The good, the bad and the ugly: Everton 1 - Wolves 1

The good

There was some good passing in the first half of today's dreadful tie to Wolves. With excellent movement and lots of pace, we actually started the game off well, something that rarely happens. But of course, again, we couldn't score a goal to save our life, but I'll get to that in the bad. Lots of effort was shown by Pienaar, if that counts for anything, and Heitinga was pretty solid in his first league game after the World Cup. Distin had a pretty decent game as well, and I'll eat my words from last week as Hibbert was also pretty good.

The bad

I feel like this will be a long list. Regardless of his effort Pienaar's passing for most of the game was atrocious. The only thing worse in terms of accuracy was Bily's shooting. I have been sticking up for Bily since he showed up at Everton, but today he made me think twice. His key attribute was always his ability to shoot with power and score. Today just wasn't his day and I think the team suffered because of it. Times like today, I wonder why on earth we signed Saha. Not only has he not scored in the league in ages, he actually cost us the win today. Careless play, and a lazy attitude from him, set up the goal that not only cost us two points, but very nearly got Heitinga injured. At the end of the day, we fell apart in the second half. We were sloppy and slow and it cost us.

The ugly

I sincerely hope that Lee Mason will never be able to ref an Everton game again. The reffing truly was horrible and I'm just thankful we came out of this match without any injuries. Wolves were allowed to get away with murder to put it simple.

Moyes' tactics were also ugly. At home, we need to play two strikers. Everyone knows it so just do it already.

Ugh, at the end of the day this game was just terrible. I am actually losing years off my life with every game I watch.

Not as bad as last year I guess

Premier League day one: Blackburn 1 – Everton 0

There really is nothing like losing your first game to leave you completed dejected. Today started full of promise, with all of our players back from injury, no one could stop us, except of course for the hard-hitting Blackburn Rovers. At times, we looked like a team that had never played together before. Which simply isn’t the case, since we didn’t start any of our new signings. Moyes seems to have the “England syndrome,” playing players based solely on what they have done for the club, not what they could do today. In my opinion, if we want to challenge for the top four or even the league we have to drop some of our heart and relegate them to the bench to come on if we need them. Neville is not good enough for a top-flight team anymore. He is too slow and probably hasn’t made a good pass in years. It’s time for him to retire and join the coaching staff. I’d also really like to know what Coleman has to do to make the team. He wasn’t even on the bench! Our substitute for Neville, if he had come off was Hibbert! This is simply unacceptable. Our defense looked terrible at times, our midfield sometimes nonexistent and our attack left by the wayside. The solution to having nothing going down the right was to move Pienaar over. Why would you change a player’s position when the only thing working for the team, was his partnership with Baines.

I won’t even bother talking about possibly the worst goal-keeping error in recent history, because I’d rather just forget about that and focus on what needs to change. Here is the team I would like to see Everton play:

Howard

Coleman Jagielka Heitinga Baines

Fellaini

Bily? Arteta Rodwell Pienaar

Beckford or Saha

I’m still hopeful for the season, but fear next week against Wolves will be a repeat of today. Fingers crossed it won’t.

Maybe summer is not all bad

I wrote this post a while back but forgot to post it. Given Everton has just signed Arteta to a new deal. I thought it might be a fitting time to post it, even if it outdated.

If your favourite team is owned by a Russian billionaire, or a Sheikh, I’m sure the summer months are filled with hope, anticipation and an overall feeling of promise. Every day brings the chance that your team has added a bigger, faster, more talented player. If you are an Everton fan, these two-and-a-half months are pure and utter torture. Each morning you awake to the dread that one of your best players has been traded, or at the very least is rumoured to be leaving. These days are a nightmare. Last summer’s Lescott debacle undid our entire season. This year, there appears to be many players on the proverbial chopping block. I cannot even begin to consider the devastation if any of the current rumours are true. Not only is there a permanent cloud over Pienaar, but Arteta’s future seems to lie in the balance. First it was Manchester City, then Arsenal and then Arteta simply wanted to go back to Spain to be closer to his family. Today, he is in Australia, a good sign, but Manchester City have once again raised their ugly head supposedly offering Stephen Ireland, Nedum Onouha and Michael Johnson for our beloved Spaniard. Why would we want players that have been warming the bench to replace arguably the linchpin of our team? This must be a joke! If we could just keep our team intact, this could be our year.

