adziom

http://www.evertonfc.com//news/archive/2011/12/15/value-of-drenthe-x-factor?utm_source=rss_everton&utm_medium=rss_feed&utm_term=Value+Of+Drenthe+X-Factor Hopefully this confirms there is no issue with Moyes and Drenthe, and hopefully it means we'll see him either this weekend or next. Sorry if this has been posted elsewhere.

Disappointing..... Louis is one of the senior members in the squad, I hope this has been massively exaggerated by translation, because otherwise there seems to be a bit of a lack of professionalism in some of his comments.

It would be a shame to see him go, I personally feel for the lad, he has done a great job for his country and a good enough job at club level to warrant bargain buyer Moyes paying £10 million for him. He had a good start here but since then he just seems to have taken an absolute battering to his confidence. I wish things had worked out better for him and the club, but if we can get something in the region of £7 million like Haf says, I'll be more than happy enough.

I miss Lescott as a footballer, also Arteta and Pienaar, and I miss the Tim Cahill of yesteryear.

It is a good forum Joey, things just get a bit heated on occasion. In general, I find the forum to be full of lively debate, varying opinions and a good sense of humour, and most importantly it isn't full of 12 year olds, reveling in the discovery of life with a personal computer and internet access, using words like c*** and w****r on every post to make everyone think they're grown up, like 90% of football forums. Things are just frictious following a pair of defeats. PS. Is frictious a word? Firefox doesn't seem to believe so?

Hi, welcome

I don't know, I get served by somebody different every time I go in there. Fair enough, understandable. I wouldn't know them as owners as either of those places. --- MikeO - perhaps the lads were too busy with their sports team socials and nights out for parties, certainly seems to be the case these days

I agree, Saha is a goalscorer, and although I detest his trait of failing to run around and make the ball his up front, that doesn't change the fact that he is the best striker we have. While we are struggling to make chances through playing neat football, failing to get in behind the opposition's defence and put in threatening crosses, Saha is not going to excel. At the moment, with our current line up and style of play, I think we need someone more in the Duncan Ferguson mould to play up top, but unfortunately it doesn't seem that Vellios is ready to play that role, nor that Moyes is willing to play Stracqualursi up there. When we improve our midfield spark and creativity, and start getting in behind full backs and playing clever through balls to our strikers, Saha can be our man, albeit only if this happens sooner rather than later due to his advancing years. After all, Yakubu, Beattie, Johnson, even Anichebe have had reasonable goalscoring runs in our team when the midfield has been on song, which is why I believe this is where we need to improve first.

Yeah, although now I'm studying at Lancaster university. Whereabouts? Surnames?

I don't know if anyone else has ever taken either of the Manx ferries (that sail from Heysham and Liverpool), but one of the boats used to be absolutely full of Everton and Liverpool merchandise. I'm not 100% sure if they still do or whether they're allowed to - in fact I'm quite sure they don't anymore, but that is the only place outside Liverpool or the Internet where I've ever been able to purchase Everton goods. Just a point of interest. EDIT: Although I realise I'm a bit late to the party with the merchandising discussion

I doubt it'll happen but I can't see how it wouldn't help the club out. Simply his presence in the dressing room would boost the players for a start, and as others have mentioned, what he'd bring to our younger strikers would be invaluable. Hell, he might even score a goal or two

I apologise to those who felt as if last night's debate wasted their time, please don't hate me I would just like to fully reiterate that while I disagreed with a couple of trivial decisions on Moyes' part on Saturday, I remain (mostly) proud of the lads' performance and effort, particularly at the back, and I also remain 100% behind the manager, the players, and everybody associated with the club.

I don't see how you're confused. Basically, my point is "Moyes is a top manager, he should be capable of getting things right on the side of the pitch, that's what he's paid to do. You can't really use the excuse that he has a hard job to defend him when he gets criticised, when he is paid a lot of money to do that job." It's a very minor and trivial point and I don't see how I can make myself more clear really. I just disagreed with that one statement. For the record I do agree with many of the things you've said. I agree that Moyes is still the right man for us, despite my personal disagreement with his tactics, I agree that we should get behind him and his players, I agree that people calling for him to be sacked are over-reacting, and I agree that we shouldn't be expecting miracles, wins at Arsenal and a place in the top 6.

Sigh, I don't see how reading the whole post actually changes your point, nor my reply. You can't defend a Premier league manager by saying "its more difficult to do it at pitch side than on an internet forum". He's paid to make the decisions at the sidelines and not on an internet forum, because he's the manager and that's what he's meant to be capable of doing. If you pay a plumber to fix your sink and he doesn't fix it, you wouldn't accept "it's more difficult for me to get under that sink and actually fix it than for you to talk about how you would fix it" as an excuse, would you? Besides, I feel that we are discussing a minor point and its details to an excruciating degree. I disagreed with the Saha Distin substitution, I never said it lost us the game, and just to clarify to both of you, I believe any Everton fan that expected us in this form and with this squad to be disappointed with a 1-0 defeat to Arsenal and van Persie would be absolutely deluded. What I am disappointed with is the inability of our team to fashion one goalscoring opportunity in 180 minutes of football. This is all actually in my original post if you read it fully, or was this the "childish" bit?

