adziom

I thought that the popular theory was that UEFA didn't want 5 English teams in the tournament but they did want the holders in, so they paid off Colina to come out of retirement for one game and try and ensure Everton didn't get through. I don't think anyone ever suggested that UEFA/Colina don't like Everton so that's why they did it, I thought it was just, we don't want a 5th English side. It was a tragic decision though and it fucked us out of a chance in extra time, but whichever way you look at it, we still probably would have been underdogs in extra time, and almost certainly would have lost had it gone to penalties.

If we get in their faces quickly, pressure them and nab an early goal, I think we can get a hatful, especially if Pienaar, Osman and Drenthe are all on the pitch. If we sit back and bide our time and let Suarez start working his trickery on the referee in and around our area, we'll concede and be hard pressed to nick a draw. Let's hit them fast and hit them hard. Show them what a real derby is like, not that bollocks we saw at Goodison this season. Adam, Henderson, Carroll, Downing, Enrique won't know what hit them. Can't believe its still two hours til team sheets, gaaaaaah!

I don't see any problem with keeping Moyes as manager. Let's be honest, without serious investment, Moyes guarantees us a maximum of nicking a Europe League spot and the odd cup run, and his minimum is going to be to steer well clear of relegation each year. I don't think any other manager could guarantee us that year on year. Can anyone else? His footballing style might be questionable at times, as are some of his team selections and substitutions, but at the end of the day, can you honestly look at any of the teams above us in the league and say "We have a better squad than them, we should be finishing above them"? Not really. Newcastle maybe, but they've still got quality players in their squad - Ba, Tiote, Simpson, Krul, Cabaye and others would all at least challenge for places in our line up. We won't know if Moyes is the manager to take us forward until we have some sort of budget to speak of. With our current level of spending, no manager in the world is going to take us much further forward than we are now, so at the moment its a moot point. In my opinion, the time to consider his position, is IF we get investment and a transfer budget and he then fails to move us on from where we are now.

If we show the fight we've shown at the last few home games, which there's no reason not to in a derby match, then we will win. Suarez is their only player who's capable of creating openings. After that, their best threats are: - Skrtel from set pieces - Gerrard from direct FKs if he plays - Suarez diving to win penalties If we defend even half as well as we have in those home matches, where Mata, Silva, Bale, Van der Vaart, Adebayor, Aguero, Nasri etc etc all failed to break us down, Mr. Bucktooth won't even get a look in up front because their dog shit midfield of Henderson, Downing, Adam and Spearing will barely manage to make it as far as Fellaini and Rodwell when they attack. As long as Drenthe and Pienaar track back to cover their full backs, particularly Johnson (Although I've read that he's a doubt), their "threat" out wide is non existent, and with that in mind I'd be perfectly happy to play Drenthe to get at them instead of Coleman and his defensive abilities. They're missing Agger still, unless he makes a miracle recovery, which means either Coates or Carragher will be playing in central defence alongside Skrtel, and Osman and Jelavic will have too much for them if Saturday is anything to go by. Baines contributed to a lot of our attacks in the first half against Spurs, and if he can carry that form through to tomorrow, we'll have a huge threat down the left - the first time since Pienaar's been back that he'll be playing with Ossie and Baines - looking forward to that. Finally, although a lot of people seem to think Enrique has been one of the best left backs in the league this year, I still think Drenthe can have him on his arse half a dozen times at the very least, and we should be able to get a couple of goals, which will be more than enough, as long as we keep an eye on Bellamy when Kenny throws him on in the last 10 minutes. Just hope we'll line up with .........................Howard Hibbert....Heitinga....Distin....Baines .........Rodwell.............Fellaini Drenthe.........Osman...........Pienaar ......................Jelavic Wouldn't be that upset to see Coleman instead of Drenthe, or Cahill instead of Rodwell, just as long as Ossie still has licence to get forward and cause them trouble. I'd even go as far to say that seeing Neville's name on the team sheet wouldn't worry me. COYB

Distin was immense at the back today. Heitinga, Howard, Osman, Baines could all have had my vote as well.

Sadly that's one of the more balanced threads I've read on a Liverpool fans forum. Feels really sweet to beat the Spuds. Can't stand Harry Redknapp, but what I can't stand even more is the media wank fest over their club this year, especially Gareth Bale and his "incredible physique". We outplayed them all through the first half and all they could talk about at half time was how Bale should be playing on the left side of midfield. Truly pathetic. Anyway, I could write pages about that, but let's focus on a solid performance. We were great in the first half, and we did the job in the second. A lot of teams commit too many men forward against Tottenham and credit has to go to Moyes for making sure we didn't get carried away. Individually, everybody on the pitch put in an excellent shift. Neville was Neville, but aside from that we didn't look like a team missing one of their best players in Pienaar. I thought Coleman and Drenthe played well, Baines had one of his best games this season and Osman showed some real class in the first half too. Great finish for Jelavic, happy for him, and he showed signs he could be a great acquisition too. COYB

