ToffeeWeb - Season 2007-08

The Mail Bag

David Weir and ?Those Who Must Not Be Mentioned?

As we head into the Ukraine to try to sort out the self-inflicted damage that we did on our Uefa Cup hopes at Goodison, maybe a word of congratulation can be offered to our old club captain David Weir.

Freed by Everton earlier this year, Weir did not retire as many expected in the Summer of 2007 and last night he played a big roll in Rangers 3-0 victory over French champions Lyon in France.

Weir's previous European Champions League game came on the week when we played Metallist. On that occasion he featured in a come-from-behind home win over the current German Champions Stuttgart. Well done, Davie !

And who is his manager at 'cut price' Rangers ? ah that would be Walter Smith ? our highly vilified ex-manager.Many seem to forget (and Tony Marsh must be highly commended for his reminder to the ignorant among us last week) that Smith had a very different managerial experience at Everton to the affluence of the David Moyes era.

£20 million to buy a couple of strikers? That would have been fantasy football for Smith ? the man who was told simply to sell anybody who could be sold, replace them with old pros available for nowt and to do his best to keep us in the Premier while we tried to keep away from the threatening creditors and a bank that had taken cold feet.

Is it too much to ask that we remember him a little more fondly and, if not, can we think about this? Moyes and Smith: Neither won anything at Everton. Both were managers when we sold our then best players to keep the bank sweet. Smith has won many glittering prizes at other places. David Moyes has never won a trophy nor indeed a promotion thoughout his entire managerial career.

This is not to knock Moyes ? many other managers today are in the same boat ? but for goodness sake let's hear a little bit more realism when the 'Walter Smith era' at Goodison is discussed.

Is it a thought for all of our Toffees who are so quick to scoff at Scottish football that Alex Ferguson won more trophies at home and in Europe with lowly Scottish side Aberdeen than Everton has managed post second world war ?

If you want to compare Moyes with any Scottish manager of the time , let it be Ferguson ? always assuming you are old enough to remember the mess Man Utd was in when he got there ? maybe Ferguson's first five years at Old Trafford would be an interesting comparison as we head for the Ukraine.

Rooney last night in the Champions League? Could have been, should have been, IN BLUE...just sad! Metalist can be beaten but that will depend on which of our expensive players plays in which tactical set up. Over to you David Moyes and our hopes go with you !

Oh, and, ref, another couple of penalties would be fine for Arteta and take them down to nine men again if you will. Yakubu, he'll be fine. Just let him be the 'Latchford clone' that is his natural game. The Yak is not a winger! Interesting times eh ?
Glen Strachan, Oaxaca , Mexico Posted 03/10/2007 at 14:57:56

back Return to the Mail Bag

Comments

Note: the following content is not moderated or vetted by the site owners at the time of submission. Comments are the responsibility of the poster. Disclaimer

Lyndon Lloyd
Editorial Team
1 Posted 03/10/2007 at 21:15:11

Hmmm, I think we rush to re-write the history of the Smith years at our peril. While the calibre of player at his disposal was a mitigating factor, the latter part of his reign truly was truly abysmal and there is a very real possibility that we would have gone down that season without his removal and the introduction of the new Moyes broom.

Let’s not also forget that Smith inherited the likes of Nick Barmby and spent the better part of £20m of what we thought was Johnson’s money on players like John Collins, Olivier Dacourt, Ibrahima Bakayoko and Marco Materazzi and still couldn’t fashion a consistent team out it.

Yes, there were some absolutely stellar moments — the 5-0 and 6-0 home wins over Sunderland and West Ham respectively and, of course, the 4-0 victory at Upton Park in April 2000 which was one of the most devastatingly effective Everton performances I’ve ever seen — but he never really looked liked taking us forward to the next level.

Furthermore, his job at Rangers is made easier by the inferior quailty of the Scottish Premier League and the ability of that club to attract star players looking for league title medals. The fact that he failed at Everton seemed to be a damning indictment of the quality of the SPL where he won 9 titles in a two-horse league.

The big caveat here, though, is that if he can succeed in Europe, on the big stage of the Champions League, then he will have proved his credentials at the top level and that would really make his managerial career enigmatic!

Ben Thompson
2 Posted 03/10/2007 at 22:38:12

Yet another Evertonian plants the lie that Moyes first five years compare well with Ferguson’s early days at Man,Unt.
Whilst Fergie’s League positions from 86/87 were 11,2,11,13 and 6 (av.8.6)against Moyes av.9,it is conveniently forgotten that in 89/90 he won the FA Cup and the following season the European Cup Winners Cup.
I suspect I shall be a very old man before Moyes wins ANYTHING for Everton!

Kevin Sparke
3 Posted 03/10/2007 at 22:36:03

Good points from both Glen and Lyndon. Who’d be a manager eh?

I’ve just finished reading ’The Damned United’ absolute excellent read. It’s tells the story of Brian Cloughs 42 days in charge of Leeds United in 1974.

Clough took Derby and Notts Forest to league and European glory on a relative shoestring budget, but once given charge of Leeds United’s star studded Championship winning side and things go very wrong...

James Bernard
4 Posted 03/10/2007 at 22:55:04

Kevin How mych did the publisher pay you to say that :)?

