19 Apr 2018 00:56:34
Just a personal view/ opinion of Everton FC today! I am a Lifelong Evertonian of 55years+, but am I in any way jealous of Liverpool FC? You're damn right I am. and it's gone on for far too long. Their history of League Championships, FA Cups, League Cups and most of all European Cups is not to be scoffed at, but the situation really does sicken Me when I look at the very different directions the two lubs have gone in over the last 25years or so, if not longer. All the successful Clubs and the their Top Managers/ Coach have been able to slowly build top sides using Academy talents mixed with costly foreign imports, i.e the great Arsenal sides of the past, obviously the unequalled sides which Alex Ferguson built/ bought during the phenominal success era at Man Utd and then the great Liverpool dynasty formed by the likes of Paisley, Evans, Dalgleish etc! At Everton, we weren't allowed to show what should have been the start of our own Royal Blue Dynasty. thanks mainly to the actions of morons from across the Park! The Late, Great Howard Kendall was on the verge of something huge with his Everton Team. Southall, Stevens Ratcliffe, Mountfield, Reid, Bracewell, Steven, Sheedy, Sharp, Gray, Heath etc. The School of Science in all its Glory. But because of behaviour of Liverpool Fans at Heysel Stadium, ALL English Clubs were banned from European Competition for a number of seasons. Not long after this decision by UEFA, this Everton side which was expected to go on and conquer Europe was very quickly taken apart because some of the players understandably wanted to play in Europe, so left to sign for other Clubs and Kendall himself was lured to Spain. so as a Club we were robbed and suffered more than any other English Clubs by missin out on a hell of a lot of revenue which is the remit of all of the top Clubs thesedays. the need to qualify and play in European Competitions every season. But since this happened, my beloved Everton has completely STOOD STILL. We suffered/ froze again after the Hillsborough disaster when the whole country was in sympathy with Liverpool FC. We haven't been able to find the right Manager/ Coach since Howard Kendall, we don't appear to know how to play attractive, attacking football anymore, we freeze against most teams wearing Red and we can't attract top players and the good ones we do have over the years we haven't held on to them? We have produced some really good players over the years, but have either sold them for big money or just released them as younger players and they have gone on to be very successful at other Clubs. So if we could have held on to some of these, times might have been better. Wayne Rooney (sold) , Romelu Lukaku (sold) , Mustafi (Arsenal) was released by Moyes as he didn't rate him much. the same applies to Eric Dier (Spurs) , Shane Duffy (Brighton) , Ross Barkley (sold to Chelsea) , John Stones (sold) . and so the list goes on. Everton FC has gone backwards, we have become a "selling Club" and now that we finally have much needed financial clout in the form of Mr Moshiri, we appear to be throwing his money at bad Managers and mediocre players and the structure of our once great Club is in tatters! Now we are publicly being seen to be "hanging our present Manager out to dry". embarassing I say. This should have been done in Private, not announced to the Media, its grossly unfair on Sam Allardyce. Don't get me wrong, I DO NOT want Allardyce to stay on a Manager because he doesn't have the right profile for this Club, no charisma to be able to attract top players and he only knows one way of playing the game. THE WRONG WAY! Yes, he's done what he was brought in to do which was to keep us up! How sad is that. is that all we have left. hope that we stay in the Premier League every season. We are in the shadow of Tottenham as well now, and this season, Burnley are likely to qualify for Europe and we have a Manager who plays with ONE MAN UP FRONT. EVEN AT HOME! Really. please! A huge clear out is needed this close season, and a new Manager/ Coach in as soon as this season ends. A Manager with good contacts world wide and a good track record of playing attractive attacking football and give him a remit of using some of the Academy players we have who have already proven themselves along with some decent class players from across Europe. We have to get back to where I believe we belong. but not playing like we have been for a number of years now. The expansion of Anfield has only added to my gloom as they have got on and actually improved whilst Everton at Goodison have just talked and talked about the possibility of a much need new Stadium. Our great Club can't linger in these lower regions of the League much longer, we need to improve and quickly because even some of the average clubs are playing better football than Everton and also seem to be able to pick up some decent reasonably priced players from around the world. Mr Moshiri, Mr Kenwright and Mr Wood only have to listen to the Fans at the matches Home and Away to know their feelings with regard to Sam Allardyce. Everton Football Club is far too big for Sam Allardyce, so act and act now wether it be Fonseca or Silva or whoever. just get it sorted and . GET IT RIGHT!
Rant Over. sorry Blues, just my opinion. COYB.

{Ed0333's Note - I enjoyed reading your post mate. You come across passionate and your pathos powers through your prose but I take umbrage at the notion that Everton were somehow stunted on the pitch by the wave of public sympathy towards Liverpool FC post Heysel? Nobody stopped you lot from winning titles for 31 years. It’s been 31 years since you won the league because Kenwright runs you like a friggin corner shop again no one else’s fault but your own. Yes you are a club with prestige but so are Nottingham Forest, Leeds, Aston Villa, Derby et al and look at where they are today. To eat at the top table you have to earn it and not have a yesteryear notion of entitlement. Open your eyes Golden Vision ( you see what I did there?) It’s a new world out there fix up or languish.