Really good half, lots of positives: - Jelavic first goal, more than Saha has scored at Goodison this season. - Solid at the back - Bale looks pants, what an over-rated footballer he is - Osman, Baines, Drenthe and Coleman are combining wonderfully - Drenthe is yet to make a major mistake and has opted to play the simple pass much more often than usual Keep it up, I can't think of a more comfortable half this season, but we have to kill it off before Spurs get a sniff

Howard, Nev, Baines, Heits, Distin, Felli, TC, Osman, Coleman, Drenthe, Jelly Friedel, Walker, King, Kaboul, Assou-Ekotto, Sandro, Modric, Parker, Bale, Defoe, Adebayor

http://www.evertonfc.com/news/archive/2012/03/09/moyes-has-saha-agreement Saha won't match Howard's league goal tally at Goodison this season after all! As long as Arry sticks to this agreement. Hoping for a line up of Howard; Hibbert, Heitinga, Distin, Baines; Fellaini, Cahill; Drenthe, Osman, Gueye; Stracqualursi With a bench of Mucha, Jagielka, Neville, Rodwell, Coleman, Jelavic, Barkley Could nick this one I reckon

I think it'll be 1-1, with Saha inevitably scoring for Spurs, matching Tim Howard's tally of league goals scored at Goodison Park this season.

Decision making can come with confidence, more confidence = more decisive play = 9/10 a better end result. How do we boost his confidence? Sign him up, show him he's wanted, give him a proper run in the first team, and let him grow into Everton and into the Premier League. As this is a free transfer, and given his level of raw talent, I'd go as far as saying it would be criminal not to sign him up. If we do and he comes good, we've got another bargain, if we do and he doesn't come good, we've lost very little and will probably get at least 2-3 million selling him on. If we don't sign him up at all, he'll go to Spurs or the Shite and turn out to be world class. Sign him up!

In what sense is he a hypocrite? He dives, I won't argue with you there, but he's been fully committed to his job for club and country throughout his entire career. He doesn't make the wrong headlines like John Terry, Mario Balotelli, Ashley Cole etc. That's what I mean by professionalism.

Gerrard is declining as a footballer now, but even as an RS, his base talent is world class. If you take the power and pace of Gareth Bale, the anticipation and attacking instinct of Paul Scholes, the long range shooting ability of Frank Lampard, and the professionalism of Ryan Giggs, take 80-90% of each of those attributes, put them into one player, and you have yourself one Stevie G laaaaaa. Having said that, Fellaini is a class act. His skill, technique and ball control is incredibly under-rated, and his tackling and reading of the game are solid. His aerial threat is an added bonus. If he can continue to refine his anticipation, and introduce a bit more grit and hard-tackling to his game, he will become a top class Premiership defensive midfielder. If, on top of that, he can manage to have a bit more confidence in the box, and just outside it, and take some more shots on, he could be our own Gerrard. The main thing lacking in Fellaini in my opinion is leadership. You never see Felli bring the ball forward, or rally the troops if we're struggling. Overall, I think Fellaini has some top qualities, and is just a few ingredients off being the type of player you want to build your entire squad around. I wouldn't swap him for Gerrard either, but I can't really see Felli ever becoming the same kind of complete midfielder that Stevie G has been and still is to some extent.

To be fair, QPR did play well and look threatening, and there's no way we could have turned up there and got a result without fighting hard for it. However, I'm not defending our level of performance out there today, I believe that QPR, along with Wigan the other week, are a team we should be looking at as an automatic 6 points at the start of the season, provided we play to our potential, and its completely unacceptable to come away with just one off them this season. Fair enough, the result was not bad. But we shouldn't be aiming for not bad. Nil Satis Nisi Optimum, after all! Perhaps the players and manager should take that to heart next time we're failing to beat or even outplay weaker teams.

I voted for Drenthe just because he made something happen. The back 4 were reasonably solid for me without being outstanding and Zamora should never have been allowed that free header. As for our midfield and attack, we never held on to the ball for long enough for anyone to actually stand out. We looked threatening as far as getting to the byline but half the time all we managed was to win a corner and the other half our pull backs were cleared by the first defender. Set piece delivery was really shocking, from Pienaar, Baines and Drenthe, although I think Roysten got one or two decent deliveries into the box. Cahill and Stracqualursi were completely anonymous, but I don't really see what they could have done about it. Fellaini didn't look as solid as he has done recently, and I can't actually remember Neville's name being mentioned more than twice in the commentary in 90 minutes. I'm not even exaggerating there. Difficult to pick a winner but for a classy goal, Roysten.

