Sam Allardyce thinks he did an “unbelievable job” at Everton

The entire Allardyce appointment was classic Moshiri, in just one of his many insane appointments.

We had a poor start that season under Koeman but were in no more danger of going down that season than we are now. It was pure panicked frenzy after a summer of mental spending.

In hindsight, Moshiri should have just reappointed Moyes there and then in November 2017, probably would have spared us the mental appointments that followed both on and off the pitch.

Moyes was already employed. He was four games into his stint at West Ham.

"But I thought it was one of the best jobs I'd ever done.”

Of course it would be one of the best jobs you'd ever done, when you were, and still are, a crap and boring manager, Sam.

Correct but, given that Blue Bill was in charge, it is surprising Moyes wasn't brought back then.

I was amazed as it was a very different perspective to a lot of what I have read on this site.

I couldn't possibly comment.

One swallow doesn't make a summer!

I was surprised. He must reflect some opinions. He said they won a trophy... What would we give to win a trophy, any trophy, not to mind a European trophy?

True he had our one final appearance in 11 years with us, but let's be honest, apart from Joe Royle in 1995, since 1989, to say we have not been a Cup team would be the biggest understatement of the century.

Yes, fair enough, but being honest, Moyes has a good percentage of fans on here and in general who think well of Moyes and say so.

He's managed at Premier League level for most of his management career, took Everton and West Ham to their highest finishes in the Premier League, and won a trophy for West Ham.

I'm not saying he's a great... I'm not saying he's the Moyesiah... but he's a good or very good manager. I really don't think you don't have that sort of longevity in the Premier League if you're not.

They haven't done great since he left, but just like at Manchester United and Sunderland, where he was sacked within 12 months, the same fate just took a bit longer.

I suppose it goes back to your mate Blue Bill, because when I watch Everton playing, or read what Moyes is saying, right now with it being December, it takes me back to the ghost of Christmas past.

He's not a bad manager, but if you delve a little bit deeper, I think it becomes evident that he's more of a safe pair of hands, rather than a manager who has got that real winning mentality.

I also think it's fair to say that, with the money involved in the Premier League, then being a safe pair of hands will get a manager employed by a lot of football clubs.

For me longevity is something that managers earn in the Premier League... just being a safe pair of hands doesn't get you the stint Moyes has got.

And yes, a lot of Hammers fans wanted him gone... Moyes is never ever going to be one to please all of the people all of the time. But West Ham haven't fared much better since he left them.

For fuck's sake, Tony... "He's not a bad manager". If you had said that from the off... we would have avoided a lot of bile.

But any chance of winning anything is going to need an uptick in quality. This group aren't winners, regardless of the manager.

Now that we have bought in new players the expectations are higher. He is doing okay but for many here, he will never be accepted.

For me, he is doing okay with what he has available. We all know what's missing, defenders who are confident to overlap and able to put in good crosses, players who can find a telling pass to put our strikers in with decent chances.

I know many, including me, moan about our strikers, but Beto did well last season when he got good ball. I don't think he has got many such chances this season. They are both living off scraps. As for Barry, I don't think he is strong enough physically or mentally.

I do believe that The Friedkin Group will look to replace Moyes at the end of the season unless we achieve a league position which qualifies us for European competitions. My fear here is the Devil we know may be better than the Devil we don't know.

How many TWebbers were advocating for Thomas Frank and we see how he is doing at Spurs? We should be careful for what we wish for. Besides Pep, backed by billions, and Emery, I haven't seen any manager meeting the expectations of the fans.

We were struggling. Yes, we won that West Ham game game under Unsworth although Sam claimed credit as he stopped by the dressing room, but we looked in serious trouble and he did navigate us well away from the drop zone.

The irony is we offered him a short-term firefighter deal that he rejected, so we offered him longer then sacked him anyway. I don't think he'd have taken us forward as it were but he might have stabilized the ship and kept us out of the subsequent relegation battles that followed his demise.

So, from his perspective, I can appreciate he feels he did an amazing job and I'm not going to argue him down. But bigger picture, he was another panic recruit in an era of incompetence.

