Moyes Exceeds Expectations

The FA Premier League Manager of the Year award is unlikely to end up on Merseyside this season. If it does, it will be found buried under a myriad of congratulatory letters and a league winners medal on Rafa Benitez's desk, a footnote to the prize most coveted by the red half of Liverpool. 

The award seems to follow the premiership title around gamely. It can usually be found in Manchester, whilst sometimes popping out of the office for a brief spell in London. Only once, when awarded to George Burley in 2001, has it ever been awarded to a manager who has not won the league. But, maybe this year it should end up on Merseyside regardless.

That David Moyes goes into the international break with his team sitting comfortably in 6th position - honing in on those above them and safe from the threat of those below them - represents a superb achievement. Given the obstacles which he and his Everton team have overcome this year, his is the outstanding managerial performance of 2008-09.

Whilst moaning about injuries is to an extent justified, a not inconsiderable part of a manager's job is learning to cope with them. Injuries are a certainty for every manager, each season, and Moyes deserves credit for how he has dealt with more than his fair share.

Yakubu, Everton's main threat, hasn't kicked a ball since November. The same is true of youngster James Vaughan, while Victor Anichebe joined them on the injury list in February and will not return this season. Louis Saha is Louis Saha and consequently Moyes has entered into a number of games without any fit strikers. This is not been evident in their impressively consistent results.

For a start, Moyes has negated the need to score an excess of goals by constructing an organised and efficient defence and midfield platform. His is a first team littered with reliable bargains, players who with the benefit of hindsight we can deduce he paid well under the odds for.

The likes of Lescott, Jagielka, Pienaar, Arteta and Howard were not unknowns before donning the Everton blue, but all have risen to heights higher than fans dared dream and their transfer fees suggested at time of purchase. The ability to acquire players for half their monetary value has enabled Moyes to infuse his squad with quality youngsters, such as Dan Gosling and the particularly outstanding Jack Rodwell, and the odd player of considerable expense, like Marouane Fellaini.

Everton's transfer policy and spirit is best summed up by Tim Cahill. Everton's man for any occasion has proved equally at home ghosting late into danger areas to score crucial goals in big games as he has filling in up front in the absence of strikers. Moyes has hinted he's a player of the season candidate, but in truth his chances probably mirror his manager's.

Understandably, when choosing the award's recipient in the past, the FA have favoured a direct correlation between a manager's achievements and silverware. Therefore, winning the FA cup is likely to be the only factor to give Moyes a realistic chance. But, with the odds against him, he's moulded a team that is very hard to beat, irrespective of goings on at Wembley.

Tellingly, Moyes has twice received the League Managers Association Manager of the Year award, in 2003 and 2005, the year he guided Everton to the fourth Champions League spot, at the expense of Liverpool. Such acclaim is unlikely to be matched by the FA in May, though his case, in a year in which all the big guns have struggled to assert themselves, is strong.

In all probability another Scot, Sir Alex Ferguson will be renewing his award ownership. As thoroughly deserved as it was last year, it is hard to argue that his team have progressed this year. He essentially bought himself a 30 million pound conundrum in Dimitar Berbatov, which he has spent the season trying to solve. This has yet to be done, and in truth, an until-now unpenetrable defence and an impressive increase in percentage of possesion have kept them ahead of a faltering pack. They are likely to taste league success, maybe even European too, but they have failed to convince like last season in the attacking third. 

This probably says more about the Premier League's chasing pack than about United. Rafael Benitez may have enjoyed two weeks which he'll do well to better for the rest of his career, but Liverpool's recent run cannot mask a largely inconsistent and often uninspired campaign, and an unhealthy reliance on two specific players. They too may prove successful in Europe, maybe even domestically, but they have produced considerably more average displays than you would associate with a team in their position.   

Similarly, Aston Villa's recent implosion should not colour an otherwise impressive season. Fans of such clubs strive for improvement, and the Villa Park faithful have certainly been treated to that, to the extent that they've forgotten the pre-Champions League contention days, as the recent booing of Gabriel Agbonlahor suggested. O'Neill deserves praise, but so too does Randy Lerner, who has supplied his manager with generous funds and a free reign to construct his masterplan.

Honourable mentions too have been merited by the managerial displays of Gianfranco Zola and Steve Bruce. Both joined their clubs in unsure times, but have replaced looming question marks of a worrying nature with ones concerning European qualification. 

These are the managers of the season; ones who've exceeded all expectation. And leading that pack is David Moyes.   

Ferguson Should Go With Tevez

The Carling Cup in the bag, a sizeable lead in the premiership, the preferential draw in the FA Cup semi-finals - an unblemished season beckons. However, the largest immediate obstacle to Manchester United's immortality, is a considerable one. 

