My thoughts on Moyes (obviously coloured by yesterday, but I have been consistent in my doubts for a while):
Manager/ chairman relationship: Way too cosy. The dependent relationship that they have at the moment is damaging for the club. There needs to be much more objectivity in the relationship. The manager continually sings the praises of the chairman, despite the lack of financial backing, and the chairman has basically given Moyes complete control over important areas of the club, despite the lack of trophies and the relative underperformance of the team over recent times. Moyes has demanded complete control over large aspects of the club. This was fine at the start but this is a demand that you must earn, and recently Moyes hasn't earnt it. Is he spreading himself too thin: Should he be focusing more on the 1st team and their performances rather than diverting his attention with the training/ youth/ structural/ negotiating/ scouting aspects of the job? Do managers at other top clubs around the world get involved in all these areas, or do they trust other members of staff to do the jobs that they are paid to do? Say what you will about LFC, but when their owners felt there was underperformance in the management and backroom staff, they rode into town, swung their dicks about and sacked four people, then rode out again. Can you imagine Kenwright doing this, and can you imagine what Moyes would do in this situation, whether there was felt to be a problem or not?
Money/ transfers: Let's be absolutely clear, Moyes has worked some miracles in the transfer market. Let's also be clear about the fact that he recieves pitiful financial backing from the board and has done well to forge a decent team and decent finishes on such a meagre budget. However he is also complicit to some degree in the state of our finances. He is great at the buying end of the transfer market, but he is not so impressive at generating revenue by selling players when they are at their peak. This is crucial if you recognise that you operate a "buy-to-sell" policy, which he has acknowledged several times. We also have a history of underperforming high earners eating up large chunks of our wage budget and Moyes takes forever in shipping them out, if he ever does at all. Saha should have gone seasons before he did, and Neville and Cahill's contribution to the team does not merit the wages they are on. As harsh as that as, if you are in the situation we are you need to be ruthless about freeing up wages for more effective players. If Moyes is so concerned about our lack of finances then he absolutely should not have sanctioned whatever wages McFadden is on, because it is a complete waste of scant resources. These factors lie within Moyes' remit as he has always said he has complete control of the incoming and outgoing transfers.
Relationships with players: Both a positive and a negative. It is undeniable that we intermittently get the best out of certain players and the therefore the team due to a well-fostered team spirit that comes from Moyes' and the staff. This is, however, a very brittle asset, which can be damaged by the slightest things, ie poor form of the team, transfers etc. It also has its downsides. Moyes will persist in playing certain players regardless of their form, the requirements of the team or the form of players competing for their places. This damages the confidence of both the player and that of the individual competing for his place. The player's confidence drops with every poor performance, and damages team morale as a whole. The other side of this is that there is only one way of doing things with Moyes: his way. Any player who deviates from this finds himself frozen out, and he will find it very hard to regain favour. Being the leader/manager of thirty/ forty individuals, especially with the egos of professional athletes, requires differing approaches based on individual personalities. Moyes has yet to prove that he can optimise the performance of anyone other than the traditional "give 110% commitment, model professional" players that are ten-a-penny in the British game.
Tactics/ approach: At the start of his Everton career Moyes came across as a forward-thinking manager, open to new tactics and approaches. Remember how he went off to observe the Italy squad during the world cup in order to expand his knowledge of tactics and the game in general? This open-minded approach now seems a very long time ago. After a few seasons Moyes had the right personnel to play an effective 4-5-1 which led to some excellent finishes and some good football. Personnel came and went, the form of individuals changed, other teams sussed out our gameplan, but there was no subsequent change in set-up. Very little has changed, even now. Not only has our style not changed in the big picture, but Moyes shows very little ability to change approach depending on opponents, or during a match when it is clear this approach is not working.
We are set-up to defend. Every match. This does not change even if it plays to the opponents strengths. This does not change if we are playing poor teams at home. This does not change even if our overall main problem is the inability to kill off teams due to a lack of goals. This does not change even if we are chasing a game. Even our attacking players are expected to contribute large portions of their time and energy to defensive duties. Look at how quickly the players cover ground when we lose the ball; they practically give themselves hernias getting back in position. Do you ever see them run that fast off the ball to open up gaps in the opposition defence. Watch how may players are literally walking when we have the ball and are attacking. This mindset comes right from the top. The galling thing is, is that it doesn't work as well as you would expect. This leads to us sitting back, inviting pressure, conceding possession. If this defensive set-up is so effective, why do we look so shakey when defending a lead?
Moyes will persist in playing players out of position to suit this defensive-mindedness, and also to accomodate his trusted players. Osman is less effective on the wing. Heitinga is not a defensive midfielder. Swapping Cahill and Fellaini around accentuates weak points of both of their games.
Let's be honest, our football is largely terrible. We have matches where we stroke the ball to feet and we look great. We also look effective. These matches are actually few and far between. When things aren't going our way we resort to plan A, plan B and plan C, which is direct, percentage football. Not only is this terrible to watch, but it actually isn't that effective either as we inevitably hand possession back to the other team and have to soak up even more pressure. It's frustrating, because we actually play better when we keep the ball on the deck, and we have plenty of players capable of this.
Performance: People will inevitably say, "we were relegation candidates ten years ago, look what Moyes has done it that time." A decade is a long time in football, we've only had thirteen of them in our entire club's history, and although we have had some excellent league finishes, ten years is a long time for Everton Football Club to go without any silverware. If you think the team team are overperforming under Moyes, why do we look so much better after Christmas? The team hasn't changed, the manager hasn't. The team are therefore clearly capable of good performances. It can be argued that Moyes has the team underperforming until the pressure is off after Christmas.
Future: People will also inevitably say "who would you replace him with?" This is undeniably a difficult question, and I don't have much faith in our chairman to pull off a masterstroke appointment, but let's think about Moyes' CV before he was appointed. He achieved promotion for Preston from division two to division one. He failed to get Preston out of division one. So there is a large amount of managers in world football with a better CV than Moyes had at the time of his appointment. It is worth noting that he has not won any honours since that time (some will argue "manager of the year" awards count, that is a contentious topic.) He is the TWELFTH best paid manager in the world. We are a large club playing in one of the most high profile, and richest, leagues in the world. There are already managers in the premiership playing attractive football at smaller clubs on a fraction of our income, all with better credentials than Moyes when he first joined EFC.
The fans must not fall into the trap that Moyes appears to have fallen into: namely that David Moyes IS Everton Football Club.