Alardyce should never have been allowed to manage this club. He even took credit for us beating West Ham 3-0 when he had been in situ half a day. But instead of talking about what a fraud he is and £6M the richer for keeping a side up that wasn't going down.

If I had my way, I would have him and Benitez on carpark duty on matchdays, that is all they are fit for.

But let's talk about Moyes, for fuck's sake!

Sam and Rafa are long gone... Moyes is the current manager.

Are you really that surprised?

Harry, I agree that I was overly critical of Patric's piece on a standalone basis; however, I also feel as an institution ToffeeWeb has a responsibility to be factual as it can also help create a narrative. Even in its motto it claims to provide 'expert analysis'.

Patric made a two-fold assessment that:

a) Mykolenko's one-on-one defending was deteriorating, which is isn't substantiated by facts; and

b) gave an inaccurate account of who lost Palmer, which formed the basis of his article.

Without this attribution, his piece would have questionable validity.

Incidentall,y I have seen 2 other articles from him recently and was quite impressed with both.

Secondly, why I am answering on this thread is that there are now 6 writers to my knowledge Anjishnu, Angus, Patric, Harry, Samuel and Zach who have produced articles since the season began.

We have had Moyes's improving the defence, Moyes's improvement since last season, and even one on Moyes's alleged better football and creating chances. On top of this, we have numerous articles on alleged high-ranking chance creation by multiple players within our squad.

Yet we are nearly half-way through the season; we are 2 points from 15th and 2 points off 7th. This suggests that there is a question mark of whether the manager is doing a good job, a bad job, or somewhere in between, probably dependent on an individual's perception. Indeed, even the claims that he has improved the defence are highly disputable.

Despite this, we have seen one article presented that questioned our first-half malaise under this manager. Everything else barring Michael's write-ups have been overwhelmingly promotional and favourable.

Even more surprising is that this when we are 2nd worst team for shots on target, 18th for goals scored, low on chance creation, and in the bottom 7 on any attacking metric you care to mention -- including corners won and possession.

Not one article has highlighted this flaw, yet a series of smoke and mirrors pieces using stats, without analysis or critical thinking, suggest we have been excellent in the final third despite both the eye test and the facts telling us different.

Now, on this thread, we have a manager who, like Moyes, came in on the back of an underperforming predecessor, like Moyes, turned the season around and brought about a dramatic upturn in results.

Anjishnu doesn't give him his flowers, no piece about results pre and post Sam. No, his only comment was to tell us about how poor we were attacking wise with overwhelming facts to boot.

If you think ToffeeWeb isn't narrative-setting, I would suggest Allardyce, Mykolenko and Barry would strongly disagree. A previous manager gets slated for his failure in attack despite a turnaround... yet, nearly half a season in, and not one article has presented similar facts on the present incumbent despite identical flaws. Indeed everything presented preaches it's to the contrary.

Michael K, there was no need for an apology, that wasn't my point. You have suggested that readers don't want or have time for long articles. You may be right but as a poster I was drawn to ToffeeWeb due to the meaty, opinionated, informative articles that provoked great debate. Martin O'Connor's were a personal favourite.

My view is that, if old ToffeeWeb was 1 on the spectrum and the new format is a 10 then at some point there needs a compromise at 7 as clearly the site is losing its appeal for many. Having 3 articles based on Moyes's press conference etc is my view diluting quality over quantity.

I sincerely hope that ToffeeWeb's new owners are listening to feedback of the reasons why posters have left as, if they don't, I fear for it's future.

Ah! I've taken the bait and clicked!

Thanks for the comments and, as always, feedback is appreciated.

In terms of the Mykolenko/Full-backs piece, I think 'inaccuracy' is a little harsh. Patric stated 'partially' that he was at fault for both goals which I think would be a fair assessment.

In my (humble and often incorrect) opinion, the bulk of the fault for the Palmer goal is no doubt with Gueye, but Mykolenko could have reacted quicker on the cover too. We all see things differently.

Putting that aside, I can assure you there's no deliberate narrative-setting from ToffeeWeb. Some of the writers may share views, and some of them may differ from yours, but there's no intent to set any narrative for threads.

For what it's worth, I think this part of your comment is fairly solid.

