How can Everton be doubted? They sit
fifth in the table, have one of the most highly-rated young managers in the
country, and a squad rife with quality: two of their players featured in
the latest England squad, and they are riding the wave of Europe’s fastest-rising nation Belgium, through Kevin Mirallas and the one and only Marouane Fellaini. Part of the
Premier League’s furniture, they have a well-respected, if slightly skint,
chairman; an established and equally well-respected fan-base; and a youth
system that continues to produce players of the highest caliber Clubs spend a
fortune trying, and failing, to achieve these things.
And yet
coming into one of the first of several seasonal doubleheaders – two rounds of
Premiership fixtures in one week – I feel that we’re reaching a crucial time in
not only Everton’s season, but in their mid- to long-term identity. The
next four fixtures are at home to Arsenal and Tottenham, and away at City and
Stoke. These results could define an era at Goodison.
This is a club with European ambitions, and a number of key players have been making noises for some time now about their need for Champions’ League football. Few (South Stanley Park excluded) would deny that much of the squad possess talent deserving of the biggest stage in club football. Every year that brings Fergie closer to retirement, whilst David Moyes’s stock continues to rises, sees more and more people put two and two together. And whilst Toon fans will tell you that their Champions’ League courtship and subsequent fifth place finish last season (two above Everton) reflects their heritage rather than their recent promotion; and Spurs will point to the squad at 'Arry's disposal (and the money Levy's spent) – Toffees’ fans must be asking when their turn will come.
This is a club with European ambitions, and a number of key players have been making noises for some time now about their need for Champions’ League football. Few (South Stanley Park excluded) would deny that much of the squad possess talent deserving of the biggest stage in club football. Every year that brings Fergie closer to retirement, whilst David Moyes’s stock continues to rises, sees more and more people put two and two together. And whilst Toon fans will tell you that their Champions’ League courtship and subsequent fifth place finish last season (two above Everton) reflects their heritage rather than their recent promotion; and Spurs will point to the squad at 'Arry's disposal (and the money Levy's spent) – Toffees’ fans must be asking when their turn will come.
As I’ve said before, Everton hold a special place in many a football’s heart due to a perception that they are an honestly-run club that plays decent football and is very rarely in the headlines for the wrong reasons. Much has been made of their start this season, with 2013 being widely tipped as the year that David Moyes finally gets the conclusive recognition that many feel his efforts over the last decade deserve: a top-four finish, and barring divine Tinie-vention or an Iberian implosion, Champions' League group-stage football. But it’s not the first time that we’ve heard this. Or the first time they’ve come close. It wouldn’t even technically be their first time in the competition. And while Moyes, much like another Scot down the road, tends to get his teams playing towards the back-end of the season, there comes a point when rather than presenting a tricky hurdle for those above them, Everton need to spend Hogmanay as the hurdle, challenging those below to try and vault them.
Let’s get it clear though: David Moyes is an immense manager. What he has done for Everton, for me (an outsider) is worthy of mention alongside Thomas H. McIntosh, Harry Catterick and Howard Kendall. If he starts fearing for his job we might as well all go home. Consider the changes that the Premier League has undergone since 2001 when he took over: not many managers could have survived the period full-stop, let alone turn a relegation-threatened club into a regular top-eight finisher.
Credit also has to go to the board and the Chairman for keeping the faith. After finishing 15th in 2002, a highly-respectable 7th place next year was followed by another relegation battle where they finished 17th with 39 points (three clubs have been relegated in the Premier League era with 40+). Wayne Rooney dicked up the Euros and departed, and in today’s climate nobody would have blinked as phrases such as “fantastic servant of the club” and “thank David for the stability that he has brought” were followed by references to “long-term visions” and “new sets of ideas”.
When they could have twisted they stuck; the following season, 2005, they qualified for the Champions’ League. It was supposed to be the start of regular involvement in the competition.
Fast-forward to today. When they line-up against Arsenal, they’ll be playing a team that specialises in what they want: regular Champions’ League football. Although the Gunners, like Everton have struggled to keep their top players from leaving – with Manchester the top destination – the similarities pretty much stop there (and any camaraderie based on this shared experience was eradicated when the Gunners pinched Arteta on deadline day). Whereas Wenger justifies the cabinet cobwebs by pointing at a shiny new stadium regularly frequented by Europe’s premier teams, Everton are skint, Goodison Park is in fairly desperate need of renovation, and the only European football they get is the Europa League, not something top of Moyes's priority list. I wonder how many Evertonians would swap a few league places for the cup Liverpool won last season?
