David Moyes

[Cereal Killer]

Torn between wanting rid, but then also wanting him to stay just to get Grealish on loan for another season and some actual fullbacks with football ability

[Audrey Horne]

I think ill never understand why we as fans, can see things happening, not working etc (like the corner madness) yet a professional management team cant - or more likely, wont change it. ?

same as positions, tactics etc

Like what is going on? What did he say after the game?

[Gash]

Hang on, I've been a big critic of Moyes but we're not seriously verging on a Moyes Out thread here are we, because that's what it's starting to look like?

After all the turmoil and shite this club has been through anything around mid table will be a great return especially with so many people telling us what a shite squad we've got, of course he deserves to be here next season. We've wanted stability for years then when we get it people want to change it again.

Said it before, sacking managers has become an addiction for some fans and it's like they're struggling to wean themselves off it now.

[Silas]

Yeah we absolutely need to be giving the fella another year, beyond that we will see but let's not pretend he hasn't been the right person for the job, he's earned at least a year with another transfer window to see what he can do

[TheRam]

This is what we all wanted isn’t it?

Midtable mediocrity?

Things have to get a lot worse for me to consider getting rid.

People seem to think a new manager comes in and will be perfect but they’ll still have there issues and there’s no guarantee at all replacing moyes improves us.

He’s fine for me. He gets better as a manager as the squad gets better.

[Shogun]

I think you'll always be questioned when the home form is as bad as it's been this season tbf. Think both viewpoints on whether he's here next season or not are understandable. I do know I won't be going to 19 PL home matches next season if Moyes is still serving up the same thing though and I imagine many people will feel the same way.

Midtable is fine if you look on track for something better. Does Moyes have another level higher than this even with squad additions? If we bring in certain talented players then will he play them if they're not 6ft2 mega-athletes from the off? I don't know.

I think there's a real disconnect between what Moyes wants and what the people behind the scenes want. I'd rather bring in a manager/coach who is on the same wavelength than bring in players the manager doesn't want.

[toffee_scot]

I think ill never understand why we as fans, can see things happening, not working etc (like the corner madness) yet a professional management team cant - or more likely, wont change it. ?

same as positions, tactics etc

Like what is going on? What did he say after the game?

I’ve tried to sometimes see it from the perspective of - “if I was the manager, why would I make these decisions” and quite often I don’t know and I could try and hazard some guesses.

Factors could include:

Man management:

- Starting certain players regardless of form, because they are more experienced and better equipped to get through poor spells better than younger pros who are still developing particularly on the psychological side of their game.

- Risk upsetting some of the more influential players if you don’t play them or sub them off and make for a bad atmosphere at Finch Farm for the whole of the next week.

Tactics not working:

- Could be stubbornness and the hope that after more practice in the training ground on some routines then it will pay off, even if it takes half a season to click.

- Moyes will feel he needs to stick to a long term system he thinks will work now that he’s been here over a year and he slowly gets the players he needs and push higher up the table. When he first came in it was all about trying to get the best out of the players he had to win games.


I don’t know what goes on in a manager’s mind especially Moyes, but maybe some of the above is true.

[AjaxAndy]

I think ill never understand why we as fans, can see things happening, not working etc (like the corner madness) yet a professional management team cant - or more likely, wont change it. ?

same as positions, tactics etc

Like what is going on? What did he say after the game?

I do get what you're saying, but I'd also wager that if the manager changed everything we thought to be wrong then we'd not be 9th, and it wouldn't be an improvement on that position.

Like why play Gana when Rohl looked good in his last game... Well we moved Garner to RB, so we needed an experienced midfielder in there.

Ok so when Garner is fit why is he continuing to play Gana? Well because we don't have a lot of quality and playing Rohl who's had one good game isn't enough of a sample size to think that would actually be better.

Moyes has talked a lot about how games are fine margins, and whether we like that mentality or not it's largely true, so it's all about trying to come out on the right side of that, but without much creativity or control over games because of this and a young raw striker up top. This will always lead to a defensive mindset which isn't fun to watch, but in reality is actually our best chance of coming away with a point or all 3.

It's rare I look at a team selection and be genuinely baffled by it, even Armstrong out wide which seems mad isn't really when you look at the alternatives... Dibling who has very clearly not lived up to expectations both in game and training, and George who isn't our player, looks raw and that game time is better served long term going to young Harrison.

Even RB with JOB would be an obvious head scratcher if the alternative wasn't Patterson who Moyes is desperate to jettison. Again JOB will be a better player long term for the 18 months he's had to use the ball in ways a CB wouldn't usually learn during their developmental years.

I agree it's frustrating, but it's not like he's leaving out actual quality to play players out of position, so until we have a balanced team with decent full backs and a striker who can regularly hold up the ball it's not that outrageous imo.

[Bluedylan1]

People are fully entitled to feel how they want, but to me it's crazy that it's even a conversation as we're sat in 9th with 11 games to go, with a squad with a number of glaring weaknesses, after the last few years we've had, but each to their own I suppose.

Much as I loved what our fans did to save the club in recent years, I sometimes wonder if something broke in our collective brains during that period.

[Shogun]

Not sure why it's offensive to suggest we might be better off without him. There's not a lot of vitriol towards Moyes like there was Dyche and most responses seem measured. Yes we're 9th at the moment but results go against us and we might be 14th on Monday with 4 wins at home all season and out of both cups early. It looks a lot less of a miracle performance when you put it that way.

It's a job that would be very well sought after, so I don't really buy into Moyes, midtable and an abysmal home record being the best option.

I was happy with Moyes to stabalise us and get us away from a relegation battle whilst everything settles down off the pitch for the club. He's done that job and I haven't seen anything so far under him to suggest he's any different or better than what we were all fed up with the first time he was here.

