Not All Bad

Comments (4)

Confession right away — I did write a fan article titled 'Reasons to be Cheerful Part 2' on the eve of the Premier season so it is only fair that I should try to explain myself.

I still insist that we have enough good players to send out a team that can compete with all but the top four in our division but I no longer believe they will try to compete.

Saturday really shocked me.

Good our players may be... but they did show one thing on Saturday — there is not a single player in this squad who is irreplaceable and that is a comfort of sorts. No matter which of our shabby tossers from Saturday's debacle asks for a transfer, we will not miss him. We can easily replace any good player from that side with another good player who costs about the same in transfer fee and wages.

The system that we play under David Moyes neither needs a star nor would David be able to cope with a star even if we found one in our midst. By sheer luck David inherited the young Rooney and look what a mess he made of that. It surely will make sense next Summer for our club and the player to take a large cheque from United and pass the emerging Rodwell on to Sir Alex.

In the meantime our group of good but far from outstanding players can certainly withstand the departure of the sulking Lescott — a decent left back but never secure enough in the centre — although we will miss his contributions up front. If City has offered the kind of money that the press is suggesting, surely common sense would be to bite their hand off and get a replacement in for a fraction of the cost.

But please not Huth nor the lumbering Senderos and should we really be looking at the sicknote Hutton and Bentley the drunk at Tottenham? Given our scouting network it must be possible for Moyes to get rid of Lescott and get better value than that quartet.

So on we go to Burnley, and while we might never know what went on in the dressing room ahead of the Arsenal game that caused our Blues to go on strike on the pitch, we should surely be able to take three points as we usually do from the promoted sides.

There still seems to be a torrent of criticism about Hibbert and Osman on this site but surprisingly little is said about their boss who gave them both pay rises and contract extensions that threatens Everton with three more years of weakness on the right side. DM did this around the time he gave Turner (just off his shambles against United) the contract that means he will also be here for another two years without even threatening the bench. DM and his chairman will be around our beloved club for ever as they both plan the downsizing to 'small town club' at Kirkby.

I had hoped we would have a few more years of the Everton we have come to know before that inevitable departure from the 'just off big time ' that we now see but Saturday showed the character flaws in this group of players that were less obvious before so who knows?
Glen Strachan, Oaxaca, Mexico     Posted 19/08/2009 at 15:01:19

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