Too Nice to Be Winners

Stepping back from our present worries, we've been out of the elite (and often by a big margin) for a very long time despite some decent seasons. Someone recently cited the 1971 semi-final against the RS as a turning point for the Everton many still dream about. I've always thought the same, again despite our flurry in the 80s. The other moment that I think was deeply significant was the loss to Palace in April 2014 when we had a potentially very good side and were in pole position for 4th. It felt like a badly damaging result at the time and I believe it was and that we've never really got over it.

There are no short-cuts for us now. I hope and half-believe that the prematurely condemned Allardyce might pull something out of the hat and that we might yet build a serious and trophy-winning side. But if that happens, we will be rediscovering an Everton which has been long absent in truth and I think we may give ourselves the best chance if we accept as much.

You have to go back to Wyness being bulleted on Green's yacht to see why Elstone got the job. He was his deputy at the time, and those leaked e-mails demonstrated a man who was extremely lucky to find himself as CEO of Everton. His main qualification for the job? Not to kick up a fuss, or challenge Bill on anything. Happy days for the boardroom clique, but terrible news if you expected him to take this club forward and modernise it's approach.

I've no doubt the Terms & Conditions of the transfer of shares to Moshiri was to guarantee Bill, Robert Elstone and EitC personnel were to be retained as part of the new regime. So it may well seem all "too nice" on the surface, but I wouldn't underestimate the man who has made himself 㿚m richer, when his pal Green had guaranteed his original purchase of the club.

His empire is still well established, and shows no signs of being broken up, in fact I would say he's strengthened his position since Moshiri injected all the cash, and paid off the debts ran up by Bill & pals. There is no longer any financial pressure on the club. I bet they can't believe their luck.

Some have suggested not renewing season tickets as a way to make a serious point about the unacceptability of what's being served up on the pitch by the boardroom/owner, and it is their ultimate responsibility, not their manager's, but if the far fewer shareholders can't even amalgamate to make a strenuous objection when they're face-to-face with the Fat Cats in charge then it's deeply depressing. Gillette and Hicks were given the "Fuck off" message large and loud by their crowd when things went wrong, but as for us?

Still, at least we're champions when it comes to EitC I suppose, and I've heard they do one of the best pastas of any football training ground at Finch Farm, so what else matters, eh?

I used to think, and still do to some extent, that the Weeping One's departure would see us right. But I'm now more inclined to the view that our lack of competitiveness at the top level has deeper historical roots. It's going to take something exceptional to reboot us.

Where is the passion to drive change other than here? The hierarchy get as comfortable a ride at home games as it sounds like they did at the AGM.

We have to make this Club sit up and take notice that as Tony @10 indicates, a reboot is both necessary and will be drastic due to three decades malaise by the board, the decline and loss of Sir John Moores as a driving force at top level and the inability due to admittedly some external factors to maintain success into a dynasty from the 80's springboard.

How anyone connected to any part of higher governance of Everton can suggest the Premier League era reflects well on themselves or the club beggars belief.

Rodger Armstrong, "...at least we won't get relegated. When was that the sole objective? And we still need another 12 points!" Who said we won't get relegated? Can we take that as a given then?

To me, the sole objective of not being relegated, came into being when we were 3rd or 4th form bottom and the side was playing worse than many of the teams in the whole Premier League, if not the worst. There was no way we could be called a team, because we were not a team.

To me, the longer Koeman stayed the more certain it was we were going to be relegated. I was writing that opinion in September.

Sam Allardyce has been at the club, what? Seven weeks or so? It is still the same bunch of players who've looked like a bunch of strangers who'd got off a Charra' on a day out and decide they'd have a game in the car park.

There's two major points that I see. One is how we will get on now that Sam Allardyce is manager; and there's the issues that come from the Boardroom.

I think I'd rather be bored and stay in this division, than enthralled watching us go down the tubes. Until we are safe, then we are still in danger. I think it is fair to judge Allardyce from the perspective of ensuring our safety until he is able to bring in players and get rid of players, in order to form the beginnings of a team that can, with a degree of success, begin to regularly beat all, or at least most of every team below the the top four and the mini league following of two or three teams below them.

I think he's made a reasonable start in bringing in players who will improve our performance but we'll begin to see from Saturday onwards and by who else we are able to bring on during the January window. So boring, grinding out results has, to me to be the way the players representing our club have to play, until any bloody manager could trust them to play more expansive football. He then, during the Summer window, could be judged by the performances the following season. That is if he stays, of course.

