bluekipper.com - Everton FC - Mickey Blue Eyes

The dither factor By Mickey Blue Eyes Fanzine Writer Of The Year 2008

Sit tight. This opinion dispenses with knockabout bits. Moreover, David Moyes may have signed the new contract by the time this gets posted. But it doesn’t matter for present purposes. Enough is enough. We have reached an important turning point.

No sooner had the season begun than it almost finished. It wasn’t a bang or a whimper. It was a short belch. Fortunately for me I missed both our disastrous cup exits and the inglorious home derby defeat. But all I missed was the spectacle. Like all Evertonians I couldn’t avoid the neck deep despondency that flooded around our beloved Blues thereafter. By the start of October we had only two targets, the FA Cup and a high league placing. Given our current hopeless form there is no reason to think we can achieve anything in these either. At the time of writing we haven’t even won a home game. It is safe to say we are justifiably a lot of very pissed-off people. You could understand any one of us who broke into a cattery to set about the residents with a pair of size thirteen diving boots.

By and large the standard of football has been awful and utterly spineless in a way uncomfortably familiar from three seasons ago. And while the departure of Lee Carsley was a heavy blow it cannot account for team shapelessness and the lack of application of some of the players. There will be a variety of reasons – injuries, new formation, new players settling in etc. – though I want to concentrate mostly here on one of the other defaults, the attitude of David Moyes.

Now, regular readers will know I am an admirer of Moyesy and more than ready to make allowances for howlers he might make or time needed for absorption of management experience. His abilities have given us a glimpse of possible restoration of club fortunes during his tenure. To lose him would be catastrophic because we would have to start all over again. We need him, and badly at that. However, he isn’t perfect or indispensable. Nobody is. If he left, life and the club would go on and, if we were lucky, we might even be able to pick up where he left off, though none of us want to go through that trauma unnecessarily. But there’s a limit to patience and I believe we are at that limit now.

This is reinforced by the 50-odd emails and texts I get each week. They are unanimous in their extreme annoyance – spitting feathers might be a better description – at Moyesy’s behaviour during the last six months of “negotiations” over his new contract. That is quite apart from telephone calls and conversations. And these are from solid, loyal, patient, commonsensical Evertonians, not your standard phone-in or message forum knobhead whingeing crackpot. Nor are they anti-Moyes. To a man they want him to sign. What they want, and I completely share it, is David Moyes to stop fucking about with the nonsense of “I’ll Probably Sign This Weekend.” We have heard that infuriating mantra for six months now. Enough is enough. Get it signed or go now so we can get someone else in while there’s still time to get some shape into the team and the season.

Nobody minds either if he drives a hard bargain in his contract terms. It is, after all, the only type of bargain to drive. What infuriates everyone is the undoubted part-affect it MUST have on team performances, and the uncertainty the fans feel. Highly paid young athletes aren’t going to feel too well disposed to a team lecture from a manager who can’t get his own house in order. Of course this opens the question of why he is taking so long. Does he have a real issue or is he being bloody-minded or is he indulging a long-accused penchant for just, famously, dithering? Whatever it may be, all his present behaviour does is leave the field clear for curmudgeons, gossiping old women in the ale house and information clerks in the media. In the end he has nobody to blame but himself when it draws adverse comment. The longer it goes on, the more comments, the greater uncertainty. No wonder the fans get pissed off. What they really take offence at is (if true) quotes such as, “We are not equipped to win Premier League matches,” and “Bobby Robson persuaded me to sign the new contract.” In an ungenerous mood you would assume he doesn’t have a friend in the world or he suffers from a siege mentality or he is simply burnt out. If any of these defaults were true he would be better off out of football management altogether.

The fact is, David Moyes has now experienced his last hurrah with the fans. The only way they will forgive and forget this latest version of Dithering Dave is if we win the FA Cup this season or finish third or fourth. Certainly the players are good enough.

None of this of course excuses the way some of the players have performed. In the end they alone are responsible for their attitude on the pitch, nobody else. They get paid enough, as does Moyesy, to perform to a minimum acceptable standard each week. Sulking and self-pity will draw only contempt from supporters who pay out a substantial amount to keep the players and management in luxury.

Nor can anybody accuse the fans of impatience. Misery arses and drunken knobheads apart – and gawd knows we’ve got a few of those – they have been absolutely loyal and turned up in numbers that sometimes defy logic. But their patience is not infinite. If matters go on as they are it will be reflected in the gates sooner or later. Nobody could blame the fans if they take up the ultimate option to make their point. They have waited long enough. The least they can reasonably expect is a manager who takes his position seriously enough to stop staring at his navel with tears streaming down his face and players who want to earn their pay for ninety minutes serious effort once a week.

It is time they all got serious. And in the words of one irate fan, “Sign, Dave, or fuck off.” It really is at that stage.

Other Stuff From M.B.E. Fanzine Writer Of The Year 2008

Contact us: info@bluekipper.com