Ferguson must guide his team past Jose Mourinho's Inter Milan on Wednesday night to keep alive his dream of retaining the Champions League title.

To do this he will have to find a solution to his striker "crisis". Which two of Rooney, Ronaldo, Berbatov and Tevez to pair upfront. If Manchester United did crises, they'd probably be the best crises in the world.

In reality Ronaldo is likely to slot into midfield. And then there were three. Rooney and Tevez in the bullish genius camp, and Berbatov, who represents the sublime or the non-existent, depending on his mood.

Rooney is a likely starter having returned to full fitness and goal-scoring form against Fulham on Saturday. And Tevez should join him.

For a start he too is in goal-scoring form, bagging a brace at the weekend. More significant than that on Saturday were the sparks flying between Rooney and Tevez. Finally Manchester United were able to produce the ruthless demolition they've been searching for all season, and Ferguson must seize the moment and bottle it.

Ironically, Berbatov has proved a more uncomfortable fit at United than Tevez. Seen by many as the final piece in the Old Trafford jigsaw, the unpredictable Bulgarian has complicated Ferguson's front-line options in a way that few predicted, and to the extent that the Scot is still undecided on his first choice pairing. Such problems were predicted upon Tevez's arrival with popular opinion assuming the Argentine dynamo would struggle to link with Rooney due to their almost identical approaches to the art of attacking. 

They are remarkably similar, but this consensus overlooked two key facts; such similarity fails to pose a problem when the forwards in question are complete strikers - muscular, capable in the air, strong on the ground - and when both possess world class ability.

Despite being the better team in the first leg, an inability to score an away goal places United in a precarious position this week. Concede and they must score two. The situation will require defending from the front. Pairing Rooney with Tevez will ensure this. Berbatov is capable of many things on a football pitch, whether or not defending is one of them remains to be seen, he has yet to trouble himself with trying.

Of course Tevez is no less capable of having an ineffectual night than Berbatov, but at least he'll die trying. If Inter's defenders leave the pitch on Wednesday having faced 90 minutes of Rooney and Tevez, they'll know all about it. If in doing so they are victorious they'll fully deserve their Quarter Final berth. After all, one of the few things more terrifying than facing Wayne Rooney, is facing him in tandem with a clone.

The "Lottery" of Penalties

Possibly the biggest mistake Spurs made regarding their narrow defeat in the Carling Cup final on Sunday, occurred in the days and weeks leading up to the final. "We thought there is no point in practising penalties" revealed striker Darren Bent. I wonder if their viewpoint was beginning to change after extra time as the exhausted players linked arms on the halfway line, a grim air of inevitability engulfing the men in white.

Admittedly the finer details of the previous 120 minutes of football merited the vast majority of Redknapp's preparation time, but the fact that his team had stuck to his solid gameplan so admirably, merely makes the assumption that penalties were not worthy of even an afterthought, all the more baffling.

Redknapp's description of penalties being a "lottery" is not entirely accurate. "Lottery" implies luck, that the Spurs players had no control over their own actions around the Wembley penalty spot, that every ounce of Jamie O'Hara's football talent and experience was extracted from his body as he began the fateful walk from the halfway line.

Sure, luck plays a part, but so does skill and mental strength. To claim that a penalty competition will be decided solely by luck is to do a disservice to those whose ability to thrive from the spot affords them 'expert' status. Alan Shearer did not have such an impressive record from the penalty spot because he was a very lucky man, more that he could place a ball and hold his nerve like few others. His unerring penalty accuracy is matched only by his uncanny ability to pick a shirt straight from the Matalan bargain bin for his appearances on the Match of the Day sofa.

Manchester United practised them, Spurs didn't. Of course this is not the reason Spurs failed to retain the trophy for the first time since Nottingham Forrest in 1990, but it has to be considered a factor.

It is impossible to simulate the pressure of a shootout in any training ground situation, but that stage is sufficient for honing the skills of psyching out the 'keeper, choosing a spot and ensuring the ball ends up there. If nothing else, Spurs should have entertained the possibility of a shootout occurring by identifying a number of possible takers; and those takers should have decided where their penalties would go - at least by the night before the match - eradicating any of the doubts that can flood the mind in the tsunami of nerves which plague such situations.

Ben Foster's use of the ipod represents the other end of the preparation spectrum. Verging on the obsessive, this attention to detail will understandably not appeal to all, but at the very least it shows that United had rehearsed for the situation as best they could. Pressure will always allow for lines to be fluffed, but as the dust of fate was sprinkled over proceedings, the Reds' superior planning told.