FANS COMMENT

Time is up for James Beattie

James Beattie splits the opinion of most Evertonians everywhere. You either like him or you don’t. I for one wanted him to succeed more than anybody. When we signed him I was over the moon although a little cautious with the money we had spent on him as Moyes had stumbled upon a system that suited the one man up top and with Marcus Bent costing us a mere £750,000.

I had loved seeing him banging goals with his right, left and head for Southampton and prayed he could transfer his Southampton form when he signed for us. It was a disappointing start for the lad proclaimed to be our answer to our goal scoring problems. With injury after injury he has been unlucky but the facts are there for all to see. He can’t control the ball, he’s poor in the air and his lack of ability slows us down when we try and hit teams on the counter.

One thing I will never be able to forgive him for is when I was travelling up to one of the games after Christmas last year (Dad and myself are season ticket holders and travel up from Stratford Upon Avon) we got up near Cheshire and we saw Beattie and Weir travelling together, they both saw our Everton shirts and I pointed to the badge, gave the old punched fist to them both, but with no reaction, not even a smile. I felt like such an idiot blanked by two idols, who do they think they are? Big time Charlie’s that’s who. For both players as far as I’m concerned their Everton careers finished then and there.

For a lad who cost the club £6 million, at the time a club record, he has been nothing but a disappointment. I think it’s time we offered him around in January and see if we can’t recoup some of the money we shelled out. People are bound to disagree with me here but what say we offer “Big Dunc” a contact until the end of the season, it would only be a short term thing and we could use any money we get from the Beattie sale to get a class midfielder in the shape of Barton or Nolan I know for fact that both of them would crawl to Goodison to play for the Blues.

We’ve accepted so many players of average ability for so long, come on, Moysie; bite your lip and admit you’ve made an error of judgement. Remember Nil Satis Nisi Optimum!

 

Responses:

I agree fully with Jamie Armstrong... Beattie has been a huge disappointment. OK, he runs and works hard but there are lots of players that will do that for less than £6M.  He was bought for his goal scoring capabilities and they seem to be lost.  Sell him and reinvest.  — Norman Ludgate, Dublin

Totally agre, mate, Beattie has been an expensive flop.  He doesn't appear to show any pride in the shirt and he is clearly overweight.  I had to laugh few weeks ago, he proclaimed on EvertonTV he considers himself one of the fittest at the club. Get real, James, you've had your chance; you've blown it.  For a striker who hasn't scored since March/April in open play, anyone who is saying 'Oh just give the lad a chance, he'll come good.' needs to get real:  this is the real James Beattie, and this I'm afraid is as good as it gets. — Joe Jennings

My brother has met James Beattie and I have banged into David Weir by Bellefield a couple of times — genuinely nice fella's.  However, I do agree with the rest of the Beattie article.  Duncan was a one-off — he lived and breathed for our team.  Beattie's had numerous chances to impress and failed.  Sell him and offer someone like David Nugent the opportunity to impress rather than offer Beattie redemption.  I paid £42.00 to go to Old Trafford, add a couple noughts to that figure for Beattie's wage with bonuses and he couldn't shoot/control.  Simply not good enough. — Jay Meitesix

Let's be brutally honest, James Beattie was never going to get us more than 20 Premiership goals in a season.  His career has been blighted by injury wherever he has gone, but Beattie has got ability and let's not forget the few tasty goals he did score last season when, in the absence of a Andy Johnson-type character, he was hailed as our goal-scoring saviour. 

The problem here lies with how Everton are playing at the moment.  We could sign Thierry Henry and Ruud Van Nistleroy tomorrow but we would still struggle to score goals.  Despite the obvious skills of Cahill and Arteta, the club lacks a playmaker who could sit in middle of the park and tackle hard, play in the forwards, and contribute with the odd goal.  We seem to be contented with a bunch of only average midfielders (Davies, Osman and Carsley). 

David Moyes clearly needs to reconsider the style in which the team are playing at the moment, and Bill Kenwright needs to review his ambitions for the club. We need to spend money in order to challenge at the top (eg, Kevin Nolan). The upshot is that Everton will go nowhere this season or for the foreseeable future if we don't act now.  The reality is that both Cahill and Arteta will walk out to pursue their careers at more ambitious clubs. — Colin Garland

 

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