A brick is laid....

Everton signed a player today. Yep, you read it right. Everton signed a player. And not a 17 year old, a real one who can play tomorrow and everything.

He may not be the centre-forward we are all yearning for but the arrival of Darron Gibson today from Manchester United for a knockdown fee of £500k that may rise to £2 million is a start at least.

As i said in my post from a couple of weeks back, David Moyes has to start rebuilding the Everton team and doing so with players a few years short of their peak, who have been written off elsewhere. Gibson fits this bill perfectly. I just hope we can get a couple more in to join him, even if this means letting some deadwood go.

Of course, the chances are Gibson isn't going to be the new Arteta overnight but it feels to me like the first step back in the right direction. The first brick in Moyes' big rebuild. I hope it continues but this is Everton so someone will probably come and piss on our new wall by the time Monday comes.

A long road back

I'm not normally one to knee jerk but tonights 2-1 defeat at home to Bolton Wanderers summed up all of Everton's current problems. It brings to the end a run of four games unbeaten. On the face of it, a positive run but one that anyone who has had the dubious pleasure of watching the games knows has been achieved in the most pragmatic and unnattractive style imaginable.

 I LOVE this guy but should he have been sold?

Injuries to three key players did us no favours whatsoever tonight but even before then there wasn't a lot to suggest that we were going to improve on our recent performances. In fact, I can only think of the Aston Villa game this season where we have looked a genuinely good team.....that was the 4th game of the season.

That we have been able to play so poorly yet still pick up enough points to have a chance of making a Europa League place says a lot about the mental strength of our team, our preparation and also about Moyes' match craft. But to my mind our squad is now back to a similar level (in comparison to the rest of the league) to the one that Moyes inherited in 2002 and as a result he's adopting the same, grinding approach that characterised his early years in charge. In those days most Evertonians were happy to take the points however they came, but after the highs of the 2007-2010 era this feels like a mighty big fall from grace.

Football punditry: The good, the bad and the ugly.

The role of the football pundit is a weird one. Clearly most of the viewers or listeners are tuning in primarily to watch the game. Yet you only have to look at twitter during a live game or listen to a lounge full of viewers to know that the co-commentators and pundits can make a massive difference to people's enjoyment of the game.

No doubt who you prefer to listen to depends on your taste. Are you looking for someone who will hype up the excitement? Someone who will add some real insight to the action taking place? Someone with a soothing voice?

For me the best pound-for-pound pundit working on tv/radio is Pat Nevin. When he's co-commentating he's adds insight as well as describing the action in a way that's easy on my ears, when he's in the studio he'll nearly always highlight something interesting from the game and on magazine programmes he's able to be both interesting and do the amusing banter the genre requires. I'd like to think these observations aren't coloured by the fact I know he's got some Everton in his heart.

Coming up on the rails is new boy, the freshly retired Gary Neville. He's contributed more to my enjoyment of Sky games in the last four months than Jamie Redknapp has in the last three years. Aside from Neville (and Redknapp) Sky have some other half decent analysts - Graeme Souness can be interesting when he's not being partisan and Ray Wilkins has a lot to add despite the far too regular shouts of 'my word'! At least he's stealing from a broadcasting legend I suppose!

Where things go really downhill are on our main two terrestrial channels. Somewhere along the line the producers on these channels must have decided that anything too complex will cause the masses to turn-off. The worst two in my book are Jim Beglin and Alan Hanson. I can only assume they must have made a pact to provide shit punditry during retirement over a half-time cuppa in the Anfield bootroom at some point in 1983. If they did, they've stuck to their word.

The Goodison time machine

The January transfer window is fast approaching and it appears that David Moyes is trying to reprise an Everton squad of yesteryear. Not content with just picking up James McFadden on a free transfer, Moyes has agreed a deal for Landon Donovan to return for a two month loan spell. Rumours are now gathering that he might complete the set by striking a deal to loan back Steven Pienaar for Spurs for the rest of the season.

It would be an interesting move. One that most of the football world would probably find a bit beffuddling. But I think most Evertonians would probably welcome the South African back. For all the bitterness around him leaving for the money (and Champions League), I think people realise the key part he played in the football we played during his previous spell and appreciate that all the more having put up with the last few months of dirge.

For me, the biggest thing we've been missing this season is attacking movement and that's something that Pienaar has in bundles. Couple this with the pace of Donovan and the directness of Drenthe and we might just get to see some interesting football again soon. 

It IS a step backwards. You shouldn't go back. It probably won't be the same.
But right now, it might just be for the best.

When is fair play unfair?

