Howard, Donovan: Everton vs Birmingham 1/23 10 a.m. EST

He just has to be selfish.

 

well, BS is his harshest critic.

 

Right.

I would much rather see Donovan take people on and "lose the ball" than make the occasional bad pass....

 

Exactly. All things being equal, you take off the guy on a 2 month loan and not your established players. That's if all things are equal. LD has to tell Moyes by his play that he is better off leaving him on the field. He didn't do that today. He didn't have a bad game IMO, but just not a good game. He was average, just like most of Everton today.

 

Well I hope he plays great and Timmy's team comes back to a least tie and force a replay (it may be over by the time this posts, whatever).

Personally I dislike the YA attitude that everyone fighting our Yanks for playing time should fail. I'd rather root for their teams to do well and for them to prove their worth by contributing to that, not for them to earn their playing time due to others failings.

Aside from being a team worthy of respect for their coach, players, and fan Everton is also Timmy's team so pardon we for not rooting for players, even those in competition with Landon, to fail.

 

Donovan's bad performance comes when the rest of the team does bad. It's funny to see all the self loathing American fans jump on his back after this game.

 

IMO Baines is normally a better attacking player than Neville who's a better defender.

 

I really don't understand what these situations were in the game that some people are seeing where Donovan showed an "unwillingness to attack" -- other than the time he cut inside and dumped it to Pienaar, which I think was the right play in that situation.

I think people are making that claim because that's the pre-existing narrative (deserved or undeserved) about Donovan, not because of what happened in this particular game.

 

Arteta came on!!! The attack didn't die but it didn't come alive either. True Cahill did very little as well. And many Everton fans are great fans of him so he could be another guy Donovan could displace.

 

I guess by BS standards he had a bad game. I just felt he was average.

 

I do not profess to be an Everton expert, but here are my answers nonetheless:

1. Yes. Baines tends to make more runs up his flank than Neville does his.
2-3. No, I think the style of play difference between the full backs is independent of who is playing wide.
4. I thought Donovan was playing the role asked of him by Moyes in the first half, which was to stay high. In the second half it seemed Moyes adjusted Donovan's role to play him pinched in and closer to the central midfielders.

 

Get over it. Happens all the time.

 

seems like the sky is always falling on here.

i agree, he was average today. but he was good the last two weeks. one average week downplays the first two games?

 

Donovan has had a history of fading in matches when he needed to be more selfish and go to goal. Your teammates will do one of the three things: (1) lose confidence in you and not pass it to you, (2) get pissed off at you, or (3) cheer you on ... this is professional ball - and the EPL .... (3) isn't going to happen ... so when LD fades (1) will happen and (2) Neville is going to get pissed off at LD .... so LD needs to grab his balls and get a little selfish to help them win. David Moyes is not going to coddle him ... LD is there on loan and has a chance to help them win ... he did not do that today and merely sitting back and occasionally providing the nice pass is not enough. He needs at this point in his career to put HIS STAMP on the game. Anything else is not good enough.

 

Exactly.

Thank you.

Another good post.

I likes this post the best.

We really should stop overreacting so damn much.

 

I'll be the first to say I'm being overly critical of him, but oh well. I just want it to happen for the guy.

Maybe we all have a major inferiority complex when our players play abroad for a new team in a big league and even more delicate with Landon being the subject.

 

(American Arsenal)"Here's another point.

B'City is a good club. They're not in 8th, staring a EL spot by accident.

Good clubs neutralize good players. Whoever was marking LD today, was with him for most of the match"




You nailed it. Toffees just had a bad day at the office against a team that hasn't lost in 15 tries. I thought Lando would be able to punish Ridgewell down that flank, but ManU did not have much succes against the B'ham backs last week either

 

He played ok. We'll see better from him, and Everton as a team were poor in the first half.

 

Pretty good first. Pretty good second. Bad (Indifferent,Average, Whatever) Third. He has to be selfish. People expected him to improve on his Arsenal game. And did he? If the order of games were the other way around people would say Donovan is improving.

 

It would really help with understanding the play of his teamates if they could just involve Donovan more when he is WIDE open...especially when play is on his side.

The defender behind Donovan doesnt seem to want to play simple......

 

You just made my point by not saying a single thing about the game today.