Ruddy, midfield and a foo other thoughts on satdee

First up it was a great point. To be going away to established clubs like Everton and coming away with a point without playing well shows how far we have come. Despite their impotence in front of goal they are a solid, powerful team and a point at Goodison is therefore not to be sniffed at. It also puts us in a good position going into the Wolves game which is a real chance to put some proper distance between us and the bottom 5 or 6 teams.

That said, I thought that (Holt and Whitbread aside) were were generally pretty poor on Saturday, especially the midfield which was completely dominated. I thought Fox did ok but the rest were just ineefective an I can't help but think that laying those four in that formation away from home is going to fail far more often than it will work. We won't play teams who are as sh*t in attack as Everton were very often and you don't keep clean sheets with the amount of possession we were able to retain on Saturday. At the very least we need a wide outlet ball as well as the hoof up the pitch to Mozza and Holt. I therefore hope to see either Pilks or Bennett start tomorrow night with the ineffective Surman given a rest. If we are going to play the diamond someone also needs to teach Johnson where the hell he is supposed to play because the midfield cover for their goal was an utter joke.

As much as Moyes may be the subject of critcism from some Everton fans you could tell watching that game he had done his homework on us and sent them out there with a few plans. This was evident from the fact he brought Drenthe on and played him on the right (instad of the left where he often plays) so he was up against Tierney rather than Naughton. The other very obviousl plan was to try and exploit Ruddy and it very nearly worked. Now i've seen posts yesterday praising Ruddy and saying that hopefully all the Ruddy bashers will shut up now but i'm sorry yesterday's game showed very clearly why Ruddy will always split opinion. Yes he made 2 or 3 very good saves. He often does as he's a very good shot stopper. This often leads to him getting glowing reports. But the fact is that against crosses he was completely at sea for most of the match and very nearly cost us a goal on several occasion. For the first 25 minutes Everton's main tactics consisted of trying to exploit this by firing crosses and corners into the 6 yard box and Ruddy didn;t get near any of them. When he did try he swung wildly and missed. How they didn't score from one of these is beyond me. Its a massive weakness and its the reason he won't get in the England team and why, in truth, if we are to have a long term prem future he's not good enough for us unless someone can get him on the training ground and sort this out.

Anyway thats my twopenneth worth for what its worth! Still a great point and I think we will play much better tomorrow night. Get a goal ahad against Wolves and their fans will be right on their backs! If we can get another 4 or 5 points by the New Year then we are in great shape to stay up.

Posted By: Jim, Dec 19, 10:10:14