As for the Board I cannot stand nor never could, the way that Kenwright has, in my opinion, has acted so shiftily in order to maintain his position as Chairman of EFC. I'll never forget the palaver going on during the tragedy of the King's Dock disaster. I use that word because it was a disaster for our club. It knocked us back almost a generation and that is following on from at least a further ten years back in our history.

Under investment, selling our best players, slowly drifting away on our faded glory of history, while we did the bridesmaid's job, countless times on the football field; and all the time for the last 20 years or so "If you know your History" became a mantra that suited the Chief down to the ground.

We were extremely lucky that someone with a fair fortune decided to take us over (almost!) as I'm very suspicious that no other serious rich man or group did not show interest in taking over this club before.

So where we are now is a legacy of "the money's ring-fenced!" "The Cheque's in the post!" of outsourcing most of our chances of making money for our club and selling off every asset we had.

We were then lucky enough top get major shareholder who at least showed ambition to take us on from the doldrums. He got rid of the loans that the other mob relied on. (I don't know if a certain Mr Green had any input in those loans.) Unfortunately, the manager we picked, Mr Koeman took us to the rubbish dump rather than the promised land.

I think that Mr Moshiri will get us a stadium but we'll need to wait and see. I think we are starting from just about the bottom of the pile again and I don't see any real improvement in the team until we get better players in almost all of the positions in the team.

I thought Kenwright said he was going to step down when he was seventy but who knows when he'll go and I think that Mr Moshiri will have to uproot the bunch of them in a ruthless manner if he wants to bring this club from under that cloud hanging over it for decades.

Til the Summer, I think any real progress in the team is unlikely. I think we should give this manager, and the major shareholder, time to undo the bloody mess that's gone before under the name of Everton Football Club.

They may well be good friends and all of that but a man like Moshiri needs to surround himself with ruthless businessmen and not soft arses like Kenwright and Elstone, so I will believe we have a good leader when he gets rid of these dummies.

As with lots of other blues, I am being worn down by it all. Things are so bad with us now that most of us would be made up just to see some football from the team, regardless of result. Back to reality, though, on Saturday as a win is all that matters!

No-one can tell me I am looking through Blue tinted glasses because – whenever one of ours tackles wrong or 'Ross ya rat, are ya there?' should ever dive – then I'll call that without any bias.

Rodger, we are too nice to be winners – unlike those who are not.

This year, I had a question to ask, wasn't worried by anything Kenwright might say, I was a proxy voter, but I was sure I'd have been shouted down by the shareholders who made up the audience for asking my question, so I didn't bother.

My question was to Moshiri, Elstone, Kenwright, Walsh and the dismissed Koeman; it was. "Weren't you speaking to each other during the summer transfer window, because between you, you certainly cocked it up!"

As for being "too nice." If that refers to the shareholders, then certainly the shareholders (or a number of them, did a fantastic job in bringing the Kirkby misadventure, out into the open. And I seem to remember many questions being asked then, about Goodison's "soon to be a failed safety certificate and that's why we have to move" lie that came out as to why we had to move.

If this article is purely about the Shareholders, then I can only suppose that it's a bit of a wait and see time. Moshiri seems to be taking more and more of the public pronouncements, that Russian feller seems to accompany players into the news conferences.

The announcement regarding the Clarence Dock Ground's increasing cost? Well, as long as the ground is built then I'm sure most shareholders, as with us all, will be waiting with baited breath. Mr Moshiri has reiterated that a stadium will be built,; he's bought part ownership of the Liver Buildings, so I think it's Let's see what happens next.

The issue about getting better paid sponsorships is much better than it was and who knows what may take place regarding further sponsorship from USM, or anyone else for that matter.

As for the gap between the so-called "Elite" and us, then I think we will only get better deals from sponsors, when our success on the field begins to match theirs. And as far as I can see, we're miles away from that yet.

As for us being too nice on the pitch, I agree with Alan Bodell. As one Labour politician (Dennis Healey) remarked "It's like being attacked by a dead sheep" referring to a Tory Minister.

Well the referees must have a decade's history at least of lamb chops for their tea!

In terms of being too nice, Jim @17, my point is all too nice & cosy throughout the Club. What happens off the pitch is reflected on it. Who sets Elstone's targets?

Record deals, but all our “peers” get bigger ones so the gap gets bigger.

Who does Steve Walsh report too? Where is the accountability?

Three Board members sat on stage & said nothing; remind you of the matchday performances?