UA-11624747-1

2010-2011 Season

Everton are skint: so what?!

April 20, 2011
By
Everton are skint: so what?!

It’s something that barely registered on a national scale – possibly because Everton declaring themselves potless is hardly news – but last night Everton invited 200 Blues to Goodison for a Fans Conference. The idea was for fans to ask questions and to get answers.  Despite a protest outside – the questions were dealt with smoothly and the biggest question of all was answered very quickly.  Yes, Everton have no money to spend.  Again, this isn’t a shock – but many are somehow still outraged. The fact that we won’t be splurging in the summer is a disgrace apparently. Calls for Kenwright to resign naturally followed.  The “What has Moyes done for us?”...

Read more »

Attacking Leon Osman

April 18, 2011
By
Attacking Leon Osman

In the past few games Leon Osman has been wonderful. He has been the creative fulcrum in a team shorn of stars. That this Everton, a pruned squad facing the business end of the season, has done better than the superstars who started our season and flattered to decieve opens up a lot of questions. Perhaps those worried about our lack of transfer funds, and potential summer sales, should cast their minds back to 2004-05 when we finished 4th, after selling Wayne Rooney the previous summer and Thomas Gravesen half way through the campaign. Despite excelling in a weakened side, finally playing in the position that is best for...

Read more »

Season finally starts at Everton

April 11, 2011
By
Season finally starts at Everton

WOLVERHAMPTON WANDERERS 0 – EVERTON 3 (Beckford 21, Neville 39, Bilyaletdinov 45) Perhaps David Moyes should take a leaf out of Dave Bassett’s book; Bassett became so infuriated by the slow starts to the season that his Sheffield United team repeatedly made in the early 1990’s that he once held the club’s Christmas party in August in an attempt to lure his players into thinking the season was already half over. Another puzzling echo of previous seasons is how this team, minus its best players, performs so much better than when everyone is fit and available. We see it now, we saw it in the spring of 2009 on the...

Read more »

Would the real Mikel, the one we love, please reintroduce himself to Goodison?

January 28, 2011
By
Would the real Mikel, the one we love, please reintroduce himself to Goodison?

Everton were lucky, very lucky, not to have conceded four goals against West Ham last Saturday; a repeat of that depressing defeat at the hands of West Brom which would have set the alarm bells jangling and the Goodison hierarchy into crisis mode. A first half Frederic Piquionne header which kissed the base of one post and rolled tantalizingly across the goal and a delicious Zavon Hines lobbed shot which just cleared the bar, with Howard beaten all ends up, could so easily have killed off any chance of recovery and sent the Toffees in for their half-time tea and ‘chat’ with David Moyes three goals down. Observers have...

Read more »

Saha throws off shackles to sink Spurs

January 6, 2011
By

EVERTON 2 (Saha 3, Coleman 75) – TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR 1 (van der Vaart 11) Seamus Coleman loves playing against Spurs. It was in this fixture last season that he first announced himself; coming on as an early substitute he was the catalyst for a pulsating comeback from 2-0 down, and again last night the young Irishman was hugely influential, making a mug of his marker, Assou-Ekotto, setting up chance after chance, before finally netting the winner. But this was no one man show. Heitinga was impressive, returning after a long lay off he deputised admirably for the injured Jagielka, Fellaini was back to his best putting in a powerful...

Read more »

Arteta returns to drive Everton forward

December 24, 2010
By

Now here’s a trick; beat title challengers Manchester City away and then follow that by winning against sixteenth placed Birmingham City at home. Simple enough it might seem but this has been precisely the problem for Everton all season – clear Becher’s Brook one minute only to stumble over a sod the next. David Moyes is not short of options as he considers team selection; Mikel Arteta is rested and available again after completing his three match ban; Steven Pienaar has a “chance” of being fit; Leon Osman is back and played well for 75 minutes against City. These pluses are balanced by the injury to Phil Jagielka’s thigh,...

Read more »

Everton seize City built on sand

December 21, 2010
By
Everton seize City built on sand

MANCHESTER CITY 1 (Jagielka og 72) – EVERTON 2 (Cahill 4, Baines 19) The Everton that David Moyes built put in a welcome return last night at Eastlands delivering a victory built on all the qualities we have come to expect, but which have been missing for large chunks of the season; commitment, incisiveness, hard work and unflagging belief. Forced to play the bulk of the second half with just ten men every member of the team covered, harried and defended as City pushed forward, but even when the opposition found a way through they were met by a goalkeeper in Tim Howard who was in no mood to...

Read more »

Everton 0-0 Wigan – Apocalypse Now?

December 13, 2010
By
Everton 0-0 Wigan – Apocalypse Now?

For a while now we haven’t been getting the desired results, and Wigan at home continued this worrying theme. Again though, we played well, we created chances, we utterly dominated. Following the full-time whistle, a tsunami of kvetches and grumbles came back from annoyed Everton fans, accusing Moyes of being too negative, of 4-5-1 being the wrong formation, of our performance being “poor”. People vented on blogs, on Twitter, even on 5-Live (prompting a Krakatoan defence of our manager from host Darren Fletcher). Did any of these people watch the game? Normally when a player hits the bar, or fluffs a one-on-one, the event is used in mitigation of a poor result:  “we...

Read more »

Everton’s defenceless display plumbs new depths

November 29, 2010
By

EVERTON 1 (Cahill 42) – WEST BROMWICH ALBION 4 (Scharner 16, Brunt 26, Tchoyi 76, Distin 87 og). The Everton designed and built by David Moyes has never been prolific in front of goal, wins and league position have been built on defensive solidity. Back-to-back fifth place finishes in 2007/08 and 2008/09 plus a Cup Final appearance were constructed on a foundation of clean sheets, nothing more, nothing less. Remember what pride all Evertonians took when the team soldiered on and maintained their terrific form through December 2008 into February 2009 without a single fit striker at the club, until Jo arrived on loan and in a brief and...

Read more »

Confident Coleman led but no one followed

November 16, 2010
By

EVERTON 1 (Cahill 89) – ARSENAL  2 (Sagna 36, Fabregas 48) Grizzling on about the referee changes nothing and just deflects from the real issue which is that on Sunday the eleven men in blue were outplayed. In recent years the only team to give Everton a couple of real spankings has been the Gunners. Because they play the style of football Everton aspire to and run their club in a way that the Goodison hierarchy would love to emulate, it seems as though the Blues stand off, admiring, agog and gormless, all passion spent. It was only when they were 2-0 down, which bar a howling two yard miss...

Read more »

Next Game – Premier League, Saturday 11 February, kick-off 15:00, Chelsea @ Goodison

Twitter – Ed

Google Plus Badge