This season: Blue Renaissance……… or more of the same?
By
Mickey Blue Eyes.

World Cup or no World Cup it has been one lousy summer. Not that it bothers me overmuch. Believe me, I've had enough exotica, great heat, porcelain blue skies and palm trees to keep you in Benidorm/cheapo holidays for the rest of your life. There's no question I've been thrown out of better places than you'll ever dream of. But cheap jibes like that aside, it's been an interesting period for our beloved club. We might even have turned an important corner in our unique history of one hundred seasons of top-flight footy.

So what are our prospects?

Well, for a start it's a loony question. At this stage of the season everybody categorically KNOWS we'll win the league or the cup, probably both, and we might even throw in the Worthless Cup for a lark. There's nothing quite like pre-season optimism. It's one of the greatest feelings in the world. Given the opportunity you want to take every free kick and corner yourself and then be on the end of it to volley home or head in. So trying to get a sensible word in is like swimming up Niagara Falls. But I'll try.

I might as well sling cold water immediately by stating the obvious: We won't win anything. I suspect Moyesy's new signings, relatively greater aggression and fitness régime will get us to tenth and that will be an outstanding achievement given the horrors of recent years. We can be as intoxicated as we like with the breath of Moyes fresh air, but it won't change the realities. Professional sport has always been a cruel arena at least as often as it is glorious. Our malaise has deep roots which won't be dug up in one season. Of course, like you, I would love to be wildly wrong on this.

It is always dangerous too to read too much into pre-season friendlies since they're nothing more than getting-up-to-scratch fitness runouts. Not much point then in getting hysterical over six wins out of eight, or one loss out of eight. It scarcely matters. Reality will intervene soon enough.

In our case, much of our optimism centres on relief at the departure of Smiffy and the arrival of Moyesy. The more I think about Walter the more I feel a sense of sympathy. Rationally, I still think it was an odd time in the season to fire him but there was no way it could be avoided after the emotional horror of the Middlesborough Cup match. You had to be there to see, hear and feel the affect on Evertonians. They were equally as weary as Smiffy apparently was, but their tiredness was suffused with unleashed anger. Apparently Smiffy went at the insistence of Paul Gregg. Moyesy's arrival had some tinges of good fortune out on the pitch. Then again, Napoleon had a question for all those who suggested promotion for an outstanding officer……………"Yes, but is he LUCKY?" Well, we are about to find out. Nine matches last season doth not a new club make.

It wouldn't do either to confuse all this behind the scenes activity for successful rebuilding. It may well be just that but whoever came in was going to do the same. As an ambitious younger man, Moyesy was always going to be more au courant than battle-scarred Walter. Now he has to show his methods work, or at least show strong promise. That is the nature of athletic challenge.

Anyone in management consultancy will tell you the easiest thing in the world is to create a sense of excitement and expectation during reorganisation. Large organisations do this all the time and spend millions in fees and costs and at the end of it most times get………………………zilch. All that said, Moyesy hasn't appeared to be full of hyped-up jargon or suffering from self delusion. All the signs have been of positive realism. He knows too how to communicate with the fans, something Walter was never able to do……………not at Goodison or Ibrox.

Moyesy has extended this to his activities in the transfer market. Both he and Kenwright have made it clear there is no money left. Anybody who says or thinks anything else is living in cloud-cuckoo land. There may be a few comings or goings but it will be through juggling of existing figures and nothing more. So anybody who moans about this really ought to stop watching the English game and go follow Fiorentina. And of course we will always have the odd loony fan who wants to sink us even further into debt than we already are. Usually you'll find it's some cheap salesman whose equally cheap patter couldn't make a sale to the club and tries to foist his garbage on everybody else. But it now looks as though the bubble of failed carpet-baggers is at last starting to deflate.

