ToffeeWeb - Season 2007-08

The Mail Bag

Championship form!

Some are comparing the 42 points we have now with the 44 points that we had at this stage in 2005. I decided to dig a little deeper, and I can reveal that we also had 44 points at this stage in 1987, when we went on to win the title (13 wins, 5 draws, 5 losses). Not sure what this proves, except maybe that a few years back 42 points would have gotten more respect than it does today.
Nick Wall, New Brighton Posted 21/01/2008 at 12:34:42

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

Phil Hamer
1 Posted 21/01/2008 at 15:15:58

Unfortunately those were the days of a relatively open league when different teams challenged for the title every year. You would win the title with 2 points per game, these days you need 2.5 such is the horrific dominance of the rich. Those were also the days when the team with the best manager and transfer policy won the league and not simply the team who threw the most money at it. It makes me almost want to cry when I think how exciting the title races used to be back then, and compare it with the tedious Super Sunday, Grand Slam, Chelsea, Man Utd, 30 points between 2nd and 5th bollocks we get these days. And then I ponder how the race to finish 4th in the league is far more important and creates far more publicity than winning the F.A Cup. Best league in the world my bony arse !! Its been absolutely ruined and its all down to one man, Rupert Murdoch.....look what you’ve done, I said I wouldn’t cry....!

Micky Norman
2 Posted 21/01/2008 at 16:50:02

Good shout... but, much as I detest Murdoch, I think the blame also lies with Uefa and the "Champions (and their rich friends who all get richer) League". A look at other European leagues shows a similar trend in many.

Chris Dawson
3 Posted 21/01/2008 at 17:03:52

If I remember rightly there were 22 teams in the division in 1987, thats an additional 4 extra games, and potentially an additional 12 points for the taking.

I think that we are not technically at the same stage in the season, we are 4 games less from the end of the season now than in 1987.

Like Nick, I’m also not sure what this proves!!!

Karl Masters
4 Posted 21/01/2008 at 17:28:15

The 80’s.... Were they really so much better in general- than now? Put away the rose tinted specs about Everton and look wider and you wonder.

Liverpool dominated everything with only ourselves, Villa & Arsenal snatching the League away from themin that decade.

It might have been better for Everton, but was it better in general? Admittedly teams like Southampton, QPR, West Ham & Watford achieved top 3 finishes, but the Redshite dominated so much that crowds fell to record levels in 1986. In that season, Villa played at home in front of 8,000, Spurs pulled in 10,800 and only 4 teams averaged over 21,000 for League games.

Niowadays, that one Team’s dominance has been replaced by the media darlings and their Champions League fuelled riches and this is no good either, but the monopoly is there to be broken and it will be broken - hopefully by us and others like Villa who are on the up.

Nick Wall
5 Posted 21/01/2008 at 19:51:47

Crowds were low in the 1980s because of the perceived hooligan problem and because ticket prices were rising, working class supporters were going to fewer games, and with less football on TV and less of a celebrity culture it hadn’t yet taken fire among the middle classes.

There is of course an argument that the Premiership today is better to watch because it features the cream of the crop from every country in the world.

But I’m with Phil on this. Big money has killed the Premiership as a true competition. In the 80s at least half the teams in the division started out with a real chance of finishing top 3 (and the likes of Coventry and Wimbledon could win the cup). As recently as 15 years ago a newly promoted team like Blackburn could win the league. Now noone even discusses the possibility of anyone outside the ’big 4’ winning the league. They’ve grown so rich and have built up such powerful resources that they’ve been able to monopolise the major honours to an extent never seen before in English football.

Alex Naylor
6 Posted 21/01/2008 at 21:17:52

There has been a lot of talk recently in regards to potential transfers. However, if we are ever going to push for those top two spots we need to buy real quality and not really on £2-5M players.

With a top right back, left back and two or three midfielders (along with adequate cover) a five-year plan to get in the mix may even be realistic. If we can pull one top name each season and our best players stay, the future could be very bright.

Five year plan?? If I thought we could finance it I would be getting very excited. I am however an Evertonian and therefore pessimist!!

COYB!!!

M J Tyrrell
7 Posted 22/01/2008 at 09:21:28

Karl, I suspect you are too young to remember the eighties. As Nick says crowd attendances were low because of both crowd trouble and standard of living. Football suffered because of "Thatcherism " not Liverpools dominance.

Rob Bentham
8 Posted 22/01/2008 at 09:28:39

Hibberts just been given another four years (and rightly so) but I agree that we need strengthening there. How old is Melchiot I thought he looked outstanding on Sunday, strong, pacy and comfortable with the football. He turned a number of our attacks into potential threats from them by playing his way out of danger and finding a midfielder (god forbid) with a simple pass.

M J Tyrrell
9 Posted 22/01/2008 at 09:41:18

Melchiot is about 736 years old ......... Walter Smith would class him as one for the future!

Rob Bentham
10 Posted 22/01/2008 at 09:37:45

Anyone spot any parallels with the music industry here. The politics of the eighties affected that too. Music being produced, primarily for the money not for the love of the music. Then the SVENgali era (see what I did there) boy bands, girl bands, then bands come back producing it for the love of the music and then making a shed load of dosh.
Everton are the new Arctic Monkeys (that reminds me of Alkmaar)

Rob Bentham
11 Posted 22/01/2008 at 09:43:13

Alright he’s 31 (I just checked) we’ll Titus Bramble instead he’s only 26.

Karl Masters
12 Posted 22/01/2008 at 10:04:56

M J Tyrell. If only I was that young! I first went to an Everton match in 1980 and was lucky enough to go to all the Cup Finals, Rotterdam included, and many, many other games that the decade gave Everton.

I agree that unemployment, in particular, and hooligans affected crowds, but I still think that LFC had a very unhealthy domination too. Nowadays it’s 4 Clubs, back in the eighties it was a Big 5, of which Everton were one. Outside those 5 - Everton, Liverpool, Arsenal, Man U & Spurs - never did an FA Cup Final not feature at least one of the Teams, only a couple of times were they not in a League Cup Final and only once did one of them not win the League. So domination by a few big clubs is hardly a new phenomenon.

What has changed is that the stranglehold has become stronger, but only over the last 6 or 7 years. It can still be reversed to a degree. Who knows what the future holds? Who is to say for sure that the Billionaires won’t get bored, that the public won’t get bored with it all and TV revenues will decrease? In the 60’s nobody would have predicted hooliganism, Heysel, 4m unemployed etc. In the 80’s nobody would have predicted Russian billionaires, 70% of players being foreign, sell out crowds almost everywhere, £120k a week for a Chelsea defender, Sky’s effect, £400k for a semi in a crap part of London, etc, etc.

Life changes, things go in cycles and eventually this Big 4 bollocks will pass. Everton’s history has always gone in cycles too and who is to say we won’t be breaking the current monopoly on Top 4 again? Be optimistic!

Rob Hollis
13 Posted 22/01/2008 at 12:58:30

You need money to compete but I do not accept that the ’richer’ clubs will always dominate. You are starting to see the league opening up. Remember we did not even complete our transfers for the start of the season.

Money is not the answer to everything. Benitez will not win the league because he does not have the right mentality.

Everton, Villa and probably City and Spurs will become an increasing part of the mix. Enough money but critically, good managers.