Just because we've been through some terrible managers and a tumultuous time doesn't mean we should just settle through fear.

[Bluedylan1]

Not sure why it's offensive to suggest we might be better off without him. There's not a lot of vitriol towards Moyes like there was Dyche and most responses seem measured. Yes we're 9th at the moment but results go against us and we might be 14th on Monday with 4 wins at home all season and out of both cups early. It looks a lot less of a miracle performance when you put it that way.

It's a job that would be very well sought after, so I don't really buy into Moyes, midtable and an abysmal home record being the best option.

I was happy with Moyes to stabalise us and get us away from a relegation battle whilst everything settles down off the pitch for the club. He's done that job and I haven't seen anything so far under him to suggest he's any different or better than what we were all fed up with the first time he was here.

Just because we've been through some terrible managers and a tumultuous time doesn't mean we should just settle through fear.

I don't think it has anything to do with fear. It's about having reasonable, rational expectations. Pretty much everyone agreed that we were hoping for and needed a season of quiet mid-table rebuilding. Then when that is well on the way to being achieved, it quickly becomes not enough for a lot of people. I think people should be more honest with themselves about their expectations in the first place, if that wasn't enough.

As has been demonstrated elsewhere, we have a tiny net spend as a club in the last few years, pre and post Moyes, and there are loads of clubs below us who've spent hundreds of millions more than us. I know that's an inconvenient truth for a lot of people but high net spend and high wages make a huge difference. It's incredible that we're anywhere near 9th. We have a very limited squad still. It was better than Dyche tried to con us into believing but it's not even close to a European quality squad. It needs massive work, and we're 1 summer into a 3 summer rebuild.

If Moyes was given loads of expensive signings, and the glaring gaps in the squad were filled then it would be absolutely fair to judge him more harshly. Moyes does have some responsibilty himself for not insisting on those full-back signings, so he's not completely absolved either.

But he's doing a lot with very little. At West Ham he was given decent resources over a few seasons and he delivered them a European trophy and a Europa League semi-final. Surely he deserves a similar opportunity here?

Remember a lot of people wanted Potter and Frank when we appointed Moyes. Potter lasted 6 months at West Ham (having spent 140m) and Frank lasted 7 months at Spurs (having spent 250m). Would either of them have done better than Moyes with our squad? Almost certainly not. Probably significantly worse.

I think we need a period of stability and gradual growth, and the last thing we need is to re-enter the constantly changing managers whirlwind which ran us into serious trouble.

[Gash]

I think it's more about where we are as a club at the moment. We've just come out of the Moshiri years with all the turmoil that came with it, we're in a new stadium, new owners and despite being here before, a relatively new manager, this is still only season one of the reset, it just seems crazy that while trying to bring some stability we'd get rid of the manager after 18 months who's helped bring a lot of that stability and has been a large part of it. I might be completely wrong but there's not snippets coming out from the club and I would think Moyes has one of the safest jobs in the PL at the moment.

I'll continue to moan about him, his style, his negativity and his selections but I don't think we're anywhere near where we should be considering replacing him.

[sam of the south]

I think it's more about where we are as a club at the moment. We've just come out of the Moshiri years with all the turmoil that came with it, we're in a new stadium, new owners and despite being here before, a relatively new manager, this still only season one of the reset, it just seems crazy that while trying to bring some stability we'd get rid of the manager after 18 months who's helped bring a lot of that stability and has been a large part of it. I might be completely wrong but there's not snippets coming out from the club and I would think Moyes has one of the safest jobs in the PL at the moment.

I'll continue to moan about him, his style, his negativity and his selections but I don't think we're anywhere near where we should be considering replacing him.

Yeah, this is where I’m at really.

Don’t dig a lot of what Moyes does, but he cares about Everton, and he’s good at digging out enough results to keep us stable, which is a huge success comparative to the bozo’s we’ve had at the helm both before him (the first time) and after him.

If someone expansive/progressive became available and wanted to come, though, then I wouldn’t grumble, but unless that happens I would stick with him.

[Risky]

Very much 2 sides of it for me.

1. Yeah we absolutely should be happy with our league position and distance from any form of relegation trouble this season. I think anyone being realistic would have settled for this at the start of the season.

2. Moyes to me has regressed in his approach this season. When he came back last season I thought he'd taken the shackles off himself a a bit and was going to be a bit less conservative in his approach - both tactically and in terms of minutes given to players. He seems to have gone back to the dull version of Moyes and it's actually an issue because there's a really good opportunity for us to achieve more than we expected this season. Tbh the let down is probably on me for thinking that Moyes may have changed and expecting anything different, what we're seeing is classic Moyes really.

Overall I'd not be looking to get rid unless we have some sort of meltdown between now and the end of the season. Like a lot of other people have said, it's next season where we would need to really take a decision whether he's going to push us on to any higher position that we are now. Give him a chance and see where we end up.

The wild card in all of this though is TFG. We're used to Kenwright / Moshiri sentimentality and mentality when it comes to managerial sackings. TFG have shown at Roma that they're willing to bin off a popular manager who hadn't really done a lot wrong in order to be ambitious, the question is whether they'd take that approach here as well (accepting that there's different people running day to day ops at each club). Fan opinion may not be as much of a factor as it has been previously.

[Juanito]

For me, it’s a bit like when Iraola replaced O’Neil at Bournemouth after he did an ok job in keeping them in the division and it was seen as ruthless. It’s just football and they went with a better manager.

Why is it madness to suggest it’s ok now Moyes has stabilised us, to go with someone else, someone with a better track record or working with a lot of these younger players signed perhaps.

We don’t know if there is not a better manager available who will do a better job and we don’t know if we get a rookie who sends us down but the idea of replacing Moyes is not so outrageous.