Moyes Insulation
By
Mickey Blue Eyes.

I don’t believe in messiahs or führers.

Open and admirable leadership is quite different from the offerings of either of these uglies, and a great deal more difficult. It is quite possible to have sports heroes and heroines without believing them infallible. Virtually all such follow one iron rule: they have feet of clay. They are just human beings. Probably this is why I never feel a pressing need to talk one-on-one with players or managers I admire. A healthy escapist spectacle is usually enough for me at a rate of one match per week.

So you will probably like the irony contained in the following two abbreviated footy yarns.

A few years ago we played Preston in a pre-season friendly and won 5-0. During the game I got chatting to a nearby Preston fan, a classic warm and friendly Lancashire man. At the end of the game – a meaningless preseason keep-fit exercise like most of these affairs – I asked, “Who is your manager?” and he said , “David Moyes,” and I said, “Well, he’s got a lot of work to do. Good luck for the future.” I hope I didn’t sound sarcastic. I didn’t really have a clue whether he was good, bad or indifferent.

During the prior season our fans had (naturally) been pissed off with Walter Smith. Moyes had been mentioned with others as his replacement. One of the reasons the fans had been so annoyed was the allegation of Walter’s so-called Calvinist management methods. You know the sort of thing: unmashed gruel for lunch, cold showers and a regular sound thrashing with barbed wire. Then came a story of exactly that behaviour – but this time the offending manager was, erm, David Moyes at Preston. Allegedly, he battered one of his players in the showers for not doing as he was told. I naturally made the most of it in my next match report. I thought it hilarious.

Yarns completed, then came the moment when Smith finally lost the fans altogether, an away game at Blackburn which we should have won easily but lost 1-0. Tony Hibbert was having a sterling game when he was substituted with maybe fifteen minutes left. Mass patience snapped and Smith was heavily barracked. The following Saturday we were slated to play West Ham. A usually-reliable friend told me if we lost Walter was out and Moyesy in by Monday. Apparently the arrangements were solid. I have no idea if this was accurate or not. Anyway, we won 5-0 and Walter was safe for the time being. If the story was true it seemed to me really that was the time for change, not later in the season.

We all know the rest. The board decided Walter had to go after an appalling midweek league defeat at, of all places, West Ham. But he wasn’t fired until that painful Cup loss at Middlesbrough. David Moyes was in place by the time we had yet another of our crucial relegation matches at home to Fulham. Unsy scored within thirty seconds and the revival started against the odds. We haven’t stopped since except for sound beatings at Newcastle and Chelsea. It is a remarkable story, a real footy fairy tale none of us expected to see. Since then it seems everything Moyesy touches turns to gold.

Whichever way you look at it, employing him was a gamble at the time. Like Howard Kendall, prior to Everton he had only managed a north Lancashire club in the lower reaches of the professional game. History shows Howard, our most successful manager ever, had a hard time before eventually getting things right. On the other hand Moyes has gone straight up the ladder without so much as an apparent backward glance at the ascent. That thousand metre stare of his seems firmly fixed on the future. It is exactly what we needed but never thought we would get.

So what DOES make a good leader and manager? Reading all the management tomes? Taking a Masters in Business Administration? Using tough language to order around underlings? Pulling rank? Using persuasion? Bullying? Leading by example? Well, of course it is all of those and more, all of it thrown into the mix of individual personality – and coming out the other side as worthy of trust.

In my experience all good and successful managers (in anything) become so because they are trusted. In the military, you would want them in a trench with you, or giving you covering fire. They are worthy of it because their judgement is vindicated more times than not, even allowing for good luck, not because of some secretive insider knowledge. Where sports are concerned this translates as victorious teams or an improvement in individual performances. Very often this requires high risk and more than a smattering of good luck. When it comes to competitive sport it also requires knowledge of your next opponent(s) and how to counter their best efforts.

Insider knowledge enters into it only if and when the manager can get an opposing manager inadvertently to divulge the weaknesses of his players or his system. Footy folklore is replete with apocryphal yarns of managers who got their playing enemies pissed enough to become too slack tongued about everything. Otherwise, it is make do and mend with what you see. A sensible human being never worries about matters over which he has no control – unless he wishes to engage the issue. Professional football is every bit as parochial, mean-spirited and internecine as your average freemasons lodge or regulars in your local pub.

