You should know by now that I am a long suffering supporter of Everton FC, because unlike 90% of the fans of our red rivals, I was actually born in the city. This season my team were expected to do great things, and many had tipped them to break into the fabled top 4 of the Premier League. Unlike the previous season, we started 2010/11 with a fully fit squad after an unusually successful pre-season. What has happened since, in typical Everton fashion, has confounded all those expectations, and this morning we lie bottom of the table.
Actually I am not yet that worried, as the Newcastle game apart we have actually played quite well, bossed the possession and had had more shots at goal than the opposition. What does worry me is that after years of banging his head against the glass ceiling that separates 4th spot and Champions League qualification from the rest of the division, David Moyes is appearing more than a touch battle weary, and sometimes seems at a loss as to what to do.
We have been crying out for another striker to share the load with Yakubu for some time, and Moyes must know this, but he loaned out Vaughan who scores a hat-trick on his debut for Crystal Palace, and he got Beckford on a free and tries him in the unsuited lone striker role when the Yak was sidelined by injury.
Moyes has had an obsession with the 4-5-1 formation which he pioneered in the PL in 2004/05 when with an admittedly poor team he secured that Holy Grail of 4th place. This season when the formation does not seem to working with a less than match fit Yakubu leading the line, and Beckford being unsuited to the lone striker role, surely it's time for 4-4-2, at least until the Yak is fit? No, Moyes will continue with 4-5-1 regardless, even to the extent of leaving Beckford on the bench and playing Cahill up front on his own in the dreadful Newcastle game. Yesterday's game away at Fulham, where we have lost 10 of the last 11 previously, showed the Yak getting better so maybe the corner to be turned is not that far away.
This is a small example of what the more fickle fans see as Moyes' stubbornness working against him. Although I do not count myself in the small but unfortunately growing band of the "Moyes Out" brigade, I do reckon that after nearly 9 years in charge and with a practically fully fit squad, this is the season that we should achieve something, be it 4th or a cup (already meekly out of the League Cup makes that harder I know). Maybe at the end of the season with nothing achieved it will be time for a change?
It could be worse. I could easily have followed my dad and been a Liverpool supporter. Everton are playing reasonably well but not getting the points - you can see that eventually things will improve. Liverpool are, well, playing rubbish and scrapping out draws. Yesterday's game against Sunderland was almost farcical and again relied on Stevie G to drag them back into it, when it's debatable as to whether or not he should have been on the field, having elbowed a Sunderland player in the head while going up for a ball. The ref booked Gerrard, but as Alan Shearer said on MotD it was either a red card for an elbow, or not a foul at all.
The Red's first goal should never have stood, a free kick having been set up for the opposition, one of the Mackems rolled the ball slowly back to the keeper, plainly for him to take the free kick. The 12 year old ref, who was looking the other way and who had not blown for the kick to be taken, lets a Liverpool player nick the ball on its dawdle back to the keeper, passes it across field and another Pool player scores, to the bewilderment of everyone in the ground!
Not to mention that Sunderland had a stonewall penalty denied, the game summed up Liverpool's currently clueless approach to the game. The first Merseyside derby takes place in two and a half weeks, and on current form and at home I fancy our chances. That's jinxed it!
Far more worrying than their form on the field for Liverpool fans is the state of the club's finances, which make Everton's annual search down the back of the sofa for a transfer kitty look like the height of largesse! The club have until October 15th to refinance the largely RBS loan Waldorf & Statler saddled them with by way of the frankly ludicrous Leveraged Buy Out scheme, the likes of which should be outlawed by the FA as a means of taking control of football clubs. This of course assumes the FA ever grow a pair, which is unlikely.
RBS have a number of options:
1. They can refinance the loan - unlikely since they've already done that at least twice.
2. They could put the club into administration - not likely at all as they would stand to lose serious money.
3. They can call in the loan, which is looking the most likely option.
By calling in the loan they will effectively own the club until a buyer can be found at a price which will repay the loan (about £250m) but leave the Yanks with next to nowt. You can see why the fans want this option to happen, as the Yanks want to sell for at least £600m and walk away with a tidy profit - and you wonder why there's been no takers!
RBS owning Liverpool is full of delicious irony. They will be owning a club whose kit sponsors are Standard Chartered for one, and secondly I as a taxpayer and RBS stakeholder, will own a part of Liverpool FC.
This could be filmed as a football version of Spinal Tap!
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Most neutral football fans' second team is Arsenal, who when they get it right play probably the best football to watch in Europe. Being Arsenal however you just know that their flakiness will surface at some point, and so it proved against a resurgent West Brom yesterday, losing 3-2 at home. Who would've thought it! Manuel Almunia is a comedian not a goalkeeper, and why Wenger didn't buy Shay Given in the last transfer window is mystifying. Oh, yes, Arsene Wenger, a typical moaning Frenchman cliche - a man who wants to outlaw any form of physical contact so his team of gaily coiffured foreigners can waltz past all opponents. Why shouldn't teams "park the bus" at The Emirates, and close down Arsenal's passing game with close marking and fair but hard tackling?
At the other end of the beautiful game spectrum the rays of the sun are blocked out by the larger than life figure of Sam Allardyce, a man whose teams go too far in the direction of out and out physical intimidation for my liking. Looking at that perennial bruiser El Hadj Diouf, one gets the impression that the only thing he does in training is knock over goalkeepers with full body slams, or sly elbows.
Allardyce has claimed in recent interviews that he should be in charge of a Real Madrid or an Inter Milan as he would win the "double or league" every season. You can't fault ambition, but this is pure delusion.
You can see the scene now. Mourinho is sacked after half a season because he's only 1 point clear of Barca in La Liga, the Madrid president accidentally imbibes some psychotropic drugs, and while under the influence appoints Big Sam, who arrives with El Hadj Diouf and the two Kevins. Before the first training session he gets one of his coaching staff to tie a piece of fluorescent string round a seat in the very top tier of the Bernabeu directly above the half way line. The other end of the string is tied round a chair directly opposite on the other side of the pitch.
"Right Casillas lad, and all you defenders, worra want you to do every time you get the ball is to kick it as high as you can and see if you can get it over tha' piece of string. In England we call this "The Hoof", and ar reckon 'tis future of game. In 2014 when ah'm int charge of England this is how we will win t'World Cup, bypassing all you fancy Spaniards wit yer celver passin' an all. Git me another lorry load of Wrigleys"
Black Pudding Bertha & Ecky Thump!
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