carlmc25

Heitinga for me, had his best game in midfield for the blues. Played some fantastic passes and made a great run through the middle at the end only for Anichebe to ignore him.

I thought Neville was fantastic again, as I've said in the past I think Fellaini is a little overrated, since Neville has gone in there we've had leadership and crucially, mobility. He protects the defence and he covers a lot more ground, we've done a lot better since Fellaini got injured - suspiciously just as we did at the end of last season. I thought we were brilliant (first 15 aside) today, we actually played balls in behind and mixed our play, we broke with pace. Still think Beckford is a little lazy and not up to it to be honest, he's an ok squad player and a decent sub but not good enough to be first choice. A mention for Heintinga as well, his best performance in midfield for me, played some cracking searching passes.

I appreciate the apology, seriously. dear me, next we'll be down the pub having a pint!

I personally do still think it's a fact that saying most mexicans are lazy is a racist statement, by pure definition as outlined in a dictionary! but we'll have to agree to disagree I suppose, I certainly would advise you against ever saying it, particularly in any job situation! Don't worry about the name calling, it doesn't bother me, especially over the internet as you don't know me and vice versa - I just don't see the need for it but then I've always been pretty rational, maybe too rational sometimes... anyway, it's Friday and I'm sure there must be better things to do than debate the finer points of racism! Have a good weekend

If you said most of the Mexicans I have met are lazy, that is not racist, but generalising and saying that most Mexicans are lazy - based on the 0.0005% you've met is. I'm not saying you're a member of the KKK, what I'm saying is saying all Mexicans are lazy, is just like saying all French people smell, all black people are dirty etc. Loads of people, including my parents and grandparents, have racist tendencies, it's ingrained and they don't even realise it. All I'm trying to do is make some people think about what they are saying. I can't stand discrimination or intolerance of others, I got really cheesed off at my wife's church when the vicar was going on about how all other religions etc were wrong. Just be nice to people, is it that hard? At the end of the day, I've never met you and I'm sure I never will, so it doesn't really matter what I think. I just wanted to challenge what you were saying as I didn't think it was right.

no I'm not happy, how do you know 'most' are lazy, you haven't met over 75 million of them - therefore it's a racist statement. At least you seem to be admitting it isn't ok to 'exaggerate the stereotype.'

how depressing, more name calling. One last thing then, answer me this: is it ok to say that all Mexicans are lazy?

Stop glossing over it and talking nonsense - there's no racism without comparison - ER WHAT? so it's ok to say all black people deserve to be shot because you AREN'T saying anything about white people? is that really your argument? I said when you say all Mexicans are lazy, the 'implication' is that some other races are not, making the comment racist. Otherwise why single out Mexicans, why not say everyone is lazy? The fact remains, you said it's ok to call all Mexicans lazy, when it isn't - it's racist. You can consider yourself to not be a racist but your comments are racist, casual racism possibly and non threatening but still racist. One minute you said all latin/meditarranean cultures are lazy, next minute you'd hire them for a job without any prejudice whatsoever, excuse for me being sceptical of the blatant hypocrisy. If it was between a Mexican and a british guy and they had equal qualifications I know who you'd hire, you've made it obvious. anyway, I've tried - I would advise now closing this thread as the argument will now go in circles. Sorry if I've upset anyone but I can't stand this type of rubbish.

You say it's ok to call all Mexicans lazy, therefore - unless you say that it's ok to call all British people lazy - you are implying British people are harder working which makes them superior workers - therefore SUPERIOR. Therefore it IS racist. The other two comments I highlighted in bold basically mirror the quote I pulled out of the dictionary, they all say the same thing. The hatred/intolerance one is the odd one out, the other ones are more about discrimination and superiority as was mine. for information: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/mexico/110201/BBC-racist-mexican-stereotypes-top-gear Can I just ask, if you owned your own business would you not employ Spanish people or Mexicans because they're lazy - as that would seem to fit in with your ideology? If so, that's direct discrimination and they would take you to the cleaners. How would you feel if you were Mexican or you mum was and people went around saying all Mexicans are lazy. It's totally unacceptable.