So what are we supposed to make of the new players? Search me, I haven't seen enough of them, and little I did was in friendlies. And since most of them haven't performed in the top division it's all a bit of a lottery. Juliano Rodrigo looks a good player, particularly around the edge of the penalty area. Likely the two Chinese players, Li Tie and Lei WeiFeng, will find the fitness level difficult to match at first. It might even overwhelm them. But if they can overcome the culture shock and make it, then we will have gained in the sponsor deal much more than we at first thought was on the table. Richard Wright looked distinctly shakey in the match at Wrexham. He won't be able to afford many of those in the real thing. Neither will the fans or Moyesy. I have seen nothing at all of Yobo and he certainly left no impression on me at all from the World Cup. Nor have I seen anything of Ibrahima Said, the Egyptian trialist. My one glimpse of Omar Daley was okay but it was only against Shrewsbury.

The "established" players have looked more determined and certainly fitter than the last few seasons. The main exception to this is The Big Yin, who looks finished to me, though he might have a few last shots in his locker. SuperKev's knee injury has probably done for him too. This season will probably be his last hurrah. Fact is, though, we will need one or both of them to make much of a mark against premium defences. The Rad will never be able to do it on his own and youngsters like Chadwick and Rooney simply won't have the experience to carry the burden.

In midfield, Pembo gave the best performance of anybody in the games I saw when he bossed everything against Shrewsbury. Everybody else has been pretty much the same, give or take a trick or two. Nic has been given every chance to perform and continues to dismay most everyone. I would still persevere with Idan at wide left in an emergency, if only for nuisance value.

If Stevie gets skinned in defence one more time I would send him on his way. Hopefully Stubbsy will have improved his positional play to compensate for his dire lack of pace. We might even see Unsy partner Davey at centre back again. Sandro remains our best ball player and left back unless Gary Naysmith can shake off the injury which also seems to have affected his attitude.

Of the younger players, much hope will attach to Wayne Rooney. It would be nice to see a few others make the breakthrough though. Peter Clarke looks like he could make it if he can develop his physique a little more. Maybe that's why he's been temporarily shipped out to Blackpool. I have a feeling it is make or break for him there. Tony Hibbert has always looked the part to me, if somewhat uncertainly, and Moyesy appears to be giving him every opportunity to prove it. Kevin McLeod might finally make a mark if he gets an extended run. Michael Symes might push Nick Chadwick aside in the pecking order if Nick can't get his injury sorted.

So this season it could just be that our biggest success will be an improvement in match fitness. Which is not to be sneered at. If that does turn out to be the case it should provide us with enough points to push us up to about tenth. That will do for this season. And there's always a chance in one of the cup competitions because that is the nature of knock-out tournaments.

It will be mildly interesting to see what team formations Moyesy prefers and if these differ substantially to Smiffy's. If they stay the same (and it's difficult to see how they can change much) and the same players perform better, then clearly Moyesy's contribution will be decisive. In which case you are into the mysteries of human motivation. Smiffy will doubtless watch from afar with interest.

If we start off well the key question will be how sustainable it is. If we start off badly the key question will be whether we can recover at all. With no extra money in the kitty the latter scenario might be the kind of decisive shift we weren't considering. Some of the younger players might have to start growing up an awful lot faster than they anticipated.

Even allowing for the usual pre-season enthusiasm the fans have been full of the kind of remarkable optimistic loyalty which has been important in sustaining us through these bad years. But there is surely an air of unreality about it this time. Before, we more or less knew we were pissing in the wind. This time some people seem to think a magic wand has been waved instead of just a manager change. If a miracle really HAS happened then I will be the first to say I was wrong. I have to say, though, I will believe it when I see it.

As I said last season, I think we will know which way we are headed after about one third of the games have been played. I will even stick my neck out and say if we are in the top third of the table at that time, then we will probably stay there. There are bound to be ups and downs because everyone has those. For instance when we played Arsenal at home last season I simply couldn't see the Gunners challenging for the title. Yet by the time they won it, they won it well, and in great style. Meanwhile Man United and the pinkies disappeared off the radar screen altogether. So Moyesy's first real test will be how he manages a downturn of fortunes.

