ToffeeWeb - Season 2007-08

The Mail Bag

Everton vs Sky 4

Since the Liverpool game in October we have only been beaten by one of these so called Big, Top, Sky 4 teams (excluding Oldham ?that was an absolute fluke where 99/100 we would win!) Even prior to that we had lost 3 times, 2 of which followed the gruelling matches against Metalist and even the best sides sometimes struggle after European excursions. Also, early season form can be a little patchy as new players and new systems are introduced. Maybe inconsistencies at the start caused by a lack of rythym by changes to the team.

Back to the point in hand, we are beating everybody outside the Sky 4 and losing to all inside it. Where then does this rank in progress? At the moment all 4 of those teams have the most resources out of anyone in the League. There are also several other teams that again have more resources at their disposal than ourselves and yet we are out-performing them.

All clubs strive for that consistency to get them up the table. And we have it in abundance. Yes, this season we have been bitterly disapointed against these teams but is it not better to be in the position we are in rather than be like City and only win at home, or like Reading who have beaten ourselves and Liverpool, drew with Utd. and yet lie mid-table?

We have been beating everyone we need to be beating. Yes the sky 4 is our goal and I am NOT saying that this won't get us there. We are laying the foundations for a challenge to finish top 4. All we need now is for at least one to have a horrendous season (Liverpool) in order to capitalise on it and maybe, as Moyes put it after the Chelsea game, provide the "X-Factor."
Jack Calvert, Liverpool Posted 25/01/2008 at 12:46:25

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Neil Styles
1 Posted 25/01/2008 at 14:08:36

Nice article Jack. Just want to make a quick point about the supposed big four. The term ’Big’ invariably changes from period to period in football, for example in the 80s it was the Big Two and prior to that there was a ’Big Six’.Further, I have recently heard several pundits and fans alike begin to use the term ’Big Three’-referring to the Chavs, the Mancs and the Arse. Which is very interesting...

John Middleton
2 Posted 25/01/2008 at 14:14:46

Jack, we?ve lost to each of the other 3 of the 4 since the Shite game

Adam Doyle
3 Posted 25/01/2008 at 15:19:26

Erm, Man Utd 2 - 1 Everton, Arsenal 4 - 1 Everton, plus twice to Chelsea in the league cup. So, what are you on about?

Martin Cutler
4 Posted 25/01/2008 at 15:06:50

I think the question posed here by Jack is very interesting.....
when two teams line up on the field.....in very simple terms it’s 11 men against 11 men with a few others sat on the bench.
What exactly is it that makes the so-called top four (or of late top three) better than us....is it the set of players on the field at the time, is it the coaching, is it the money, is it the fans, what is it ?? The short answer is YES to all of this....it all makes a difference towards the final result, as does the weather conditions, the field, the ref, the fixture list etc., etc., etc.
So where am I going with this?
My point is this....can we be consistently better (to the point of AT LEAST being a definite 4th if not higher) and consistently doing well in Cup competitions (Oldham was a blip) with the team we have......we certainly can’t control the weather or the ref, we appear not to have a huge stash of money anytime soon, the crowd (as huge a factor as that is for EFC....with all due respect it didn’t in and of itself alter the game on Wednesday).....we know Moyes is staying (rightly so!!) so what exactly is it that’s going to push us where we want to be.......are we saying that the players (and Moyes) will actually improve to the point where beating Man Utd (for example) will become the norm???
Do we have to buy players...can we afford the right players we need......are they even available....lots and lots of names have been mentioned (as one would expect) but nothing concrete........a lot of posters on here like Arshavin (for example) but I’m not aware of any official move for him (the fact that I’m not is not the point)......so what is it exactly that we (EFC) need to do????

Sorry for the somewhat rambling post! But this thought has been bugging me for awhile now.....can the players we have do it....can we do it only with certain additional players....will Moyes (and the lads) improve enough in the very near future for a trophy (any trophy) to be placed on the mantelpiece!!!

Again, apologies for the nature of this post but I’d be intrigued as to the answers.
This really should be a separate entry as opposed to entering under Jack’s post but I can’t guarantee my entry would be accepted!

