Back him or we reallly are in trouble
Andy Rowlands is under no illusions...
2 December 2003

Davie Moyes: He won'tlet us down

I can't believe the amount of stick that is building up against David Moyes. He's only in his second full season, and after an admittedly poor start there are already fans questioning his abilities.

Can I remind you of the man we are talking about? He took over an ageing and disillusioned team who were looking for all the world like they were going down. He turned that team around by putting some fire into their bellies, which carried on through his first season in charge.

That first season saw us finish seventh - only the second time we have finished in the top half of the Premiership - and we just were one game away from European football. At Easter there were still dreams of the Champions League - OK, agreed that was always fanciful, but does it always have to be the case that in football you're either too optimistic or too pessimistic? Moyes won the manager of the year award despite his team not winning anything except plaudits. Kenwright's appraisal that he was our greatest asset seemed justified.

We always knew that his second season would be tougher. Over the past few years teams that played us expected an easy ride, we weren't one of their big games of the season, and I think that we surprised them last season by having that added steel in our team. This season everyone knows about us - they know our strengths and they know about the Kid. That's made it much harder for the team to perform.

My view is that we are currently experiencing a reality check. What we saw last year was a bunch of largely average players punching way above their weight. Moyes never had a magic wand that could transform a Gemmill into a Lampard you know. This season they are playing to their 'average' level.
This isn't acceptable of course, but it is real fact. When you compare our first XI to any of the other XI in the bottom half of the Premiership, man-for-man I can't say that we look any better than they. It’s the tactics and the management that makes those players able to compete.

Until Moyes really can boot out some of our old guard who are blatantly not up to the grade (Big Yin, Alexandersson, Gemmill etc) he's going to be fighting those who either don't care enough about the team or just aren't up to it. That's where the friction comes from, as well as from the vultures in the press who just love to knock down a manager they placed on the pedestal in the first place.

No, I say give Davie and the team our full backing, he deserves that at the very least for his efforts thus far. I have complete faith in him - he won't let us down, and the Club will be all the better for it over the forthcoming years if he gets the chance to show it, which I hope he does.

Rowly

�2003 ToffeeWeb