"The best team in the Premier League" ... Blue tint a little heavy on those glasses of yours, methinks, Steven. Best team SPIRT in the Premier League, perhaps. But any Evertonian who thinks we have the best team in the Premier League is I'm afraid sadly deluded.

It can be readily argued that team spirit has gotten David Moyes's teams a lot further and a lot higher than they should be on paper. (Hence "Over-achievement" "punching above our weight", "Best of the rest" etc.) But calling us the best team means these things have likely gone to your head.

We are the best team in our own little sub-league of Nice Teams We'd Like to Dominate. But let's not forget — the purpose of being in the League should be to make a decent fist of winning it if we can — not merely to be there to make up the numbers.

You are sounding far too much like that wedge of Everton fans that accept mediocrity and develop a somewhat dubious rationale for doing so .... you know — the ones Tony Marsh accuses of "destroying" the club by accepting severely reduced ambition.

Steve, Contracts have been worthless long before big money came into the game.

I can think of many players we have bought who were in contract, as is the case with most other teams. Lineker stayed one season and was in contract and that was 23 years ago. The only thing contracts do now is add on the transfer fee for a player, especially with the Bosman ruling.

I am also a die hard blue, however we are far from being the best team in the Premier League.

We were happy enough to spend money when we had it so let’s not be hypocrites and delude ourselves into thinking we’re morally superior to any other team because all we did was over extend ourselves first. With that said we do have the under dog surprise factor since Didier Drogba just named 7 teams that could win the Premier League this year... and none of them were Everton.

As somone who works on a Contract basis they are effectively worthless in terms of longevity as there is usually a clause in there stating that you can give (or receive) one month’s notice and then leave. The incentive to stay is usually provided by bonus packages for the completion of a year, or a number of years, service.

Look on the bright side, at least we don’t have to go to testimonial games anymore.

You remember the sort of thing. Some bloke whose wages a club has been paying for the last ten years — despite him having had only one leg for the last eighteen months — comes on and scores a last minute hat-trick against a load of old drunks from Scotland.

Cynical? Moi?

"You are sounding far too much like that wedge of Everton fans that accept mediocrity and develop a somewhat dubious rationale for doing so .... you know — the ones Tony Marsh accuses of "destroying" the club by accepting severely reduced ambition".

What rubbish Ed... I’ll bet there’s not an Everton supporter around who doesn’t have the ambition to see Phil Neville and the boys on an open top bus waving around the three domestic and one European trophy.

It aint going to happen - why?

Lack of ambition? - nope... lack of class players like Kaka, Ronaldo, Drogba, Torres (spit). Why aren’t players like this playing for Everton? Do they lack ambition? Do we lack the ambition to sign them?

No... we lack the money - end of story

Lack of ambition my arse - I’ve the ambition to want to wake up one morning inbetween to Keira Knightly and Angelna Jolie after a night on the lash - it aint going to happen - why? do I lack ambition?

No - I’m an ugly ald skint bastard and they don’t drink in the Stanley in Huyton...

If I win £100 million on the Euro lottery my ambitions might become more lofty!

See - it’s all down to money after all

Great post, Kevin — laughed my arse off at that!!!

Steve, full support to Moyes indeed. Even if the type of VITAL support (ie: money) isn’t getting through to him. Or at least enough of it anyway. We’re a long way from the Mersey Millionaires now! Not a whole lot of optimism to be found on us returning to the top table, unless, indeed we become that millionaires’ plaything — I despair!!

I agree with you too on seeing the youngsters coming through. Traditional, innit?!

I see Osman and Hibbert are set to start against Arsenal.

Best team?

I rest my case, your honour.

Alan, no surprise there, expect some smart arse to remind us the transfer window doesn’t shut until the end of August, despite the season being several games old by then. Maybe I can remind them the transfer window opened on 1st June and the season finished on 24th May, so come on smart arses explain how given those dates do you explain no movement and why waiting until after the season has begun is a good move??????

Er... contracts are not worthless. According to the press, Lescott’s contract is worth £22mill!

Gavin, especially when even the manager has admitted to the squad not being ready for the new season and he’s going ’demented’ trying to sign players. So the smart arses actually know better than our own manager.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines Realism thus:

1. The practice of accepting a situation as it is & dealing with it accordingly.

2. The representation of things in a way that is accurate & true to life.

It mentions nothing about reduced ambition, desire or commitment. It doesn’t mention apologist, nor does it mention the relevance of living in Walton or Kirkdale, nor even Kenwright by name. Simply an ability to deal with things as they are, rather than as one wants them to be.

