FANS COMMENT

Poor Form

We have some cracking players — it's true. We've not had a striker with Johnson's pace in decades, Arteta is the best playmaker since Reid, and Lescott has to be one of the best centre backs in the league. But the old adage is equally true - you have to move forwards just to stand still in football. Just look at the teams around us. Portsmouth have assembled a truly formidable defence, Spurs have four top quality strikers competing for two forward berths and even Bolton have managed to reinvigorate fading megastars in the form of Campo and Anelka. The amount of money flowing into the Premiership is allowing virtually every team to assemble squads packed full of internationals from across the globe. In fact, in terms of quality, we're no more than a match for any of the teams around us, and we simply can't hope to compete with the Champions League gang-of-four. This reflects in our current seventh place.

Secondly, our squad is paper-thin. The financial constraints resulting from decades of non-investment have imposed a strict one-in-one-out transfer policy, which will be in operation for some time. Now that Johnson is injured, we won't be able to replace him in the starting eleven like-for-like, we'll have to alter our entire system. It's the same if other key players like Cahill or Arteta become injured, and for the whole season, we've had players playing out of position, covering for injuries, resulting in inconsistency and loss of confidence.

The last point is that lesser opposition are now setting themselves up to stifle our play, dropping deep and employing a midfield spoiler to break up our attacks. Reading took all the plaudits after their recent visit to Goodison for maintaining a well-disciplined, rigid defence, and hitting us with the sucker punch from a free kick. We shouldn't complain at this tactic, we do exactly the same when we visit superior teams, most notably Arsenal. When we stifle their attack in the same way as Reading did to us and Wenger starts moaning about it not being pretty, we laugh in his face. So when we come up against a desperate Wigan team who are desperately trying not to concede and we put two away goals past them, then we shouldn't complain.

The fact of the matter is that until our financial situation improves, in the transfer market we'll be left fighting for the scraps after the big four have taken their fill. We'll constantly be battling against the likes of Villa and Spurs, bumping around in mid-table, unable to maintain any form and consistency. Occasionally, we'll get a slice of luck and stay injury free or get the benefit of a few favourable refereeing decisions and finish at the top of the middle. Other times we'll suffer at the hands of fate and finish at the bottom of the middle.

And, as depressing as this may sound, we currently have no way out. So my advice, for now, is to try to gleen as much pleasure out of 3-0 victories over Liverpool and 0-1s at White Hart Lane. Because as soon as one of our key players is injured, we'll be back to feeling relieved at having rescued a point against Reading or having at least managed to come away from the JJB, after one of the worst games in living memory, with the three points.

Responses:

It's not true. It's not "nowhere out". It could have been made a case for that unless we went unbeaten against Champions League finalists Arsenal in 2006, beat Liverpool 3-0 at home, beat Spurs TWO nil away and have enjoyed the lead against Chelsea four times in the last three home games, albeit drawing two and losing one.

We can compete, in single individual matches fairly well with the top 4 or 5 clubs. Yes, we are underdogs currently to break up that group of clubs, but it is not impossible. It's is fairly hard for us to be thinking in terms of fourth, hard to battle for top 3 and I will admit virtually impossible to think of a top 2 finish in the foreseeable future.

What we need to do, is improve our form against more beatable teams, particularly this season, our record against the lower mid-table sides at Goodison has been horrible, losing to Villa, and drawing with City, Wigan, Reading and Middlesboro. Just a mere five extra points from these very winable games, and we'd still be pushing Arsenal and Liverpool very hard for the 3rd and 4th spots.

By winning most of our matches this season (also against the better sides) by two or three goals, we have proven that the points on board so far is no real fluke - we just need to take our game to a slightly higher level against very beatable opposition, and then there is no unwritten law on how far this team can go.
Lars Eidissen

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