However, there is one thing of which we can be certain. The club owners have now left their honeymoon period behind. That finished with the Walter Smith era, for he was the next to last really important connection to Peter Johnson's unlamented ownership of our beloved club. There is only one more and that is Michael Dunford as CEO. This season he can't afford any more fiascos like the Leyton Orient ticket nonsense and other relatively minor sagas. From this point on, lessons learned, we assume there will be no more of these avoidable admin sillies. If there are, then matters have to be taken to a logical conclusion.

The realities of power mean that the only truly important parts of the ownership are Paul Gregg and Bill Kenwright, though the other directors will doubtless make noises when they feel necessary, as with BK's alleged spending over the limit and his subsequent injection of an additional million. At a guess, I would say it is mostly a marriage of mutual convenience. Gregg has freely acknowledged that for him it is a business arrangement which better pay off sooner than later, hence the Kings Dock bid and all the gains it provides. I rather fancy we will see some boardroom changes this season.

The reality is, without Gregg there would not have been any KD bid at all because nobody else at the club has the necessary determination or ability to push it through. If it finally becomes a reality - and we will know once and for all before Christmas - then the marriage of convenience will have worked. If it fails, we will be reduced to a Stoke City type stadium somewhere in Wavertree or in Leeds Street. Gregg has publicly (correctly in my view) described this as "oblivion." Oh we'll survive alright but we could abandon any hope of regaining our former status for many years. Dream small dreams and you end up as a midget. In the meantime, the planning application is slated for September/October. If it doesn't make it for that date, the final obstacle may well be insurmountable. But don't let any misery-monger tell you the obstacle is European money because the EfKD Group have already shown that is nonsense. It was manufactured by sour losers or a minority of opportunist politicians like Peter Kilfoyle, dumped from government, and Arlene McCarthy of Manchester, called in to front the same grubby agenda.

The reality also is, once again, NOBODY ELSE TRUSTWORTHY WAS WILLING TO BUY THE CLUB. Whichever way you cut the cards you are faced with this stark fact. The balance in the present equation is Bill Kenwright. For all his faults, and too often absence is one of them, he is a fanatical Evertonian who has put large chunks of his own money and his emotional commitment into the club. So the business partnership may well have the kind of balance of opposites which works in a surprising number of cases. If it fails, I suspect Bill Kenwright will pay a heavy price one way or another, whereas Gregg will simply cut his losses and walk away snarling. That is the way of things in football these days.

So unless you can hustle up £50 million or so you better hunker down and make the best of it. Don't expect someone to come charging over the hill on a white charger, let alone Grantchester to appear as a White Knight. That just isn't the way real life works, even though rumours continue to circulate about shares off-loading by the owners. Gawd save us from footy rumours.

Doubtless also EFC will continue to be dogged by that new breed of leech amongst fans, the ones who whinge on about "professionalism." Most fans know instinctively that these people are nothing but cheap hustlers bent on a sales killing of one kind or another, usually through themselves. "Everything will be alright," they say, "if you do as I say and/or you employ me and/or buy something I'm trying to sell." They are part of a new carpet-bagging attitude most fans rightly treat with complete contempt. They are the New Hangers-On, flies buzzing around an udder. They are there merely to be ignored or swatted from time to time. You can count me out of these die-hard malcontents who have nothing better to do with their time. You'll find the same group of head-banging divvies at every club, everywhere.

On the other hand, after five years of poor fortune the vast majority of fans have been truly wonderful and have turned up in the kind of enthusiastic numbers we had no right to expect. On that evidence I firmly believe if the tide can be turned decisively they will turn up in still greater numbers. But that will take time and certainly won't be achieved in one season. There are interesting and good precedents in the rebirths of Sunderland and Newcastle. This is why the club needs to improve communications with the fans, and to ensure their ideas are respected and acted upon. A start has been made on this and with a bit of luck it will be streamlined by the time of the move to the Kings Dock.

So the situation is marginally less fraught. The season holds a different kind of promise, one that will confirm we have finally started to rebuild or that we haven't moved forward at all. Walter Smith had a fair chance in difficult circumstances and couldn't deliver. Let's see what David Moyes can do. And the owners. And the players.

Time to shape up, as it is at the start of every season. Shape up or ship out, owners too. Now THAT'S reality. (09/08/02)