Yet we are nearly half way through the season we are 2 points from 15th and 2 points off 7th. This suggests that there is a question mark of whether the manager is doing a good job, a bad job, or somewhere in between, probably dependent on an individual's perception.

It's a weird season and any run of results can flip the table at the moment. Personally, I feel many are just relieved to be comfortably clear of trouble as things stand, even if ambitions must be higher. That might explain some of the Moyes positivity you have perceived.

To address the "less is more" view, we're simply trying to cover any Everton angle we think might be interesting. Some will resonate and others won't. We'll take the feedback on board.

Early in the New Year, I'll send out a message explaining recent changes (which we appreciate have been divisive), plans for 2026, and what's in the roadmap. The site owners are currently working on plans to improve the community aspect of the site for our users and fix errors.

Hope everyone celebrating has a great time over the next week or so.

Yes, ‘Less is more' sometimes... but your post was fine by me.

Probably second only to managing the national team. Now how did that end, brown things under the table while expounding his transfer expertise?

We had a mid-table team then, like we have got a mid table team now, but with most teams in the league currently being a lot closer to each other right now, then I think the difference is that our fans now believe that, if everyone is fit, then we have got the players to compete with most teams.

After reading what a very astute match-going fan said about the game against Arsenal being a lot more difficult because we had most of the players from the second half of last season on the pitch, I did a little bit of research.

Only for that points deduction, Dyche's team had accumulated more points in 2023, than we have now and the team that played the 19 games that Moyes managed us for last season also did.

The margins were all very similar but this is the main reason why I criticise David Moyes. I've never ever said he was a bad manager (anyone who debates with me would vouch for that, Brendan) but I often say he doesn't know how to integrate more players into his team, which would automatically make his squad a lot stronger.

The shortlist next time around will tell us whether we are still entrenched in a "safety first, survival at all costs" club mentality.

I think one is as good or bad as each other depending on which way you look at them!

It's chalk and cheese, look at the number of players the following have: Arsenal, Man City, Chelsea, Liverpool, Man Utd, Aston Villa, Newcastle etc. Unless you can compete with them, there is little chance of winning anything.

It will be very interesting to see if Everton add to the squad in January -- and I don't mean just bringing back Harrison Armstrong.

I wont go into the parts of your post that I disagree with, it's not important.

What is important is that you clearly give some thought to what you are saying. You know what you are talking about and your posts are always worth a read because you steadfastly refuse to sail with the prevailing wind.

A few more posters like you and this site would stand half a chance.

You're a learned Evertonian who has probably lost count of ...

The last line of my post was going to be a question to Dave A, but I couldn't think of a way of comparing Saint Carlo's stint here to Big Bad Sam's.

Every time I tried, it looked as if I was loading the question up.

We seem though to have extracted the form of their lives out of Michael Keane and Dewsbury-Hall, and are having to fire blanks whilst the new boy finds his feet.

The job Davie has done and is doing is a hugely difficult one. You can't put right in a summer the gaps in a squad which has had no investment for half a decade. It's a 3-year job minimum just to put us in a healthy condition.

Some people on here seem to think the manager is falling down on the job if we aren't above Man City. It's bonkers. Just avoiding a dogfight this year is success as far as I'm concerned.

We drew away at both Arsenal and Man City, so it's not as if we were a team that was leaking goals for fun, we just weren't scoring enough.

When Moyes took over, it was of a team that was scoring what was it, 2 goals in 10 games? Since that point, the uptick in form would have delivered us European football most times.

Before the last two defeats when we lost all our good players, we were the most improved team in the Premier League. That's not nothing. That is significant.

The Arsenal and Man City bore draws were the high point of Dyche's last season. The improvement since then, has been remarkable. It wasn't like we had this good side, and just needed to get rid of a lousy manager.

If you don't invest in a team over an extended period, it gives rise to all kinds of vulnerabilities. Such as when we lost our spine last season of Calvert-Lewin, Doucoure and Branthwaite; it didn't bring in any money.

We had to replace these players cos they either left for nowt or were long-term injured. So we had to spend £60M just to stand still. And we managed to replace Branthwaite with Michael Keane! This is patching up par excellence.

