Everton’s Issues Run Deeper than a Lack of Funds

Yeah, after thinking about it we need a shed load of cash. There is nothing new in this article.

We play counter attacking football? No we don't, it's closer to possession football.

We can't take the game to Arsenal? Yes we did.

We are poor if half the team play badly? Really Sherlock?

I've seen dozens of posts on a single thread of ToffeeWeb with better writing, more insight and superior thought than this drivel.

Only chance at silverware? Apart from the final against Chelsea.

The Moyes In Brigade are a defeatist bunch who lack ambition, because they're satisfied with a sixth-place finish. Who cares if we finish 6th or 12th? The only things that matter are finishing top 4, or winning a cup. That's it. But I guess the Moyes In Brigade will be happily popping in their 6th place season highlights DVD. According to the Moyes In Brigade, Everton's motto is actually "Nothing but slightly above mid-table is good enough."

The continual absolutist terms that the whole Moyes debate is couched in is getting really boring. It's reached a stage where any defence of anything that Moyes has done is somehow portrayed as a defeatist failure of ambition.

Moyes is a pragmatic manager with conservative leanings, who has a lot of great qualities and a lot of frustrating ones.

The MOB seems to totally devalue the very legitimate argument that money *does* mean a huge amount in terms of the potential success of the club. That doesn't mean that Moyes is faultless, but I doubt that any other manager would have any greater chance of long term success with the continual lack of investment in the club.

Consistent top 8 finishes in the current financial climate of the Premier League is an achievement. It's not an exciting or romantic achievement, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have value.

What's disappointing is that the continual focus on Moyes is to the detriment of what should be a far more important focus on the systemic issues within the club. Whether Moyes or another manager, whoever is running the team is always going to be hamstrung because of the poor economic management and lack of ambition of the owner and the board.

As I have said many times the only investors in EFC are the FANS !!
Clarence Im afraid is looking at things in the way of his namesake...cross eyed !!

I understand Everton will never win the league or make a Champions League final without significant investment, but why can't we have some ambition, like winning a cup or two? The pro-Moyes people basically are saying we should have no ambition unless a sheikh comes along and bus Everton. Why even bother watching then?

Ridiculous.

Assume this article is one more reason to think Moyes gone. Suddenly, the press is putting it on Moyes directly. The shit ownership is an excuse?

'the side's crippling lack of confidence and inability to play proactive football for more than a handful of matches all season'
Last season it was the 2nd half of the season, this season the 1st few games. - Accurate description.

' Everton seem almost handicapped from breaking out of their shell and breaking into the top four places in the Premier League'
Again, when the going gets tough, we get defensive. - Accurate.

'For those who witnessed the Toffees meekly give away a 1-0 lead in the FA Cup semifinal to Liverpool last season and then lose 2-1, when it could have proven their only chance at silverware for some time doesn't serve as a valid excuse' - Also add the Wigan game this season. - Accurate

'Moyes has been unwilling to introduce players like Ross Barkley, Bryan Oviedo, Shane Duffy, and Conor McAleny too often' - Very accurate.

All in all, a pretty accurate piece of writing in most places.

BTW, what the fuck is 'being pro-active'? It's meaningless management double talk and hard to argue against because it means exactly the square root of fuck all.

I still feel a sense of rage over the glorification of that "Magnificent Seventh" the Megastore came out with some years back.

Mind you, Doddy was in... Seventh Heaven, of course!

ps: John, Chill: he didn't file it late.... we found it late.

The game then was all about the glory of being the best in your division or at least putting a cup in the trophy cabinet. Now clubs similar to Everton are not able or are unwilling to address the lack of quality in the team and are happy to keep taking the money from TV companies and maintain their place on the gravy train. If we had the inclination and the money to get those extra 10 - 15 points that would see us qualifying for CL, we would still have to find even more money to cope with the demands that CL football would bring.

So from an accounting point of view the money necessary to fund such a challenge is way out of most clubs leagues and even those that have the resources are still gambling with the long term future of their clubs, it's a ridiculous state of affairs and is a direct result of the formation of the PL and the CL.

That still doesn't explain Everton's failure this season to push the boar out for what would have been a relatively small gamble by purchasing players in January and who knows we may have been closer to CL qualification and may have been facing Man City on Saturday in what would have been an appropriate 80th anniversary celebration of the 1933 Final.

As more fans of more clubs come to realise that football is no longer about glory and that it is just another commodity to be sold to the highest bidder the less likely those fans will see ft to make the effort to attend football matches.

As for Everton because of our financial paucity we are all bright enough to realise that we are unlikely to qualify for the CL and our best hope of glory lies in the cup competitions, the only thing that will hold our interest in the absence of true success, is a decent style of football and apart from brief glimpses of it in the last 12 months we don't see much of that either. Clubs like Everton need at least one true charismatic player, someone similar to Cahill or Ferguson not necessarily for their footballing abilities but more of a way for the fans to relate to the team. Maybe if David Moyes decides to leave the next manager will be the one with the charisma but I don't see too many of those types of managers about, all the modern ones seem to be much of a muchness with their note-taking and attention to detail and mysterious formations and opta ratings etc etc.

What has happened to the fun in football when was it we all became hoodwinked into thinking that it was all about the numbers, when did we stop demanding entertainment and all at a time when real tangible success is further away than it ever has been. It is the greatest con-trick ever played and everyone of us from fan to owner to journalist all fell hook-line and sinker for it and we continue to fall for it season after season.

Seventh place may well be the pinnacle of our achievements but there is certainly nothing whatsoever magnificent about it.

This season, however, our lack of European qualification is not down to a lack of money. This season, if we'd have beaten four shit teams that we either lost or drew to, we'd be there.

This season, if we'd have played like we should in a home cup tie against a team that is probably about to be relegated, we'd probably be in another cup final.

This season, if it's our last with Moyes, will be a very unceremonious end to 11 years of promise and no delivery.

Moyes could make a ton of cash by actively moving these good-for-nothings on and using our academy. Even if we drop a few places, we're still quids in by a long shot.