The Rob Fox Column
Columnist: Rob Fox

Everton Expects
20 April 2006

“We are looking for strong players with quality”

“We are looking for hard working players tinged with ability”

Both of the above quotes appeared in the Football Echo a week or two ago, attributed to rival managers, both of whom will be looking to strengthen their squads this summer.  The relative ambitions of the two managers were thrown into sharp focus by the contrast between these statements.  Whilst Benitez is looking for genuine strength and quality, Moyes is content to scour the market for players with just a little bit of ability, so long as they are prepared to work hard ‘for the team’.

Personally, I don’t want us to get players tinged with ability; I want them to have ability dripping from every pore.  With the mindset of our two managers, it is obvious who will be getting the quality this summer – not us.  Mind you, I wonder which category Momo Sissoko falls into?  After all, both clubs wanted him last summer.

Of course, he chose them because Moyes is a dickhead.  Christ, he’s that crap he took over from a sacked manager with 9 games to go and relegation a real possibility and only managed to get us to 15th. place.  Sorry, I couldn’t let that one go.  I know you only deal with facts on this site, but that’s revisionism at its best.

Sissoko signing for them had absolutely nothing to do with them being richer, having a higher profile and better players, or even the fact that they’d just spawned the Champions League and that Benitez used to be his manager at Valencia.  It’s all because we are run by useless pricks who have no ambition or intelligence whatsoever.

Maybe that’s true, maybe not.  What I’m certain of is that while Moyes has his failings, the criticism from some quarters is verging on hysterical, and certainly doesn’t just stick to ‘facts’.  As with our league positions, the pendulum of opinion has swung hugely regarding with Moyes with hyperbole being replaced with ridicule.  Sorry, but I don’t think managing a football club is as black and white as that, I really don’t.

I haven’t bothered writing for a while because there seems very little point when opinions are so polarised.  With Tony Marsh and Dutch Schaeffer — who I still believe are pseudonyms used by Michael Kenrick to provoke reactions on slow news days — polar opposites and more or less everybody else having nailed their colours firmly to the mast before we were even into December, the debate has become boring and repetitive, and depressing to boot.  Goth Weekly is more upbeat than this site at times.

‘So why bother now then, softshite?’ is probably what most of you are thinking.  Maybe the editor accusing me of being spineless for being hounded out by the boo boys has something to do with it; or maybe I’ve just got a bit of time on my hands for a change.  As you can probably guess from the opening, I still have time for David Moyes.  This season has been pretty shite and Moyes has to take his share of the blame.  Looking at his time as a whole, we have moved away from being relegation favourites to mid-table mediocrity.

The crux of the argument at the moment seems to be whether the current custodians are capable of moving us forward again or whether we will simply slip back into relegation battles again.  The general view on this site seems to be that David Moyes has taken the club as far as he can and is now content to be an also-ran.

Certainly, his public demeanour has been different this season and he seems to be constantly dampening expectation and reminding us of how bad our recent history has been.  As an aside, the only direct quotes I’ve ever seen by Moyes make it clear that he is referring to Premiership history, not our whole history.  Mischievous reporting, Mr Kenrick?  However, it is easy to see how many would conclude that self-preservation and touting himself to other clubs are his main agenda, especially as he seems to have taken Graeme Le Saux’s old ‘job’.

The view of many — although I think the assertion that ²/₃ of matchgoing Blues now want him out is a bit of a stretch — is that the time has come for Moyes to go.  Some believe that he has reached the limit of his ability; others that he has been worn down by the enormity and seeming futility of the task of being Everton manager, especially as our motto seems to no longer be an aspiration but a millstone.

In his time, David Moyes has done many good things for Everton Football Club.  He has also made plenty of mistakes   At present, we are the epitome of a mid-table side and none of us are happy with that.  My view is that there are plenty of mitigating circumstances for David Moyes and that he is still capable of being a successful Everton manager, although, in the current climate, qualifying for Europe regularly and doing well in the cups would be as high as we could aspire to — and perhaps that is the crux of the whole problem.

In my time as a Blue, I’ve watched us win Championships and play superb football.  I’ve also thought we were heading for what is now the Championship on more than occasion and watched us serve up utter shite on many occasions.  On balance, I’ve probably watched a lot more crap than the good stuff, but it doesn’t mean I can’t recognise it when I see it.  Obviously I don’t have as much experience in this regard as some of the senior contributors to the ToffeeWeb Mailbag, but I sincerely hope this doesn’t totally devalue my opinion.

I’m sorry I never saw the School of Science in full flow, but I saw Arsenal play Juventus the other week and the quality of football looked pretty good to me.  I can also recognise that the game has changed beyond recognition in the last 15 years, especially in the time since we last won a trophy.

