Moyes has failed the test

[steken1]

Fellaini has been playing behind the striker for most of the season, and its worked, he's our highest goalscorer.

So no, not Fellaini.

How many has he scored 11? The team is set up to play for him. You consider that that's worked?

Each to their own. We do have other players who can play that role. We also have other players who can do it differently. All would have been preferable to seeing Phil Neville in midfield. I wouldn't slate Neville either he weren't awful all the time and he did his best. Just we may have had a better solution.

 

[mawders]

so here's what I think

Spurs are 5 points ahead. Their next game is away to chelsea. They'll probably get beat. Then they play away at Stoke and we are at home to west ham. It's highly conceivable Stoke will beat Spurs and we will beat West Ham. Then it's a 2 point difference going into the last game. Spurs are at home to sunderland who are fighting for their lives, and I really wouldn't want to be playing them. OK, we are away at Chelsea, but it's a one off game and they should have 3rd place wrapped up by then...we could win.

Even if spurs draw one of their games, they are only 4 goals better off which can easily be turned around if they lose by 2 and we win by 2 against west ham.

Of course we all know what's going to happen. We will go into the last game 2 points behind. Spurs will lose and we will concede a stoppage time equalizer and finish one point behind

Then we will be fuming due to dropping points in stoppage time so many times

 

[Loz]

...I absolutely disagree with the sentiment that Moyes has failed the test. If anything the club failed by not providing the necessary momentum when we were in a brilliant position at the January transfer milestone. The manager has got us here despite the boards failings.

You are right in that the board have to answer for the lack of investment and failure to come up with funds to buy players. However, despite the fact that it is so obvious to everyone (fans, press, the GOT forum etc) that our biggest problem is a lack of firepower and lack of a proven goalscorer, why was Moyes arseing around looking at midfielders like Fer in January. Injured or not and whether or not we even had the money to buy him is irrelevant....the fact is that strikers need to be our priority. What did we end up with in January....another young defender who has not added anything whatsoever to our push for Europe. Another wasted chance.

 

[Goat]

How many has he scored 11? The team is set up to play for him. You consider that that's worked?

Each to their own. We do have other players who can play that role. We also have other players who can do it differently. All would have been preferable to seeing Phil Neville in midfield. I wouldn't slate Neville either he weren't awful all the time and he did his best. Just we may have had a better solution.

I personally, overall, dont think Fellaini in the hole has worked, teams found us out.

It was good at first, but there should have been a plan b.

Im not blaming Fellaini or Moyes really, its not as if he dropped Messi to play Felli.

But we did have a few other options and no, Naismith WASNT 1 of them.

 

[steken1]

I personally, overall, dont think Fellaini in the hole has worked, teams found us out.

It was good at first, but there should have been a plan b.

Im not blaming Fellaini or Moyes really, its not as if he dropped Messi to play Felli.

But we did have a few other options and no, Naismith WASNT 1 of them.

I like Jagielka and tolerate Distin until we find better but having him up there made it so easy for them to go long and we suffered for it. With the croat being so bang out of form too sides just pushed up and doubled up on the fro.

At the point Neville came into the side it could have been a good time to drop him back, dominate midfield, and get at sides another way. We'd need to be proactive over reactive and that's not really how we roll.

All the stuff I highlighted earlier are obvious things that most of us saw.

We've only lost out on where we should be by a small margin and I wouldn't have expected us not to make any mistakes at all. Also, I wouldn't blame Moyes for Jelavic being so, so poor all year. I wouldn't blame him for Heitinga's attitude either. They're both professionals and should deal with setbacks.

 

[Mrk]

How many has he scored 11? The team is set up to play for him. You consider that that's worked?

Each to their own. We do have other players who can play that role. We also have other players who can do it differently. All would have been preferable to seeing Phil Neville in midfield. I wouldn't slate Neville either he weren't awful all the time and he did his best. Just we may have had a better solution.

I think it has worked out of necessity, if we had a decent goalscorer and a good number 10 I'd be happy for him to play deeper, but we don't have either of those so we need somebody who can score goals to get into goalscoring positions, and he's done that.

Neville hasn't done too bad in midfield, he did what was required, to win the ball and keep possession, he's hardly creative but then again neither is Fellaini.

 

[Loz]

I don't disagree that Moyes could do things differently. I think his policy is more for players to play themselves out of a funk though. He prefers a good player playing badly to a ok player playing well, I think maybe it's a matter of who he trusts.

