when we win we're lucky
when we draw it's 'cos of "tactics"
when we lose it's 'cos of "mentality"
no agenda here. this porridge is just fine.
The level headed end of season review place
- Thread starter Kurt.
- Start date
when we draw it's 'cos of "tactics"
when we lose it's 'cos of "mentality"
no agenda here. this porridge is just fine.
Genuine question Eggs, what have we built this season? Garner has developed but I’m not seeing many others who have noticeably improved over another season of coaching.
KDH has been a good signing and improved us, Grealish was helpful until his injury but many of our others recruits haven’t seen minutes. One that has been given minutes, Barry, has been mixed and not a clear improvement over Beto. McNeil had a transfer fall through and then got picked in preference to players with potentially longer futures with the club.
JOB has been almost exclusively used as a right back when that clearly isn’t his preferred position, how long before he is our first choice starter at CB?
It would be one thing to sacrifice developing the youngsters for the tangible now of a Europe position or domestic cup run but we didn’t get those either.
Alex Young`s Cat
Player Valuation: £500k
Good times then!
Moyes seems out of touch. Certainly not understanding fans frustrations 
Not so much dinosaur but close to extinction
Not so much dinosaur but close to extinction
moyes' tactics are what the problem is when the first XI isnt available, his stubborn nature when picking the team and his determination not to play youth compound the problem.
He picks a back line that sits 10 yards deeper than it should. With full backs that don't have the capacity to go forward.
That isolates the midfield 2 which gets overrun by the 3 man midfield of pretty much every other team in the prem.
The opposition find it easy to close down routes into the 10 or the striker so the ball goes wide via the back 4 who aren't great on the ball with the exception of the odd long pass from Keane.
The wingers are isolated due to the lack of any support from the full backs so they either try to get past 2 or 3 men and lose it or pass it back to the full backs who look for the safe pass to eith a cb or pickford.
The strikers are substandard for this level. The lack the hold up and link up play.
What results is a slow, predictable build up which usually ends up either back with pickford hitting a long ball or the opposition winning it back easily.
Moyes needs jags distin baines Coleman and a fellaini for it to work, or a plan B
Which he doesnt seem to have
He picks a back line that sits 10 yards deeper than it should. With full backs that don't have the capacity to go forward.
That isolates the midfield 2 which gets overrun by the 3 man midfield of pretty much every other team in the prem.
The opposition find it easy to close down routes into the 10 or the striker so the ball goes wide via the back 4 who aren't great on the ball with the exception of the odd long pass from Keane.
The wingers are isolated due to the lack of any support from the full backs so they either try to get past 2 or 3 men and lose it or pass it back to the full backs who look for the safe pass to eith a cb or pickford.
The strikers are substandard for this level. The lack the hold up and link up play.
What results is a slow, predictable build up which usually ends up either back with pickford hitting a long ball or the opposition winning it back easily.
Moyes needs jags distin baines Coleman and a fellaini for it to work, or a plan B
Which he doesnt seem to have
….i think we’ve improved, L. Last summer was a difficult starting place because so many were out of contract (might have been 8 around the first team, including loanees). We needed numbers, we couldn’t do a complete squad re-build.
The two big money signings have actually been disappointing, KDH was a huge signing because he was able to do the Doucoure workload but add so much quality in possession. Then there was Grealish who raised the club profile and generated belief in the team and supporters. The mentality of the club was elevated, I know a bloke at FF and he said it was a totally different place. The Keane podcast is worth a listen.
It’s a foundation, on the verge of Europe but everything has stood still since Chelsea at home on 21st March. I do think Moyes has to take much of the blame because he struggles to rotate. Obviously losing Grealish was a blow but I particularly fear his two key creative talents (KDH/Ndiaye) have run out of steam.
Rohl, Armstrong, Iroegbunam and even George have earned the trust but rarely used following that terrific win at Villa. We’ve beaten 3 of the top 6 teams away from home this season, I’ve actually thought we’ve a decent team here for the first time in a long time. Season end has been atrocious but a few months ago it was on the verge of being very decent.
I do think it’s an important summer as far as this ‘new committee’ is concerned. I can’t forget pre-Chelsea and get drowned in post-Chelsea. A leopard doesn’t change his spots, particularly a 60yo leopard so I’m not convinced Moyes will rotate but I think we aren’t too far off if we can bring in 4 or 5 that can make a difference.
There’s a real doom & gloom about the place, maybe a precarious situation but I think we can continue to progress.
The Binman
Player Valuation: £20m
id suggest we've done about what we all thought we would deep down, we've a limited squad, which has no business qualifying for Europe, we simply haven't the numbers for it. Mr Moyes has us at least competitive, to a point. The end of season run in was a big disappointment for many, we could, and should have done much better. By limited squad i mean small, and limited in positions, playing players out of position didn't help, we are still clearly limited at full back, well defence overall, to have Keane as a regular isn't something we should be striving for. I can't actually believe he's actually been given a pay rise!! He must have some photo's!!