If it would be somewhat spineless to say that Arsenal are a shiti-crapa Barcelona, lumping Everton as a long-ball team might appear somewhat crude; peel away the nuances however, and there is truth behind both observations (or accusations). Arsenal’s newly-found ability to keep clear sheets – five in the league, one behind the league’s tightest defence (and Arsene’s bestest buddies), Stoke – coincides with the employment of Steve Bould and the improvement of Per Mertesacker. Not exactly your Tapas-off-Las-Ramblas geezers (it’s alright Pique son, your chiselled jaw and baby blues willsee you through).
Fellaini’s centrality to the team meanwhile is patently obvious, as is the Warner’s Bros.-esque hole evident when he doesn’t play (usually due to a suspension as raising his arms above his waist inevitably results in a high elbow). Everton play some wonderful football on song – with Baines and Pienaar on the left, an array of technically-gifted central midfielders, and the clinical Croat providing the finisher they haven’t really had since big Dunc. But Felllaini is the platform upon which they build this: they will hit him early a lot of the time rather than play through the back. Given Phil Neville’s mobility at the base of midfield, this seems sensible.
Not that there is anything at all wrong with playing the long ball. Stoke and West Ham play some really nice stuff, with their game last Monday the perfect case in point. David Gould said before the match that nobody was complaining when Bobby Moore ‘lumped’ one for Geoff Hurst to run on to. Watch England today and see which player hits the most long passes. Ask pundits why Torres was successful at Liverpool. Then talk to me about who plays long ball, the context in which it can be used as negative label and the eleven English heroes.
Everton haven’t beaten Arsenal in ten league meetings (with eight of those being defeats), an odd fact if you look at how the former play, and the latter’s susceptibility to aerial threats. The Toffee’s defence is strong and aerial, but not the most mobile and Santi Cazorla can unlock any team on his day. I feel however, that Giroud is the kind of workhorse target man that Jagielka and Distin will enjoy playing against, as opposed to the intelligence and technical ability of a Robin Van Persie. If the Arsenal who played Tottenham start tonight then Everton are in trouble, but if those who played Villa rock up at Goodison you have to fancy Everton, even given the form that they’re in. These stats are fickle little things though, and ten games without a win is a long time against recent Arsenal sides.
The weekend then. Everton’s record against City is immense: they’ve won eight of their last ten league meetings home and away and were the last team to win at the Etihad in league. Their height advantage will worry Mancini given City’s set-piece defending this year, as will their mobility out wide, with Pienaar and Baines, Mirallas and Coleman likely to cause problems against a potential back-three terrorised by Ajax’s fluidity. But what will be really interesting, and test theories about Moyes's long-ball propensities, is how Everton work the ball in open-play.
Between Kompany, Nastasic, Yaya and possibly Garcia, Fellaini will have real competition in air (assuming also that Mancini doesn’t show either predictability or sentiment, not things that he’s famed for, and doesn’t play Lescott, who’s highly-handy aerially [forehead joke optional]). If they can’t get the ball up to him quickly, and instead have to play out of the back, will the technical abilities that are used to defy the long-ball tag shine through; or will the switch of style, coupled with the City strikers’ willingness to press the ball high, prove too much to adapt to for a team heavily invested in a certain system and a certain player?
These two initial tests should provide strong indications of how Spurs at home and Stoke away will go: AVB’s side have pace and guile going forward but a highly suspect at the back; whereas anyone going to the Britannia hoping play long ball is probably still suffering from a concussion sustained there last season. How the former play usually depends on one man, Gareth Bale (much like Arsenal and Cazorla). The pace that Everton have at fullback, as well as the cover Neville provides should Bale drift in, give them as good a chance as any of stopping him. If he’s on his game, it’s nigh-on impossible. Arteta is also a big player and will be keen to impress, so it will be interesting to see who in midfield presses him. Could even be Fellaini. Talk about chalk and cheese.
