James McFadden

• Soccerbase Datafile
• Wikipedia Entry
• Previous Profile

There were hopes that Everton had started the 2011-12 season reasonably well, despite losing their first game at home to newly promoted QPR.  But the departure of Mikel Arteta along with the less effective strikers Yakubu and Beckford on the day the transfer window closed at the end of August did not bode well in terms of goalscoring potential, and it was underlined when Victor Anichebe, a supposed striker who also had also contracted the Moyes disease of not being able to score, sustained an injury that would keep him out for months.

That left David Moyes with Tim Cahill, aging and increasingly ineffective, alongside youngster Apostolos Vellios, who had loooked promising but Moyes could not bring hinself to trust, believing him to be far too inexperienced for the Premier League.  Similarly Denis Stacqualursi, the leading scorer from the Argentine league, who looked more and more like a panic move to boost the numbers, and could not be risked in Premier League games.

So, by mid-October, with an average of just one goal per game scored by the team, and on the back of three poor back-to-back defeats to three of the Premier Leagues moneybags big spenders as Everton slid rapidly from the top half toward the relegation zone, the surprise move to bring back a limited striker he had once called the Scottish Rooney made complete sense to David Moyes.

That is how James McFadden, who left Everton in 2008 for the fabulous fee of £5M to join Birmingham City, once again came to wear the Royal Blue shirt of Everton Football Club. McFadden was out of contract with Birminmgham City in the summer, and still on the long path to recovery from anterior cruciate ligament injury damage to his knee. McFadden hadn't played in over a year — since September 2010 — so he had continued to train with Birmingham over the summer in order to regain fitness.

It was a move that, while perhaps understandable under Evertons's parlous financial circumstances, was not exactly welcomed unanimously by increasingly weary Evertonians, sick of the constant reminders that the club they loved no longer had the economic base to compete at the upper end of the Premier League.  If there was anything that signalled how far the club had fallen on hard times, nothing could underline it more than bringing back a crocked, unfit so-called striker who was at best limited, with the odd wonder goal, and at worst bore no comparison whatsoever to Wayne Rooney.

Never prolific, he has proved himself capable of producing the odd wonder goal, for Everton (v Charlton Athletic, 2007) and for Scotland (v France, 2007).  His fitness level was something of a concern but he did well enough in a reserves match the day after returning that David Moyes decided to make hima part of teh first team squad.

However, his performances for the senior team proved to be a painful parody of the bizarre "McRooney" accolade Moyes had inadvertently bestowed on his countryman.  And with David Weir also returning, it was not hard to infer that it was "jobs for the bhoyz"... at the expense of giving much needed playing time to the prodigious talent being developed at Finch Farm.

Thanksfully the fiasco did not extend beyond the end of Season 2011-12 with McFadden sent on his way as a free agent, welcome to return to Goodison Park any time he likes... as a spectator!

By Michael Kenrick
Last updated July 2012