I don't think Moyes is going anywhere and will still be in control in the new season, he will have to do better with our money than some of his buys at west ham, and there are clearly issues all over the park, apart from in goal, we need improvements everywhere, which realistically isn't going to happen. Desperate for LB / RB / CB and CF they have to be the priority.
I'd also like to see a change in some of the tactics employed be a little braver, and less predictable.
I also think the Dibling buy from Southampton was a strange one, and would have liked to see more of George.
Overall probably 6 / 10 for me.
As i say could have, and should have done better at the end and feel like we let slip a top ten finish, unfortunately.
Hopefully we can kick on from here, and with a few crucial buys we can look up rather than down...
I don't think Moyes is going anywhere and will still be in control in the new season, he will have to do better with our money than some of his buys at west ham, and there are clearly issues all over the park, apart from in goal, we need improvements everywhere, which realistically isn't going to happen. Desperate for LB / RB / CB and CF they have to be the priority.
I'd also like to see a change in some of the tactics employed be a little braver, and less predictable.
I also think the Dibling buy from Southampton was a strange one, and would have liked to see more of George.
Overall probably 6 / 10 for me.
As i say could have, and should have done better at the end and feel like we let slip a top ten finish, unfortunately.
Hopefully we can kick on from here, and with a few crucial buys we can look up rather than down...
I appreciate that we had a lot of turnover and needed a squad overall and that may take a couple of windows. Although Sunderland have achieved it and the B teams regularly sell several of their best and replace without much of a blip so I’m not as convinced of the “time needed” as I used to be if the will and investment are there.
But a manager shouldn’t just be looking at what extras he can get in, he should be improving the players he has and their tactics - I really can’t seem much evidence of either.
Beating Man United away from home was an important forward step in the mentality stakes but they were poorly coached and losing both derbies was a step back. Getting points from relegation fodder is the bread and butter of league position and we dropped 6 potential points to Spurs, 5 to West Ham, 2 to both Wolves and Burnley.
The home form has been worryingly poor along with a predictable early exit from both cups.
Instead of working on all this Moyes is taking a busman’s holiday to the World Cup.
Blue peter
Player Valuation: £40m
Everton’s xg this season is 46 (we scored 47) and xga is 56 (we conceded 50) so we marginally out performed what we should have scored but considerably out performed our expected goals conceded by 10.
Our average possession was 44%.
Not great stats.
….i think he’s improved players, not only young players. Garner, Iroegbunam and O’Brien are better, I actually think Keane’s mentality is as good as I’ve seen since he’s been here. Grealish spoke positively of playing for him.
As for tactics, we went to Arsenal and gave them a real scare. Ok they won the game late on but I think back to the McNeil shot that came back off the post. I want my team to be difficult to beat but also carry a threat against the best and we definitely improved on that front.
As you point out, we lost crucial points at home to the likes of Spurs. Weirdly, lots of that down to not defending corners which is ironic given Moyes attention to detail on that during his first spell (Jagielka talks about us not conceding from a setpiece for two seasons they worked so hard on them). The curse of the corner came back to bite on Sunday.
cal-lewin was quite simply excellent at guarding that front post and getting up highest to defend the corner or wide FK. barry plays like he's made of bone china and beto loses concentration when he gets gassed out trying to run down the CB's and channels. cal-lewin being better in the air and back to goal meant less time sprinting for chasing down lost causes and more time competing in the air. less tired.
back in the bad old days Moyes would spring Mirallas on the counter when we won the duel for the FK/corner, it kept sides a bit more honest looking for over loads. granted having Cahill and Fellaini to supplement the backline made us very solid.
Think you make a good point on Keane’s mentality and I’d mentioned Garner but can you expand on the improvements you see in Tim and OBrien, the latter in particular I think has got worse in the second part of the season although I don’t think he should be playing RB in any case.
Out of a squad of 25 even your list isn’t a large percentage, you’d particularly hope that the younger ones would improve with good coaching and as you mention the drop off in defending corners, historically one of Moyes strengths, faltered.
I had a look at our performances vs top and bottom half teams over the past two seasons
Top half
This season 20 points w5 d5 l10
Last season 17 points w3 d8 l9
so overall we have seemed to have managed to turn a couple of our draws into enjoyable wins
The downside is the bottom half
This season 29 points w8 d5 l5
Last season 31 points w8 d7 l3
We’ve turned a couple of draws into losses to almost cancel out the top half gains
The past few games have been pretty uninspiring and perhaps I’m overly affected by recency bias but when his first choice team aren’t performing I worry Moyes isn’t dropping them to try other players. The number of minutes Illy and a 36 year old Gana have had despite going all the way through Afcon and noticeably drops in form is daft. They have both started every game since their return (bar injury) and other than Gana getting subbed at 74 minutes vs Brentford they have played 85+ minutes each game. Ndiaye got subbed once in 16 games, at 89 minutes!
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