You don't understand what racism is, it's not just about 'a couple of blinkered idiots deciding they dont like another group' - that's a small part of it, like intimidation is a small part of bullying and harrassment at work. Putting down a whole group of people, whether it be calling them lazy, smelly, ugly etc based on your limited personal experience is racism. You may not think it is, but unfortunately it is. I even just quoted part of the dictionary to you and you still deny it's racism. If you were in work and said I think all Mexicans are lazy, you'll be subject to disciplinary hearings and performance management in no time. You need to actually understand what racism is, it's not just about calling a black person the n word.

I give up. can I just clarify, are you saying that because you've met a few Mexicans who are lazy, it's ok to 'exaggerare the stereotype' and brand all Mexicans as lazy? That's what it appears you are saying. Which by the way is racial stereopying, therefore racist. Can I just ask, how many Mexicans have you met - there are probably approx 150 million Mexicans in the world, so unless you've met more than 75 million of them you can't possibly know whether most of them are lazy. Racism can be defined as: 'the belief that races have distinctive cultural characteristics determined by hereditary factors and that this endows some races with an intrinsic superiority over others' in other words, saying that all Mexicans are lazy and white british people work harder than them. I didn't really see the problem when you were working in Barcelona either, it appears that these people were working 9 hours then going home to their families, hardly seems unreasonable to me... it's called a work/life balance. This thread should probably be moved out of the general Everton thread I would assume...

actually, you do seem to be condoing racism, you just don't know it. 'Picking up on national traits' what a load of rubbish. There's plenty of lazy british people as well, picking up their dole cheques every couple of weeks. Not all Mexicans are lazy so to brand Mexicans as a whole as lazy is racist. My first example was a stereotype and a racist one, it doesn't matter whether all black women are cleaners or not, the point is, I was saying that I have heard that comment before, I heard a woman say that black cleaners don't clean as well as white cleaners, which of course is absurd and totally racist and totally a ridulous stereotype. The French comment is xenophobic/racist whatever you want to call it, it's unacceptable and why people feel the need to spout this crap is beyond me. Being at a football match doesn't give people the right to act like morons and ignore basic human rights. Anyway, I've said my piece and I'll leave it at that. I just find intolerance or abuse of others based on nothing other than their appearance or where they were born pretty depressing. There's as many white british idiots as any other race or nationality

Of course steretypes can be racist, if you said, she's a rubbish cleaner because she's black - that's racist, saying all Mexicans are lazy is racist. yes it is different, saying he was a Frenchman who was lazy is not racist, like saying someone is black (afro-caribbean or whatever) and is lazy is not racist - using French or black as part of the insult - ie you black/French lazy b****** IS racist/xenophobic. It's used in a derogatory way. They had loads of complaints about this and haven't the mexican government been going mental? I seem to remember reading something about this. I personally find Hammond pretty irritating anyway, Clarkson will get away with it as he always does and he's a big star. The beeb will no doubt make some apologies but carry on allowing them to do it due to the ratings they get, bad publicity is better than none at all.

we've hardly kept a clean sheet all season and let in too many goals off set pieces, Weir was a brilliant defender and I'd be very happy to see him back here passing on some of his experience.

Rodwell is unproven and people are talking about £20m plus for him. I'd let Rodwell go and Fellaini if the price is right and rebuild, we've gone stale this season and we need some fresh blood up front and out wide. Rodwell was typically useless again at the weekend, he may 'look' good but at the moment, that's about it.

Osman from Coleman. Also thought Neville and Hibbert had pretty decent games. Didn't think we missed Fellaini at all with Neville in there, thought he had a very disciplined game and led the midfield well. Rodwell was once again totally anonymous, why people think we shouldn't sell him for £20m I'll never know, he was playing against a mickey mouse midfield (3 against 2 as well) and yet his contribution was basically zero. If anyone bid £20m for him I'd snatch their hands off.

