Do we bottle the big games ?

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artetas_biggest_fan said:
Some overly harsh comments. We are not really in a position to bottle big games as the majority of big games involve playing opponents who are favourites to win. Say we had beaten Arsenal and went on to play Wigan and lost..that would be bottling it.
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Not really.

Whilst sometimes "bottling it" can be an appropiate reason for losing a game of football, more often than not its an incredible stupid lazy cliche that people love to trot out without thinking.

We could have beat Arsenal then lost to Wigan for plenty of other reasons.
 

Everton never fail to disappoint you could say we are a sleeping giant but truth is probably more like a comatosed dwarf maybe someday we can go into big games with the intention of actually winning
 
Allezfan said:
The problem is you're defining pressure games as games we dodn't win.

Win QFs vs Boro at home, west ham away & sunderland away (not pressure games), lose QFs vs Wigan at home & Arsenal away (pressure games).

Beat Man Utd at home & Newcastle away to clinch 4th and CL football (not a pressure game), lose to Liverpool away to miss out on 4th and CL football (pressure game).

Beat Man Utd in a semi to reach a cup final (not a pressure game), lose to Liverpool and Chelsea in semis to not reach finals (pressure games).

Win in Europe to reach the next round vs Brann (not a pressure game), lose vs europe to not reach the next round vs Dinamo or Sporting (pressure games).

Draw vs Coventry to stay in the premier league and gain the tv riches that leads to (not a pressure game), lose vs Villarreal to not reach the CL group stages and gain the tv riches that leads to (pressure game).

When people start talking about our home game this year vs sunderland as a big game we bottled, you essentially can replace 'big game' with 'game we lost'. And ask 'do we lose the games we lose'? We do, by the way.
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Great post this. Evertonians do tend to do this alot, and just select certain games to suit their argument.

Having said that, I would say that bottling the "Big" games is almost always down to them being important away games. How many crucial away games have we won since Moyes took over and after? The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Sunderland in the Quarter Final. And the reason we won that is because the players felt superior to a club like Sunderland.

Any time we come up against a good side away from home we never get the victory. Chelsea in the League Cup Semi, all of the crucial end of season aways last season against the good teams, all of the games against the teams around is this season (Except for Man United who I believe we are better than).

It's something in the mindset of the players in my opinion and they need to rid it from their game. They take to the pitch in alot of these games like we're minnows.
 
Ihaters said:
I don't know what's worse, that your just wrote that, or how unsuprising I would find it if a certain few posters acutally believed it.
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Google the Man U team that day, Rooney was fully fit but never played a minute, Fergy wanted Moyes to win so he'd win the cup for when he took over.
 

Don't get me wrong it was a god awful team Man U put out.

Foster, Rafael, Vidic, Ferdinand, Fabio, Park, Gibson, Anderson, Welbeck, Macheda & Tevez

But that was cos they thought they could beat us with their hands tied behind their backs not cos they wanted to lose.
 
We often lose "big" games against teams who are better than us.

I will let you into a secret, this happens to everyone. It's not us "bottling" anything, it's not being as good.

To make an argument that we've "bottling" it for 19 years is frankly mental.
 
Allezfan said:
Don't get me wrong it was a god awful team Man U put out.

Foster, Rafael, Vidic, Ferdinand, Fabio, Park, Gibson, Anderson, Welbeck, Macheda & Tevez

But that was cos they thought they could beat us with their hands tied behind their backs not cos they wanted to lose.
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Man United's team that day cost far, far more than ours. In fact, I believe the guys who missed their penalties cost more than our entire squad. The reason Ferguson left out Rooney et al was that Man U had a Champions League tie in midweek.

However, it's a fact that we do bottle big games. The semi-final against Liverpool is the best example, player for player we had the strongest side, but as soon as Liverpool scored it was clear that we'd lose. We had "gone" mentally. Same against Arsenal last week; Baines' stupid decision to kick the ball out of play when Arteta was faking injury shows that too many of our team just don't have the necessary will to win.
 

Aberblue said:
Man United's team that day cost far, far more than ours. In fact, I believe the guys who missed their penalties cost more than our entire squad. The reason Ferguson left out Rooney et al was that Man U had a Champions League tie in midweek.
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QPRs team cost more than ours do. Didn't stop them getting relegated.

That's a crap team they played against us. And they did it both because the fa cup was third on their priority list and that they were arrogant enough to think they could beat us with a second string team.

They almost did, too. There's no way Ferguson threw it, but I think it helped us hugely that we were in for only one trophy and they were in for 3.
 
Ara said:
Google the Man U team that day, Rooney was fully fit but never played a minute, Fergy wanted Moyes to win so he'd win the cup for when he took over.
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I am ranking this theory up there with Moyes being too scared to sell players, just in case they played better under the new manager and showed him up.
I so hoped you were joking ffs. Some of the rubbish people spout about Moyes since he's gone, makes the rubbish Moyes spouts about us seem quite reasonable.
 
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But there is no one spouts more "rubbish" about Moyes that your good self, Ihaters.

There is no one can say even a slightly negative thing about your hero that doesn't have you wading in to defend him.
 
artetas_biggest_fan said:
Some overly harsh comments. We are not really in a position to bottle big games as the majority of big games involve playing opponents who are favourites to win. Say we had beaten Arsenal and went on to play Wigan and lost..that would be bottling it.

Oddly enough you could argue that the two relegation games that we were favourites to win we more or less bottled (went 2-0 down to Wimbledon who had nothing to play for and also got a helping hand from Segers, drew 1-1 with Coventry and would have been toast had Bolton won).

Recently, can only really think of the cup semi against the RS...there wasn't a great deal between the teams but we froze in the 2nd half. We also bottled the home tie vs Villarreal. Being at home we were favourites and it had the entire previous seasons work riding on it and the chance to play in the Champions League with all the riches/status it entails.
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Even the Villareal game is disputable considering they got to the semi final that season so they were obviously a team stacked with quality whilst we were actually a very average side.

For me bottling something means playing within yourself, shirking challenges and as you say freezing in the moment. I think that definitely applies to the cup semi final. I'll even say Wigan at home last year wasn't necessarily bottling it, more complacency and the fact we were atrocious on the day. Throw in the fact Martinez was tactically perfect.
 

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