The recent article by Dr France on Colin Harvey, The Greatest Living Evertonian, caused me to dig out an (unpublished) article I wrote at the end of the 1987-88 Season, updated slightly in 1995. Hopefully it is still of interest; it follows below:
What intrigued me about Everton in 1988, and caused me to put pen to paper (aside from undying passion etc), was something that has always struck, and annoyed me about media coverage of football. That is, attention and adulation is given to the successful, and those who aren’t successful (Man Utd aside) aren’t given the space and thought they deserve.
Analysing success is rather easy but, just as much of interest to all of us (and especially Everton fans in recent years), is working out exactly when and why things started to slip. With hindsight, this obviously occurred during the Harvey era, but the reasons are more complex than they might appear at first.
In the 1987-88 season, some parts of the Everton ‘machine’ were successful, others not. Specifically:
(a) Defence
With the second-best goals against record in Division One, there was clearly no major problem there. True, the injury to Kevin Ratcliffe did show just how valuable he was to our defensive format – put any other player in his position and they would not have had the speed necessary to duplicate his sweeper role. Dave Watson was satisfactory, and Neil Pointon (remember him??) was perhaps our most improved player.
The dreadful ease with which Arsenal ripped us apart in the second leg of the Littlewoods Cup semi-final was an ominous warning to us not to rely for ever on Ratcliffe’s speed, but no immediate action was needed in this department; significantly though, he was never properly replaced. Neville Southall’s excellence that season spoke for itself.
(b) Midfield
Despite the continuing excellence of Peter Reid, Paul Bracewell’s absence was sorely missed. Prior to his injury in 1986, he was actually surpassing Reid. The real effect of Bracewell’s absence was seen in the play of Ian Snodin. For just as Reid earlier ‘brought on’ Bracewell, so Snodin suffered by being routinely occupied with the vital ball-winning that was the province of Reid and Bracewell.
This is so because Snodin was at his best really a Charlie Nicholas type, someone whose best position was between midfield and attack, going forward. That season, he retreated somewhat into his shell, and never really subsequently displayed his full attacking potential, largely due to the fact that both Reid and Bracewell were never fit together again.
(c) The Wings
Trevor Steven (who I must confess is my all-time favourite Everton player) on the right wing was his usual angelic self, with the qualification that he did not score many goals – a problem which is related to developments since the Championship-winning days of 1984-85. It is on the left wing however that real problems arose that season.
No Everton fan can belittle the tremendous and subtle contribution made by Kevin Sheedy to Everton’s successes prior to 1988. But that season showed, cruelly, he was just not consistently up to it any more. Even when he played, he was usually not in a fit enough state to take free-kicks. His good form for Eire in the European Championships did not mean he would be fit enough to do the necessary required for a whole season.
One secret of Liverpool’s success over the years has been their habit of replacing players almost as soon as signs of wear have become obvious – with many such players going on to be valued assets to other clubs – Souness and Case for example. If we are to copy and ultimately better the Liverpool of old, this was a precedent we should have followed a lot earlier than we did in Sheedy’s case.
Paul Power did his bit for us – fair enough, but the same applies. Looking at Kevin Wilson however, we are talking about a different phenomenon. He never even looked like an Everton player. His tackles were misdirected, his distribution poor, and scoring is something I would never have dreamt of accusing him of. A bad buy.
(c) The Attack
Graeme Sharp remained a good all-round player and I had no complaints about him that season. Adrian Heath, despite traces of his old ability to get round defences, was jaded and it was definitely time for him to move on.
Wayne Clarke was another player, like Wilson, who never looked our type. His work-rate was poor, his determination to win the ball inconsistent, and he was all too ready to look for the whistle for a foul rather than the constructive pass. Yes, he was good in the air – but we needed someone who can make progress on the ground too. We didn’t just want a sporadic goalscorer, but a team player.
So, my preliminary conclusions were that we needed two new players: a left-winger of calibre, and a goal-scorer who could fit our pattern. We did not (I thought) need a shake-up in midfield. The purchase of Stuart McCall from Bradford was obviously welcome, but did not in itself solve the fundamental problems.
To call for personnel changes is all very well, but going beyond this to more intangible tactical considerations is obviously most important – after all, if a team was built on good players alone, Tottenham would be League Champions!
The most obvious manifestation of Everton’s poor season was the paltry number of goals scored. This was not just due to a defective forward line, but rather the midfield just not closing down opponents like they did in previous seasons.
Also, and this was something impressionistically confirmed by looking at videos of 1984-85 and 1986-87: our game was slower than it had been, with very few of the one-touch triangles and a lot more ‘kick and rush’ – the decline of Sheedy being a key contribution to this.
For what exactly was the basis of our past glories? Certainly, it would have been impossible without teamwork, good organisation, and work-rate. These were hardly unique, but the speed of our close passing, almost always along the ground (combined with the use of target-men for crosses and long balls in the conventional way) was exceptional. Furthermore, attackers were not afraid to come back and defend, as well as the defenders to attack.
The fluidity of movement between our goalmouth and the opponents, the way the joins between the various components of the team appeared seamless – this was the hallmark of the great team we were, even though we never received recognition for it – just as the superb Aston Villa championship side of 1980 never got any of the plaudits they fully deserved for their breath-taking bursts of total football.