We need new players to push us towards the top 4, we don't need new players to be top 6/7, we just need to give the current lot a kick up the backside. My point was Heitinga, Rodwell, Bily, Yakubu - none of them have contributed really anything to this season, letting them go wouldn't weaken our team, just the squad and that could be negated by bringing back Yobo and blooding Duffy and getting a couple of bargains in - if Moyes still has it in him. I'm not saying we wouldn't replace them - we would, but with cheaper, hungrier alternatives. At some point we need to balance the books, the more we get in debt the more we pay out in interest, wipe out the debts, stop paying interest and free up cash to spend. Mike, Neville did the job last season and we did ok. Carsley - hardly Mr Talented - did the job and he did ok. DM is an easy position to play, all you need is discipline to be effective, pace and strength also helps - although Fellaini has no pace. Fellaini has the added qualities of being very tall and decent on the ball but they aren't entirely necessary to play that position. He's a luxury player and overpriced in my opinion. We don't need a £20m+ player sitting in defensive midfield, that's the type of player Chelsea or Arsenal need, he's not going to win us games. We would be better off with a decent £5m defensive midfielder and a £7-8m striker. If we can't find a replacement then shift Neville in there and put Coleman or Hibbo RB. Think of it this way. Let's just say we could do a swap deal - Fellaini for Ashley Young. Diving aside, I know who I'd rather have in our team to take us forward. You can't possibly argue that moving Neville into DM and replacing Bily with Ashley Young would signifcantly improve our team overall?

the one difference being that I only mentioned players (apart from Fellaini - who I think is easily replaceable) who aren't even first choice regulars. Selling them won't send us down, it won't even really weaken us - especially if we brought Yobo back off loan to cover Heitinha's disappearance. Plus Moyes has as much chance finding a bargain as spending big money on someone decent - all his best signings have been done on the cheap - Arteta, Cahill, Pienaar, Baines, Jagielka when he's spent big money he's quite often made a mess of it - Beattie, Bily, AJ. Rodwell has done little, he will probably become a very good player but it's not guaranteed, if we got an offer in excess of £20m I'd let him go. Same for Fellaini. I'd take virtually anything for Bily and we should be able to get our money back on Heitinga at least and £5m for Yak. Then give Moyes £25m back to strengthen the team with 4/5 x £5/6m players who are hungry and want a chance. Bank £30m. Wipe out a large chunk of the debt without weakening the team. It's obviously not as easy as that but as selling Rooney proved, sometimes selling one or two star players helps the team. I'm sure Moyes will decide who goes and stays, otherwise he would walk.

You've written some good sensible stuff in your posts, people may not like the lack of ambition but personally I appreciate the realism. How much are we in debt - is it something like £50m? Then we pay something like £7m a year in interest. Sell Rodwell, sell Heitinga and Bily, replace with a couple of bargains from the lower divisions (they can't do worse than Bily or Heits this year) and let's try and wipe out the £50 debt. We then have £7m a year at least to spend on players rather than on interest payments. We then look more attractive to potential buyers. Fellaini - if the price is right - can go as well. Fellaini has had an excellent season but is he Fabregas, is he Gerrard - no, he's just a good defensive midfielder. He has more ability than Lee Carsley but Carsley did nearly as good a job and buying someone like him would cost about £4m, selling Fellaini may raise £20. In reality there is no way that there is £16m worth of difference between what Carsley did for us and what Fellaini does, we can use that £16m to strengthen up front and out wide. That's the club we are at the moment, sell a player for big money and hope Moyes can pick up players equally as good cheaper. The only one who I think is irreplaceable is Arteta, he's had a poor season but we are unlikely to attract another player with his ability at the moment and at a cheap price.

It suited the platers we had for the last 5 seasons in fact, not just 2005, it's only this season we've struggled and it's nothing to do with 451, we've played equally ineffectivly in a 442 as well, the mentality of the players is the problem not the system. As for Hafnia suggesting 352, when has that ever been successful in the Premier League? Steve McLaren (amongst others) tried it disastrously from memory, no protection down the flanks and virtually nothing going forward. Our defence already can't keep a clean sheet and you want to weaken it further. 451 will work if the players actually ran about and tried, all you need is a willing runner up front and a positive attitude. It still suits Cahill, Arteta, Fellaini, Osman, Rodwell the best.

