Fans Comment
Paul Tran

Perspective, please
16 December 2005

One sign of how bad this season has been is the recent ugly anti-Rooney hysteria and the debate about how 'special' we Evertonians are.  I wonder why we're not talking so much about the players we actually have?  Hmmm..

In recent years, our main problem has been a complete lack of perspective.  Now I know football fans aren't always naturals at this, but we've really taken the biscuit haven't we?

For starters, Moyes.  To the man's credit, all thorugh last season he kept saying 'We haven't won anything'.  From Kenwright downwards (or upwards!), all we hear is that he is a genius, the 'Moyesiah'.  I'm sorry, seventh and fourth isn't genius for me.  He's a promising manager, learning his trade at an increasingly higher level, going into waters where he's probably wondering if he's out of his depth.

Moyes's big problem is that too many fans went so overboard on this last year, mouthing off on phone-ins and websites.  The same people can't cope with our failure this season.  The 'genius' manager can't possibly have bought the wrong type of players?

• That's why Kenwright's getting the blame for Moyes spending £25 million on a team that's still dull and slow.
• That's why the big ego Alan Green got stick for doing his job, telling us that we wouldn't finish higher than fourth.  Did any of us really think we would?
• That's why its Collina's fault that we lost to Villarreal, rather than the lack of attacking punch we had in the first leg.
• That's why when we managed a couple of hanging-on 1-0 wins recently, too many Evertonians were celebrating like we'd won a trophy.
• That's why the IMWT brigade are hurling abuse at genuine Evertonians who have actually seen genius and just want to see football worth watching.

As for Rooney, great player; he's left us... let's grow up, show how 'special' we are and move on.  Let him act like a brat without us following his example.

So if we have a bit of perspective, we're miles ahead from where we were two years ago.  Thanks to the Rooney money, we're not quite the financial basket-case we were.  While Moyes is yet to convince me he can take us further, I'd rather we keep him and let him build steadily than bring in another 'up and coming' manager.  Hopefully Moyes has learned more about buying and using forwards and will put it into practice next month.  I'd love it if he could prove me wrong and send out a stylish team.  Hopefully Kenwright will stop telling everyone about our 'genius' manager and concentrate on our steady growth as a club.

And how about this: I'll put up with people telling me the football of the last few years has been good if they can put up with me continually appealing for the ball being passed to feet at pace to a striker who can actually score!  Is it rocket science?  We all want Everton to succeed and we all have the right to an opinion.  That's what will make us really special!

ps: While I'm talking about perspective, consider this.  In the late seventies, we had a manager for four years who is now generally regarded as a failure.  During those four years I saw:

• A League Cup Final lost in the last minute of extra time in the second replay.
• An FA cup semi-final where our injury time winning goal (not 80th minute equaliser!) was disallowed.
• EFC finishing third playing great football, with Bob Latchford getting 30 goals.
• EFC beating Liverpool for the first time in eight years.
• A great cup run, where we beat Arsenal, Liverpool, Southampton, losing in the quarter-final to City after a replay.
• Another cup run where we lost in the last minute of extra time in the semi-final replay.

One manager a failure, one manager a genius.  Compare the two records; compare the excitement and memories....

Paul Tran

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