Fans Comment
Dave Timmins

Where do we go from here?
27 July 2005

What a nightmare!  What a disgrace!  Another target missed and now Cahill won’t sign.  What’s going on!!  I, like so many of you, have spent my summer daily, sometimes hourly, trawling the web for the latest news of signings, real or fantasy for our beloved club (admittedly I have had a lot of time on my hands).  I’ve worked out great new formations, goals galore, dreamt of heady European nights with players who, for many and varied reasons, are now a part of other clubs' plans.  I have watched players David Moyes has spent months watching snapped up by lazy managers with money to burn.

I have spat my fair share of bile in the direction of Scott Parker, Craig Bellamy, Momo Sissoko (who?) et al.  I have checked the profiles of potential targets from Matteo Ferrari to Papa Bouba Diop, pointlessly, and added them to the list of players we won’t be signing.  I have watched with interest the continuing soap opera across Stanley Park, where Stevie ‘I want to be loved’ Gerrard stays (again), commits himself to Liverpool (again), to finally end all the speculation (which it won’t).  I have also been amused to watch Rafa Beneathus continue to assemble his very own version of the Harlem Globetrotters.

So where do we go from here?  I’ll tell you where — onward and upward, that’s where!  Wake up from your midsummer of discontent, put down the cricket bat, tennis racket, bucket and spade [delete as required], shake the cobwebs away... the new season is upon us, and guess what — we're going to enjoy it!  Yes it may sound like I’ve had one Chang too many but please read on before you dismiss me.

At present, we have the best young British manager in the game — the Managers’ Manager of the Year, lest we forget.  The squad that got us into a Champions League position (save for Stubbs and Watson) is still intact.  Moyes has added two internationals in the shape of Davis and Krøldrup, bringing height, pace and class to the defence and providing the quality right-sided midfielder we’ve been missing for years.  We also happen to have bought a very good young goalkeeper and Mikel Arteta (eventually, but in a deal that suits the club), a player who added a touch of class to our rather pedestrian midfield.  There is also the promise of adding a couple more before the start of the season.

Okay we haven’t signed (rather than missed out on) a number of players but which club can say they get every player they target? — even Chelsea couldn’t get Gerrard.  Moyes will only sign players who are right for Everton and who want to play for Everton — it takes a certain type of player to fit into this team.  We could have dragged Sissoko kicking and screaming into Goodison when it looked like he was going to sign, but if he wants to play for Liverpool (European Champions, and his former manager, don’t forget) do we really want him?  Bellamy’s ambitions stretch as far as the space between his ears.  He’d rather play with his mate Robbie Savage and be the big fish in the small pond at Blackburn, than seriously test himself in a real team going places and in the Champions League (well, qualifiers for now...).

Parker chose £15k a week more and the least stable and most under-achieving club in the Premiership (and a manager in the last chance saloon), as did Emre (£50k a week for a player Inter didn’t want?).  If Forssell’s knee makes it through the season, good luck to him, but we don’t need that sort of gamble.  As for Cahill, read the small print.  He wants to sign for longer, he certainly doesn’t want to leave.  Everton wanted to “reward” him for a great season.  In the real world this means all those clubs who wouldn’t take a chance on him now knows he’s a good player, so we’d better sign him up on a longer deal to ward off predators.  It suits both parties, so this will be sorted sooner rather than later.

A dose of reality and a sense of and proportion have been the daily diet of Evertonians since Peter Reid last dyed his hair.  We must have been seduced by the glitz and glory of the forthcoming European campaign because expectations are higher than Peter Crouch’s jockstrap at the moment.  Let’s be grateful for what we have and that we are finally moving in the right direction.  Moyes doesn’t think finishing tenth is acceptable — do you really believe that?  He didn’t even mention the Champions league last season until we couldn’t possibly be caught.

Moyes is a fierce competitor and wants us to finish even higher this season but we don’t need to burden this team with such high expectations.  We’ll do OK this season and finishing in a European place will be just as good an achievement as last season.  There’s just one piece of advice that I will be giving myself this season: Enjoy it!  Enjoy every moment and don’t be looking over your shoulder at Liverpool.  We’re back in Europe and it's fantastic.  It’s about what we do this season — not anyone else. We were all delirious when we finished above Liverpool and at half time in Istanbul I was in dreamland... but life has a habit of kicking you in the teeth just when you least expect it (particularly if you’re an Evertonian).  I for one don’t care what happens to them anymore.  Finishing fourth was a glorious triumph for Everton — for Liverpool, fourth is considered a failure – enough said.  IMWT!

Dave Timmins

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