Jarrad Branthwaite blames “lapse in concentration” for loss against Manchester United

Patterson, O'Brien, Branthwaite and Aznou would be a much more modern looking back four. Tarkowski is just a bully and on top of that, he's our Captain!!!

He's acting a fool and bullying everyone, then he's the team leader and is the only one allowed to speak to the ref on our behalf. What hope do we have of ever having refs on our side? They are sick of his antics like we are.

We didn't... so we can't.

It's down to Moyes's poor decision-making.

And it's the same problem every home game, same as the Bournemouth game, they much like United were anonymous as a threat. All of a sudden, concentration lapse, game gone.

Thing is, we never learn.

Playing your best centre-back by a mile at left-back was a catastrophic mistake, as were his other curious moves.

Will Moyes learn? No, he won't.... even when O'Brien is back, he'll be playing right-back, playing Gueye when it's obvious to 49,000 fans he looks twice his age is infuriating and downright insulting, when Röhl hasn't seen a minute since the Villa game.

Alcaraz, when fully fit, hardly features, and he's one who tries to force the issue at least, think Palace at home earlier this season. He's another who's been disgracefully snubbed. It's a squad game, so utilise the squad instead of just playing your favourites.

Moyes gets no more praise off me, not even for the away form; that home record is abysmal and it's nothing to do with the stadium whatsoever, it's the way we set up.

Why don't we get on the front foot from the off instead of sideways and backwards soul-destroying football? Am I expecting anything to change? Quite honestly... No, the man is too set in his ways to change and too long in the tooth.

Keane and Tarkowski are past it and should be binned... but Moyes won't as they are his faves.

One of the highest-paid managers in the Premier League, I believe.

Jarrad lad, it seems like away teams get us to it straight away. Stop deflecting, lad.

"It's the market"

Oh Jaysus.

Great system, global economics!

Grr, grrr, Grr, et al.

Meanwhile, we take our serving of tripe each home game... Bollocks.

Firstly, the squad is not strong enough and the manager really hasn't changed his strategies from is first tenure at the club. He believes safety-first is the way to go and he did kind of make Everton difficult to beat.

However, the problem is that, when the other team scores, you have to have a Plan B and, without capable goalscoring forwards, it is very difficult to get anything out of the game.

Starting without capable full-backs yesterday restricted the attacking support that many decent full-backs contribute to in the modern game. Man Utd have two natural fullbacks who were always a threat.

Garner has been great in midfield and Brabthwaite at centre-back but Jarrad struggled in that first half as a left-back.

Moyes somehow thinks better than most of us regarding Iroegbunam and Gana, who are very weak in that area.

Lastly, and sad to say, Barry does not cut the mustard. I somewhat sympathize with the lad who pulls his tripe out ploughing a lone furrow but he is not Premier League class.

Reminds me a little of James Beattie who, lacking in skill, was saddled with the same plight under Moyes (correct me if I am wrong).

We may win one or two more games before the season's end but they are a hard watch under Moyes in the modern game.

Gana is shot as a player, Tarkowaki is a dinosaur. Playing Garner as full-back... what is wrong with Moyes? He is a brilliant midfielder.

Everyone but Moyes can see our best line-up. Words fail me...

But I don't think it's a lapse in concentration when you have so many of the coaching staff on the bench, and not one of them has decided to get up and tell Michael Keane he needed at least one other player to get back alongside him, considering this is something that our manager has said he expected to happen?

Baines is pointing something out to him and he looks lost.

It's obviously down to the players on the pitch, but it doesn't say much for the coaches who were sitting on our bench, with not one of them thinking to get up and remind the players on the pitch not to leave ourselves exposed defensively.

The defence orientated manager got the defensive part wrong.

I'm smiling thinking back to the centre half partnerships that would have played on the dockers over the years.

There’s some faces who have passed through The Dockers, and it’s not just Arthur Daley, who could have learned a few things by just standing on the sidelines, because when it came to the biggest games, not many teams were prepared to leave one central defender alone and exposed like Everton did last night. Not a fucking chance.

