leffe186 Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 "Most seasons we've tended to finish sixth, seventh or eighth and if you ask the people who know football they would say that´s about as good as Everton can do." "We've probably been playing at our maximum for a long time at Everton - foot hard to the pedal - and I'm hoping we can go a wee bit further this season and maybe do better in the FA Cup." If this is the mentality at the club, we're screwed. Kaka, we were playing good, attacking football earlier this season. Our style of play has without doubt improved gradually over recent years. Then for some reason it's just stopped. It's really hard to fathom what he tells the players at times. We're conceding goals regardless, I haven't got a massive problem with that if we're consistently creating chances but now that's dried up. Snookered. I'd suggest a Martin Jol smiley to preface our posts. Not least because it would be unbelievably cool for every one of my Spurs posts to be prefaced with a Martin Jol face. It's strange, it almost seems like we've gone the other way. Under Redknapp, we really did play some sparkling attacking football at times, but we also struggled to break down the bus-parkers, and were far too open at times when we should have closed teams down. We've lost two of our best three players, and picked up some awkward injuries, but AVB has clearly adopted a style which is more resilient, and more amenable to changes in personnel. It's also noticeably duller. The clearest change is in making us more pressing, which is something that Everton have usually been so good at over the last couple of years. The difference between us seems to be better organization at the back (despite us almost never playing the same defence, which is arguably AVB's biggest achievement with us), a slightly better level of skill and passing in our midfield, and Bale (who AVB has built our team around, although Fellaini is almost as important for you). Additionally, AVB saw our tendency to let silly late goals in, and took steps to change it in training. We now make a habit of scoring late goals, rather than letting them in. I haven't seen enough of you recently to say what the problem is. What were the two nil-nils like? I saw the Villa game, where Fellaini pulled you back into it, but your defence tried their hardest to lose it beforehand. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AyeDubbleYoo Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Weren't the periods of good attacking football (for Everton) the exception though, and now things are regressing to the mean? I noticed they were playing some better football earlier in the season. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deuce Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Here's an interesting article on Spurs' transformation under AVB: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2013/feb/26/gareth-bale-sensation-tottenham-style?CMP=twt_gu Dembele was a particularly shrewd acquisition. Guy is quick becoming one of the best CMs in the league. If Sandro can continue to develop into a strong DM, in addition to Holtby locking-down an AM role...that's a pretty devastating 1-2-3 punch in the middle of the park. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
leffe186 Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Two ways you can look at Everton under Moyes. You could rightly point out that he took over a club that was in a bit of a state, narrowly avoiding relegation a couple of times. He took them consistently to challenge for Europe. He's bought well with limited finances and got the best out of the players at the club. But, does he have a level where his effectiveness as a manager wears off ? There are a lot of managers out there, that are hugely successful in the championship but get found out when moving into the prem. Perhaps Moyes's level is slightly higher than that and he plateaus at around the 6th or 7th spot. I don't think though that you can argue that he is getting the best out of the squad, if you look at the squads of the five teams above Everton, Manure, Man Shitty, Spuds, Chelsea and Arsenal, they are all stronger than Everton's. It's debatebale whether Liverpool and Newcastle have stronger squads too and Everton are well ahead of both those teams. So he's doing all he can imo with what he has, I think the big question regarding Moyes would come up if or when he gets big money to spend or inherts a team capable of winning the PL, would his style achieve what is expected ? That's rather like the perception of Martin Jol towards the end of his time at Spurs. Levy thought he needed someone else to make the step up. Ramos was a failure, Redknapp a great success, but probably not the long-term solution. Difference is, we generated more money along the way, which allowed us to improve despite wasting shit-loads on Bentley and a couple of others. Moyes has never had that room to manoeuvre. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
leffe186 Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Here's an interesting article on Spurs' transformation under AVB: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2013/feb/26/gareth-bale-sensation-tottenham-style?CMP=twt_gu Dembele was a particularly shrewd acquisition. Guy is quick becoming one of the best CMs in the league. If Sandro can continue to develop into a strong DM, that's a pretty devastating 1-2 punch in the middle of the park. Dembele and Sandro worked really, really well together. Dembele and Parker, not so much. Dembele has a long-term hip problem, and we're pretty confident that that's part of the reason his performances have dropped off recently. He's still a good player, but looking at the West Ham game you saw Parker making the runs that you'd really rather Dembele was making. Hopefully he can get some rest next year, with Sandro coming back and kids like Carroll getting more game time. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deuce Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 I'll be honest, I really enjoy watching Spurs (and not just because my main man plays there). AVB was shafted at Chelsea, glad to see him succeeding. Just a quality side, glad to see someone throw a wrench in the engine of Chelsea/ManU/City/Arsenal. