Sir Earl Barrett offers the following, cheers SEB;
I’ve just returned from a week away with the family and have brought back several things. The usual sun burn and a few extra pounds goes without saying, but in addition to that is a renewed optimism for my club – a feeling that I’ve not had for some time. Allow me to explain.
Whilst away I picked up a copy of FourFourTwo and read an article about David Moyes and his arrival and revitalisation of a stagnant Everton and I could’ve been reading about my beloved Aston Villa. The similarity is frightening.
When Moyes arrived at Everton they were a club is serious decline against a backdrop of fans that had experienced the glory days and expected an instant return – people harking back to the European nights of years ago. Relegation had been narrowly avoided but there were severe financial constraints, an ageing squad with overpaid and under-performing players on contracts that their work-rate didn’t warrant – sound familiar?
Moyes himself noted that ‘finishing 13th was considered an achievement’.
Moyes, like Paul Lambert, decided that there was only one way to go – he had to move it from a club that was just surviving to a ‘younger football club; a fresher football club.’ He had an uneasy relationship with senior players that he knew had to be addressed before he lost the dressing room. He moved quickly to spend the little funds he had imaginatively and unable to compete for the top English talent went looking in the Belgian leagues, rebuilding, stabilising and bringing renewed drive and ambition to the club. Before too long they started playing much better football – (even as poor as last season was for us it is undeniable that the football was better).
I believe that Paul Lambert is treading the same path and hope that next season players like Westwood, Lowton, Benteke etc blossom further and the new lads hit the ground running and develop quickly. Even an old man like me – Glass isn’t always half empty but could do with a top up – has to let the past go. Forget what’s happened and get behind what Paul Lambert’s trying to do as it clearly worked for Moyes. There will be setbacks I’m sure and given our tough start it could be soon, but let’s be patient yet optimistic, have high expectations of what we can achieve, enjoy the football and get behind those boys in Claret and Blue. UTV
Nice one, SEB, it’s somewhat similar to how I’m feeling, in that while I’m not 100% convinced, I do feel like we’re on the up in that we’re a club with a vision and a plan.
It’s perhaps more difficult to see when it’s your own club, but I remember Moyes going to Everton very well and recall them being revitalised, as an outsider looking in.
Good post mate.
They’re all getting better aren’t they? If Benteke, Wiemann, Westwood, Delph, Baker, Lowton and Guzan are this good after a season of essentially being dropped in it, imagine how good they’ll be with another season under their belts. And then there’s Moon, Okore, Sylla (who improved even at the end of last season), Tonev, Bacuna, Helenius and possibly Bowery too, and then Grealish, Carruthers, Donancian etc working their way into the senior squad. And if Gabby stays uninjured he should be hitting his stride now. Vlaar needs to prove himself and can rely on a more experienced defence alongside him. And not forgetting the management and owner for having the balls to let all this happen to his club. It’s all looking pretty good, better than it has for a long time.
What I really hope is that we finish in the top ten and Beneteke wants to stay and be part of it all.
there are many similarities and I see the same thing happening at other clubs most notably Liverpool.
with the lunacy going on in the transfer market the last few seasons and teams like £ity, cheklski, barca and real Madrid paying stupid money and wages clubs have to decide do they go that way(barca and real are milions of pounds in debt btw) or try and compete by doing something different. I would love to see other clubs challenging for the top 4 before the PL becomes just like the Spanish league, its one of the reasons why I was one of the few who didn’t wish to see Man £ity win the league 2 seasons ago. while it was fun to hear man utd fans all over the South east crying into their wine glasses I felt it was a bad sign for the PL and football in general to see a club buy their way to success.
It’s obvious that we can’t compete financially woth the likes of City and neither do i wish them any success. However, that is not to say we can’t compete. One of the loudest critics of Moyes at Everton was the flying pig Neville Southall who claimed that lack of money was used as an excuse for failure. Our scouting system has to be much better than the ‘sky teams’ to ensure we are picking up the players now who in 3/5 years will be the £30m targets for chelski et al. It’s the Ajax way and is the only route we can follow. We should not accept a relegation scrap every year and should have high expectations of the coming season with a reguvinated side. Where Paul Lambert is sufferring is that he hasn’t got the luxury of feeding players in slowly – Joe Bennett was the prime example. he was exposed straight away when his Skill level and confidence hadn’t developed. I don’t believe he would’ve been as bad if he had been fed in against teams who we were beating perhaps.
But how do we succeed if we have to keep selling players to the sky 4?
You hope to be in a position whereby when you sell one for big money the next one is coming through. When you become more successful you hope to hang onto the players for longer. In effect you are cashing in on the sky 4s lazyness and reluctance to produce their own talent. I’ve been critical of the approach but this is obviously the route we are taking so i’ve had a bit of a u-turn. i am however, still convinced that Ron Vlaar is a liability so it hasn’t been a complete transformation!
Agree about vlaar let’s hope Okore and baker get a chance I don’t see how he can get better at 29 more likely to get worse.
I think Moyes did a really good job at Everton and he got players who were good to play better – Cahill, Fellani, Baines, Howard to name a few. You’re right, we are doing exactly the same with Lowton, Westwood, Sylla and Benteke. If we can have three stable years like Everton (around 7th – 9th) I would be happy. Then we can push on from 2017 for 5th / 6th and if CL came along because we had a stellar season, that would be the dog’s bollocks!