tonyh

None of this makes sense to me – what he earns per week doesn't have anything to do with what compensation Everton would ask for. If Everton sacked Moyes, then he might ask for compensation based on his weekly wage multiplied by the number of weeks left on his contract. But in terms of compensation Everton would ask for if Moyes wanted to leave, that would depend on what Everton would consider to be the financial cost of him leaving.

I don't think he gets it. Yeah OK our strikers haven't been great but there have been so many games this season where we've just passed it around in front of the opposition back four without any invention and instead of getting in behind them that in a lot of games it wouldn't have made a difference which striker was playing.

Don't believe it. Moyes knows as well as anyone else that you don't encourage a 'top striker' to join you buy selling one of your highest-profile players.

An amazing stat (if true) that someone has put in the comments of that article in the Guardian: "In Moyes' time in charge: Only Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea have secured more points in the league than Everton. This is on the 15th biggest transfer spend (less than £2.5m a season) and the 11th biggest wage budget (now £25m a season less than Villa)."

Why is it that in the two games since Moyes said he was taking the pressure off Arteta by not getting him to take free kicks and corners any more he has taken nearly all of them?

Not sure if anyone is listening to the Chris Waddle co-commentary, but he's got it spot on: too many Everton players attracted to the ball (including Saha), wanting the ball to feet, making it easy for Reading to get players behind the ball. Not enough people making runs, not enough movement.

This kind of thing pisses me off. To be fair Moyes doesn't generally clutch at straws like this, but to say that something that happened in then tunnel at half time changed the flow of the game is just a joke. What changed the flow of the game was lack of attacking intent, nine men plus goalie behind the ball, hoofing it up to Saha in the hope he could hold it up or beat three defenders and go on an score.

I just refuse to believe he is shitting himself though. He's one of the best passers we've got, he knows that, and my guess is he's being told to stay deep and play it like that. Maybe though he doesn't feel that confident in passing the ball from so deep, with a whole opposition midfield in front of him. It's not something he's done before. I agree he's a goal threat and I seem to remember Moyes saying several times that he should be getting more goals. Maybe he's given up now and feels Fellaini is more likely to get them.

I feel a bit sorry for Arteta. He's obviously been told to play deeper like that as you never see Moyes shouting for him to push up or anything. It actually sounds OK on paper – having a ball-playing midfielder in a deeper position so we can play the ball out of defence better. But the problem is that he's one of the players that she be receiving the ball from this ball-playing deep midfielder. I actually didn't think he was too bad yesterday given the role he had. Most people agree that Fellaini should be the one player the deeper role, but I think Moyes probably wants him more advanced as he's a bigger goal threat.

What I don't like in the interview is the suggestion that we should somehow be really impressed by all the draws. Does that mean he wants to just defend tomorrow? It's obvious this season is going nowhere, but an Anfield win would certainly be a good memory at the end of the season. And if we really are going to somehow achieve something, we need to be more attack minded and go for three points or we'll never catch up.

Sorry, I actually meant the second goal.

Was I the only one to think that for the first goal Pienaar played Arteta into trouble? I didn't see that bit replayed but it looked like that to me the first time.

I agree, and this is exactly what I was saying at the start of the season. I think there's been some improvement since then to be honest, but it is still a weakness. Of course you need to get it wide sometimes and try and stretch teams, but with us it often seems to be the only plan. When Yak was in the team I think there was more variation as he is good at receiving the ball with his back to goal and either laying it off or turning.

There was someone on this forum years ago (blueboys something) that had inside info on transfers – I seem to remember he actually said at one point that his contact was a part of the medical team, and that's how he got the transfer news (i.e. because players have to have medicals obviously). Could be the same person?

The phrase 'world-class' doesn't really make sense to me. You can talk about someone being 'premier-league class', meaning they were good enough to play regularly for a team that doesn't get relegated from the premier league. World class? Would that mean someone who is good enough to play in the world cup? That doesn't mean much, as weaker teams who qualify can have some pretty poor players in their teams. The more interesting question would be whether Cahill is good enough to get in a team that had a really good chance of winning a) the Premier League, the European Cup or c) the World Cup. I'd probably say no to all three based on form throughout a season.

I think these are supposed to be a joke.

Osman has clearly just put that shirt on for the photo, though – it's about three sizes too big for him.

To be fair, they're probably all contractually obliged to talk to journalists, especially the ones working or the website. So what are they supposed to say? "Yeah, we've been crap, and I think we'll probably be crap next game, too." It's just a interview stereotype to say "The season starts here" etc., just like scoring two in a 3-2 defeat and saying you'd rather not have scored at all if the team could have won etc. etc. etc. I wouldn't read so much into it.

Totally agree. There's nobody available that would realistically even match what Moyes has done. We know he has failings, but we just have to hope he's learning and improving. He's not going to be satisfied with the start, so hopefully he's going to realise some of the reasons for that.

I know what you're saying mate, but playing like that just can't be a solution. Distin wasn't the only culprit, as Jagielka and Howard were both doing it as well (I had a look at the chalkboards). Not sure it was our most dangerous period, because a half-decent defence can (and today did) deal with it easy enough, even if the ball drops in awkward places from time to time. I agree the first half the midfielders were also losing the ball, but if we have to resort to long balls to try and scrape a draw against Newcastle then we really are in shit.

You can't rely on statistics like that to judge it. If you hit a long ball and your player gets a flick on that will be considered a pass completed. The problem is it got us nowhere as Newcastle were generally able to get back possession straight after the flick ons. That was the problem.

I agree he was decent defensively but I cannot forgive him for the constant long balls wasting possession.

Totally agree and I don't see why everyone but Moyes seems to be able to see it. We have got midfield players that can play the ball, but they're all lopsided and in any case bypassed by our goalkeeper and centre backs constantly hitting it long looking for flick ons. I would rather stick Arteta out on the right again than having him playing in this deep role.

Awful. How many times did Distin hit it long looking for a Fellaini flick on? It's just piss poor football, and it didn't get us anywhere. Either Distin decided to do that on his own, rather than playing it out to the midfield, or Moyes told him to. I'm starting to think it must be the second.

Of Saha's too good chances yesterday (the ones that made the keeper make a save), the first came from a one-two with Pienaar. OK Pienaar was wide but it wasn't a classic "get the ball wide and whip a cross in" move like I'm talking about. The second was a longer ball but it was a flick on from a central position that Saha controlled and then he got his shot in. I'm not against using the wings and getting crosses in – I agree you can stretch teams that way. But it gets a bit one dimensional. Yesterday we had loads of possession in their half, and we moved the ball around well, but in the end every move seemed to aim at getting the ball to one of the wings to get a cross in. I'm just saying you can't do that EVERY time. There need to be midfielders and strikers making runs when we've got the ball in the centre near the box, or people coming short to lay the ball off. Just watch a good passing team like Arsenal or Man U and you'll see that. But it seems the ONLY idea we have half the time is to get the ball out wide and get crosses in. How many corners and crosses did we have yesterday? And how many goals did we score?