And there is the problem that resulted in Everton 0 - Wigan 3. Our supposedly good players were quite frankly awful and Wigan's supposedly average players ran rings around us. The issue is again a lack of reaction or even proactiveness from Moyes. If players don't perform you have to drop them and wring the changes. If you don't, then the team suffers (that's why we had a poor and uninterested Louis Saha jogging around on the pitch for half a season not so long ago).

 

[barkleys splinter]

Likewise those that seem intent on bringing this point up seem to forget that these midweek games are what squad rotation is all about.
Can you honestly remember Spurs fielding a particularly weak team? They can afford to not play Bale for a couple of games and put Dempsey or Siggurdson on and it's not AS strong, but it's hardly weak at the same time. They have more than enough good players in their very strong squad to cope with both competitions.

Yeh, truly good players them. FFS, neither of them would get a starting place in our side!

Spurs are probably the best example ever of one man making a team. We took them on when that one man wasn't available. Man for man we were in no way inferior either on paper or in reality. But we didn't win. We played well and were well organised. But didn't you just know that, however important it was to get all the points, that at 2-1 for us we'd start playing deeper and deeper - the Everton rope-a-dope.

To finish top 4 you've got to pull off some unexpected away wins -- we never do. Yes we play well in them at times. Yes we sometimes get no luck. But the fact remains that we never win them. If Moyes was ever to prove that he had what it takes then the last half a dozen or so games provided the best opportunity. In another context the 3 draws at WHL, The Emirates and Anfield would probably be seen as great results. But this was never going to be the case on these occasions. Fortune favoured the brave. But that's not Moyes's way, and never will be.

 

[Goat]

And there is the problem that resulted in Everton 0 - Wigan 3. Our supposedly good players were quite frankly awful and Wigan's supposedly average players ran rings around us. The issue is again a lack of reaction or even proactiveness from Moyes. If players don't perform you have to drop them and wring the changes. If you don't, then the team suffers (that's why we had a poor and uninterested Louis Saha jogging around on the pitch for half a season not so long ago).

They scored 3 goals in 5minutes.

Usian Bolt would have struggled to react to that.

 

[blueblue]

We do have a squad but the manager chooses not to use it.When was the last time Hitzlesperger was on the field or Oviedo.
Rotation is not about wholesale changes,but rather making one or maybe two changes on a regular basis.When a squad is rotated regularly the players get used to it and everybody gets a little break now and then.
At present we seem to have lost some the sharpness or crispness that we had earlier in the season.We look stale.

 

[steken1]

I think it has worked out of necessity, if we had a decent goalscorer and a good number 10 I'd be happy for him to play deeper, but we don't have either of those so we need somebody who can score goals to get into goalscoring positions, and he's done that.

Neville hasn't done too bad in midfield, he did what was required, to win the ball and keep possession, he's hardly creative but then again neither is Fellaini.

There's a world of difference in CM between Neville and Fellaini mate. With all due respect lets not even go there.

 

[Loz]

They scored 3 goals in 5minutes.

Usian Bolt would have struggled to react to that.

Indeed they did MG. But, the first one wasn't completely against the run of play. I had to watch it on telly and after the first couple of minutes I was starting to fear the worst. They then did to us what we consistently fail to do to other sides....kill them off and go for the jugular. Wigan sensed the anxiety and finished us off. We score a goal here or a goal there and then try to hold on for 89 minutes....it doesn't work and the number of late goals that we concede should show DM that.

 

[Mrk]

There's a world of difference in CM between Neville and Fellaini mate. With all due respect lets not even go there.

I doubt you'd find a single person on here who disagree's with that. However I'm struggling to understand how you came to the conclusion that I was somehow suggesting otherwise.

 

[steken1]

I doubt you'd find a single person on here who disagree's with that. However I'm struggling to understand how you came to the conclusion that I was somehow suggesting otherwise.

I suggested dropping Fellaini back. You followed that with he done what was required and won the ball and distributed it. You followed that with he's not creative but neither is Fellaini. To me that looks a comparison of the two and that we wouldn't have seen much difference whether Fellaini or Neville player the holding role.

 

[ScouseBlueBoy]

Moyes has failed the test?

You mean he DIDN'T hand back the everlasting gobstopper?