Colm's Corner
Columnist: Colm Kavanagh

Show Me The Money
13 May 2005

Right, let’s begin with a singsong:

”We’re all going on a European tour,
A European tour, A European tour….”

Iz rite, la.

Thanks, in the main, to one man, his backroom staff and the remnants of a Premiership squad after the summer from Hell.  That man, David Moyes, has performed an absolute miracle this season not only returning smiles to Evertonian faces both young and old but also delivering Champions League European football (hopefully at the expense of our ungrateful neighbours from across the park) via a final League position for the first time since 1979 (allowing for our absence following the Heysel tragedy).  No thanks to the on-going shenanigans off field, Moyes went into this season with the smallest squad ever in the history of Everton Football Club. 

There is an obvious dearth of quality throughout yet somehow he’s dragged them over the months into a position whereby we eventually found ourselves hanging onto a fourth place Champions League spot for dear life.  I’m sorry but I simply cannot convey in appropriate words what a wonderful achievement that must be, for Moyes.  You expect the so-called expert pundits to call it wrong (it’s what they do best) but when the bookies are offering short odds on our man being the first to find himself out of a managerial position this season……well, you don’t anticipate undreamt of runs which end up securing Champions League football the following season!  Moyes has proven a lot of people wrong this season and more power to him; long may he continue to reign (says he with one eye on Paddy Power’s offering 10/1 on Moyes replacing Demento at Cold Trafford!).  If he can polish a turd at Everton and turn journeymen players into a team finding itself in the Champions League then one can only imagine what he’s capable of achieving should he ever be furnished with a few quid to spend as he sees fit.

Which is precisely what he should have – what he deserves – after this season draws to a seemingly painful end (having just witnessed an absolute tonking at Highbury).  If nothing else, the Arsenal match served to further highlight not only the amazing achievement of Moyes in making that team the fourth best side in the Land but also the necessity for wholesale change this summer.   It’s not that many years ago we considered ourselves on a par with the likes of Arsenal – two of the game’s traditional giants, both successful clubs and more notably over recent seasons two clubs hamstrung with a smaller ground capacity than some of our noted rivals.  The paths taken by both Everton FC and Arsenal FC wildly vary, sad to say – Arsenal are about to move into a wonderful new home after next season.  They’ve managed to secure the necessary finance required to build their new home.  At the same time, can we say that they’ve suffered on the pitch as a result?  Hardly!  Wenger continues to pull rabbits out of hats and their future continues to look prosperous. 

Meanwhile, we remain at Goodison talking about talking, more focus on spin and continued in-house fighting, and little or no sign of improvement visible bar the feats of Moyes and his team.  Lest we forget, we’ve just marked the twentieth anniversary of the horrific Bradford Fire at Valley Parade, where fifty-six people attending a football match lost their lives.  Twenty years on and we have yet to modernise the Bullens Road Stand.  Blue gravel, an annual lick of paint and banners decorating our exterior do not constitute much in the way of ground improvement!  We truly have fallen by the wayside.  And yet, thanks to Moyes, we find ourselves in a position whereby we just might grasp a chance to regain some of that lost ground.

Should the draw on July 29 for the last round of qualifying matches for the Champions League proper provide Everton with a favourable tie against lesser opponents, we simply must prevail and make the very most of our chance to dip into that Champions League treasure chest.  With budgeting for seventeenth the norm at Everton FC this will come as a huge bonus (understatement of the year!).  It’s also not rocket science to note that Mr. Moyes needs to offload those now surplus to requirement and replace them with players he sees fitting into his plans over the coming years (subject, of course, to Paddy Power and others not playing their part in extracting Mr. Moyes from one hot seat into another!).

Trying to weigh up the pros and cons of those players who face an uncertain future I’ve turned to the squad check page, inside back cover of your home Everton match day programme.  You’ll find twenty-five names listed there – that’s our first team squad.  All of it!  Of course it’s supplemented with one or two names who’ll get nowhere near kicking a ball for the first team just yet, if that at all (Gerrard, Fox, Plessis, Bosnar).  Add further still the name of Li Tie and remove those five names to leave us with twenty players – three of which are goalkeepers – and consider then the number of actual playing squad who are out of contract at the end of this season. 

Furthermore, it might be worth noting, Leon Osman celebrates his twenty-fourth birthday next week, on Tuesday.  So what, some might say!  Well, with Osman one of many players unsure of his future at the Club, the situation has been allowed arise whereby Everton would fail to receive, in the event of Osman moving club, a development fee as the player has now turned twenty-four.  We can ill-afford to let twenty-four year old players walk out of Goodison Park without a transfer fee incoming – particularly a midfielder who remains our second top scorer for the season!  Whatever you may think of Osman’s overall ability, I think now is no time to let him go, as we require urgent surgery elsewhere within what’s laughingly termed a squad. 

I’d wave bye byes to Messrs. Wright, Weir, Pistone, Watson, and Naysmith, also chuck in the misfiring overweight frame of James Beattie.  Two choices this summer for Mr. Moyes – either get Beattie looking more like a professional footballer or get on that blower to David O’Leary at Villa and suggest Beattie has had a change of heart in an Unsworthesque manner and now wants to part Deadly Doug with some of his valued shillings.  I prefer the latter option, particularly if it were to free some petty cash to chase the signature of Tottenham’s Robbie Keane (to add alongside Simon Davies?).  The others mentioned, bar the keeper, are all s-l-o-w.  Witness the Highbury debacle to see what pace can do to a defence like Everton’s.  Sorry, but if we’re to make genuine improvements then no room for sentiment – time to move them out the door and elsewhere.

It’s hard to put an exact figure on the number of players we imagine Moyes needs for the challenges that lie ahead next season, extra fixtures in Europe a potential hazard to the domestic programme.  Failure to support the manager now could prove fatal at some point in the future – the current squad hasn’t a cat in hell’s chance of balancing European and domestic football without addition. 

David Moyes has performed miracles thus far, in ensuring European football at Goodison becomes a reality.  His heroics have bought the current Board at Everton some precious time.  Nobody wants a repeat of last summer overshadowing what, instead, should be a concentrated effort to strengthen the team.  The next hurdle lies in waiting for the Chairman and his Board – the onus lies on you to match the performance of your manager off the pitch.  The horror show at Highbury serves as a timely reminder that the manager may well need every last penny of the potential thirty odd million he has brought in to the Club.

May I ask what’s happened to our erstwhile friend, Mr. Samuelson, and his Fortress Sports Fund?  The time is soon arriving, to beg borrow and steal (sic!) a line from “Jerry Maguire” – show us the money!  Over to you, Bill…

Colm Kavanagh

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