The Unthinkable
Andy McNabb somewhat belatedly ponders the options for future success — and completely misses the point!

24 October 2003

"The honeymoon is over."  The Walter Smith syndrome.  "Back to the bad old days."
We’ve all used them over the last couple of months.  It’s disappointing, isn’t it?  But it was inevitable — wasn’t it?

Look at our form this season and then over the last 7 games of the previous one.  We are staring at relegation form and that’s scary.  Not enough goals; tired players who have run out of ideas; leaking goals at the back; and silly individual mistakes combined with some awful first-half team performances have made for X-certificate viewing.

So, what do we do?  How do we react?  Can I suggest a little dose of reality?

Look across the Park — by their own standards, it was a cheap Summer.  Yet, in Harry Kewell alone, I believe Liverpool have potentially the best player in the Premiership.  Chelsea have bought every other player available and Man Utd have quietly gone about acquiring quality throughout the side.  Blackburn have bought arguably two of Rangers' best performers… the list just goes on.

In the words of Bucks Fizz – “Now those days have gone…”  We can’t do that at Everton any more.  We are still paralysed by accumulated debts generated through trying to operate that way over the years — and our much-vaunted ground move has fallen through.  Our team of heroes from last season has hardly been improved (James McFadden apart) and we were all well aware in our more lucid moments even last November that they could not maintain that form over the whole year.

Last season we had a team that won by unhealthily close margins on more occasions than anyone else.  How many matches did we scrape a win when we never looked safe?  No dirty fingernails amongst the Goodison faithful!  You can’t get dirt into what doesn’t exist any more.

It was a superhuman season — inspired somehow by a brave young manager, miraculously getting his poorly equipped troops up for the battle each time and conquering against impossible odds.  On a visit to the UK, my wife witnessed last season's Southampton game at Goodison.  When she rang me at 2am, it was just one of many occasions when the result seemed like a dream.  We were on fire, we were playing well above ourselves, we had started to dream the impossible.

I live in the land of the Bushfire.  Last Summer saw the worst fires for some years.  What I observed from the news, thankfully not from personal experience, is that people can somehow cope heroically against incredible odds and survive.  But if the Fire returns and significant improvements have not been made then you are more vulnerable than the first time round.  What resources you had have been used up and it is not as easy to motivate and fight on the second occasion.  The Fire is just as strong, maybe stronger and this time you are swept away.

We all know the phrase: ”To stand still is actually to move backwards…” and in our rapidly improving Premiership we will fall further and further behind the top spenders.

Here in Australia, we get to watch a ‘live’ match here every Saturday night; last week I sat and wondered at the swift passing and almost unreal control of Messers Henry, Crespo, etc as Arsenal entertained Chelsea.  Every week as supporters we hope and pray for a result when David against Goliath doesn’t even start to draw comparisons.

Even on the sane and well balanced ‘ToffeeWeb’ we have read the first, if muted criticisms of David Moyes.  What are we doing to the guy?  It’s tantamount to throwing a non-swimmer into the deep end with a lump of concrete around his neck and then moaning when he starts to sink

Now I am also well aware that, in achieving the impossible last season and allowing us all to dream again, he has created that particular millstone — but he can hardly be blamed for that, can he?  Moyesy must have shuddered each time in the summer when he read or heard about our “at least top six finish…” this season.

I would love a team of Scallies out there at Goodison every week.  I would love to take on the likes of Chelsea with 11 Scouse breathing blue-blooded Evertonians and play them off the park.  Sadly, that is just not going to happen in the modern game.  I think I am right in saying that less than 700,000 people live on Merseyside, where the likes of Chelsea have the ability to pick from a world pool of some 6 billion.  So, instead, I would like to suggest the unthinkable.

Sell the Boy. 

Capitalise on our greatest asset for decades and get the club back on its feet again.  Please, oh please may I be wrong but, despite the best efforts of the management, is he starting to believe some of his publicity?  Am I the only one who thinks he is going ever so slightly backwards rather than forwards?  I shudder when I think about his 18th birthday celebrations.  Maybe this is just a cynical old Evertonian talking but will he ever live up to the quite frankly ridiculous hype?  Just who was it who wrote the book and managed to squeeze out literally hundreds of pages, listing his achievements so far?  How could all the attention and plaudits he has received NOT go to his head?

£35 million would go a long way towards repairing damage caused by years of mismanagement.  I just fear that we have all our eggs in a very fragile basket and our unreal expectations of the lad will cause him and thus the Club to come a cropper.

My 15 year old vehemently disagrees.  “What about Michael Owen…?” he says.  Well, I happen to believe Michael Owen is the exception that proves the rule.  Incidentally, Michael Owen has always played in a strong Liverpool side which has forgotten what the spectre of relegation is like and provided him with decent service.  It also has the financial muscle to pay him £60,000 a week — that makes quite a difference!

Living 12,000 miles away from ‘home’ can do one of two things to you.  You either cease to understand the issues you once knew; or you are able to look at the situation a bit more objectively.  Even on the back pages of our Victorian paper, ‘The Herald Sun’ — squeezed in amongst the Aussie Rules and Rugby World Cup — was the story: “Everton rudderless without Rooney”.  Hate to quote him on this page guys, but a wise man once said – “No one is bigger than the club…”

Disagree?  OK, answer this question: If Wayne Rooney really is the ‘Great White Hope’ of English football, then in your heart of hearts, do you believe he will still be with us in 4 years time?  If he is as good as they say he is, will he be at Everton, or Inter, or Real or Arsenal?  Take your pick.  We can’t afford to build a team around him because we can’t afford to build a team.

The next time we are tempted to criticise David Moyes, perhaps we need to bear in mind the conditions he is labouring under.  Perhaps we need to take the brave action which would release some funds and remove the millstone of debt from around our neck.  Maybe then we could see what he might achieve when his hands were no longer tied.  The money has to be used wisely but Joe Royal said on his appointment at Everton, “I can now shop at Marks and Spencer instead of Woolies…” 

We need to help David Moyes out of the bargain basement he is locked in and I believe we may have the key to do so.

Andy McNabb

Editorial Response:  I don't often react to fans views, but I really am on the other end of the spectrum on this emotive topic.  I really want to believe dear old Bill "Soundbyte" Kenwright on this one: he says we will not be selling Rooney as long as the manager wants him at Goodison.  And David Moyes has said on more than one occasion that he doesn't want to take the big money pathway to success.  He wants to take pride in building a team of his own, and building it the hard way, from the bottom up, with limited resources. 

David Moyes knew exactly what the score was when he came and he says he accepts that.  To even contemplate the thought of selling a prize asset in the shape of Wayne Rooney from under Moyes's nose... well it would make the Ferguson-Smith débâcle look like a bun fight in comparison. 

Fans often complain, somewhat boringly (I have to admit), that football is now big business and ruled by money.  Selling Rooney to pay off your debts is playing exactly into that mindset. 

Of course, I have no illusions.  Everton may eventually sell Rooney — despite all the grand words from Kenwright.  When it comes to this sort of thing, we have an atrocious track record dating back to the days of Tommy Lawton.  But we as fans don't need to be hastening that day by giving weight to such a notion.  We need to make the most of Wayne Rooney, and to support David Moyes in what he is trying to do to bring the lad on and develop his full potential as an Everton player.   My God — that is what football should really be all about!

Michael Kenrick
ToffeeWeb Editor

©2003 ToffeeWeb