Stoke on the other hand are as far from a one man team as you can be: their graft means that the entire opposition needs to work non-stop for ninety five minutes, mentally as much as physically to battle their set-pieces, to come away with anything. Newcastle winning their last season is a perfect example of how to approach the game. Everton look to be built like a side who can cope with Stoke, but in mid-December off the back of their last three games, Moyes may have to really earn his motivational corn.
The fact that Arsenal and Spurs come to Goodison should make Everton favourites. Nobody goes to the Etihad odds-on, and an increasingly similar pattern is emerging in the Potteries. Five or six points from these games should surely do though. There won’t be many runs as tricky, Everton usually start performing in the New Year, and it’s pre-January so the unthinkable (but not by any means impossible) thought of the afro being permanently shorn is not a factor.
Everton are not playing well though; and that is. They’ve won one in seven: at home to a far from prolific Sunderland side who might count themselves a little unlucky not have taken something from the game. Everton’s last clean sheet was in September. And they’ve only played two of the teams who finished above them last season, both at home. They beat United and admittedly played us off the park. But we were without a match-fit RVP, and Fellaini’s position further up the pitch this season saw him up against Michael Carrick – I wonder if the game was played tonight, bearing in mind the injuries that we had at the time, whether Fergie would ask Vidic to pick-up Fellaini and put Carrick up against Jelavic. They also drew against Newcastle, a shadow of their pre-summer selves and struggling to cope with injuries and Europa League demands.
In the New Year, Everton have to go to Old Trafford, the Emirates, Anfield and White Hart Lane, before finishing the season at Stamford Bridge. Not an ideal 2013, or final day, for anyone (the Rafa factor, assuming that he’s still there, should make things in May even tastier).
Of course, it’s feasible that all of these opposition could be distracted by European commitments when Everton play them, and Chelsea’s recent dominance of the FA Cup mitigates their unfavourable odds in this regard. Avoiding the strains the Europa League places on smaller squads mean that Moyes won’t have any need for rotation or Thursday/Sunday fun this season (although having been knocked out of the League Cup, he may hope to disrupt more than Chelsea’s league position in May).
These games against the teams Everon hope to displace are not their only games of course; but one win from matches against Norwich, Reading, Sunderland, Fulham, Liverpool, QPR and Wigan is not top four form, and doesn’t suggest an ability to clinically see-off less-fancied teams. Going into their next four games – where a point in any is far from assured – could bring the total without a win up to eleven: nearly a third of the season. More importantly, if they go into January in a slump, what would the implications be for the squad? Fellaini? Baines? Jagielka?
David Moyes might look at these fixtures and say: we’ve got a pretty decent record against the top teams, are a match for anyone on our day, and have often thrived playing against teams who keep the ball – it allows Everton to play to their strengths of keeping it tight at the back, use Fellaini as both the out-ball and the platform, and exploiting the flanks through crisp, incisive moves. Could it be that the pressure of everyone saying that European football was coming to Goodison caused the current slump? And with expectations lowered somewhat, can the team perform as they are used to going into the New Year – as scrappy underdogs? They are still in fifth, four points off fourth and keeping the two North London clubs out of their habitual European berths.
The next four games are as much a test of the players as the manager, and this is what makes them so crucial to the club’s long-term future. This is not so much about mathematics as morale. Defeat to Arsenal and Tottenham would put both Everton below both in the table. These are the more winnable home games. City away is not a fixture that any manager can realistically plan on taking even a point away from, which makes Stoke away a crucial game if anything should go array at Goodison. And any punters who fancy a flutter against Tony Pulis’s side at the Britannia in mid-December can get in touch and I’ll send you my bank details.
(Slightly beyond the parameters of this article, but worth mentioning nevertheless, is the fact that a week after Stoke, Everton play West Ham away, before hosting Chelsea in their last game of 2012. Three days later they go to St. James’s. Everton really are going to have to play well over the holidays.)
It’s been a fair few seasons now that Everton have been knocking on the door. Very few doubt that the personnel, both on the pitch and in the dug-out, are as ready for a crack at the Champion’s League group stages as any new participant can be (assuming of course that Moyes can make amends for what is surely is biggest regret, the defeat to Villareal). What the pre-Christmas rush might show is whether players and manager will do it under the same banner.