Mike Allison
5 Posted 25/01/2008 at 16:17:55

"Jack, we?ve lost to each of the other 3 of the 4 since the Shite game"

"Erm, Man Utd 2 - 1 Everton, Arsenal 4 - 1 Everton, plus twice to Chelsea in the league cup. So, what are you on about? "

He means that we’ve only lost matches when they’ve been against one of the ’Big 4’ teams, not that we’ve only lost to one of them.

Richard Jones
6 Posted 25/01/2008 at 16:24:45

The fact is not many teams in the top half of the table get results against the big four. That’s why they’re the big four. They have resources the rest of the teams can only dream about both in terms of finance and attractiveness to the top players.

What we can do realistically is continue to gain European Football, resulting in additional revenue streams, greater support from the exisiting & new fanbase and then we can begin to progress.

However, one thing we all need to remember. It will take TIME! We won’t turn itno World Beaters overnight. The days of that happening in football are long long gone.

Tom Rowe
7 Posted 25/01/2008 at 16:18:38

Jack, we?ve only played utd once this season and we lost 0-1 at home. Vidic scored a header at the glwadys street end. Drew with chelsea away in the league, Cahill over head kick. Lost 4-1 against the Arse. So really we?ve lost two. we lost to chelsea in the milk cup but that isn?t going to stop us cracking the ?top four?. We just have to beat them in the league. I don?t think anything besides changing tactics and having all of our best payers available. ie YAK, Bainesy, Peanuts Yobo and a fully fit manny. Then we?l be unstoppable. Cheer up lads we?re in fourth, 2 bouts above the shite. COYB!!

Neil Humphrey
8 Posted 25/01/2008 at 16:38:09

Erm,, Tom, hate to break this to you but we played Utd at Old Trafford last month - 2-1 defeat.

Jack Calvert
9 Posted 25/01/2008 at 17:00:41

Yeah sorry about that first sentence, i meant to say every one of these so called...
My apologies

Mike Roberts
10 Posted 25/01/2008 at 19:10:08

Dunno whether this is worth pointing out, but you don?t have to actually beat the Sky four to break into those positions in the league. Even if we lost every game against the bastards, we could still win 30 games per season, accruing 90 points in the process. This would be good enough to win the Premier League in some seasons, and certainly result in a top 3 finish. Don?t know whether I could cope without beating the RS for a full season tho....

Brian Garside
11 Posted 25/01/2008 at 19:46:30

The term "big"? does that refer to their overdraft? If so,is this what we need to "achieve" in order to a "big club?"

Roy Masey
12 Posted 25/01/2008 at 22:27:08

Let me start by saying that it?s definitely a "big 3" now , followed by a senior group of 6 which would be us, Liverpool, A Villa, Man City, Spurs and possibly Portsmouth - interestingly all of our "peer" group are owned by so called "billionaires" and can happily chuck millions at average players.

Going forward, WHU, Blackburn and the Barcodes may well join in, so there could be realistically 9 clubs competing for 1 CL place and 2 or 3 Uefa Cup spots. But even without, a fatcat "billionaire", we?re still in the Uefa Cup and are 4th in the League - certainly stands us in good stead against most of our "peer" group", so Moyes and the team must be doing something right!

Turning to the definition of a "big club", I think Wednesday night resolved that question for me about Chelsea. I was stunned to see 3,000 empty seats in the Bullens away fan section! It was a semi-final, FFS and had the boot been on the other foot, you can be certain we would have been sold out! You only had to travel to Boro and Wigan recently to see what our support is like!

Take away the Abramovich billions and what are you left with? Let?s look at their so called history....

3 League titles compared to our 9.
2 FA Cups, we?ve got 5
1 Cup Winners Cup each and give them some credit, they?ve also got 5 League Cups.

We?ve got 15 major honours compared to their 11 but 5 have been bought with Abramavich?s billions in the last 3 years ? so the real score is 15 - 6.

So what are Chelsea really - a small but mega-rich club with history that they?ve bought and fans that won?t travel!

I know that this sounds bitter , but I?m genuinely proud of how we run our club and any success we do have is much sweeter for it!

As a number of major national newspapers have commented recently, we are a proper football club.

COYB.