When we had Yobo and Jags together we were keeping loads of clean sheets, our defensive record since Lescott left and we stopped playing Yobo has been nothing short of abysmal. I think Yobo is a far better defender than Distin, he just went through a bad patch. I agree with most of what you are saying Dunc, as usual, but Moyes tactics have to be questioned. I've always been a big believer in Moyes and he has done an unbelievable job, but his substitutions have always been way too late and usually poor, his tactical acumen seems virtually non-existent, as in we keep letting in cheap goals, we don't vary our play or tempo. He has built a very good team but when he does have options he doesn't know how to use them, we always do better in a crisis when backs are against the wall. Also, I agree with some posters about success in the market, in general he has done brilliantly, the worry is when he does have big money to spend he tends to make a mess of it - Bily, Beattie, AJ, possibly Yakubu etc. He has definitely suffered in buying a decent striker, elsewhere he has been really successful but he has bought a succession of fairly ineffective strikers, which is really holding us back. That being said, those failings have definitely been more than outweighed by the unbelievable bargains he has unearthed in Arteta, Cahill, Coleman, Pienaar etc. The thing that really cheeses me this season is the defence, we NEVER keep a clean sheet and yet Moyes puts out the same team every week. Distin is the common denominator for not keeping clean sheets, he usually plays well but he still has a disturbing tendency of playing everyone onside and not doing enough to get a block in. Surely by now Moyes should have given Heitinga and Jags a go together, how could they possibly do any worse?

I thought Jeffers was going to be a brilliant striker, I don't know what happened to him when he joined Arsenal but he just seemed to totally disintegrate as a top class player. I was more disappointed when we sold him than Rooney, yet he's ended up being a bit of a waster.

personally I'm not so sure, if he had've called Saha a 'black lazy b******' then I think everyone would recognise that was racist, I think French is probably being used as part of the insult which makes it xenophobic. He could have just said - 'Oi, Saha, you lazy b******' he didn't need to include French in there.

welcome to another day where I question why the hell I decided to support Everton. Dear me. ABYSMAL. We weren't that bad against Bolton but we were absolutely disgraceful last night. Saha was either totally unfit or just couldn't be bothered, didn't win a header, didn't run and ended up on the wing and then back in midfield. I'm trying my best not to swear but what a joke. As soon as the match started we looked lethargic, either the players bottled it or Moyes sent them out with so much fear that they couldn't express themselves. We were second best everywhere and Reading should have had 3 or 4. They did the simple things well whilst our guys just looked simple. How slow can a team play, we are so predictable and lacking speed and guile. I can't think of a single decent performance except for possibly Rodwell, Howard and maybe Osman in patches. Everyone else was a shambles and as much as I'm worried who we would replace him with, Moyes has once again failed to win anything this season and so it's time to go. Fair enough, Moyes built a very good team with little or no money, but with the players he now has at his disposal this season isn't good enough, and neither is failing to win a trophy in all this time and hardly ever getting even to a decent stage in a cup competition. He's lost it, either he has ran out of ideas or the players have had enough of him, something is wrong and needs to be fixed. I for one have had enough of his non existent tactics and over reliance on under performing players.

From the echo article: “We’ve asked him to try and get forward, get in the box and get on the edge and have a shot, and get into positions where he feels he can score a goal and he’s looked more like himself.” well duh... seriously, why has it taken over half the season until Moyes has asked Arteta to get forward? He's looked better and better these last few weeks, surely Moyes should have recognised that early on in the season Fellaini and Arteta were playing the wrong way around. I'm getting really positive about our end to the season now, I think we can go on a really good run now and maybe win the Cup. Someone said they'd rather have lost Arteta than Pienaar - never. Pienaar was an excellent player but all too often messed things up at the end and didn't shoot enough, Arteta, when he's back on form, is one of the best players in the league and is easily our most important player, he can do everything. If Arteta can strike his best form we could still have a very good season, it's not too late.