The Daniel Mckeown Column
Columnist: Daniel Mckeown

Introduction
23 December 2005

1995 FA Cup Final: Paul Rideout scores

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and welcome from ToffeeWeb’s newest columnist — me, Daniel Mckeown.

To start with, I will get my credentials out of the way.  I am 21 years old and a journalism graduate, so hopefully that gives me enough writing credit, and I like to think that I am a part of the new breed of young Evertonian.

Evertonians who are my age and younger don’t truly remember the glory days of the eighties or of Kendall, Harvey and Ball.  Our glory days relate to the Dogs of War and the 1995 Cup Final win.  So it would be quite an understatement to say I have struggled for glorious Everton memories.  My most memorable matches are the 1995 Cup Final, Carsley’s derby, and — as painful as it is to say — Rooney’s first goal against Arsenal.  Three games that far from set the world alight... but to me as dear as anything in the world.  So, as you can see, I am still waiting for my Bayern Munich equivalent; I am a firm believer, however, that those days are returning.

My aim is to provide a youthful opinion on the state and situation of Everton Football Club, an opinion that doesn’t compare every player we have to Alex Young or Kevin Ratcliffe; one that makes a more realistic comparison to the like of Marc Hottiger and Claus Thomsen.  I intend to tell it as I see it and it usually differs from those with glory days to recall.

I also intend to try and improve ToffeeWeb.  In my opinion, the one thing I believe ToffeeWeb lacks — the one problem stopping it from standing out from any other unofficial Everton sites — is interviews with past players; this is something I am hoping to put right and I intend to use your questions to quiz them with.  Look out for this feature in the New Year.

Now that I have all of my credentials out of the way,  here are my opinions on our current predicament.  Writing this only a few days after the Bolton “debacle”  — I say debacle but although the result was totally unacceptable and the fact that we had no shots on target till late in the game was scandalous, both managers agreed 4-0 was a very harsh result.  The only thing Richard Wright had to do was pick the ball out of his net.  I believe that, if the referee had done as he should and shown Kevin Davies the red card he deserved, we would have been looking at a different game.  Obviously it is easy to blame referees and hide behind excuses and I don’t believe David Moyes totally escapes blame for the poor result.

Everton’s main problem was their lack of balance; every time we attacked, it was down the right wing.  We had Simon Davies on the left and it was clear he didn’t intend on staying there.  Despite his poor performances all season, the answer was to start Kilbane on the left, and drop Davies to the bench.  This returns the balance and gives us more options, also enabling Valente to be involved further up the field, where he is quite capable.

Of course, if it was as easy as that, everyone would be a football manager.  I do believe it would have made a difference though.  As down as I am about the Bolton result, it far from means we are in the crisis a lot of the media vultures would like you to believe.  Admittedly, our fourth-place finish last year was slightly misguiding but we are very much moving in the right direction; the last thing we need to do is sack Moyes.

Since he took over, the team has improved so much; once everyone is fit and he believes Krøldrup is ready, we will finally begin to have a first eleven capable of competing with anyone.  The team of Martyn; Hibbert, Valente, Yobo, Krøldrup; Neville, Cahill, Arteta, Van der Meyde; Beattie and McFadden is the best team we have had in my memory — and I believe the second half of this season will prove this to be so.  Moyes is only just beginning to make this team his own; he is still having to rely on Walter Smith’s signings — in particular, David Weir — but he is close to making it his own.  He realises we need a new goalkeeper and a striker; you can see he is making efforts to fill these positions — and before anyone questions his signings, the case can be made that he has made more good ones than bad ones.  We are even starting to have competition for positions, particularly in central midfield.

The team we are watching this season (despite some embarrassing results against West Brom and Bolton) is without doubt the basis of what will be our best team since the 80s.  In five years time — as long as Moyes stays at the helm, which I believe he will — we will be looking at a team that is regularly in the top four and will be challenging for trophies.

Well, there it is: my first ToffeeWeb article... I look forward to writing many more and hopefully receiving feedback from the readers on what you think of my opinion.

Daniel Mckeown

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