All I'm saying is that a manager of his quality is meant to be able to do what he should do at pitch side. Kind of his job...

Okay, yes I did read the whole thread, I just couldn't be arsed picking out quotes left, right and center. My second point was in relation to your comment a page or two back, you said something to the effect of "its easy for us to see these things, but not so easy for Moyes to make these decisions at pitchside" or whatever, to which my point was, he is a PL manager, he has taken us to Europe on a low budget repeatedly, he is perfectly capable of seeing that certain players aren't playing well and knowing which players he has on the pitch, and therefore perfectly capable of knowing that our defence didn't need tinkering with on Saturday, especially not at the expense of having an actual striker on the pitch, he was wrong to make that substitution in my opinion. If you would have done the same thing as him, fine, that's up to you.. Again, I don't think many people on here are crying and blaming Moyes for life's little problems, some people want him out, I disagree with them, they're over-reacting, in my opinion. But at the same time they are entitled to be upset to see their football team struggling, and entitled to react accordingly. They are also entitled, and in my opinion also correct, to question the manager's decisions on match day. And at the risk of sounding hypocritical, one thing I do find rather "childish" is the repeated technique of attempting to wind people up by calling them "childish" for their views on football, and making sarcastic comments about bed times and having school in the morning (not to mention calling people cunts and such a few pages back). We're here to talk about football, right? I'm not here to launch a personal attack on you or anyone, I just disagree with you.

Avinalaff: Are you seriously claiming that just because you were in the stadium on match day that you, one person, is right, and everyone else, 5 or 6 people, are all wrong, even though they have seen a live stream, the game live on TV in America, all of the match stats (1 shot on target), the substitutions made, teamsheets and formation, live commentary and post match opinion from countless experts and past footballers? Are you seriously saying that David Moyes, a Premier League manager who has taken us to Europe on a budget repeatedly, is incapable of making sound judgements and taking what he believes to be the best actions on the sidelines (referring to your comment about how it isn't easy to make these judgements and decisions on the pitchside) as opposed to sitting in his living room or wherever else? I'm getting on a boat next Saturday afternoon, if I get off the boat to hear we've lost at home to Norwich, had no shots on target and lined up with the same old static midfield with Bily, Saha and Cahill again in the starting line up, am I not allowed to be angry at Moyes for picking the same players that have been ineffective all season? Just because I haven't seen the game? Furthermore, you've mentioned that "you don't see people inside the stadium calling for Moyes out". Actually, I haven't seen it much on here either. Maybe a couple of people have (rightfully) bemoaned moments like the Distin for Saha substitution on Saturday, Moyes' negative tactics, regardless of opposition, and the incessant insistence of playing Saha and Cahill to no effect week in, week out, when there are countless players on the bench who deserve their chance. I'm not calling for Moyes to be sacked - far from it - what he has done for us has been fantastic, and I have no doubt in his ability to put together another strong footballing side like he has done in the past, but just because he's been great for 9 years, doesn't mean everything he does is great. No manager is perfect, everybody is entitled to disagree with any particular decision a manager makes, all it does is prove that we care, we want to see our team do well and we want to have something to cheer about. Actually, I think we played alright against Arsenal, in that we almost managed a decent result, however at the same time this was more down to Howard, Hibbo and Johnny than any tactical genius from Moyes. Van Persie came up with one excellent goal, otherwise we would have got a point, which is a good result at a top 6 side. But, we haven't had a goalscoring opportunity worth mentioning for 180 minutes of football, and I don't believe that anybody who is happy with that as a football fan needs a good slapping.

Robin van Persie. That's about as realistic as the prospect of us signing any striker who is capable of scoring a decent amount of goals in our side at the moment. Sorry to be so pessimistic, but I'm just trying to be realistic.

Why didn't Moyes put him on? Because he's our top scorer, and because he might have had a shot. Moyes hates scoring goals.

I think you've answered your own question there....

Woeful substitutions. End of. Only Moyes would play a 4-6-0 in a football match that we aren't even leading, with 20-30 minutes left. Faaaackin' heeeell. Lucky not to have conceded as many goals as we had midfielders on the pitch, and that was by no means an outstanding Arsenal performance either. Depressing..

Nobody. All I can think of is Hibbo's double block in the first half.

There goes Maggie's place in the squad

Never seen McAleny play before. Hopefully there's some reason behind putting him ahead of Vellios...

We're lucky to even be in this game - thank you Hibbert and Heitinga. Bilyaletdinov has had some decent touches, he's good on the ball, he just can't cross..... More and more I think he'd be suited to playing behind the striker, or maybe even on the right so he can cut in. He's played there before and its paid off. Maggie on the bench, drag off Cahill or Seamus? Not gonna happen but ah well. COYB.