched on the clubs badge and it's Latin motto is exactly what we should aim for. In brief, nothing but the best. My interpretation of our future shape would therefore be something like this, not a dream but a reality - and Goodison would then become the
Supreme
Headquarters
All
Powerful
Everton S.H.A.P.E.

I believed he'd pick up from last season and continue to score goals but this hasn't happened and at times he's been an almost Torres type hindrance to our attacking play.

It says a lot for me that Big Vic has been lauded for his work ethic and hold-up play but, in the cold light of day, he is basically a very average Premier League forward — which shows how poor Jelavic has been this season.