The Mail Bag
The Curious Incident of the Boos & the Applause
Comments (29)
Yesterday at Goodison Park, we witnessed the return of two former Everton Players ? both with very different playing records at Goodison but both departed under a cloud; however, one was more public than the other.
Joleon Lescott came from Wolves for a fee of circa £5m and slotted in straight away in defence ? flitting between Left Back and Centre Back and being equally adept at both. So much so that, in his first season here, current flavour of the month, Leighton Baines, was sat on the bench for most of it as David Moyes felt he could not drop any of Jagielka, Yobo or Lescott ? and in my opinion rightly so.
Things moved on and the one constant in the team was Joleon Lescott, pretty much ever-present at the back and chipping in with a very respectable number of goals at the other end ? including one at Anfield. His form was so good that he eventually caught the attention of other clubs ? namely Manchester City. Joleon wanted to go to (a) further his career with a club that was and is on a fast track to winning things; and (b) double his wage packet.
Who could blame him? Not me. He didn?t handle it well though and according to reports he had to indicate to Man City that he was serious about joining them. He did this with an infamous strop that was very unprofessional for a player on mega bucks anyway and one who was obviously very happy at being an Everton player at the time until Manchester City had registered their interest. It still hurts and he subsequently gets dogs abuse when he returns. At the end of the saga, we got a fee of £23m, making a profit of £18m on a player who had been nothing short of outstanding in an Everton shirt.
Jô, on the other hand, in two loan spells at Everton, was utter shite. Comfortably the worst player I have ever seen in an Everton short. A couple of half-decent finishes whilst he was here but overall a complete lack of effort in his play, an awful touch, a point blank refusal to tackle and as bad as any other centre-forward I have ever seen in the air. We were obviously paying his wages whilst he was here (or at least subsidising them) and, even if we didn?t pay a fee to take him on loan, he was still expensive for what he gave back.
His second loan spell was cut short because, whilst we were in the middle of a striker shortage, he decided to go back to Brazil on holiday. He was subsequently suspended and his loan terminated. Man City didn?t want him back either and sent him straight on-loan to Galatasary ? where he was also a miserable failure.
He came back to Goodison Park yesterday and, when he comes on as a late sub, gets a round of applause. From me he didn?t even deserve a boo as he was that insignificant here. Should it have been the other way around?
Gareth Humphreys, Posted 08/05/2011 at 10:37:54
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
Lescott is a twat and deserved to be booed for the way he behaved during the City transfer.
Jô is just a lazy misfit, odd he got applause but maybe it was sarcy or just to fuck Lescott off.
Joleon fits that category. There's a fair chance he will have an FA Cup winner's medal next week and will play in that corrupt self-perpetuating oligarchy the "Champions" League next year. All well and good in terms of ambition and success, then. He is playing for two or three times the decent money he was on at Everton. Fair does.
But the manner of his leaving was a disgrace. He refused to play in one match for us, and didn't he ignore the fans when they were calling his name, whilst he was sat in the stand or dug-out? Graceless and without any class.
So the singing of "Lescott, what's the score?" was as predictable as it was amusing.
I agree Jô was hopeless and, whereas I approve of giving him a good welcome as a former player (I clapped him), I am sure there was a large element that was cocking a snoop at Lescott.
After we went 2-1 up, I went to Twitter to post "Lescott, what's the score". Yes I know, very juvenile.
I had been beaten to the post by one Landon Donovan, who I follow on twitter. He had posted something like "Yees come on the Toffees" as we had taken the lead. He must've been watching the game on TV in America.
If we are talking about former players, well there's one who deserves a massive welcome whenever he comes back to Goodison, as it is clear that he still thinks and really cares about our club.
As for Jo being worst player, not by quite some distance, for that I give you one Brett Angell, brought a whole new meaning to the word shite!
Kendall looked at him and filed him under shite, until Mike Fukin Permatan Walker went and bought him! Never mind nearly getting us relegated ? Walker should have been sacked for buying the useless bastard!
For me he was a coward and hoped Everton's dire financial state might allow him to leave nicely. If he wanted to leave, he should have made it much clearer say in June. It was a summer without a tournament so there was no distraction. He disrupted pre-season and was a major factor for our dreadful start. We deserved a little more honesty and forethought.
BUT ? he might win a medal next week yet he has fallen down the pecking order for England since leaving us. He rarely scores anymore and doesn't always start for City. I hope, one day, he looks back and recognizes that his development as a player stagnated after leaving.
Pointless article... sorry.
Jô receiving some polite applause was just a further way of sticking it to Lescott for his behaviour prior to his move.....
Anybody a bit closer with info? I know it shouldn't interest me but I have learned to despise Shitteh over the last couple of years and Mancini is even more ungracious in defeat than Raffa was!
Fuck him! He looks like an aftershave commercial.
As for Lescott, he's a twat. I hope City get Champions League football and he gets sold to Villa in the summer.
From then on there was only one team in it!
Whereas if a player is shit we're glad to see the back of them and wish them well.
Its a little bit absurd but, hey ho, shit happens eh. I'm sure neither Lescott nor Jo will be worrying about it too much as they reach for their respective ivory backscratchers.
Him getting stick is probably down to how gutted most of us were to see him go.
I don't think Jô was as bad as Gareth makes out but he certainly wasn't quality and him getting a decent reception is more down to nobody was bothered to see the back of him.
Worse player ? does no one remeber Glenn Keeley's one and only appearance? A terrible memory.
Booing him is pointless and petty -- he was an employee, not a fan.
I was kind of excited when Jô came in, was eager to see what he could do; apart from a few goals here and there it was an all round disappointment, another over-rated and over-priced player, time to move on.
Add Your Comments
In order to post a comment to the MailBag, you need to be logged in as a registered user of the site.
Or Sign up as a ToffeeWeb Member — it's free, takes just a few minutes and will allow you to post your comments on articles and MailBag submissions across the site.
-sm.jpg)
-sm.jpg)
-sm.jpg)
1 Posted 08/05/2011 at 17:40:06
Report abuse
and that's pretty much how it happened, word for word, so I believe.
And I don't know so much about Jo being the worst fella to ever pull on the blue shirt, don't get me wrong he was pretty shithouse but, up until yesterday's game I would have swapped him for Anichebe any day. He found the back of the net a few times at least.
He really is THE odd man out at Man City though isn't he?