Moyes' blunder wasn't in pulling Garner out of midfield, it was who he replaced him with. Gana and Iroegbunam are fine defenders, but they pass like I piss at 70 -- weak and inaccurate -- and we desperately needed somebody who could distribute out of the back.

My first choice would be KDH, who likes to play deeper ("I think my more natural position is probably an eight, box-to-box") and Armstrong or Rohl could have played there too. Either Alcaraz or Rohl could have slotted into the attacking mids. George could have started on LW.

There were multiple decisions that Moyes screwed up yesterday. Putting Garner at right back wasn't one of them.

But we'll never know if...

A) Patterson would've had just as good a game

or

B) Thus allowing Garner to play in his proper position.

My view is either could've played at Fullback and that Moyes got the resultant Midfield wrong, Gana OR Tim, not both...maybe even none.

Moyes is part of the problem - when he should be ALL of the solution.

I fearTFG will take up his reported 2nd full year option and may even extent the extension.

Every time we have gone behind or start pushing hard for a goal, we seem to get picked off.

We’re better at defending than we are attacking.

All out attack works if you score, (which we don’t), but we get caught when we “do”.

Yes. I hate it too.

It was clearly a mistake to put Garner at right-back. It weakened the most important area of the pitch for us. As another poster said on another thread: Moyes put out ‘the shitest midfield combo we could field’. We did not lose the game on the right side. Man-Utd’s goal was a consequence of a match-long weak middle and appalling defending from the centre backs.

Garner did fine – a very decent 7/10 - but the missing subtext in #20 is a continuing anti-Patterson rant that to be fair cooled down a little a few weeks ago but is now back at full steam. Many have called for Patterson on here and that I imagine is due to his encouraging displays when he did start including, of course, the excellent win at Forest. Moyes might be the only PL gaffer who would have changed that winning line up when he did not have to.

Let me remind you what that line up was: Pickford, Patterson, Tarkowski, O'Brien, Mykolenko, Iroegbunam, Garner, Dibling, Röhl, McNeil, Barry.

This was arguably our best performance of the season so far with Patterson where he should have been and Garner where he should have been. No Gana. Switch Ndiaye, George, and Branthwaite for Dibling, McNeil, and Tarkowski, and I believe that this eleven - Pickford, Patterson, Branthwaite, O'Brien, Mykolenko, Iroegbunam, Garner, Ndiaye, Röhl, George, Barry – would have had a better possibility of winning yesterday.

I will absolutely venture that if he had started yesterday Patterson would have been fine and that the difference between this hypothetical performance and the one that we actually saw would have been nowhere near enough to justify shifting Garner out of position where he was needed more to right-back.

The people that will need time adjusting is the fans who actually travel to and from there like normal everyday folk, something which footballers are just not, I'm sorry but nothing about the everyday life in modern day football players is normal.

The form at Goodison in it's last season read 5 wins, not good enough either, so can't blame the new stadium for that side of it.

Anyway, I half agree - Garner at FB wasn't the big problem.

Moyes in general and this week, his overall Mid-Field selection in particular was the real Problem,

You'll no doubt remember way back in Jan 2025 when I wrote...Moyes will be Moyes.

...Indeed, you replied.

Nights like Monday were exactly what I had in mind.

Also, Pre game Moyes himself said...except for Grealish we've a full squad. But now he's getting stick for team selections, hey ho. Alcaraz is 'injured'

Moyes Out...well it had to start somewhere.

Anyway, midfield selection and right-back in this context are hand-in-hand. I think Garner at RB was athe problem Derek and my point was that Nathan was perfectly capable of playing there to good effect. That would have allowed our BEST central midfielder to have played in the middle.

Yep, 'Moyes will be Moyes'.

The first thing you do is win the midfield battle, the second thing you do is get the ball into your centre forwards feet or out wide. That’s what I was always taught anyway, but when the ball goes out to our fullbacks, they usually check back, and when it goes into Barry, he his often surrounded by defenders.

I didn’t think we played badly the other night, I definitely thought we deserved something out of the game, but I thought it was wrong to bring off Armstrong, because I thought he was playing as well as anyone in the second half (I thought he struggled a little bit in the first half) and I’d have liked to see him go and play inside next to George.

