The Recent Criticism of Tony Hibbert and Leon Osman…

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The Season in a Evertonian Eyes

After looking around my favourite Everton forum (Grandoldteam.com) I have noticed the sheer amount of criticism of our ‘Right Back’ Tony Hibbert and ‘Midfielder’ Leon Osman, criticism that is not warranted in my eyes.

Both players have come through the great Everton youth-system, the same youth-system that had produced England and Manchester United star Wayne Rooney. Both players grew up in the Liverpool area and have Everton running through their veins, both players have sat in Goodison Park to watch their heroes play week in week out, through thick and thin.

As an Everton fan I have always prided myself on the attitude and devotion of the fans through the dark ages of our footballing history, around the time that Tony Hibbert and Leon Osman would have been sitting in the stands cheering the blue boys on. They’ve dreamt about wearing the blue jersey, coming out onto the green grass of the Goodison playing field whilst ‘Z-Cars’ rips through the atmosphere. Haven’t we all? The desperation to play on the same field your heroes did, whether it be Andreas Limpar or Andy Gray. Out of most of the Everton starting line-up these are the players that still give the team the ‘Grand Old’ feel.

Sure the players aren’t the greatest players in the world, perhaps they are the weakest players in the team, and sure you can’t expect flick-ons, step-overs or amazing free kicks from the lads but there is one thing that you can defiantly expect, and that is heart for the club, a 110% effort every time they play. That is something you can’t expect from players from Spain, South Africa, Nigeria or even Manchester!

Do you really want to see an Everton squad with no local boys?

I feel football clubs have gotten so segregated from their communities in the recent years, lets not turn into a ‘bog-standard team’.

We’re The Peoples Club, we’re Everton FC.
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I think its a valid discussion.
 

i love having players that have come through our academy. Last season osman was brilliant, and i really don thave a problem with him at all. Like you say they allways give it there all and he's a great squad player and can cause damage to teams such as fulham last year. However Hibbert is borderline utter [Poor language removed].. defensively he is alright like but we do need someone better there.. thats fact. but like you said also , i like having players that are local boys as apposed to people weve just bought. But a right back would be great!
 
Yes they have been criticised lately. Mr Hibbert was no match for Mr Malouda in the FA cup final. I dont think they should be first team choice, subs if possible. Teams will know the the right side is our weakest and will exploit it until we fix it up, which means replacing it or those lads stepping up their game a bit.
 
Bundy said:
Yes they have been criticised lately. Mr Hibbert was no match for Mr Malouda in the FA cup final. I dont think they should be first team choice, subs if possible. Teams will know the the right side is our weakest and will exploit it until we fix it up, which means replacing it or those lads stepping up their game a bit.
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Or Mr Ashley Young - dragged off at HT then as well. His positional sense is poor. We are always threatened down the right.

Moyes is obviously in for a RB as a priority - Naughton/Hutton etc, but there is a distraction while the Lescott situation hangs in the balance. We will need a CB, but there will then be more money for RB/RM. It looks like this is the way it's going.
 

Was hibberts best season last year.

Was ossies worst.

Ossies a great squad player especially in his best position in central midfield. He's poor on the wings. Excels against lower teams.

Hibberts never going to get better than last season. Take from that what you will.
 
i try not to criticise any of our players but like many others people it's hard not to in hibberts case, he cant cross or pass a ball which is not good enough these days
 
I've always been a supporter of Hibbo and as Kenada mentioned it was one of his best seasons last year. He improved his distribution massively just by avoiding that floaty hoof he used to do all the time and playing it much more simply on the deck.

Did he pick up an early booking against Young? He's come out and said that was a major factor in his poor cup final performance. Kudos for saying that and even more so because I'm pretty sure Tony was quite unwell leading into the match and then had the sunny side of the pitch too but he blames himself for getting booked instead.

Ossie is an asset to have around the squad both as a player and personality but as said he is not particularly good on the wing. In the final he gave Hibbo bugger all support from what I remember. His youtube must make him look amazing but as said often against the weaker teams he shines, Pienaar is smaller but manages to be much less lightweight.

Both should be squaddies rather than first choice but it annoys the frick outta me when folk say get rid of them (normally the same folk who panic about squad size too, go figure.)

Tony will score, we will riot. This year....maybe. (y)
 
They are both squad players and anyone who ****s off players who put there heart and soul in for the club should be Red Carded(n)
 

I'm certainly not going to criticise either player too much. Let's be fair here with regards to Tony Hibbert. Yes he had a couple of bad performances last season but that does not all of a sudden make him utter [Poor language removed]. The guy has played 181 games for the club and I'm sure Moyes would have noticed by now if he truly was [Poor language removed]. He has his limitations and there are better options out there, but whether they are affordable or not is another question.

As for Leon Osman, he has been a tremendous asset for this football club. Again he has his limitations but he's worked his backside off for us over the years and scored some very important goals. I'm very happy he's in our squad and will be very useful again this season.
 
They are our weakest link. It's not down to their origin. The fact is that they are our weakest links in our starting 11 and we need to improve there. Both of them showed last season that they are good against teams from the lower part of the league or slower wingers/opponents. But against better players they come up short and that need to be fixed, as painfully shown in the FA-Cup final and some other games last season.

Also we have new local talent coming through, Rodwell is one, Gosling (if you count him) another.

Both Osman and Hibbert have played for us for years and a couple of years ago Hibbert were among our best defenders, but now that we have improved our other positions he's the worst in the backline. It's just down to the fact that their positions are the next we have to improve to continue to go forth.
 
They are crap, the only plus point is neither of them cost us a fee. Decent squad fillers and can do a decent job at times, but lacking in so many ways.
 
Ossie's not bad at all. Can play across the midfield, suits Moyes's 4-5-1 perfectly, scores the odd important goal and can run all day. He's a very useful player to have around.

Hibbs, however, is very poor. He doesn't seem to be benefitting from experence at all, and in the modern game where full backs provide the majority of the width of a team's attack, he's not even close to being of the required standard.
 
osman came come in and get a goal against the weaker teams in the prem. he is not so hot against the top four. when he hit the post against liverpool and should have buried it it kind of summed all that up for me.

hibbert on the other hand looks like he should be included in the trainspotting speech about who once had it and has now lost it.
 

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