Season 2011-12 Fan Articles

Appalling

By Nick   Armitage  ::  05/01/2012   70 Comments (»Last) That performance was simply appalling. Luckily for me, I watched that game from afar, but even then, it was far from entertaining. I sympathise with the vast majority of the 29,561 hardened souls, who braved the atrocious conditions to watch a performance that was far more atrocious than anything the weather could have thrown at them. And the reason I don?t sympathise with all of those 29,561, is because some of those in the crowd have sat by, or been actively involved in, the wilful dismantling of a once great sporting institution.

On the pitch this team resembles their counterparts in the Directors? Box. It is dour, stale and negative. It lacks drive, strategy and imagination.

Alongside Kenwright and his cronies, I wish Phil Neville and Louis Saha a speedy departure from Everton. With the fortunes those two have amassed, surely there are more enjoyable ways to enjoy the fruits of their labour than to continually embarrass themselves in front of the nation?s cameras. The pair of them offer zilch to a team currently running on empty.

In spite of his clear absence of ability, I had a grudging modicum of respect for Phil Neville for what he had achieved in the game. This same respect is now being eroded by his continued presence in a league that he simply cannot cope in. Observe him warm up, watch him with a ball at his feet and then try to convince yourself he is a modern footballer. You can?t because he isn?t and he never was.

I wish I had the audacity to con someone into paying me tens of thousands of pounds a week to clap hands, point, ball-watch and never hit a forward pass to feet. I used to laugh at him; now it breaks my heart watching him represent and captain my football club. Never has there been such an antithesis of the School of Science and what an Everton captain should represent.

This season, and on more occasions than one, I have witnessed a kid accomplish more in a 10-minute substitute appearance than Louis Saha has all season. For this, Saha receives a remuneration package that would afford most of us the option to clear our mortgage in a matter of weeks, not the decades we must toil for. To ?earn? this all Saha does is half heartedly ponce around a football pitch and occasionally feign mild disappointment after his one shot per game gets scuffed five yards wide.

Why is it that phoneys like Neville and Saha continue to turn up, go through the motions, and bleed an almost bankrupt club of millions? Players like Arteta and Yakubu, whilst imperfect themselves, were sacrificed to trim the wage bill.

People who use the lazy excuse of tight finances for performances like that need to boil their heads. There are big name players at Everton who are on salaries that players on a rung below them in football?s mad hierarchy, can only dream of. Many Arsenal first teamers are on less than our very own top earners. Yet money does not appear to be a barrier to them when they pass the ball, move into space, track runners, retain possession from a throw in or any other of the absolute basics you need to demonstrate to get picked for a school team.

And if Everton?s negligently crippled and moribund finances are the root cause of this shameful level of performance, can someone explain why Mikel Arteta halved his salary, then suddenly remembered all the simple things again? I do not need to elaborate on whose responsibility it is for instilling the fundamentals into a team with a wage bill approaching £60M a year.

As things stand I am not giving any more money to the Kenwright and Moyes axis while they continue to crush Everton. The finger of blame of why the club is teetering on the edge of a financial abyss lies squarely with the regime that has run the club, into the ground, for the last decade.

Life is short, you only earn your wages once but when you hand over your hard earned £35 in return for a match day ticket, I can pretty much guarantee that you hurt more after a defeat than they do. It is quite simple for me, I will not return to Goodison and be a party to them whilst they continue to strip the assets, soul and ethos of the once great Everton Football Club.

People say we could do a lot worse than Kenwright and Moyes and I agree we could do a lot worse. But then again, we can also do a hell of a lot better.

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