Really really poor

It was a bad tackle from Drenthe to give away the free kick, but before that, Hibbert got beaten by Taarabt, who was driving into the box and looking very threatening. But on top of that, Zamora had a free header from about 3 yards out, so whoever was meant to be marshalling the defence (Howard) or whoever let him get away were also at fault. Drenthe did not give away the goal single-handedly. I don't understand why everyone's so keen to bash Roysten. Nobody else would have scored that goal or even dreamt of shooting from there. We aren't keeping the ball well enough, they seem to just be waltzing through our midfield every time they go forward and we're very lucky to be level at half time in my opinion.

Solid line up bar Neville, but with no Rodwell or Gibbo on the bench I don't see who else there is to play there other than Barkley

I agree with the majority here on Drenthe - everyone moans about our midfielders playing sideways balls all the time (Gibson) and players hoofing the ball (Neville), and now some people are complaining about a pacy winger who takes players on? Yeah he gets things wrong, but who doesn't? As long as he doesn't do it on the edge of our own box, we can easily compensate for that. As long as he does it high up the pitch, if he gives away possession, the opposition still has Fellaini, Rodwell, Heitinga, Distin and Howard to get through as well until it actually costs us anything. There was actually a phase this season of 4-5 matches where I noticed Drenthe scored or assisted EVERY league goal we scored, up until he got sent off against Chelsea in the Carling Cup and couldn't get back into the side. If we have the opportunity to sign a player on a free transfer, who has more natural talent than arguably any other member of our squad, why is there even a question mark? Yes he can make mistakes, he can be frustrating, and he's no Cristiano Ronaldo, but he is valuable to our side. Anyway, back to the topic: Personally, I'd like to see this: Howard Hibbert Heits Distin/Jags Baines Rodwell Fellaini Drenthe Osman Pienaar Strac/Jela CB: Not really fussed between Jags and Distin, as long as Heitinga isn't put back on the bench or into midfield. Distin has been more solid than Jagielka in my opinion, but in the long run, its more important for Jagielka and Heitinga to build up an understanding and confidence as a partnership, given Distin's age. CF: Its hard to choose between Stracqualursi and Jelavic. Given his transfer fee you'd hope that Jelavic shows more all round ability than Stracqualursi and subsequently justify a position as first choice striker, but even if Denis is first choice, which I wouldn't be at all upset about, I think there would still be a necessity to rotate, given Strac's work rate. After his running against Man City, just for example, he could probably have done with coming off a bit earlier, and/or being rested against Wigan, which is where we'd be looking at giving Jelavic his chance. However, what team do I think Moyes will play? I don't know. The permutations are endless. He seems to find any excuse to play Neville, I can't see him going too many games without starting Cahill, and he still seems reluctant to play Drenthe. I honestly think the only 4 players we can be sure about playing pretty much every game are Howard, Baines, Fellaini and Pienaar. It will be something from: GK Howard RB Hibbert/Neville CB 2 of Heitinga/Jagielka/Distin LB Baines DM Fellaini & Rodwell/Gibson/Neville/Cahill RW Osman/Coleman/Drenthe LW Pienaar AM Cahill/Osman CF Stracqualursi/Jelavic Hopefully we'll see Barkley, Duffy and Maggie (who impressed me a lot vs Blackpool) get their chance as well before the season's out.

Straq, Peanut, Drenthe for me too, although the wages for all three might be a little bit of a push for us. Donovan has been slightly underwhelming for me in his general play, but he has picked up five assists, so its a bit of a strange one.

As good a memory as I have as a 19-year-old Evertonian

So far so good. Bit of a lethargic match in my opinion. Get in Peanut!

There's a reason Rodwell is touted as a potential £20 million player. He's been showing good signs of development throughout this season and I think its a bit soon to rule him out just because he's had a spate of injuries. Cleverley, Young, and now Phil Jones are going through a similar phase at Man Utd, and nobody's ruling out their careers, so lets just have some patience and wait and see.

I'm thinking 0-0

I don't know where you have quoted that from Moyski but it raises some valid points. I would love to see Drenthe on the pitch more often, he's exciting to watch and he makes things happen, even if he doesn't have a stellar success rate. All we can do is wait and see how Moyes picks his team when Donovan heads back to LA. Moyes will have to pick from Pienaar, Gueye, Drenthe, Osman and Coleman on the flanks once everyone is fit and Landon is gone. Ideally, I'd like to see Drenthe on the right, Pienaar on the left, with Osman behind the striker and Cahill being used as an impact sub. However, this is Moyes, and Cahill being dropped is unlikely. Contrary to some of the other opinions above, I doubt we will see Drenthe hold down a place in our line up as long as Osman and Pienaar are fit. Unfortunately, I don't see us signing Drenthe up either. It would be the right thing to do in my opinion, simply because he's a player with a certain raw, unpolished talent, a talent generally lacking from our squad, on a free transfer, but I just can't see Moyes wanting him in the long term given how sparingly and reluctantly he has been used this season.