Right now, relieved Evertonians everywhere trust Moyes as much as he will ever be trusted anywhere. The initial motives for this aren’t too difficult to gauge. Firstly, he has delivered results and improvements with virtually the same players Walter Smith couldn’t motivate. Secondly, he has a much more open and approachable personality and he doesn’t bullshit. At this stage of his career it is difficult to imagine him uttering the kind of embarrassing self-justifying nonsense for which one m. Houllier has become laughably infamous. One can only hope it stays that way.

A long term question is how he will cope with genuine adversity when it arrives, as it does to all human beings. At such times the Melledrew Tendency will surge up out of the sewers and out of the woodwork. They always do. Also, it never fails to have me shaking my head when the fickle amongst us gush with praise one week and then spit venom the next. Such is life. I hope David Moyes is ready for it when it happens, and ignores the kind of loonies this throws up. Luck arrives in cycles and is permanent to nobody.

Another question is if he can cope with so-called “big name” signings. He has already conceded some slight difficulty in dealing with David Ginola during his first few games. History shows he wasn’t on his own there of course. But there was great encouragement in how he dealt immediately with Jesper Blomquist after Blomquist kicked over a water bottle after being substituted – and then shipped him out at the first opportunity. It remains to be seen if Moyesy’s oft-repeated wish to have young players only is a smokescreen for an inability to deal with “big names.” If it is, he has set himself a very hard road. Recent years do not reveal many examples of successful teams with ONLY young players who came through the youth scheme. If he does manage it – and it may be forced on him through our empty treasury – then he will have achieved a modern footy miracle. Otherwise, sooner or later he will have to sign a “big name” and cope with him. It should be an interesting moment.

Since he arrived the most obvious improvements have been in players fitness, staying power and better team spirit. Even when we went behind last season we almost always felt there was a chance of winning. Small wonder most fans perked up and actually began to enjoy the match experience again. The employment of an outstanding French fitness coach pre- and mid-season seems to have really paid off. Moreover, whenever the coach was on the field working with individuals you could see he had their undivided attention. I liked too Moyesy’s little warm up routines with the players before each match. But all of that is so much cosmetic. The REAL non-match stuff is done at Bellefield during the week, in the day in-day out routine of training, when Moyes assembles and updates his famously indecipherable wall charts on each player. Routine sessions can tell you just as much about an individual as can performance at crucial moments. It can inform you quite accurately of the ability to concentrate on the task at hand, always assuming you have the management ability to assess it properly. I would say the aggregate of Moyes’ abilities was the difference between, say, tenth and seventh place. Conversely, his relative lack of experience was crucial in us not getting a European place.

The biggest single demonstration of David Moyes’ abilities was unquestionably his handling of Wayne Rooney. One wrong step could have seen the youngster go the same way as many other wonderfully promising young players, including some of our own. For instance, it’s hard to imagine Michael Ball trying to get away with some of his infamous touchline hysterics or arrogant half-hearted displays where Moyesy’s concerned. Ball would have found himself sweeping up Autumn leaves faster than you could say “Rangers.” But Rooney and Moyes go together like bacon and eggs. There is a mutual respect which no England manager or group of media thugs has yet ruptured. For “respect” read: trust.

Of course this has spilled over into the way he communicates with the fans. Nobody seemed more surprised at this than Moyes himself, which is another indication of how straight he is. When he came out with “The People’s Club” tag line you would have thought he had set off a nuke locally. Evertonians absolutely, unequivocally adored him for it. Pinkies went off their self-assumed pompous, peanut-sized heads, thus demonstrating with neat perfection how true it is. It was wonderful, if all silly, like all of these banters. At a stroke, Moyesy unknowingly gave Evertonians a bulldozer to flatten pinkies with and they have driven it back and forth tirelessly ever since. Moreover, almost every time he made a public statement he seemed to echo what we all wanted to say. Doubtless this will deteriorate somewhere down the line into manufactured myth and fans self-deception, but for now it is real enough and what we wanted and needed.

The future for David Moyes seems as clear of clouds as does Wayne Rooney’s. Given my previous observations this is almost certainly a mirage. His real test will be how he delivers now other managers are aware of his abilities, his invigorated players and his tactics. Moreover, there is no Colin Harvey casting his spell over the youngsters in the youth scheme. The counter-attack will come in the new season and he knows it. And he will have to deal with it with virtually the same players.

If his previous demeanour is anything to go by he will set his chin to the challenge and take it head on, no prisoners, no mercy – and none expected in return. Don’t whinge, get on with it. I ‘m glad he’s fighting in my trench.

We owe a huge debt to David Moyes and his talents, and those of Alan Irvine. We live in interesting times and they are responsible.

Bring it on, Moyesy, bring it on. (17/06/03)