Fans Comment
Paul Carroll

The Knives Are Out
1 August 2005

Well, well, well. One friendly defeat and all the knives are out for the manager. Okay, okay, 5 - 0 is a bit embarrassing for anyone to cope with but has it seriously turned David Moyes into a bad manager overnight?

Yes, last season was a great success. Yes, we need to invest in the squad to push on. Yes, we all want better quality players to be brought in and not just the first ones available [otherwise we'd support Birmingham!] Yes, we all listened to Billy tell us there was £30 million to spend this summer but that would INCLUDE players wages… With Everton, I have no doubt this covers the wages for the whole of the contract.

So, we have handed new contracts out to existing players and maybe one or two have had to take a pay cut and had more incentive-based payments placed in the small print but, overall, you would expect an increased spend. Maybe (conservatively) £2M per year. Then, to estimate the transfer fee and wages, add this to Krøldrup £4.5M + £4M wages, Davies £3.5M + £4M wages, Arteta £2M + £6M wages, Ruddy £0.25M + £1M wages. This totals £25¼M out of a possible £30M.

That’s less than £5M left on the budget Moyes was allegedly given and that’s one reason we can’t go out and buy a Keane or Baros etc. Both of these players are supposed to be on wages of over £40k a week. If we can’t get these guys on a free transfer then how the hell do we pay the wages for them? Answers on a postcard? Do we just bring in Championship/unproven players because we need numbers? Then the criticism for the manager will be he cannot attract the bigger players but we would have the numbers available that we probably require for European competition. But not every gamble works, by definition.

If we bring in quality players, as we have tried to do, then we are limited as to how many we can afford. At least, in my eyes, we have a manager who will make sure he makes the right buy for the future of the club and not for just one season [Wright excepted]. If you buy a new house on a certain budget, do you just buy the first one you see or do you have good look around, make sure you’re happy with the area, look for the best mortgage deal you can get, negotiate the price with the sellers and have a thorough survey completed? I would prefer to go househunting with David Moyes rather than Souness or Bruce any day! [On the subject of moving house, aren’t Fulham looking for a new keeper? We could take Malbranque in exchange. Sorry Dickie, but you just don’t cut it.]

The only way to increase size AND quality of the squad is to release more funds for the manager. Then we can look at having a team capable of playing a 4-4-2 formation and having enough players to compete in all competitions. 4-5-1 was so successful for us last season as the players we have are suited to it. Ferguson and Bent as a partnership doesn’t work too well. Beattie… well, enough said.

Unless the Board come through with their promise of seeking out investment – so we don’t have to ‘do a Leeds’ - we will not get near this level for at least 5 or 6 years. Instead, they come out shooting their mouths off about how much money we will have to spend as it increases fan expectations and helps season ticket and merchandise sales. It also increases the pressure on Moyes as he knows there is no point going into European competition with diluted quality.

Would signing someone like Sidwell or Ryan Taylor have helped us in Europe this year? Do we need another Bosnar? He wants to bring better quality players in but knows he has a limited budget to do this. The club again puts pressure on by announcing targets before deals are done, leading to more disappointment for the fans when lazier Premiership managers just steal our targets without doing the work themselves [Oh how we laughed when Souness said one week he wanted players with a good character whilst reading from a Moysie quote in the Echo, and then the next week said he wanted to buy Anelka!!!]

Unfortunately, my Euro-millions ticket didn’t win the £79M jackpot and unless the Irish winner is a Blue who wants to buy out Kenwright we’re still pretty stuffed. Turn your anger and frustration to the buffoons on the Board and the Chief Exec. They’re the ones who deserve the criticism and who, so far, have only managed to get in extra money by screwing us, THE FANS.

IMWT. In Kenwright I DON’T

Paul  Carroll

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