Move on, another game Saturday, then another one next Tuesday, and then let’s see were we are going into the final quarter of the season.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, some people might not think we are ready for Europe, but at least you get a more settled fixture list, if you get into one of the lesser competitions, and even though it means a lot of Sunday games, this has got to be a lot better than night games, until the logistics are improved around transportation?

I will always defer to your experience and completely agree that 'The first thing you do is win the midfield battle'.That's why Garner needed to be there and why whatever sort of competence he brought to to RB damaged our chances of getting something out of the match.

Villa Park was a great performance. I thought that your Forest was more complete. Nearly everyone in the right place playing to their strengths.

A draw/win at Newcastle is not out of the question. Given our away form it's realistic. I'm dreading the Burnley game more if we don't win. But surely we will.

Let them have the ball, stay in the game, and because it's not been something we have been good at, it doesn't take that long to see us lacking ideas, and this is what I've seen happening quite a few times at our ground this season.

Same old - same old, let them have the ball and run out of ideas because we know Moysey, doesn't like making changes early, unless his team are getting completely outplayed.

Burnley are like Wolves, they have are having a good go right now and have just got four points from six, from two difficult away fixtures in London, so it won't be an easy game, especially because I think that patience must be wearing very thin inside the stadium, with both the style of play and the lack of victories.

I didn't feel good, so this might have been the reason, but if I'm being honest, it wouldn't bother me not going inside the stadium again until the club starts showing a lot more ambition and the style of play also improves.

Everton win a lot more games when they have a lot less possession; this might just explain why our away form is better than our home form.

However, in practice, it cost us the game as we tried to push up with Keane and Tarks which was suicidal. Had Jarrad been in Keane's situation, he would have shut Mbuemo down at source, hence Tarkowski wouldn't have been exposed like he was.

I don't get the criticism of our midfielders and Garner at right-back as we controlled the midfield and Casemeiro, Mainoo and Fernandes all had poor games. Indeed, Garner and Gana have been poor together and we haven't controlled the midfield like that since Gana was away.

The issues were obviously in the attacking third and once again Moyes's cluelessness was evident. I thought Armstrong would start on the right with that line-up so Garner would overlap. Ndiaye back to his favoured left. Unbelievably we never changed it despite Ndiaye not getting a kick and Armstrong having no support to help him.

Moyes's decision to continue playing his favourites no matter what is severely costing us. How Dewsbury-Hall remained on the pitch was baffling. How bad does a player have to be to get hooked? He offered nothing all game, kept losing possession, and got countered, while he refused to play players in when they made runs, especially Branthwaite when he was clean through.

Has our manager ever made a proactive sub since he has been here? Has he ever admitted by his subs that he picked the wrong team? Has he ever made a sub before the opposing manager? Has he ever identified a weakness in the opponent?

Someone complained about knowing our team early, most weeks, you know the line-up a week before, so those leaks may be detrimental to other managers but irrelevant to Everton.

Hugely frustrating night but now this has become the norm.

Has he ever admitted by his subs that he picked the wrong team?

Has he ever made a sub before the opposing manager?

Has he ever identified a weakness in the opponent?

No, No, No & No.

He is an old-fashioned manager, stuck in the past. Until he's gone, we won't progress.

We are 9th in the Premier League. That is progress.

I think he took off Dibling at half time, was that against Wolves?

John, you and I disagree over the job Moyes is doing and that's fair enough. But given the whole squad is fit, what side would you start with?

Quite often, Moyes is criticized for his team selection. By the way, I did post after the Man Utd game, I thought Moyes's team selection was awful.

Also, it's not just about defending when you are right-back, you should also be overlapping the winger and getting crosses in.

Patterson gives us better balance. One thing is for sure, the results have gone against us since Moyes decided to leave him out and play players out of position.

I was talking about positive subs to try to win a game. I would like to see us play 4-3-3 but no chance of him doing that.

Pickford
Patterson O'Brien Branthwaite Mykolenko
Armstrong Dewsbury-Hall Garner.
Ndiyae Barry George.

