Is he the Moyesiah?
So, what a week
for two of English Footballs heavy weights.
In truth, it all felt rather predictable if not surreal. Predictable in the sense that many
Evertonians have long suggested Moyes may one day take over from Sir Alex
Ferguson but surreal in so much as he’s become part of the furniture at
Goodison, after an eleven year trophy less managerial spell that is almost
unheard of in the modern day game.
Back in 1986
when Alex Ferguson – as he simply was back then – took over the Manchester
United hot seat, the football landscape was very different. Putting aside the European ban, this was a
different era of football and of football dominance, one in which I was still
in my informative years and my own childhood expectations were that the great
club I supported would always be winning silverware.
Everton had
come narrowly close to completing a unique treble the year before, winning the
1985 League title, a fiercely competitive European Cup Winners’ Cup (defeating
German powerhouse Bayern Munich in an epic semi final along the way), and were
only denied the treble when medallion rattler Ron Atkinson’s Manchester United
beat Everton 1-0 after extra time in the FA Cup Final, only days after the
European final. But, as I say, it was a
different time; Everton had played 63 games that season using little more than
15 or 16 players and the FA Cup Final, especially extra-time, took it’s toll on
what had been an epic season. It makes a
slight mockery of the best looked after footballers we’ve ever seen complaining
about too many games when they’re in a squad of 30 players. Everton had been so dominant in 1985, they
won the league title by – at that time – a record points margin and included a
complete 5-0 demolition of Manchester United at Goodison Park. A year later, Alex Ferguson took charge of
United and started his quest towards breaking up the Merseyside footballing
monopoly. The decade finished with the
Merseyside giants as the top two clubs in English league history, Liverpool
winning the last of their 18 league titles and Everton having won the last of our
9 in 1987.
That tide
started to turn at the beginning of the next decade. Fergusons first trophy was the FA Cup in
1990, followed by his first league title in 1993, and we all know the story
from there.
So, does Moyes have what
it takes to carry on the incredible job Ferguson has done?
It’s truly a tough question. I
think, with Ferguson still in the background, he has a much bigger helping hand
than most in the game. He’s going into a
club that runs like a well oiled machine, one with a winning mentality, and one
that has money to invest in world class players. That’s not easy to balls up, but the weight of
expectation and the long shadow cast by Ferguson will take some adjustment for
any new manager coming in, no matter how tough their mentality. In that regard, Moyes is a solid choice. He has a steely resolve, commitment and
strong work ethic, which will no doubt see him through. I would be surprised with the facilities,
players and funds available to him, if he were to win nothing over the course
of the next two years, but I don’t expect him to be a raving success. If he is to win the United fans over, he is
going to have to drastically change the footballing philosophies he
demonstrated at Everton. Some may say,
and Moyes may argue this himself, that he had to adopt certain footballing
strategies as an approach to dealing with the restrained conditions he and his
team were working under at Everton.
However, I know plenty of Blues who share my opinion that he just didn’t
have that winning mentality, too often playing it safe rather than gambling and
sticking his neck out when it mattered.
He who dares wins, so said Del Boy via the SAS.
So, how is the mood
amongst Evertonians? It’s difficult to fully judge. I obviously know a lot of Evertonians having
grown up in Liverpool, traveling home and away with the club extensively down
the years. We all communicate with one
another very regularly on all things Everton, and no less so than this
week. The age of social media also means
I can pick up threads of feeling from other Everton fans I don’t know
personally via platforms such as Twitter, and the mood is not – as supporters
of other teams may think – despondent.
Sure, there are a large proportion of Blues (most likely the lion share)
who are disappointed, but there are a fair few that are, should I even say,
delighted to hear Moyes is moving on. My
seventy-four year old Father was no doubt dancing around the living room on
Thursday. I don’t know yet because I’ve
not called him but my Brother – equally nonplus about the news – advised me the
‘Arl Fella had said, “I hope he falls
flat on his face at United”. A few
years back, after more than a decade of total commitment, Dad and I both gave
up our season tickets because we were tired of coming away from games
constantly complaining about the same thing week in week out, disgruntled with
the style of football Everton were playing, and the ludicrous team selections
and substitutions by the Manager. Don’t
get me wrong, the results were far better than they had been through the darker
days of Walter Smith, but it was not entertainment, more a sense of duty to our
club, a duty to invest where our board was failing miserably and turn up no
matter what. After more than a decade,
especially with me now living away from the City, it became a little too
wearisome. This was largely a response
to Moyes despite the “good job” he had done in stabilising Everton and taking
us away from being perennial relegation strugglers, back to a more palatable
league position in the top five to eight teams.