Business and Social Media

Today’s business environment is going through a major change, with the increasing popularity of social media. As we have all seen, social media can be an effective way to get a key message out to the public, both quickly and honestly. Sporting events, and everything really, have been impacted by social media. At the end of the day, sports teams are businesses and like anything else, they need to adapt to the current climate and adopt these methods of communicating with their audiences. So what is the best way to tap into social media? I personally believe that Twitter is currently the most effective social media platform for business today. The speed of Twitter is undeniable and its ability to reach people and spread virally is part of its success.

Twitter forces businesses to cut out all the clutter that surrounds their usual messaging to stakeholders. They are limited to 140 characters to get the story straight.

In the past, if a crisis hit a corporation and they did not respond in a timely manner they would be criticized. This is definitely something that Twitter can change. It allows businesses to provide constant updates of information, in real time, to their audiences and make them a part of the conversation. Communicating on Twitter also demonstrates how important the customer is to the company. They can give their audiences additional information, to help them feel valued. I don’t think Twitter will necessarily be the best tool for all businesses, but for many it will. Sports teams are a perfect example of how they can involve fans (consumers) in the conversation about a team. As a fan, you probably are unable to influence the decisions made by a team, but through Twitter, the fan can be given the most up-to-date information, which they can then retweet or reply, but in the end they will be then involved. It is this involvement and ultimately investment that companies can achieve by using Twitter.

The power of Twitter is unquestionable, but the real question is will it last? Will businesses and people get tired of having to limit their conversations to 140 characters? Who knows. But for now, if Twitter fits with the brand identity, it is definitely a tool available for businesses to use effectively to increase their profile with their audiences. If I am conversing with you, I feel like I know you and that builds my trust. And trust is invaluable to any corporation.

The Montage and YouTube

It used to be when you missed a game, you would not be able to see the goal of the year that everyone is talking about. You would try to remember to watch the news to see the recap, but this wasn't always possible. And that would've been it. You would have missed the chance to enter the conversation around the water cooler. And then four years later the conversation would start up again and once again you would be shafted. Well not anymore my friends, because YouTube has pretty much ensured we will never again miss a thing.

One thing that I love at the end of the World Cup is watching the montages created, summarizing the tournament; they remind me of the highs and lows and usually tap into the emotion experienced by the fans and the players. With that being said, the BBC makes one hell of montage, which I think you should watch; BBC 2010 World Cup 2010 Closing Montage is probably my favourite. It sends shivers down my spine and even made me tear up a little.

Watch it, enjoy it and think about how this tournament has affected the way the world views sport and South Africa. Then revel in the fact that without YouTube you would have never have seen it. Thank you BBC, YouTube and ABCDJLG, because I do love a montage.

#WORLDCUP Twitter's first World Cup

I must say initially I was skeptical of the power of twitter, but the World Cup has made me a believer. You can follow players, managers and governing bodies like FIFA, as well as soccer fanatics across the world. I watched most games while on twitter viewing tweets from those I'm following and watching people battle it out for the country they're following. You get updates as fast as if you were watching the game itself, which is just brilliant. On a superficial level, you could even input little flags into your tweets and when you tweet #worldcup a soccer ball showed up. Very clever. Since the beginning of the World Cup, twitter trending topics have consistently included World Cup related items like players names and the elusive Vuvuzela. It even had my dad asking me what was Dave Fleet saying about the England team. Today, one day after the final, #worldcup is still a worldwide trending topic, where all things World Cup related have been monopolizing space. The greatest thing about twitter and soccer is that even though the World Cup is now over, twitter lives on and I fully intend to make use of it when the Premier League starts up again in August. I can't wait! Stay tuned for my thoughts on the best goal of the tournament.

We're half way there!

So, I have been neglecting my blogging duty in part because I spend so much time following the World Cup, I have no time to write about it. But with the knock-out stages about to begin, I figured I'd wrap up my thoughts on the group stages. For the most part I wasn't surprised. The South Americans are dominating. They are attacking teams, which I am all for, because lets face it, defensive teams give soccer its reputation for being boring. So far, these defensive teams have been punished, Italy in particular. We all knew when their team was picked, that they had no creativity up top, simply not the players they used to have, and they suffered because of this. I did expect them to make it through, but they didn't and I haven't seen an Italian flag since. The refs started off well, but have made some horrific mistakes, punishing the US probably the most and Chile certainly didn't deserve to have a player sent off against Spain. There have been good, games and bad, amazing goals and ones that I still can't believe went in.

Anyways, I think that is all I have time for now; Uruguay and S. Korea are about to start. For today's games, I think it will be 2-1 Uruguay and 1-0 US.