For the avoidance of doubt & all those except young sad & angry Dave Wilson, most of us share the same desires and ambition. How we deal with reality is down to individual preference. Some shout, some blame, some tend to the gutter, some have too many other things to bother being depressed and some are just plain realistic (in the precise sense of the word).

Channel your energies in the right direction guys. It’s pathetic to observe Evertonians spouting more bile at fellow blues than at those who deserve it, like Man City for example. Que sera sera.

While nobody could really agree with Steve that Moyes has built the best team in the Premiership in the sense of ability, it has to be remembered that there is more than one definition of the word ’team’. An alternative interpretation could include the concepts of spirit, loyalty and collective effort that permits a team to reach a level which otherwise they would not be expected to attain. I think this is what Steve meant and if that is the case I agree with him.

But there was something far more fundamental in Steve’s post when he suggested that he would rather support a ’Corinthian’ albeit skint Everton than the plaything of some transitory billionaire. I know exactly what he means, I share his concerns and, it would appear, so do Uefa.

The game is rapidly becoming a financial competition rather than a sporting one and this should concern us all. None of us would fail to welcome some worthwhile investment in our Club but Manchester City’s relentless and (to my mind at least) unethical pursuit of Lescott amply demonstrates what is beginning to become more and more a threat to the wellbeing of the game as a whole and undermines its future.

Somebody mentioned in a post above that we were once the Merseyside Millionaires, that as such we spent money then so why should we deny Manchester City the opportunity to do the same? But this ignores the fact that our available cash as the Merseyside Millionaires did not place us incomparably ahead of all or most other clubs at the time. It did not guarantee us success in the same way as it does now (if we translate success as at least a top four finish) and it did not allow us to try to bully less wealthy Clubs into allowing us to buy their best players whenever we wanted them or encourage us to ’go over the managers head’ when we were told a player was not for sale.

If the likes of Everton, Manchester United, Arsenal and Spurs were the wealthiest of Clubs in those days, the difference between this ’top four’ and the rest was not so stark as to make it virtually impossible for other Clubs to achieve success. Clubs like Northampton, Burnley , Leeds and Liverpool could break in and win things and ’ little’ clubs like Blackburn could tell us to go away when we tried to sign Bryan Douglas as well as Fred Pickering...and we did.

The whole ethos of the game and its machinery has changed now. Top four finishes and Champions League football sucks in vast amounts of cash, some of which is employed to buy players at prices and a level of ability that other clubs, like Everton, could not entertain. This makes it virtually impossible to permanently dislodge top four Clubs without truck loads of cash and when clubs come upon such levels of wealth, they now behave in a manner which would suggest they feel they have a right to collect any player they see fit and do so with contemptuous arrogance.

The playing field is now so distorted in favour of Clubs who have money to spend that did not come from football itself but from the deep pockets of billionaires, that even the likes of Manchester United and Arsenal must be harbouring some embryonic concerns of their own. Liverpool must be sweating buckets!

So distorted is the game now that there is a growing disillusionment amongst many supporters of all clubs who perceive the game drifting away from them and the world that ordinary people live in whether as result of paying £80million for a player, players earning £200,000 a week or players spending £120,000 on a night out. This is not a result of envy but of utter disbelief similar to the recent reaction to the MP’s allowances scandal. It is crude and it is killing the game as we know it. Football will never die, the game is too beautiful for that, but the game as we have come to know it over the past 20 years is teetering on the edge of oblivion, the fact it has not already tipped over the edge is due only to the ’loyalty’ of supporters, to the game and to their clubs. This loyalty is being sorely tested by the greed and extravagance now freely exhibited within the Premiership in general and within a few clubs in particular. This will be the death of them in years to come and I fear it will not be too far away.

You’re right Anthony, look at Portsmouth. Since January they’ve sold Diarra (£20mil), Defoe (£14mil), Crouch (£9mil), Johnson (£18mil) as well as losing Campbell and Davies from their wage bill plus Distin is most likely to be sold too. Paul Hart came out yesterday and still said financially they’re in a worse state than they were at the end of last season. Gary Jacob in the Times reported last week that West Ham were operating at a £1million loss every month at the end of last season. This is happeneing because their ’rich’ owners have pulled the plug. Everyone can see Newcastle’s problems as well

The problem is that the top clubs don’t seem to be affected and for any real change to come about, one of the G14 has to topple then Uefa and Fifa may have more power to act.

Fuck me get it on tape. I actually agree with Kenrick for once.....

We’re not the best - we finished 5th FFS. If we were the best then we’d of won the league wouldn’t we.....?!?!?!?!?!?

We love Everton - we’re not the best. However we ARE the greatest.

COYB........