Tom Martin
5 Posted 03/10/2007 at 23:28:10

You can’t excuse Walter Smith’s consistently crap management on him not having any money! Moyes had exactly the same resources as Smith when he first came and he did a better job than him. And the " £20 million on a couple of strikers" is money that he has brought in, by doing a better job than Smith. Moyes earned that money from finishing in the top half of the table and getting into europe, and it was harder for Moyes initially because he was lumbered with all the dead wood Smith left behind who were sponging off the club on 5 year contracts!

glen strachan
6 Posted 04/10/2007 at 00:45:16

Hi Ben

Read again what I wrote about Ferguson and Moyes.

Did anything that I wrote suggest that I believed Moyes will ever compare to Ferguson ?

Read it again..............slowly.....please Ben !

I didn’t even mention Ferguson’s Cup , League Cup , Cup Winners Cup wins and resisted the temptation to refer to the fact that Fergie was by then on the way to back to back titles and creating the triumphant side thatwould become the greatest powerhouse England had seen since Shankly’s Liverpool.

You give no indication of your age , Ben but I wish you a long and happy life waiting for even one attractive attacking display from an Everton team under David Moyes never mind a trophy.

I believe you are correct in your view that our beloved Blues will never win anything under Mr Moyes but do not be too hard on him as he has never been close to winning anything , anywhere in his entire managerial career.

If you wanted to be really tough on the Ferguson comparison..............take a look at the great work he did taking St Mirren out of the lower divisions in Scotland and making them an established team in the top division before a jealous chairman got rid of him because Ferguson had the cheek to buy fish suppers for his players on return trips from matches and charge that to managerial expenses.

St Mirren were promoted and prospered......Aberdeen won Cups and Championships AND the European Cup Winners Cup THEN the European Super Cup........and lets not even go there on what he did for Man U.

I AM NO MOYES APOLOGIST , dear Ben but I do believe he always does his best for Everton.

The shame of all this is that just as Preston failed to be promoted and we go to Metallist in the shadows of Walter Smith’s triumph , David Moyes - even with the most expensive team we have ever bought and a wage bill that would choke a horse - will never find the results to match his Manchester master who probably knew the game of football better at 16 than David and all of his coaching courses does today.

Oh Alex............why didn’t you just stay in Aberdeen for a few months more and come to Goodison when Howard quit in the Summer after his second championship?

I believe Alex Ferguson at Goodison then and we would today be sitting where United is now rather than trying to scratch a saving result against the European minnow of minnows tomorrow night.

Surely Metalist cannot knock us out of Europe like that Spanish Village side did two years ago.

Say it ain’t so Ben...................I hope we are both happy tomorrow night !

grant
7 Posted 04/10/2007 at 02:12:42

I personally believe that Walter Smith was building a decent side circa 99/00 season, until it was ripped apart by the board in the summer of 2000. Everything beyond that got progressively worse i admit.

Ross Trotter
8 Posted 04/10/2007 at 10:50:09

I’m sick of cnts down-talking the Scottish football in general, Lyndon do you ever watch Scottish football - ever? There are plenty of players who have come from your greatest league in the world - the overhyped Premiership and failed in the SPL.

Smith inherited the team that won the 9 in the row, he didn’t build it. The 9-in a row period wasn’t a two horse race. only in the more latter years of Scottish football has it become a two horse race. Very ignorant to call it inferior.

Peter Fearon
9 Posted 04/10/2007 at 14:15:42

It was only a matter of time before the revisionists started refashioning the history of the Long Dark Night of Walter Smith. The reality is that Smith never gave a damn about Everton. He saw the job then as a huge retirement package for himself and he tried as much as he could to spread the wealth to his superannuated hasbeen mates from Scottish football by giving them sinecures. He was only ever interested in Scotland and Glasgow Rangers and was a disaster of the first order of magnitude, no matter what the apologists now say. People will be saying good things abouyt Kirkby next.

glen strachan
10 Posted 04/10/2007 at 15:54:50

Hi Peter

Simple question.

Do you know Walter Smith at all............on a personal basis , I mean?

Have you sat in a room and spoken to him about Everton or do you think somehow you can ’see inside his head’?

Or are you just pretending that you know Smith and are aware of his intentions.

Bottom line............You are well off the mark on this one !

Mr Trotter

More evidence at Celtic Park , last night of the small , insular nature of Scottish football as Celtic beat the current European Champions , Milan just days after the national team won in France and Rangers thrashed Lyon.

If the top Scottish sides are really just small time where does that leave us when we can’t win a home game against a nothing side on a night when we can’t even kick off our game on time.

Get real - gentlemen!...............take the occasional glance at the big picture.................and let’s hope that later today we can take a small step towards the bottom stages of that big picture by winning at Metallist........................

Anything short of a win tonight is unthinkable !!!!!!

Peter Fearon
11 Posted 04/10/2007 at 20:23:26

Glen Strachan, yes as a matter of fact I do know Walter Smith. I sat with him for endless hours in the same stadiums as he spoke the international language of football. And what he said was...crap. No Evertonian can ever forget the weekly complacency with which he greeted his teams’ defeats and the catalogue of feeble excuses he came up with for them, the worst being that it wasn’t Everton ’s consistent losing that was the problem. It was our expectations that was the problem. So yes, I do know him. I lived with his incompetence as did every other Evertonian.