I hate every other team with a passion, and find our mediocrity hard to take.  I don’t like being second-best to the likes of Bolton and Wigan, although I do feel better when I hear them play a song on the tannoy when they score at the Reebok.  Frigging wools.  However, I do recognise that comparing the current team to the great sides of the past is utterly irrelevant as a critique of David Moyes’s management, or even that of Kenwright or Wyness.

For every example of a club doing better than us in similar, or even tougher, circumstances, there are many more doing much worse.

Fortress Goodison

• Part 1 — Can’t see the wood for the trees
• Part 2 — Choping trees
• Part 3 — Clearing the path
• Part 4 — Increasing Revenues
• Part 5 — Increasing revenues off the pitch

The above was my own attempt to shed some light on our financial situation and available options.  Not much has changed, and obviously we need somebody to blame.  The fact that our current situation is the culmination of a chain of events over a long period of time seems to be glossed over by many.  Howard Kendall assembled a great team without breaking the bank, but it would be impossible to emulate that feat today.  He also signed some duffers as well.  Alan Biley and Ian Wilson anybody?  Although we could compete financially in the 80s, we were neither the biggest nor the richest, we just had an outstanding manager for a while.

A lot of contributors have recently compared Moyes’s reign to that of other managers, notably Joe Royle.  What both certainly have in common is that they both made a major impact but found it difficult to sustain their early success.  Royle never got the chance to see the job through, but Moyes has the opportunity to have another crack next season.

Hopefully, he will put things right and get us back on track.  I have always defended Moyes and still believe he has got more things right than he has got wrong.  If the doomsayers are right and he can take us no further, my personal hope is that it is because of his own personal limitations.  The more concerning prospect is that we have seen a highly talented and ambitious young manager worn down by the demands of managing Everton and the expectation level of our supporters.

Even Walter had his good points, and came with a good pedigree.  Even now, he is still highly regarded within the game.  Like Royle and Moyes he seemed to understand what made us tick, at least to begin with and seemed a big enough man to manage a club like ours.  Like Royle, he ultimately failed.

If we add Moyes to that list then the greater problem remains of just how to live up to our motto, as some fans demand.  The great danger is that we will become just another dinosaur repeatedly sacking managers in a vain search for success.  The reality of Everton’s situation — a dilapidated stadium, out of date facilities, a largely local support in a less than affluent region competing with a richer and more famous neighbour and an income that makes it very difficult for us to implement, let alone sustain, any sort of economic growth within the Premiership — has not improved, and has in fact worsened due to stagnation, for a very long time.

The question remains whether David Moyes is a man whose limitations will ultimately lead to his downfall or not.  If he is not, if he does after all possess the qualities to be a top-class manager, then he is at a crossroads at Everton Football Club.  Next season, and as far as I’m concerned that begins on Saturday, will be crucial to his and our future.

In fact, it is potentially more crucial to us, as Moyes's stock is high enough for him to get another Premiership job if the Everton job does prove to be too difficult.  If that does prove to be the case, the question Evertonians need to ask is a very sobering one.  In this era, are our expectations realistic or should we rethink our own ambitions for Everton Football Club?

Personally, I still remember the great times and still dream of those days returning to Everton.  I am yet to contemplate the possibility that we may never be great again in my lifetime, but I am enough of a realist to know that we are currently as far away as ever from our own lofty ideals.

Going back to the initial quotes, do the slight differences in wording highlight a lack of ambition from Moyes, or simply a realistic outlook on our present situation?  Moyes, and for that matter Wyness, is on the record as saying that we are moving steadily in the right direction.  Moyes also claims to have the ability, desire and patience to see the job through and win trophies at Everton.

I suppose it’s fair to say that the jury is out in that respect. For my part I am willing to be patient so long as I can see steady progress year by year.  So far we have oscillated wildly, and perhaps that indicates that next season the peaks and troughs will begin to level out.

For my part, I can see both sides of the argument and have just enough faith left in Moyes to give him next season to show tangible progress, all things being equal.  If rumours of the family silver being sold again this summer to finance our academy and training facilities are true, then perhaps we will need to rethink our short-term aspirations once again.

Hopefully, though, everybody will be as good as their word and our selling days are finally over and we are beginning to put solid foundations in place at long last.  I suppose I’m hopeful, but sceptical.  We shall see... what seems clear is that this summer looks set to be an important one in terms of our future direction.  You never know, maybe this time next year the mailbag will be hearts and flowers, and Tony Marsh and Dutch Schaeffer will be joking over a bevvy in the Oak.  That is if they both exist of course….

Rob Fox

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