Hopefully swap the two full-backs next season.

I think it's been proved over the years we don't do great because it's the players that are not quite good enough to really challenge the usual Top 6 clubs; we have had some very decent managers and they have all failed.

The top clubs don't shell out fortunes on top players for fun, they know to stay on top they have to do it, they want the very best players because they know it's those that create and score goals from nothing.

If you think just changing the manager is the answer, you're kidding yourself.

What would you argue is "good" about Moyes?

You are claiming progress purely based on our current Premier League position, and that's fair enough if you are convinced that this is the position we will finish, then you will certainly have validity.

However, considering we have £120M of investment plus a quoted £50M player on loan for half the campaign and another £25M player to replace him, does progress only mean finishing higher than 12th or 13th which we have effectively done the last 2 campaigns?

This to me suggests that you are setting a very low bar and are setting Moyes up in a no-lose situation.

In both the last two campaigns, it could be argued that we maximised the potential in the squad. I doubt you would find many Evertonians who would suggest we have done so this season.

To put it in context, Dyche -- who gets slagged off by many of the fervent Moyes advocates -- got 48 points with one of the worst squads in our history in his first and only full season while working under the most adverse pressure.

In Moyes's first full season, we have 37 points currently with 11 games to go including still to play 5 of the Sky 6 as well as Newcastle and Brentford. Even by your very simple metric, which heavily favours our current incumbent, progress by your definition is still not a given.

I've no objection to us getting a different manager, and fans wanting to watch more entertaining games is fair criticism.

Maybe there are better managers out there but they can't bring success without the right players and my arguement is players are way more important than managers.

Surely if you finish say 11th one season, and the next season 8th, that's progress... or am I missing something?

I've given my ticket away more than I've been this season, it's soul-destroying to watch.

Interested in knowing what progress means to you. Winning the Premier League?

If we finish 8th, then that is obviously tangible progress and the manager will deserve his flowers.

I doubt many Spurs fans are jumping for joy about the progress they are making this season as they finished 17th last season but are currently 16th.

It would have taken mismanagement of the highest degree for us to finish below 13th this season considering the likes of Forest, Spurs, Newcastle and Palace have struggled competing on numerous fronts.

In effect, the only teams we are ahead of are the Bottom 3, Brighton, Leeds and Sunderland who have similar workload to us and it would be embarrassing had we finished below any of these squads -- bar Brighton... which we may yet do so.

Everton finishing 11th or 12th would be seen as progress by you, it would be seen as underachievement by me. The term 'progress' implies things are improving on the pitch yet many of our players are regressing, as is our use of them.

The progress that you allude to has largely come from having the likes of Grealish, Dewsbury-Hall, Barry, Alcaraz and Rohl available who have all contributed in certain games to win us extra points.

We have criminally mismanaged others which has seen us forfeit many other points.

As I say, progress is more nuanced than you allow for and even your definition is taken at a point in time and doesn't cater for the fact that, unlike many of our competitors, we have only played 2 of the likely Top 8 twice.

Below that is disappointing.

That would be the first sign of progress for me.

If you think that is relevant we are doing well in 9th at the moment.

Looking at our upcoming fixtures though, I think we will drop down a place or more.

If we had joined-up football, as you say, but finished 15th, would that be progress?

I see progress by ascertaining in my mind if I can see a plan, and right now I just don't see any signs of a true discernible plan.

This could change, because whatever anyone says, I do believe we have got some very good players, but until we start moving away from such a rigid system, I'm just not sure how this is going to happen?

Like Alladyce, Dyche and many others who have not managed us, including Potter; Moyes is a serial loser.

He has never -- other than when protected by his mate, Bill -- been able to hold down a job for an extended period of time, not because he has been offered a better opportunity but because his football and management style pisses people off and alienates him from the fan base.

He will never, ever have (hopefully had) a better opportunity to play open entertaining football with a good mix of upcoming youngsters and established pros.

Instead, he plays men out of position, ignores young talent and alienates the fan base with his predictable and stuck-in-the-past tactics.

He surrenders the domestic cup competitions season after season and never admits his shortcomings.

