You may think it's a shambles but...
A study of Walter Smith's reassuring words

11 March 2002

HUBRIS is defined as overweening pride; the fundamental tragic flaw that leads to catastrophe and punishment by the gods themselves.  If Zeus turns out to be a diehard Evertonian, Walter Smith surely has it coming in a big big way.

No, it isn't leaving out Ginola, refusing to start Blomqvist, playing five defenders, putting Unsworth in midfield, or finding himself forced to field Chadwick in a desperate crisis — having refused to give him enough prior first team experience to make him effective — or any of a litany of other sorry, tragic, avoidable errors that lead me to this conclusion.

I was drawn to two remarks Smith made in the aftermath of that Hindenburg Disaster masquerading as a FA Cup quarter-final.  With the acrid stench of defeat still hanging in the air and the echo of "Walter Must Go" still ringing around Riverside, Smith told Paul Walker of PA Sport:

"Will I stay?  Definitely.  I will soldier on, I have done so before and I will do so again."

Now, at first glance, that might sound like one of those standard non-reply replies that managers give: "I am manager and I expect to remain manager until the chairman tells me otherwise..."  That kind of thing.  But look again.  What the statement means is that Smith intends to march fearlessly on in the face of his own incompetence.  The team may be losing with depressing regularity — not even just losing but not even turning up, really — but he is not going to let that detail deflect him from his heroic intention to stick it out.

It's almost as if he were saying, "you think it stinks watching them, try managing them!"  This is a man capable of believing that, while he may never be sacked, it is possible that the club may resign from him.  He is going to "soldier on."  To soldier on means to continue on the same course.  He clearly believes he is doing everything right.  It's just the results that are wrong.  But that wasn't the only surprising statement.  Smith was asked if he understood the fan's frustrations.  He claimed he did but what he said next showed he obviously does not:

"The expectation level is greater at Everton than that of the sides around us in the league.  The manager has to handle that, the players have to handle that and it is something that comes with the territory."

Does anyone really think that Sunderland, Blackburn, Ipswich, even Leicester fans expect to be in the position they're in?  I would imagine not.  But that aside, is it really our level of expectation that is at the core of Smith's problems today?

According to Smith, fans only chanted "Walter Must Go" because our level of expectation is high — presumably unrealistically high given the context — and not because the manager's and his team's level of performance is unreasonably low.  The corollary is that, if only we would change our level of expectation, their level of performance would seem to be better.

Personally, I found that reassuring.  For a minute there I thought we weren't playing well.  It's my level of expectation that's the problem.

The Mullah of Mediocrity might be right if we were 10th and people were impatient to move into the top five.  But when you are one point above the drop zone and in free fall, I don't think it's the level of expectation that's the issue.

This is a man in denial.

And if those two statements aren't persuasive, try this.  One reporter at the after-match press conference referred to the defence as "a shambles".  This, remember, is a defence that conceded three goals in less time than it takes to sidle out of Row F to buy a cup of tea or take a pee.

Smith interrupted and corrected him, saying

"It wasn't a shambles... as such."

Anyone who knows what that means, answers on a postcard please.

Peter Fearon

©2002 ToffeeWeb