SkyDaz On Everton

Now it’s the blue half of Merseyside to come and have a go if they think they’re hard enough. Just what the hell do Everton think they are playing at? Not only have they escaped from the peloton of relegation they have pushed on to the rear wheels of yellow jerseyed Arsenal and Chelsea. This is most unfair. Is it a question of time before they get sucked back into the pack or can they sustain the early surge? I don’t know, it’s a rhetorical question.

They have certainly started exceptionally well and let’s be truthful they are probably not going to be relegated! Hurdle number one safely negotiated. Sometimes the influence of one player can make an average team exceptional and sometimes the need and clamouring for his inclusion can be detrimental to the overall performance of the team. The loss of Rooney looked to be the death knell for Everton’s long and undistinguished Premiership status but instead Moyes has proved the doubters wrong and produced a side capable of staying in the top ten, if not higher. Shrek himself has made the move of his career and hopefully will be an England legend for centuries to come. So everyone wins. Except the Germans, no one wants them to win.

I don’t wish to bring any negatives to the Anfield victory parade but …. As well as Izzett played he isn’t our answer to the goalscoring drought. Neither is Anderton actually! If this Kuqi kid is as good as the early reports suggest it must be worth signing him and throwing him in?
 

And at this point I am going to get a little technical so bear with me and I apologise for patronising you but this is for the dullards who sit near me at St Andrews!

1. Gronkjaer – Whilst I understand the frustrations of the fans you must also accept the (well paid!) guy’s predicament. He is undoubtedly a ‘luxury’ player. He can’t tackle and he does drive fans mental. At the moment when he crosses the ball he always goes long when he should go short and short when he should go long, and once the first few go awry his confidence drains and the fans barrack. His signing was to provide the ammunition for Forssell and Heskey to kill off the opposition in a blaze of goals. It’s not his fault he is now trying to pick out a lone striker, marked by four international opponents, from fifty yards away. This neatly brings me onto my second point.

2. Heskey – he is but one man. When we attack he can only make one run into the box and has to decide in an instant whether to hit the front or the back post. He also has to guess exactly where Gronkjaer is going put the ball! Back to point one!

3. Lazaridis and Gray – a fair abundance of riches on the left hand side. In the last home game v Crystal Palace it was clear to three quarters of the stadium that they were under instructions to work together, i.e. if Stanley bombed on up the wing then Gray had to accept his defensive responsibilities and vice versa. So to the Neanderthal fans near me there is no point in standing up and calling Gray all the lazy Ron Atkinson names under the sun because he has opted to mark a forward rather than join in an attack. In historical Nuremburg terms he is only doing what he is ordered to do, which neatly takes me back to the Germans!

I know you pays yer money and yer entitled to your opinion but some fans are starting to remind me of the whinging crowd from Lozells. The memories of some are akin to a goldfish with Attention Deficit Syndrome. There is nothing wrong with having ambition and the desire to be a part of a successful club but it is not going to happen overnight. The top clubs have been there for years slowly building their montage of international playboys who can afford to buy designer nose candy.

If you really want to know how difficult it is to manage a team I suggest you borrow your children’s Playstation football manager games and try and take a club to the top. It looks really complicated and takes ages and that’s just wiring the damn thing up!

Last week I predicted, albeit reluctantly, a Liverpool win demonstrating that I know more about splitting the atom than I do about football! In keeping with a potential new Sky One series called ‘When Good Predictions Go Bad’ I will attempt to defraud fate by predicting an Everton victory. Let’s see how long the curse works.

Keep Right On.