Are you advocating the football we are watching as better than flowing football? That the better Premier League position would be achieved by playing negative football?

No, the football isn't great, but no one can say we haven't progressed under Moyes -- the evidence is in front of your eyes.

For what it's worth, I think Moyes should go in the summer. He's done what he was brought in to do. Keep us up and steady the ship. It's time for new ideas with a modern coach.

I've been a season ticket holder for over 40 years. I have given my ticket away more than I've been to the game this season. I can't watch what is being served up.

I agree, he was the choice last season; I knew as soon as he came in we would not be relegated. I would hope we change him at the end of this season.

If you're saying Moyes's football is a worse watch than Dyche's football, I think you should give up watching (no offence meant, by the way).

Dyche is by far a worse manager than Moyes and his totally negative tactics say that. Sure, Moyes can be negative, but we still create some chances. With Dyche, we failed to score in 9 of his last 11 games.

The football coached from either of them is archaic, defensive frightened football.

I hold them both in the same esteem.

I would say John is watching because he is an Evertonian... but you would have to be to watch us regularly.

Dyche wouldn't have been able to change even if he had no excuses... but, then again, he couldn't sign the likes of Dewsbury-Hall, Grealish, Alcaraz, Dibling, George, Barry and Aznou with the intention of improving that side of our game.

Yet we are scoring virtually the same as in the 2023-24 season, where we didn't have Ndiaye either.

From one Dyche season, if you took away the points deduction, Everton would have finished 12th.

I reckon Moyes in 2025-26 will finish around the same: 12th.

Take away the points deduction and Everton came 12th in 2024, they came 12th again in 2025, so if they can come 12th again in 2026, my question has got to be, for how long do people want to talk about stability?

A better subject would be the lack of progress, mate.

I might be wrong but I just don't see any real evidence to make me feel that I am wrong. Something I have already written about today is that Everton's best results have been when we don't have a lot of possession.

I honestly don't mind playing without the ball just as long as we are effective when we get it. When I look at the Premier League today, I think to myself that a savvy, defensively sound manager like Diego Simeone would probably have a great chance of winning the Premier League with his style of football.

It could even be argued that finishing lower is progress, especially when the players you have splurged most of your budget on have underwhelmed.

Similarly, being slightly less mind-numbing than under Dyche is a huge step forward. Or so the Mediocre One will argue in his constant moving of the goalposts.

If only he could move the goalposts enough so that our players could actually hit the target.

Simeone plays what some would call defensive football. However, they play without the ball with high intensity and lay traps for the counter-attack.

The other thing is that the 70 thousand who attend every match buy into the approach and make it a cauldron. I'm certain that we could replicate that atmosphere at Bramley-Moore Dock if only we played with passion and intent.

But then, after years of lack of ambition from the club, up came the real threat of relegation to smack us on the arse. Hence Alardyce, Dyche and Moyes.

Relative stabilty now needs to be built on immediately this summer. A new manager, new players and some real investment and leadership from these new owners.

I don't want to hear anymore about 3-year projects, I want us to hit it bigtime from the off next season. No more treading water... because one day we'll drown.

Being a ST holder for over 40 years deserved more respect from me. Again, apologies John.

It was easy to get carried away because of my love for the beautiful game. When I watched Atletico Madrid playing their neighbours in the Champions League last season (in the game when they were cheated by the double hit penalty), for the first time in years, I could feel the pure emotion from inside the stadium, coming straight down my television and into my living room.

Pure passion... not that many football clubs have got fans who can deliver that incredible passion naturally.

I despair at the last 30 years. I know that if we found a coach who could give us the type of football we crave, then I'm certain that the Evertonians who have waited very patiently for things to really happen would definitely do the rest.

We're in an improved more stabilised financial state. We played shite football last season and we have played shite football this season. Points and position are not the be-all-and-end-all of measuring improvement.

Paul, if we play much better football, we will not end up finishing 12th or 15th. We need to leave a proper assessment about improvement until 5:30 pm on Sunday 24 May.

I didn't take offence mate but thanks anyway.

If, by any chance, Man Utd get a different manager, would you fancy us?