What is it about playing Bolton Wanderers that on occasions makes Everton players perform so abysmally? In fairness, our recent record against Bolton isn't bad, but when we lose to them, we manage to produce performances of such ineptitude that each one excels each other. A pathetic 2-0 defeat at the Reebok in 03-04 when the only memory of the game is Rooney throwing a strop when he got substituted. We followed this by an embarrassing 4-1 home defeat in 2005. Just when you didn’t think it could get any worse came last season’s pitiful 2-0 lose at the Reebok, a performance which Moyes later described as being “as bad as I can remember since I’ve been in charge.”
After last night’s debacle, I think Moyes’ statement from the 13th of February 2011 could be applied to the 4th of January 2012 too. It was easily one of the most abject performances I have seen (and there's been a few in the last nearly 19 years). I can handle losing, you have to accept taking defeats as a football fan, but it is the way you lose that is sometimes hard to take and I can’t take defeats like Wednesday's, when we went down without any fight.
I am and always have been a Moyes fan, but I can apportion blame to him when it needs to be and I think parts of this performance where down to Moyes. We played the much clamoured for 4-4-2 in a home game, the formation failed to work as Saha is hopelessly out of form and even worse than this, lacking in effort. Straqualursi, despite all his endeavours is not a premiership standard striker, but I suppose with the only other option being a not quite fully fit Anichebe; Moyes probably had little option to partner these two upfront. Where Vellios is I have no idea, but surely time has to come to give him a go in a formation where he’ll receive decent support and supply. Neville and Heitinga as the centre partnership was never going to work. Neville is not a central midfielder (and in my opinion, not a right back either). So much of the play bypasses him, when he is involved he slows the play down so much, I can’t remember one single forward pass he played last night. Defensively, he gets caught out too as proven with Bolton’s goal (yes, Howard maybe should’ve caught the ball and not punched it), but Neville let his man run past him and who was that man, Gary Cahill who probably signed off his career as a Bolton Wanderers player with the winning goal . I was even disappointed with his captaincy skills; there was no rallying of the troops, urging them on, just nothing. Heitinga is blatantly more comfortable playing at centre half (a chance he will now get with the injury to Jagielka), but playing alongside Neville effects him. I thought he played quite well at West Brom and improved further once Neville was substituted and Osman had gone into a more central position. I do believe that Moyes would have sacrificed Neville (like at West Brom), but his hands were tied do to the enforced substitutions because the injuries.
Another fault which Moyes can take some blame for is bringing on Rodwell to replace Jagielka. Rodwell had been doubtful for the match with a recurrence of his hamstring injury and the fact that he’d hardly warmed up before coming on, despite Jagielka being down for treatment and attempting to play on for five minutes or so. It was too risky to bring Jack on to play 50 odd minutes when he’s played about an hour’s football since mid November, Cahill could’ve come on as could Gueye who could have gone on the left and Osman could've been moved into what I think is his best position, where he has far more influence, a more central role.
No doubt others will have found further faults in the manager, but what he couldn’t be blamed for is the general lacklustre showing from the majority of the players. Yes, Moyes picks the players and yes, he’s plays players in wrong positions, but he doesn’t make the players not be able to pass to another blue shirt even though they were only yards away from each other. It is not his fault with the lack of composure shown the players; it was like we were scared to keep a hold of the ball as soon as a player received possession they wanted to get rid of it straight away. Yes, the chosen personnel could be blamed for this, but surely most players whether or not they are suited to a particular formation can manage to retain possession for more than 5 seconds.
Everton under Moyes have been renowned for their team spirit, which has seen us through some very tricky times (having to play Fellaini and Cahill upfront as we had no recognised fit strikers for part of the 08-09 season being a prime example, along with many a last minute goal to earn us a point or 3), last night it seemed like half of the players had never met each other before. Communication between certain players was practically none existent, several times two players (at one point, 3 players) went for the same ball, how hard is it to see the other man who is inches away from wearing the same coloured shirt as you?
Ok, the weather was atrocious, but it was the same for both sides and I don’t remember Bolton making as many simple errors as we did. Bolton were nothing special, but they just wanted it more than we did and they full deserved their three points. These types of errors are nothing more than schoolboy mistakes; professional standard players should not be making such basic errors.
We have a game on Saturday against Tamworth which should be, in theory, a more than comfortable win, but if we go into the game making these simple mistakes and with a less than professional attitude, we could well be on the verge of one the biggest FA Cup shocks in history.
After last year’s embarrassment at the hands of the Wanderers, we won our next game which just happened to be a FA Cup game. We showed in that particular FA Cup game everything that I love and have come to expect from Everton, team-spirit, determination, never say day attitude and as a result of showing these attributes we got a fully deserved, memorable win. Let’s hope Saturday brings the same.
