Fans Comment
Richard Parker

Half-Empty or Half-Full?
14 October 2005

All stories have two sides and I’d like to respond to Peter Fearon’s comments the other day in the ToffeeWeb Mailbag:

1. He's in his fourth season and we are bottom of the league and still talking relegation, bleeding goals and can't get near one, starving for a win. That alone would get most managers a short ride around Goodison Park.

In 3 seasons he took us from relegation certainties to Champions League (albeit preliminary round) qualifiers. Fair enough, the last 4 or 5 games (Dinamo Bucharest 2nd leg aside) have been tragic. It happens. I won’t say that I’m not worried and I’ll happily admit to not being able to make any attempt to spot where our next 3 points might come from.

We’re on a downer; it’s up to DM and the players to get out of it, but the fans have their part to play in it too. Lift them, give them all the support you gave them last season and more. Then at least you can say you’ve done your bit.

2. He presided over one of the most tragic wasted opportunities of our history; the chance to progress in Europe and lift ourselves out of the financial basement and away from mediocrity.

He gave us the opportunity in the first place. Don’t seriously tell me that you think Moyes didn’t try to recruit the players he thought would get us through to the CL group stages. We’re not a rich club, we don’t want to be another Leeds, we can’t afford to gamble and lose what little we currently have.

Yes, another striker would have been top of my list, I’m sure Mr Moyes and all his backroom staff probably did think of that and attempt to put it right. I for one am glad that we didn’t buy Bellamy and a bit disappointed that Forsell didn’t come. Owen and Kuyt – me arse.

3. In January he bought a striker overvalued by two or three hundred percent and his contribution to date has been negligible. Cost: £6.5M.

Not a good start for Beattie, can’t argue there. His overall career goalscoring record is around 1 in 3, which would be a good start as we haven’t had that since Kanchelskis left.

Here’s a novel idea, why not get behind him, give him the support he needs and if he’s still not scoring at the end of the season then get on his back.

4. In the close-season, he bought a midfielder whose contribution to date has been in the general area of zero. Cost: £4.5M.

If we’re being picky Simon Davies cost £3.5M (I presume we're not talking about Phil Neville, who also cost £3.5M) and I think it’s fair to say that he’s already a dramatic improvement on anyone we have had on the right flank for some time. Although his catalogue of injury problems do overcloud his abilities.

5. Move on to big buys from Europe: two players who immediately needed surgery on long-term career threatening injuries. Cost: £7M.

I think a hernia is generally not considered career threatening in the case of Krøldrup, must admit that I am sweating a bit on Van der Meyde. If it comes off then AvdM’s signing could be one of the best the club has seen for a while, an uncharacteristic gamble from DM, but I'm quite sure the medical staff know what they are doing.

6. Total cost of failed signings, not including wasted wages to date: £18M, most of the money we received for Rooney. Note: should we be relegated, those four players will be the first to ask for transfers to "more ambitious" clubs.

Not sure how you classify failed signings and if Beattie is in amongst them, then I suggest that you being a little unreasonable as we still haven't really seen what he can do for us when fully fit.

I would say truly failed signings would probably be Richard Wright and Rodrigo, but you can’t do too much about that kind of injury. £5M total.

Jury is still out on Beattie, Yobo (in my opinion, one year of regular games and if the mistakes don’t stop he has to go), McFadden and all the signings made since the summer.

Unarguable successes are: - Nigel Martyn – inspired signing, inspired keeping, just a shame he’s not got long left.
Timmy Cahill – already paid back every penny of his transfer fee and then some.
Killer – present form excepted, for what we paid he’s been a damn good signing, perhaps time to move on? Step up AvdM.
Bent – what do you expect for £450k? He has done his job and was worth the money; needs replacing.

I also believe that in Neville and Arteta we have two extremely good signings.

This one I agree totally with; he was in good form last season really would have expected to hold on to Stubbs and say goodbye to Weir. It’s a shame, we could have done with him and his attitude right now. Still not necessarily the standard of player we want to be in the first XI though, fingers crossed for Krøldrup!

Yeeeeeeees. Buggered if I know what to do – I’m not a football manager. I have my opinions, which basically say that we don’t have a single striker with the ability to shoulder the burden of being on their own up-front.

Maybe we could try one with two just in behind, say (injuries permitting) Beattie with McFadden and Bent in behind… Just a shame that we don’t have a striker with the aerial ability of the Dunkey, the finishing (I hope) of Beattie, and the pace of Bent. But then if we did he’d probably play for someone else… in a perfect world eh?

I truly believe that the squad and manager we have are capable of regular European qualification. Only this season can we say he truly has a squad of his own players. Unfortunately it appears that escaping relegation is now our only aim.

It would be a crime not to give Moyes time, at least until the end of next season to get players fit and allow them to gel as a team.

A final note - Mr David Moyes has given us more success in the last 3 years than we’ve enjoyed since Howard Kendall’s (first) time. He’s raised expectations, given us something to hope for and therefore capacity to be disappointed. Try to remember the last time we could say that. Which way would you have it?

Richard  Parker