I'm making one thread to come and post in each week. We've entered our "tough 6" weeks (8games) and drew Arsenal on Wednesday. All those draws in a row were depressing. we have been playing other teams off the park (most of the time) and have been deserving of a few wins. Today I was up early, fed the cats and decided it was too early an hour before game time so went back to sleep. So, of course, our boys battled back in a spectacular dying moments 2-1 win over Spurs, bumping us up from 7th back into 4th. 3 points behind Chelsea in 3rd, but with 3 other teams (spurs included at 4th) on the same points as us. Our GD is +11, spurs in 4th have +7 and then it's +4 and +3. The other good news, is that Jelavic scored the winner and ended his little drought. I couldn't believe how many people were turning on him. He's been ace for us and a few games without a goal is - obviously not a happy time for a striker - not a big deal when he's working as hard as Jelavic has been. Anyway. next up at Stoke on sat, at West Ham, home to Wigan on the wednesday and then home to chelsea on Sun 30th. Hopefully it'll be a nice run up to xmas! COYB
Thanks for this - clearly we weren't sustaining an "every game" thread. It's Wednesday now - looking ahead I see Stoke, West Ham, Wigan and Chelsea for the next four matches - I'd like to see 8 pts come from those four matches Stoke - 1 pt West Ham - 3 pts Wigan - 3 pts Chelsea - 1 pt These guesses are based just on looking at where we / they are in the table and my just general feelings about the matches. I could see 6 pts very easily (3 draws, 1 win), but really don't want to imagine anything less than that!
same here. We need to put the "smaller" games away - a draw to chelsea is "acceptable" as it were, but the other three games right now a draw would feel like a loss. Having said that, watch us blow all four games (it'll hurt less if we do blow them all, if I'm ready for it, and shine brighter if I'm wrong ) 8 points is good but I hope we do go all out for the full 12. We know this team can play and several of our injureds are back (like gibbo and hibbo!) Pnev is out and anichebe but is anyone else injured? I just hope that Baines' leg is ok and that it doesn't get aggravated into a full-blown, sit-on-the-sidelines injury.
Both Stoke and West Ham are away - and you are right re West Ham's strength at home - but I am feeling this one - no real logic behind it - but every streak has to end sometime, right? Right?
Didn't get to see the match - but we took 1 pt from Stoke - Moyes thinks the Blues didn't play that well, sounds like Fella is in for some post-match discipline.
Felli comes off as really arrogant to me. the way he reacts to the ref and these stupid losing his head incidents. IMHO he's way too inconsistent to be so arrogant. I think he needs to cut the hair, put his head down and work hard for a while. There's no denying I enjoy his goals when they come, and his skill when it shows, but the unforced turnovers and the stupid fouls and a bunch other little stuff just irks me about him. Having said that, the ref let stoke maul us and was a dick not calling fouls. that shawcross is a disgrace of a player. I can understand being frustrated and I think the FA needs to sort out a system of lodging complaints after games about opposing players and/or refs - make it tough criteria or whatever but their current "absolutely none of that or else" attitude is ridiculous and (I think) enhances players frustrations on the pitch. it's bad enough the ref won't help, but to know they will get away with shit cos we can't call the refs out on bullshit matches... well. it seems very totalitarian/dictatorship and that's not a good way to go. I feel like we (EFC) are moving into beautiful, skilled footy, away from the thugish get-it-done attitude, which stoke uses. We just haven't found a way to deal with the thugs while staying true to our new good style. Here's hoping we don't have as much trouble next game, and also that the refs start manning up and and protecting players better.
You are right. He is arrogant. I don't know if his stupidity leads to his arrogance or his arrogance leads to his stupidity, but he has screwed the team because of it. Bravo to Moyes for the way he has handled it.
yep. Moyes has always been a classy guy as far as speaking to the press has gone. at west ham tomorrow. I feel like we "should" win but I'm pretty sure it's going to be too difficult. We don't make things easier on ourselves, all these draws etc. if we had won just one of the games we drew, we'd be tied for 4th (chelsea has same points but a game in hand so they get third). if we had won just TWO of the games we've drawn we'd be in third. too many sloppy draws is killing us. WHU are going to come out fighting, like they always do. I just hope we do too... I just hope that felli's attitude and suspension hasn't negatively affected team spirit. COYB! 10hrs till ko.
Blues pick up a 2-1 win against West Ham - both sides hard done by the referee with send-offs - but in the end, we'll take the three points. It will be interesting to see how long each player (Cole and Gibson) are out - though in real time, it looked like Cole got Baines in the face, on replay it's clear he didn't. Gibson, on the other hand, did appear to get in the chest of theWest Ham player with his foot, so I'm not so surprised that ended up red.
I just watched the game on foxsoccer2go cos there was a 2 week free trial. I'm SOOOOOO glad we won this game, especially after that horrendous disallowed goal! The red cards, I agree on the Cole one, def looked bad in real time but replays showed it was nothing. On Gibbos, honestly, the other player had his foot JUST as high as Gibbo's, though he managed to pull it down faster hence why it looked like Gibbo's hit him. On replays from different angles, it looked like Gibbo got the guy's arm, defo not his head, and not really even his chest. Let's see if we can appeal it and get it revoked. If they revoke either player's red, but not the other players, I'd be pretty damn pissed. WHEW! We WON!!!!!! COYB next is home v Wigan on Wednesday, then home v Chelsea on Sun. This is a tough 3 games in 9 days.
