Hi all.
I've been reading your posts for a few months now, used to post in the Blueroom but it's become even more juvenile than usual. Thought I'd register and add my end-of-season thoughts to this thread, it was initially in reply to the Guardian football writer Kevin McCarra voting Moyes as his manager of the year:
It's obviously nice we got some recognition from a national football writer, but I'm sure we can all agree Moyes has had some problems he hasn't solved this season:
- early on allowing Arteta to monopolise dead-balls when clearly he was wasting them and Baines and Pienaar consistently the more effective options.
- not understanding that Saha needed Beckford and Beckford needed Saha until it was far too late.
- and by extension excessive 4-5-1 caution giving us too many draws against inferior opposition.
- being unable to rouse his players with his version of the 'hairdryer' treatment at half-times in depressing home matches, especially the FA Cup vs Reading.
- the continued problem of injuries, if we compare ourselves with the other 19 clubs over the last 3 years it really does feel like we top the table in terms of first-team injury frequency and severity.
- for the 3rd season in a row we have an extended poor start to the season, so poor that we're not able to touch the top 10 until February.
- too much public complaining that our problems are caused by lack of money. Yes, we have to sell to buy but let's not use that as an eternal excuse when we have the above issues too.
I agree that Moyes has successfully sailed us to finish "the best of the rest" again. But this season it promised better than 7th, if Moyes was able to command the above issues better we would have been challenging that last Champions League spot.
One massive credit to Moyes is his ability to get the best out of players who may not be quite as good as they think they are (see Pienaar and any number of ex-Moyes players who have not done so well since leaving).
I suggested after the Reading loss that perhaps it's time for Moyes to leave, but he has shown again when everything is firing we can win games. Yet if he can't sort out those issues then he can't push us forward. We want success, not "best of the rest" which isn't even enough for Europa League qualification anymore.
The UEFA financial rules come into play soon, this in theory might work to our benefit in that it means our competitors aren't able to strengthen themselves so much anymore. If Moyes and Everton can pull off a consistent season next time, bagging us a Europa League spot the experience of which is vital for our players' development...then maybe we can still look ahead with some optimism.
Cheers for the entertaining threads, lads...I'll probably start posting here regular from next season.
