Things can only get better - can't they?

Speculation in various articles submitted to Bluekipper about this being the season that will either be the making of David Moyes as a “great manager” or as someone who ultimately fell just a bit short leave me bemused. My view, as is well known to Bluekipper readers, is that David Moyes has what it takes to be a great coach, and I do mean great, but nothing I have seen convinces me that he will ever be anything more than a competent manager.

As someone who advocated replacing the inept Mr Smith with David Moyes at the time, I have not changed my mind about David Moyes and I hope he will be at Everton for many years to come. However, the attempt to bring Roy Keane to Goodison only vindicates the opinion I have expressed before that Moyes needs support because I suspect that Keane was offered more than just a playing role. I would have welcomed the addition of Keane to Moyes’s close support team because of his uncompromising high standards and expectations of professional football players. It is this area that troubles me most about David Moyes. My argument that he needs a credible ally (I have often mentioned Peter Reid) to assist him in the transfer market is only part of my wider suspicion that he also needs support in providing consistent psychological motivation for the multimillionaire players whom he manages.

Dealing with my concern about Moyes and transfers first, I accept totally that he has made some good signings. Yobo, Cahill, Arteta and Neville prove his eye for a decent player. The worrying thing though is that once he has made his mind up, Moyes seems reluctant to notice that over time things change. When he first expressed his interest in Simon Davies (why do Everton do this so publicly these days?) three years ago, Davies was a useful right sided midfield player in the old fashioned winger mould. By the time Everton had wooed him, Tottenham knew they were getting money for old rope. Davies no longer has the appetite or pace for the role he was actually signed, yet nobody noticed this until he got here. What has £3.5 million plus his huge salary given us that Leon Osman can’t? Even worse, Davies’s inability to play wide right has forced Moyes to use Arteta there when he would be better in the middle of the park. Can anyone else see the same thing happening again with another Tottenham player called Davis?

In a very real sense this is about standards – would Roy Keane accept, for example, the level that we as supporters have become used to from the likes of Kevin Kilbane and Marcus Bent. These two players irritate me more than most because they have shown, occasionally, why Moyes thought that they could become Everton players. However, they have also shown that they do not deserve to be Everton players because if there is an easy option they will always take it. It is easy to use your explosive pace in areas of the field where you are not likely to get hurt, it is easy to play first time passes backwards to a full-back already marked. Both of these players make a mockery of our club motto because a) they are not good enough in the first place, and b) they do not give of their best at all times.

A great manager thinks on his feet. He anticipates and makes changes. Most of us knew after about 5 minutes of the first match of the season that Phil Neville should be captain out on the pitch, but Moyes had made his mind up again. David Weir, a great player in his time but now out of his time, tarnishes our fond memories of him almost every time he plays now. At an age when many players give up international football to prolong their club careers, Weir decided bizarrely that he should start playing for Scotland again. To add to the sense of bizarre, David Moyes then makes him captain which seems to guarantee Weir a game no matter how many goals his lack of pace and increasing indecision cost us. Which brings me neatly to Per Kroldrup. Is he another of David Moyes’s very expensive mistakes,or has he not been given a fair chance because of the first mistake in making Weir captain? The point is that none of us knows. How many times has the lad been on the bench when he could have been introduced gradually to the pace of the game in this country instead of being thrown in suddenly when David decided that David needed a rest?

Oh yes, the need to “rest” players. I just don’t buy into this. The day after the abject surrender to Bolton the squad left for a two day bender on the South Coast. Thanks, lads. Most of all thanks to you who run Everton Football Club for allowing this nonsense to happen. Well if it’s OK to prepare for 4 games in 8 days by going on the ale for two days then no player should be in need of a rest. The time to let your hair down as a highly paid athlete is not during the busiest playing month of the season, Christmas or no Christmas! Can’t see Wenger or Mourhino allowing this, can you?

Am I being too harsh on David Moyes here? Perhaps he has too much on his plate? My theme, in case I have rambled for too long, is that Moyes needs support. He does not get it from Wyness in the same way as Dein, Kenyon et al provide support for their managers and he does not get it from a board that is simply inert and incommunicado, what happened to Fortress Fund investment etc etc? He needs one or two people around him who can balance up his fine coaching skills with some better man management and some passion for higher standards for Everton both on and off the pitch. I would say that these two latter qualities would help Moyes immensely in the area he needs it most, deciding who is good enough or not good enough to play for Everton Football Club. His mistakes in the transfer market have been compounded by renewing and extending contracts for players who are either not good enough, not young enough or not healthy enough to improve the squad. We cannot afford any passengers at all let alone the number we have on board at the moment.

Somehow I have managed to write so much without having mentioned the humiliation of recent results. The lack of hunger against West Ham, the inability of Moyes and Irvine to react to Allardyce’s moving of Faye into defence once Bolton went in front, the white flag (again) at Villa and let’s not go further. In the matches against Bolton, Villa and in the derby we were the victims of appalling decisions. I come back to passion again. It may be praiseworthy of David Moyes not to criticise referees but it is even more praiseworthy to stand up against blatant injustice. Whether it is Thomas or Collina cheating to disallow valid goals that might have changed the history of our club, or the pathetic Riley pretending not to see the obvious (by the way, great Sky interview: “did you in fact cheat, Milan,” – “yes” – “OK well done, Milan and here is your man of the match award” !!!), or “assistant referees” who can suddenly see everything perfectly when it comes to split second crucial decisions but often can’t even award a throw-in correctly, we have badly done to. I want an Everton manager to stand up against this cheating. There are teams who very rarely suffer a poor decision because wimps like Riley and Poll do not want the hassle they know they will get afterwards and there are teams who are perceived by these little men as soft touches. I leave you to work out the rest of my thinking.

That is why I advocate so strongly why we need a Peter Reid or a Roy Keane to help Moyes raise the standards at Everton Football Club. We enter the transfer window without confidence that we will not compromise on either quality or ingenuity. When you don’t have lots of money ingenuity becomes vital. So for example, Charlton want Bent, Charlton don’t want Jeffers. Swap, no cash involved. Why won’t we do that? Because Jeffers is perceived to be problematic. Personally I believe it is worth the risk because Bent would be no loss and Jeffers with the right man management might just realise that it is his last and only chance to become the player he promised to be when he first played for Everton. Unfortunately without the presence of Reid or a Keane we do not have the man management to take a wasted talent like that of Jeffers and to use all of the psychology inherent in growing up as an Evertonian to turn him into the intelligent running partner that Beattie craves. We do though have the coaching ingenuity to come up with something different like the 4-5-1 last season, so why not again try something different tactically such as 3 fast defenders (Yobo, Ferrari, Kroldrup) behind a midfield 5 and 2 up front? Conventional full-backs are becoming obsolete when most teams play with a maximum of two up front and it is easier for the wide 2 in any midfield 5 to pick up the forward runs of the opposition wide players as well as present some attacking options of their own rather than wait as a full-back for someone to enter your space on the pitch.

I leave you with one final thought. Who is running Everton Football Club at the moment? If it is the players, or certain players, then as much as you may idolise them this is disastrous for the club. Good managers deal with player power when it arises, they do not give in to it. Great managers, however, do not have to deal with player power because they manage the personalities and lead with their vision. I leave you with one wish: may 2006 be a good year for all who work so hard for Bluekipper and for all who read it.

JOE 90. (31/12/05)

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