So the only 'extra' we've had from the summer window has been Grealish. The others are all 'for the future'. Given all that, and all the bad luck we've had, I think we have to cut the manager considerable slack when he has periods like this, when we aren't scoring.

I think Conor is right about the number of articles on the site. Way too many and this undermines potential discussion, people don't know what to respond to.

If I'm being honest, he often bores me because he's much easier to read than a lot of books I've read.

But he's not the biggest problem though, Kevin, because I think people having an opinion like your last paragraph @31 is a much bigger problem than the manager, because I think that we have got at least a mid-table squad in this league.

Forget the quality, quantity or a managerial debate, the reality is that we have a real issue with our attacking play, our creation and our taking of chances. All theories as to why this happening should be up for discussion but this is like the elephant in the room that not one article has addressed among the daily deity of Moyes hyperbole.

We have had 5 new articles every day for 31 days over the last 5 months, none of which seem to have addressed this topic, yet alone acknowledged it, even suggesting the opposite.

I am loathe to use what I see as an underperforming manager (my opinion), who refused to cross the half way line (my opinion) as an extremely low template (my opinion), but I suppose it's the only way to make a point.

This time last year, we had two less goals than now, the Friedkins rightly or wrongly decided they had a strong goalkeeper and defence and two industrious midfielders in Gueye and Garner to protect it. They couldn't afford to channel everything into a top-class striker, so decided to improve the entire attacking unit (all fact, not opinion).

They swapped:

Grealish for Harrison
Dewsbury-Hall for Doucoure
Barry for Calvert-Lewin
Dibling for Lindstrøm

And added Charly Alcaraz also.

Despite losing 3 of those 4 players who didn't produce a single goal between them, we have currently only scored 2 more goals this time around. Surely one of your merry band would have thought 'Houston, we have a problem'?

Anyway I'll leave it there.

A good Christmas to all

Some people on here seem to think the manager is falling down on the job if we aren't above Man City.

The difference being, no one seems to be stupid enough to actually say that on here.

Except you.

But there is absolutely nothing wrong with fans having high expectations. If you listen to what Moyes says, he sometimes pays lip service to this, saying we should be doing a lot better than we are... before his old self resurfaces and he claims that we have played well whilst losing to Arsenal and Chelsea.

It's those sort of constant moanings as we surge up the table I find bewildering (especially after the decade we've just had). You seem to think we should be ready to beat all and sundry, and I can draw this conclusion from the dour tone of your match reports. Even a three-nil win did not escape your doom-laden analysis.

But believe me, you're not the only one. I'm sure when we beat Burnley, you will lead with something like 'Maybe Moyes is starting to learn the lessons of...' whatever.

Carrying on misinterpreting the "scrappy win" headline -- even though it has been clearly explained by others on that thread.

The difference appears to be that I think Moyes has players who could and should be performing better than they are.

Whereas you seem to always be making excuses for their under-performance.

What we need really is a good short snappy article from Connor McCourt on this topic, but I think I've put him off.

I know the performances are often sub optimal, but I'm also mindful of the desperate state of the squad he took over.

Think there's much of muchness, Michael. Keane, Dewsbury-Hall, Garner are exceeding expectations -- the strikers, Alcaraz, Dibling probably falling short. The rest are putting in performances you'd expect.

I would have been happy for him to stay, but many sadly turn their nose up at such an appointment by thinking that a foreign manager with an exotic name might do a better job.

Many on here touted Amorim for the longest time, let's not forget. 🙄

Those same ‘experts' were also touting Graham Potter to replace Dyche. Brilliant!

They don't mention him now.

My own opinion is that Amorim is a totally different kettle of fish and, to manage a club that from the outside looks to me like they have got a lot of overpaid players that have been assembled by a few different managers and just don't look like they have got enough desire to go and win enough football games on a regular basis.

I wouldn't rule out Amorim yet but whenever I look at certain clubs, I'm not sure that playing with a continental style suits the audience.

When Liverpool sacked Rodgers, most Liverpool fans had already identified Klopp and his high pressing style was a match made in heaven for a crowd that love to get involved.

Which manager can we find who knows how to really engage a crowd that is second to none once they see Everton trying to play aggressively and on the front foot?

This is the billion-dollar question!?