We are back in 4th, though tied for points with Arsenal (3), Spurs (5) and West Brom (6). Chelsea is in 7th just one point behind us. Arsenal have a +14 GD we have +8, spurs +5 and WBA +4. What a tight tight race. We defo need to win every game going forward, but JUST as important to me is to get clean sheets. We are doing terribly on the conceding front. As evidenced by Arsenal, that GD makes a big difference.
And Chelsea's back into 3rd with a bang.....ouch! They'll be leading in GD for a while in this little subgroup of teams on the 30 pt mark (Chelsea, Arsenal, Everton, Spurs, West Brom)
a well won game on boxing day and this game against Chelsea is super important. We win, we jump above them by a point (and prevent them from also gaining three points if they were playing someone else). I can't see this being in any way easy, but I can see Goodison jumping for it I think this is Felli's last banned game, so starting the new year with him back in the side will be good. Hopefully Gibbo isn't too injured (IIRC he came off in the last game was it?) we have such a better record with him in midfield than without. it's amazing. he's so calm under pressure and he always gives his all! Should have Moyes' pre match comments tomorrow, maybe saturday, and we'll see how injuries are doing. Hibbo had surgery recently (right?) and he's a solid right back who is very underrated. I really really hope this is going to be a great game and not a sluggish boring duke it out til the end kinda game... and of course I hope the fire works are on our end COYB Edit: Chelsea has a game in hand, so this game is even more important to help catch up to them! Edit 2: Gibbo's red card has been overturned! from the west ham game (yay!) Here's hoping he isn't re-injured.
January isn't looking that much easier either with a possible 6 games (2 fa cup games if we win on the 7th) Wed 2nd 20:00 at Newcastle Mon 7th 19:45 at Cheltenham (FA Cup) Sat 12th 15:00 home to Swansea Mon 21st 20:00 at Southampton Sat 26th TBC FA Cup Round 4 Wed 30th 19:45 home to West Brom Other than Newcastle, the others don't scare me (as much as they probably should at least), but we just played 6 tough games in december and go straight into these games, no breaks. As an aside, while looking up the above I noticed our game at chelsea is the last of the season end of May. Let's hope we don't need to worry about winning it to secure a great spot (CL v Europa even?)
well that sucks. I was going to watch on foxsoccer2go (I am right now) but saw the score earlier this evening. I've put the game on and we score in the first minute and all I can think is facup final repeat. oh well. up next is newcastle.
ok toon tomorrow. COYB. Felli is back but gibbo is out for a month I'd prefer gibbo but what can you do. :/
I'm not the biggest felli fan and we haven't lost with gibbo in the side yet. He's 25 and stunning in that you don't notice him doing that defensive midfielder role. he's not hot-headed like heitinga and felli and he's just solid. so yes, I think I would have said Gibbo instead of Felli at the beginning of the season. I was really upset he was injured, and now he is again the thing about Felli is that he has these flashes of brilliance that blow your mind and then he does absolute shit. Add in his temper/arrogance/attitude and it just puts me off a bit. He needs to work on his consistency before he can act the way he does, always mouthing off to the referee, gesturing so exaggeratedly etc. I WANT him to grow and become the player that deserves the adoration of the EFC faithful, but right now, I don't see it. Having said all that, I don't think he's a "bad" player and I don't want to see him gone. He just irks me with his inconsistency. We also need Hibbo back. he's the one change in our back line, then we've been letting goals in higgledypiggledy all season. People fault him as he's not a flashy player, but without him our back line has been not-as-good. hibbo jags distin baines that's my back line first choice if they were healthy. We def need another RB soon with hibbo and coleman injured (coleman is a right winger to me, needing that extra help behind him) we had jags in RB today. not saying that's that bad, but it's not good/great. He's a central D and he's great at central D. Great 3 points today though! and Baines' kick! wow. I'd also like to give a shout out to jella who did all the hard work on the side line/crossing to vic for his easy finish. That whole play was beautiful from baines' ball up the line, to felli's chest/one touch to jella, to jella holding it further up and crossing and vic's clinical finish. He may not be scoring so much himself but he's a fantastic addition to our team. He runs his tail off every minute he's out there. I see him tracking back to help out when needed and he's not selfish (will cross to finisher!). He does fall over a bit too easily every so often, but that can be un-learned from his nat'l team. Once that's sorted, which he is getting better, he'll be a contender for one of my favs!
What a great win for the Toffees. A lot of teams would have been thrown for a loop after conceding such a weak goal in the 2nd minute. But it's great credit to the players that they stuck with the game plan and ground out a victory. It's nice to see Anichebe playing so well lately. I had my doubts when Everton re-signed him, but he's really stepped up his play. While I wouldn't say Victor used to have a bad attitude, he did seem to get discouraged very easily which in turn affected his effort on the pitch. But nowadays, his work effort is up there with the best of them. I agree with Spidey that it will be great when Hibbert's back. Heitinga had a good game today at center back, but I don't think it's a safe bet to assume he'll play consistently well as a defender. To me, Johnny's strong suit is at defensive midfielder where he can concentrate on physically intimidating opponents and where his occasional miscues are less likely to result in a goal for the opposition.
Baines post match said no one wanted to take it, not even him really, so he thought he'd just smack it as hard as he could and see... Unexpected goals are the best Rocket : def agree on Heitinga being better in DM, with the center d's behind him.
Big week with FA cup and a match up this weekend that could..well...nevermind. Everton 2-0 because we need a clean sheet.