Steve_E

He's 30 years old as well? Then why wouldn't we just give Duffy a shot if absolutely necessary? It would be a waste of salary. I would even rather see Hibbo filling in as a centre back when two of Jagielka, Distin and Heitinga are injured.

He's had a short trial with us in the past so Davey knows about him.

He better be talking this kid up

Here's the assist he gave today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6-8reHGcEM

Great how easily he sends Van Buyten the wrong way, though he is a rather static defender.

It isn't looking too good for us. Next week an away game against Birmingham, so another draw wouldn't surprise me at all, and then we get Liverpool and Spurs. Worst Case Scenario: 4 points out of 27.

This isn't even a rumour, but I didn't know where else to put it. Lewis Holtby, Germany's -21 captain, has been on fire this season with Mainz. I didn't see him today, but he appears to have had another brilliant display in their 2-1 win against Bayern Munich from what I'm reading. He's a very pacey and skilfull player capable of playing on either wing or behind the striker. Now, his dad is English and Lewis is a lifelong Everton-fan. If we could find the funds to go in for him in January, we definitely should. He is still owned by Schalke however. He's just on loan to Mainz.

Ooh, the Yak should have put that away.

COYB!!!!

Baines is such a hero btw.

They already did from minute 30 on.

Fellaini can't put a challenge in without Webb whistling for a foul.

And Arteta in a deeper role is strange actually. He's been playing in a deeper role since the start of the season and he's had absolutely no influence on games whatsoever. He's supposed to create for us and tbh he looks like a princess out there. All I'm trying to get across is that we do have other things we can try, things Moyes needs to try, because what he's come up with so far has not worked.

Question is whether that is down to Moyes tactics or to Arteta's form?

Yeah, Fellaini has been used an attacking midfielder for his country but he looks so much better as a defensive player where he's got more room to do his shit. Heitinga can do a job as a DM but why have someone there who can do a job when you've got another player who can boss the whole game from the defensive midfield role?

I agree that Fellaini is much better as a defensive midfielder, it's just that I can see why Moyes has him playing there. With Cahill and Rodwell out, we don't have an attacking midfielder (unless you pull Osman from the right, but in that case you need to find another RM, a role that Coleman might or might not be able to fulfill, who really knows better than the people he works with day in day out). Fellaini can play there and Heitinga did excellent in his role when Felli was injured, so I think it's worth a shot. This year Heitinga happens to look nowhere as good as he did last year, but is that Moyes' fault?

I just think people are really overreacting, opening threads questioning whether it's time for him to move on and stuff. I'm sure everything will come good in the end. And even if we finish in lets say 10th place, is that a reason to want Moyes to leave? Probably Moyes has taken us as far as he can, but I doubt anyone in the world will take us further without a serious money injection. I know expectations were high, but if you look at the situation rationally, you can't really expect us to finish top 6.

They've found a way to get him playing to his max and Moyes found that if you play Fellaini as a DM then he'll shine. He looks crap uptop, just because he's tall doesn't mean he should be put there, we do have other options for the attacking mid role - you could have any one of Arteta, Pienaar, Osman, or Bily there.

When you play Pienaar in the middle of the park, then who's going to play on the left? And do you really think Bily would be such an improvement? Playing Arteta in a deeper role isn't such a strange idea either. You see that happen increasingly more in other teams as well because that way your playmaker gets more time on the ball than when he would be playing higher up the pitch. And Moyes also isn't the only manager that has tried playing Fellaini as an attacking midfielder. Belgian national team coaches Dick Advocaat and Georges Leekens have both played him there for most of the games. And he does well there when playing for Belgium.

I do agree that Osman could (and in my opinion should) play there:

Something like that.

Dembele apparentley might have broken his shin last night as well which leaves them with no fit strikers? Or is Andy Johnson back?

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.

We are. Haven't you noticed yet? You should have a look at the table then

Anyway, here's to hoping we beat Fulham with good football (though I would mind for shit if we do it by lumping the ball forward to Fellaini)!

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.

Yeah, but that's when we were most dangerous: when we were playing long balls. We had a good period in the second half when we were really upping the tempo, just dropping balls into the box. We played possession football most of the first half, or at least we tried, but Pienaar, Felli and especially Arteta kept giving the ball away, screwing up easy passes. You should then look at a Plan B. And I agree hoof ball isn't easy on the eye but it can get you results.

PS:

Have a look at Distin's passes:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/chalkboards/create

He gave 4 long balls, 3 of which were headed on.

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

Yeah, I don't get why Distin chose to play long balls either, we were ripping them apart with our fantastic possession based football. By the way, according to Guardian statistics Distin only gave 5 wrong passes of which only 1 was a long ball.

We're playing some good hoof ball at the moment as well

Distin has been very good by the way.

Woeful perfomance continues in the second half.

yak and Coleman on!

We've been horrible so far. Moyes needs to change things! He should take Heitinga off for Yakubu and play Fellaini in front of the defense.

Ben Arfa goal. Awful defending from Heitinga.

30 Minutes played. We've been poor.

Very poor pass from Jagielka... Luckily Howard prevents an own goal.

If you've got Veetle:

http://www.veetle.com/index.php/channel/view#4c909cdc2598b

With Barry Horne as a commentator!

Fellaini starts higher up the pitch than Arteta again.

It's a 4-2-3-1 against a 4-2-3-1. But theirs seems to be more attacking-minded on paper. Why not play Felli-Arteta-Osman in the centre of the pitch and Coleman/Bily on the right? Heitinga can play in defense or he can sit on the bench. Why force him in the team?

Nice to see Barkley among the subs though.

Pienaar for me. Could 've given it to Howard as well.