For those of us
who watch Everton week in week out and have done so for a very long time, there
are common themes of disgruntlement in regards to David Moyes and his
managerial style. There appears to be a self-perpetuating
belief that he gives youth a go but when you truly analyse it, there are many
occasions where he could have given youth more of a chance. Wayne Rooney was actually a very spectacular
example of that. Looking back, it’s easy
to be critical because you also have to remember Moyes was a young manager,
still feeling his way, a relative unknown, and was dealing with a Prodigious
young talent for probably the first time, but many of us at the time felt he
was underplaying Rooney and this argument seemed to bare fruit when Rooney
joined United and scored a spectacular hat-trick on his European debut. There are more recent examples this season
when a young Ross Barkley never seemed to get a chance, farmed out on loan,
before coming back and playing very well in away games at Spurs and Arsenal,
only to be unceremoniously dropped as soon as one of Moyes’ old favourites
become fit and available again. Duffy,
Vellios, and Oviedo are other examples of potential young talents who have not
had a look in, when first teamers like Heitinga, Neville, Osman and Jelavic
have been going through the motions. That’s
not to say some youngsters haven’t blossomed under Moyes, Seamus Coleman being
an excellent example, but they are – in my view – far fewer than maybe there
could have been. When you see the
ability from a player such as Barkley, you wonder why he’s not been given a
longer run.
Then there are
his negative tactics and late, late substitutions. I’ve lost count of the number of games where
I’ve screamed myself hoarse seeing a change in the pattern of play, desperate
for the manager to stem the tide, yet it only ever seemed to happen after we
conceded the inevitable goal. Of course,
by then, it’s often been too late.
Everton have drawn more games in the Premier league this season than any
other team (15), and many of them have been from winning positions, where a
vital substitution was not made until too late.
Some may think I’m crazy given our resources and squad, but we should
have comfortably qualified for Champions League football this season given some
of the points squandered. I may sound
like a loon from across the park with that statement (“Liverpool Logic”), but
Blues will know there have been many points surrendered this season that were avoidable
had it been for some more gutsy managerial decision making. There are very fine margins in football and
the great managers demonstrate balls.
I’ve not even
started on the many occasions Moyes bottled the big games, when lesser teams
(albeit many have been relegated since) have won trophies and also gone to
Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and United, and won; something Moyes was never able
to achieve in eleven years. Quite
astonishing.
I’ve had good
debate with fellow Blues about Moyes down the years and respect what others
believe about him. We’re all welcome to
our own opinions. I’m a little harsher
in my summary than my Best Man for example, but much more balanced than my Dad.
My own view is clearly in the minority
amongst the football journalists and experts, but my belief is that he’s a good
manager, not a great manager. I think
he’s a top guy with many great qualities, so I have a great deal of respect for
him as a man, as a professional and as someone who always had Everton’s best
interests at heart, but I’ve felt for some time that he had taken Everton as
far as he was able and it was time for something fresh to see if we could push
on to that next level. Careful what you
wish for maybe but that’s not what made Everton great in the past.
Only time will
tell whether Moyes was a great, or just a good solid manager. I may have done him a huge diservice as his work behind the scenes, the set up he has built and the stability he has brought should not go unnoticed and absolutely should be thanked. When all is said and done, Managers are judged by the results on the pitch and whilst they have got progressively better over the years, they haven't delivered anymore silverware to the Goodison cabinet. But, maybe for a club with such finite resources, that's expecting too much in an era were money tends to dominates success. I'm sad that he never won a trophy with Everton especially as he's likely to go on and win them elsewhere. I wish him well, but having developed a
strong dislike for Manchester United at the age of eight when they stopped us
from doing that treble I mentioned earlier, I don’t wish him that well. Onwards Evertonians.