Lad on GrandOldTeam (Everton forum) does match previews that are nearly always bang on the money. But this particularly rings true; reflecting on the Norwich result and where we currently are. Might be Martin Jol-ish but regardless:
"However for many the Norwich game is symptomatic of a larger issue. This whole debating over a contract thing stinks to high heaven. We’re Everton not Exeter, he gets paid a great deal to manage a club that can still attract 40,000 fans at home and sells out most of its aways. I'm not going to pretend we're currently in the elite of the English league but we're a damn good club to manage on anyone’s CV. And that Norwich game was a microcosm of Moyes and his biggest blind spot – being too pragmatic and trying to protect leads when we’d have more luck going for the opposition’s throat.
Ask yourself how many games have you enjoyed watching Everton this year? Villa and Swansea will be in them, not only did Everton play great attacking football; they also put themselves in a two or three goal lead – offering you a rare opportunity to relax somewhat instead of fearing a moody opposition equaliser from a set piece to deny us two points. Near enough all our wins are tight affairs and there’s no shame in that if you’re getting the three points but a lot of times it spectacularly backfires. It’s par for the course to give a few teams a four or five goal pasting a few times a season, particularly with the players we have but while even the sh*te are good for it, we can never do similar. Why? Our approach to the game."
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Finding myself agreeing with pretty much everything he has to say. Moyes is becoming a victim of his own success. The ownership issues have been debated ad infinitum but I'm starting to doubt Moyes actually has the capabilities of pushing us on himself, and this season our usually solid defence shits itself the moment the opposition applies an ounce of pressure. Also, the amount of times we've been the better team in games but haven't hammered home our advantage is frightening. But moreover, it's consistent. It's not just the odd one of those "days" where you miss a bucketload of chances or hit the bar 3 times. Those days happen and I can accept that if it's an occasional thing. What I can't accept is the players we have at our disposal leaking points like there's no tomorrow. Some of our results against bottom-half teams:
Norwich - draw at home, lost away despite being 1-0 up with minutes to pay
Reading - loss, play them next week at home
Wigan - draw away
So'ton - draw away
QPR - draw away, yet to play again
Villa - draw at home, nearly lost
Newcastle - draw at home, let lead slip twice
Fulham - draw at their place depite creating a bucketload of clear chances
Off the top of my head (these stats might not be exact but if they're not they're damn close), we've kept just 4 clean sheets all season. We've won and kept a clean sheet on a massive 2 occasions - hasn't happened since September. We've won by more than 1 goal on just 2 occasions - hasn't happened since September. So nearly all our wins have been by the odd goal which tells me something - we're far too worried about what the opposition are going to do, rather than let the opposition worry about our superior players. And that rests with the manager.