To get back to us, when the above-mentioned elements were combined with our constant harrying of the opponents when they had the ball, and tirelessly running to cover in case an opponent did break through, the style was such that, irrespective of the strikers almost, goals had to come. By so effectively closing other teams down, and relying on the speed of Ratcliffe, the midfield battle proper used to actually take place not there, but in a position intermediate between the half-way line and the opposing 15-yard box.
In this particular style of moveable chess, once we had established this terrain on which the bulk of the game was to be fought, all we had to do was win some of the exchanges and any player would be within shooting range. It is this change in where on the pitch the game was predominantly played that explains for instance why Trevor Steven got more goals in 1984-85 than subsequently.
Who can forget the matches of 1984-85, home and away, when we had the opposition penned back in this narrow area for 90% of the time? The reporters may not have liked it, resembling as it did packs of wolves tearing the hearts out of terrified sheep, but it was great for the committed!
The difference between this and the ‘Position of Maximum Opportunity’ justification for the missing out of midfield by the likes of Watford and Wimbledon is a stark one. In ‘POMO’, the very route adopted to get the ball into the opponent’s area is one that relies heavily on chance and physical strength, and less on skill and close control. If you don’t have a squad of similar calibre to ours, then it is perhaps a valid option – though I doubt it.
Everton’s attack was starved of sophistication in 1985-86 by the simplistic urge to boot the ball over the top for Lineker to run onto. In this situation, other players became lazy and often abdicated their responsibility to create openings, a problem definitively coming home to roost that season with the absences of Sheedy and Bracewell.
The purpose of examining the recent past was to remind us just how good we were and why, with a view to regaining our pre-eminence. Excluding 1987-88, we not only won the League two years out of three, but even in 1985-86 with the presence of Southall, we would probably have won it in that season too.
The hyperbole about the then current Liverpool team (pre-Cup Final!) should not blind us to the fact that we beat them well in our two title victories, and this much-vaunted Liverpool team did not, for all the acres of paper spent on canonising them, surpass our final points total record set in the 1984-85 season.
The debacle suffered by England in the 1988 European Championships and by Liverpool in the FA Cup Final (against Wimbledon) to me confirmed my views on Everton’s task. England’s disaster was above all caused by the team forgetting the basics of the English game (for which Bobby Robson was greatly to blame). Imagining we are a Continental side who can stroke the ball around and engage in languid elaborate build-ups is just not on.
The good features of our national game are work-rate, teamwork, taking the game to the opposition, preventing the individually superior talents of the likes of the Dutch from having the time to pass the ball and glide through our ranks.
Happily, the Irish in Germany that year superbly applied the characteristics of our national game. Jack Charlton did not waste time in trying to get his players to play in a way alien to them; he built on strengths. There is clearly a space for individual flair in this – Ronnie Whelan’s goal against the Russians will linger in the memory for many years.
The relevance for Everton in all of this is that we should have rebuilt our team along proven lines, and not worried that our style may not have met with the approval of the same fatuous pundits who, before the European Championships, lauded England to the skies and afterwards called for Robson’s head. Biased I may be, but surely Peter Reid would have put in a performance of pride and commitment surpassing some of the first-choice midfield (Gary Stevens’s mistakes are best passed over!).
Also, how familiar it sounds to hear the criticism that England have been over-reliant on Lineker for goals. Robson committed the unpardonable error of fitting the whole style of play of the England team around certain players rather than blending the two in such a way that no player is irreplaceable.
And what of Liverpool in the 1988 FA Cup Final? Only the second match in my lifetime I wanted them to win (as Wimbledon personified anti-football). I was horrified at their spineless performance but there were important lessons I drew from it.
Firstly, you need to have wingers who consistently work at putting in crosses, even when they are not playing well (Trevor Steven exemplifies this).
Second, whatever your ‘pedigree’, you have to win the right to play your style of football in every match, no matter how distasteful you may find the opposition. Liverpool did not do this, and began to believe the media propaganda about their invincibility. ‘Reputation’ is not a player you can pass to and Everton should have stuck to our past system, using individual skill within a team context.
So, at the time, I thought there was no need for panic, the essentials of our game were sound. In this respect, therefore, a qualified defence of Harvey is justified. At the time, I was so impressed by Pat Nevin, I wrote to Harvey suggesting he buy him: and he did!
I was particularly impressed by his 1988 game for Chelsea against West Ham, where he enlivened a pathetic Chelsea performance with his deft touches, tireless work, and virtuoso skill. To play well in a bad team is about as good as you can do – just like Howard Kendall did in the early 1970s…
I thought then that all that was needed was a couple of new crew members – not dropping the pilot. Given we got Nevin, subsequent events proved me wrong… or did they?
I was too depressed about our performances in 1988-89 to analyse them on paper. Essentially though, injuries that appeared transient (eg, Bracewell) were not, Ratcliffe and Sheedy were never replaced, and Nevin couldn’t quite produce the goods, week-in & week-out. Perhaps a mid-field player like Gascoigne would have made a difference?
Essentially though, I think Harvey tended (like my analysis above) to assume the basics were right, and to try and build an attacking team that was aesthetically pleasing to watch. Thus, the basics fell to pieces, and by relying too much on individual flair rather than system, the whole show came close to going off the road. But his intentions were laudable; sadly… not enough.