Thursday January 3rd. Everton will have just come back from Tyneside, and the inbox will undoubtedly be four-figures full will eight-figure offerings for Fellaini. You get the feeling that if it was £30m+ then they’ll take the cash; they’d be daft not to. But savvy agents and scouts will know that if a player wants to leave, his price gets halved. If Everton have beaten or taken points of the top teams and finish 2012 in the top four and in a bit form, then their top players will surely stick around. You’d like to think that they have some understanding of the debt they owe to Moyes and Kenwright et al. They could conceivably even be happy at Everton, with settled families and all that.
If the Toffees are mid-table however and again haven’t won in months, it’d be a miracle if everyone stayed. With dissent in the ranks, prices will plummet and few clubs can afford to lose players for less than market value more than Everton. The club has lost big players before: Rooney, Lescott, Arteta etc; the question will be whether David Moyes has the patience to rebuild Everton again. How much more can Everton improve without funds? Where are these funds going to come from if not the Champions’ League? And is there going to be a better chance of achieving this in the future?
Moyes will have looked around him and seen countless situations where managers have inherited the work of others and reaped the rewards for themselves (and their bank managers). You have to wonder what the effect of West Brom – a yo-yo club a few years ago, who have a similar system-based approach to formation and recruitment as Everton – finishing highly this season would have on him. If a club not long out of the Championship can achieve in a few years what he hasn’t in more than a decade, how far will, and how far can, Everton take him? Swansea have had a succession of managers who have inherited, improved and moved on; Norwich have systems in place to ensure progress in being made, making Chris Hughton’s job seem secure, even when results were going against him. Bill Kenwright is clearly a lovely person, but there are other chairmen (and women) who will back their manager, and most have more funds.
This is overlooking the interest that bigger clubs would undoubted show in Moyes. Although as a United fan I think that succeeding Fergie is perhaps a little beyond his current CV, plenty with means, pedigree and ambition would have him. There are top jobs in Europe where his considered approach, fiscal responsibility and man-management skills would see him walk into a Champions’ League-qualified team. He has that rare knack of being able to replace seemingly irreplaceable players – never standing in the way when his stars want to move on, but making sure that he gets top dollar for them and replacements in sooner rather than later. Its en vogue these days to really push long-term vision – with high-profile directors of this and special advisers of that popping up everywhere – and for every Mark Hughes who sets it up, there’s a Harry Rednapp waiting to tweak a few thinks and watch as the results roll in.
This is why I think that this year, more than any of the previous ones, is a crucial one for Everton and David Moyes. And the next four games are absolutely central to how May will pan out. Everton’s squad, individually and as a whole is capable of mixing it with Europe’s elite. It’s peppered with internationals of experience, who’ve played in the biggest and most ferocious games, from Heitinga’s World Cup final to Jelavic and Naysmith’s Old Firm matches. The average age suggests there is more to come from many (although maybe not from you Philip, legend that you are).
David Moyes has also given every indication that he could manage alongside Europe’s elite: his compact, patient style of play looks suited to the tighter Champions’ League contests, and he looks unflustered by the big events (the cup finals that he’s reached for example). Questions will be asked about how well he can manage the inter-related factors of funds, expectations and a bigger squad; but because these are so inextricable, it seems very difficult to speculate from my position as an amateur observer. Of the three, expectations are probably what he has most experience of, and the consistency with which they finish top eight seems to demonstrate a level-headed approach. He’s not begged the Chairman for money he doesn’t have, or made promises that he can’t keep. Until the other two are added, it’s hard to know for sure. And the million-dollar question is: will provide any more answers at Everton?
Nobody likes to see a project go unfinished, least of all I suspect, David Moyes. But having risen so high, does there come a point when it is difficult to accept that you are levelling out, or even beginning to sink? For me, this squad is the zenith of Moyes’ Everton. If he can keep it together until May they’ve got the quality to really challenge for Champions’ League football, and give a good account of themselves in the competition. January is a massively disruptive time for Everton though, and people with a lot more expertise than yours truly have noted some of the points inexpertly jumbled around above. A decade’s work may ultimately come down to keeping their players (Fellaini in particular) convinced that May not January is the time to seek European football, and showing them that what they’re looking for is right in front of them.
From the twelve points pre-Christmas[1] will Moyesy promise me; European football or mid-table mediocrity?
[1]
Pointing out that Everton actually have five games before Christmas and
therefore could get 15 points will not be taken in the spirit of Christmas (or
journalistic license).
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