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mole_Toonfan Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Here's an interesting article on Spurs' transformation under AVB: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2013/feb/26/gareth-bale-sensation-tottenham-style?CMP=twt_gu Dembele was a particularly shrewd acquisition. Guy is quick becoming one of the best CMs in the league. If Sandro can continue to develop into a strong DM, in addition to Holtby locking-down an AM role...that's a pretty devastating 1-2-3 punch in the middle of the park. Indeed, its actually important to mention though that Dembele has been playing a lot deeper since Sandro's injury due to Parker not being that good. Which has coincided with the team being built around Bale with devastating effects mind, but its less of a team effort without Sandro holding down the fort and Dembele driving the team forward giving space to Bale and Lennon. Its just become about Bale which honestly i can see tripping them up at some point relying so heavily on one player and having other important players restricted to mere role players to make it work. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ishmael Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Tottenham are performing at exactly the same standard as they did last season. Almost to the point. And thus, they need to add better players to challenge the top two. The current crop wont. Still under the glass ceiling, which will wont be breached for the foreseeable future. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AyeDubbleYoo Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Except Bale has gone up a level. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ishmael Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 He's only been setting the world alight for the last month or so to my knowledge. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mole_Toonfan Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 I think Spurs are better than last season honestly.... they have improved defensively and most of their key players don't hide in big games anymore. Last season Modric as talented as he is can often be found missing in big games while Dembele always raises his game against the big boys when Modric arguably did the opposite. And of course Bale has stepped it up, but i think on the whole they have improved. They lack a bit of creativity compared to last season but it doesn't seem to effect them at all most of the time. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
leffe186 Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Tottenham are performing at exactly the same standard as they did last season. Almost to the point. And thus, they need to add better players to challenge the top two. The current crop wont. Still under the glass ceiling, which will wont be breached for the foreseeable future. We definitely need to add better players, but everyone will do that. Still, you're now talking about the glass ceiling being under the top two, which is an improvement. Up until last year the glass ceiling was under the top four, at best. The good sign is that we're performing similarly to last year with a weaker first team, bigger injury problems, and a new manager who has been under enormous pressure from day one. You'd hope we would improve next year even without strengthening the squad. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Get to see the sight of Neville in midfield it seems. Let's see how he matches up to League One relegation candidates. No Fellaini. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
leffe186 Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 I think Spurs are better than last season honestly.... they have improved defensively and most of their key players don't hide in big games anymore. Last season Modric as talented as he is can often be found missing in big games while Dembele always raises his game against the big boys when Modric arguably did the opposite. And of course Bale has stepped it up, but i think on the whole they have improved. They lack a bit of creativity compared to last season but it doesn't seem to effect them at all most of the time. Losing Modric and VDV is massive, regardless of who you bring in to try to replace them. There were times last season when we were called a one-man team, only that one man was Van der Vaart. We're definitely not as fluid, but I think our first XI (with everyone fit) is really, really good. Lloris alone makes a huge difference. Meh, you never know, we have a run of four incredibly tough games coming up after which we could quite easily be out of Europe, and fifth. And we might have even more injuries. Win the next four games and I'd say, unequivocally, that we've improved . Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeloEmre Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Barcelona: Pinto; Alves, Pique, Puyol, Alba; Xavi, Busquets, Fabregas; Iniesta, Pedro, Messi. Real Madrid: Lopez; Arbeloa, Varane, Ramos, Coentrao; Khedira, Alonso, Di Maria; Özil, Ronaldo, Higuain. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Can't believe I'm going to be watching this over El Clasico. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeloEmre Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Can't believe I'm going to be watching this over El Clasico. Many of us will do the same on Saturday Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fugazi Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 I think Real will go through. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Yay Liverpool coverage. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Village Idiot Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Can't believe I'm going to be watching this over El Clasico. Many of us will do the same on Saturday The weekend Clásico is meaningless though, this one isn't. Not too confident for some reason myself. Anyway, I'm off to the pub. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeloEmre Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Can't believe I'm going to be watching this over El Clasico. Many of us will do the same on Saturday The weekend Clásico is meaningless though, this one isn't. It's still El Clásico. Guess most of us would watch it if it had started two hours later. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
binnsy Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 does the barca game kick off at 8pm Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fugazi Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 does the barca game kick off at 8pm Yes Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Village Idiot Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Can't believe I'm going to be watching this over El Clasico. Many of us will do the same on Saturday The weekend Clásico is meaningless though, this one isn't. It's still El Clásico. Guess most of us would watch it if it had started two hours later. Madrid asked for an early kick off to get more rest before the ManU game midweek. It's going to feel weird, but the game doesn't really have much importance given the league table. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fugazi Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Goodison's PA system is mad loud. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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