Tottenham Hotspur v Everton. Saturday 23rd October @ 12.45.

[ToxtethBlue]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/oct/25/chalkboards-tottenham-hotspur-everton

Heitinga's 'job' on Van der Vaart.

I said he did better than people gave credit for in that match. Still, though, I dont buy the man-for-man analysis. He did the same against Liverpool and no one then was talking about Gerrard or Meireles being 'tracked'. Van der Vaart plays in the area Heitinga is tasked with patrolling. That was it.

He might not be needed as much against the likes of Stoke at home next up, but against better teams - and regardless of distributional failings - Heitinga is a good man to have in CM.

He's getting alot of stick because of the comments he made, hence the claims that he's not interested, and doesn't want to be here. I don't think that's the case at all, his attitude is fine, he just needs to get his game right.

His distribution is his best quality, that tells you all you need to know really, he's still a bit off the pace for whatever reason, and he is carrying niggling injuries by the looks of it.

He'll be fine, I'm sure of it, and he'll be needed against Stoke aswell, we need as much aerial ability in the team as we can get without unbalancing the side.

 

[Brownie]

Heitsy was alright, gave the ball away a couple of times in [Poor language removed] positions tho, could easily have cost us goals.

All round a solid performance, it's good that we can still grind out the old style hard working performances when needed.

 

[ToxtethBlue]

Pienaar ran rings around that little long haired Croatian fella aswell.

 

[davek]

He's getting alot of stick because of the comments he made, hence the claims that he's not interested, and doesn't want to be here. I don't think that's the case at all, his attitude is fine, he just needs to get his game right.

Agreed. He's suffering because of the Bayern Munich stuff. If people are looking for a grandstand performance to prove his worth they'll have a long wait.

His distribution is his best quality, that tells you all you need to know really, he's still a bit off the pace for whatever reason, and he is carrying niggling injuries by the looks of it.

He can play a great long ball. Getting intercepted trying to find his nearest team mate looks the bigger task for him at the minute.

He'll be fine, I'm sure of it, and he'll be needed against Stoke aswell, we need as much aerial ability in the team as we can get without unbalancing the side.

Maybe. Depending on who's available I think Moyes might throw caution to the wind and play two up, leave Heitinga out and withdraw Cahill to a deeper role. Moyes has to be concerned with the forwards firing blanks and may see this as an opportunity to get them off the mark. They're a physical team Stoke, so it would be a gamble.

 

[Lien]

Zonal Marking is a superb website.

Anyway, as for this match, I felt we were definitely worthy of a point - no more, no less. While the media were fawning over 'arry and Tottenham 'Brazil 1970' Hotspur, we once again exuded professionalism together with a real dogged spirit that is great to see back once more. Naturally, most have purely picked up on this and painted us as the team who dared to match Spurs, completely ignoring the fact we played some good football ourselves, as well as ignoring (and I've watched Spurs quite a few times recently - Spurs supporting mate) the inevitable diagonal hoof up front to big Pete when they're not winning. Truth be told we've played better this season but I'm not going to complain - a point at White Hart Lane without being at our best with Arteta et al out is a good point in my book.

The main plus was Jagielka, who is fast showing the form of a couple of years ago when he and Lescott were easily one of the best 3 centre-half pairings in the Premiership. Distin, despite still not filling me with total confidence, is getting some belief back himself and is getting increasingly solid. Howard made an absolutely awful error (slightly worried he's made 2 clangers already this season) but on the whole I rate him, as I'm sure most on here do. Baines once again had a good game, charging up the wing and his goal was rightly lauded.

Although I'm obviously delighted we LOOK like we've got our season going and are playing some stellar stuff at times, there are a couple of concerns. Heitinga was relatively poor on Saturday in my eyes, and he is actually causing my other concern. Is it just me who thinks we're far too late to close players down? There were 4 or 5 occasions on Saturday (and against Liverpool as well tbh - though they didn't have much quality to hurt us) when we gave them a formal invitation to shoot. They did on a couple of occasions (Howard producing a decent save from Modric I remember) but decided to go wide on a couple of others. We're asking to have a 25 yarder land in the back of our net at the moment and I think Heitinga is the main culprit, being as he is, the man in the one position I'd expect to be closing down the opposition first, in that sort of area.

We still obviously have an issue up front. Beckford looked scared once again when he came up. Saha looked decent when he came on though, and Yakubu once again gave a good performance (how I'm hoping he bangs one, no, make that five, in against Stoke).

So, all in all, I'm a happy Evertonian at the moment, and our next 3 fixtures give us the ideal opportunity to really get some points on the board and further climb the table to the sort of position I'd expect us to be in and around for the rest of the season.

That's my two pennies, anyway.