Empty seats at the Reebok

There has been a lot of talk over the last few years about the growing predictability of the premier league. A pattern that began in the mid-late 90s seems to have accelerated in recent years, with the gap between the top teams and the rest of the premier league becoming wider and wider.


The forthcoming UEFA fairplay regulations are intended to redress some of the imbalance, limiting clubs spending to a proportion of their turnover. Theoretically, this would prevent rich owners coming into smaller clubs and spending hundreds of millions on new players without a sustainable business to fund it. However, it's a plan with flaws. Clubs will find loopholes, such as signing massive sponsorship deals to increase turnover. This is supposedly limited as part of the plan but as yet Manchester City do not seem to have been called to account for their incredibly fishy sounding stadium naming deal with Etihad. With the regulations pegged to turnover, it also means they essentially protect the status quo even more so than currently. The rules benefit huge clubs like Manchester United and Bayern Munich who have already invested in massive stadia and set up huge merchandising operations around the world. Smaller/medium-sized clubs who have challenged at the top of European football after investment from rich owners such as Villareal would be less likely to repeat their feats.

Rodwell takes his chance

When Mikel Arteta left Everton in the final hours of the last transfer window, many Evertonians doubted that Jack Rodwell would be able to step up and fill the void the spaniard left behind. In the intervening weeks Rodwell has taken the first steps towards doing just that.

They are different types of player of course, but Rodwell has at last started to show that he might just fulfill the potential he showed when he first burst onto the scene in 2009. Rodwell appeared to be losing his way last season and at the start of this but I always felt that had a lot to do with confidence. It was obvious that Rodwell had good technique and the right physical attributes but he was struggling to impose himself on games. He didn't appear to be sure of his position (possibly due to being deployed in too many different roles) and to me his head seemed clouded with self doubt. As anyone who's played at any level will testify, when you're confident everything you try seems to come off, but as soon as the doubt creeps in the touch is heavy, passes are overhit, underhit and every game starts to become an arduous road full of pitfalls. For a young player the temptation in this situation is to play safe, to make sure you don't make mistakes - you can see why they would play it simple and avoid showing for the ball unless it's absolutely necessary.

Since Arteta's departure, Moyes has publically stated that he's looking to Rodwell to tie down a place in the centre of the Everton midfield. He's played him regularly and in the same position. Gradually, I've started to see that match condition returning in him and with his performances gradually improving his confidence has returned.

Whilst Jack might not be the creative force that Arteta was he has racked up some impressive stats for pass completion (over 90% in a couple of games) and has thereby replaced one important aspect to the spaniard's game that many feared we would miss. And as we know, controlling possession means a lot in the premier league today.

In terms of personality, Rodwell seems a modest lad by the standards of many professional footballers these days, you can look at him stepping up in Arteta's absence in two ways. Either he's thriving with the responsibility of the team relying on him, or he's more comfortable with less pressure on his place in the team. His performances culminated in him being called up to the full England squad - and judging by the way he took that opportunity (most observers agreed he impressed in both games) I would say that young Jack might just be one of those players who needs responsibility. Future club captain anyone?

Let's hope Rodwell can keep it up. I think he may just have turned the corner and he could turn out to be a lot better player for the experience of overcoming such a wobble. Believe lad!

My favourite players (in no particular order): 2. Dejan Savicevic

Before I start, apologies for letting this blog slip over the last few months. Winter's coming....more effort will be made!

To get things moving again here's the second in the 'my favourite players' series.

Up 2nd is another Eastern European who played in Italy - Dejan Savicevic. Savicevic was a Milan and Red Star legend, a classic enigmatic number 10, inconsistent but at times sublime.

For the sublime see Savicevic's performance in Milan's demolition of Johan Cruyff's Barcelona in the 1994 UEFA Champions League final. I remember watching this game as a 16 year old - the way Milan beat Barca this night was jaw dropping. Capello's Milan handed out a trouncing of the most emphatic kind on the biggest of stages. Savicevic created the first goal for Daniele Massaro with a typical surging dribble and then put the tie to bed by scoring Milan's third with an outrageous lob from distance. It was an absolute peach, a brilliant combination of quick thinking and technique. He then clattered the post before Marcel Dessaily put the cherry on top of the cake with a fantastic fourth.

No words could illustrate Savicevic's talent better than the video below. It's quite long but worth watching to the end i think as it shows footage i'd never seen before from his international games for Yugoslavia and from his time at Red Star. His dribbling skills are awesome, somewhere up there with Maradona and Messi i'd say. Bloody brilliant!

And to cap things off I found this whilst researching his youtube catalogue.