1.) 19 Apr 2018
19 Apr 2018 06:43:00
As much as I don't want to agree with Ed0333 I have to, we are not a 'Big Club' anymore and we have stagnated in them 31 years of no league title and 23 years since our last domestic trophy.
If you look at the managers in this period that is were the problem lies. Walter Smith, Mike Walker, Roberto Martinez, 6 years too long of David Moyes and now bloody Sam Allardyce.
There is an ex Liverpool manager who is a winner and a proven one at that, yet we have not sounded him out at all when our vacancy has become available. Our next manager needs to be a long term and as much as I want Fonseca, will he be here for 5 years? I doubt it, he will either be a success and be poached by a bigger club be it home or abroad or he won't live up to expectations and will follow suit of Koeman, Martinez and SA. That is why my choice for manager is and always has been Rafa Benitez, he wants a project he knows how to blend a team properly with youth and experience and most of all, he knows the league and has had success in it. Were we successful in the past? Yes, were we robbed of glory? Debatable, are we a top club still? No. Can we ever become a top club again? Hopefully. We are behind the current top 6 by a good margin, what we need now is stabilisation and to become the best of the rest whilst gradually closing the gap on that top 6, and hopefully win a league cup, FA Cup in fact any cup. I admire the OP passion, myself I'm a realist and shifting the blame is not my forte, we are were we are today through nobody else's fault but our own.

2.) 19 Apr 2018
19 Apr 2018 07:34:16
Agree with Ed and can see similar points made between GV and bluegray.

If we go down the road of blaming the euro ban on our lack of opportunity then we’re just living up to our tags as bitter.

Well bitter wins you nothing. Last time we won something was under JR who wasn’t bitter, he just recognised where we were and dealt with it. No excuses just hard football mixed with a little craft. This brought us the cup.

Now the gap right now is a big one between us and the top six, but it was reachable at the end of last season. It turned bad quickly but it can turn good even quicker. We just have to believe that we can find a system that plays to our strengths. Along with a manager that can find it maybe with a little craft and guts brought in in the summer.

Look at how quick Leicester turned from relegation fodder into league champions. Ok it probably won’t happen again like that for a few years yet but top six surely must still be a realistic goal.

I want this season to end now! I’d like to see a good managerial appointment along with a DOF of good repute.

We can’t keep looking back at how it could have been as it raises more questions than answers. And regarding selling clubs. Well thanks to agents every club is a selling club. And sometimes it’s just unavoidable as in the case of Barkley and Rooney who we all know just had to get out of Liverpool for lifestyle reasons.

Next season can’t be this bad. So that’s where my hope is. Whether it’s Rafa Fonseca Silver or someone else. If it’s not SA it’s bound to be better - not bitter.

3.) 19 Apr 2018
19 Apr 2018 08:00:28
I agree we are not a top 6 side anymore. I think it is going to be difficult to get back there as the top 6 have all out spent us in the last couple of years even with the benefit of Moshiri.

The bright light for us is probably the decline of Arsenal and the success Tottenham have had whilst still keeping some control on spend and wages but they have several years start on us and the advantage of Champions League football as an attraction.

We have to copy their model though. Getting in a young dynamic manager. Buying good young talent and developing it and bringing on their academy players. On the way they've had to, or chose, to sell some players at a profit (Kyle Walker as an example) but they've also made some mistakes in their buys, look at the lack of success with some of the players bought with the Bale money.

Regarding Benitez I am not sure. Apart from Liverpool 6 years and Valencia 3 years he hasn't stayed long anywhere (10 other clubs) and seems to have problems with the board at them all. Add to that some pf our fans distaste at his 'small club' comments I don't see him as a unifier and someone we can build a dynasty on so, for me, it is a Fonseca, a Silva, a Dyche to take the club forward on its next adventure

I agree with Better not Bitter.

4.) 19 Apr 2018
19 Apr 2018 08:48:19
While I admire Golden Visions post. I lived in Belgium and actually attended the Match at Heysel, it did not go as the media/ Thatcher and others seemed to portray that is all I will say. Every Club not just Everton were banned, most of those with History carried on and improved so you cannot blame Liverpool for Evertons demise. Suffice to say Ed0333 is far nearer the mark in his assessment of our great Club and it is really sad to admit.

5.) 19 Apr 2018
19 Apr 2018 10:51:26
Sorry we have never been a top 6 side since the 90's 8 top six or better finishes in the last 28 seasons. We have aspirations to be a top 6 side and when we have a good season we want to break into the top 4 but they are aspirations not based on performance. This to me is where a lot of us go wrong we expect to be finishing 6 or above when really we are fighting to be a top 10 team. Love to be a consistent top 4-6 team but with unrealistic expectations from our fans any manager is going to find it really difficult to build the foundations of a successful team as at the moment we turn on our managers as soon as we don't like what we see.

6.) 19 Apr 2018
19 Apr 2018 16:28:14
Tbh I think if Kendal Wouldve stayed we Wouldve won titles and 5 yrs down the line be strong enough to compete in Europe again. It's ok blaming lpool but the buck stops with Kendal.
As much as I loved him he walked out on us at the precise time we needed him more than ever.
Just my opinion.

7.) 19 Apr 2018
19 Apr 2018 20:23:56
We all watched it on the telly Ducksfly.

And yes I believe it was a devastating series of events that stopped us in our tracks. Just as the game was changing into the animal it is. We were and still are a top 5 club with 9 league wins. Chelsea are catching and City have a long way to go.
But I also agree that our day has been over (bar a blip in 95) for 30 years.

The old format and us being champions, at a time when English football had been very successful, makes the case. I've read over the years how bookmakers across UK and eu had us as favourites.

Let's not be bigheads and assume we would have won the cup but we would have been at the top table and I'm sure the kudos if not the money would have made us attractive in all kinds of ways, to players and money men.

Obviously brands became big and although a historic club, on the world scene the name Liverpool was much more saleable (a problem Man City faced too) So that also went against us.

A stadium so surrounded and impossible to extend also pushed us back when in the early 90s every ground in the land was extended but us.

We've had to enjoy "plucky" and other patronising monikers over the years. None of em flattering. Dogs of war anyone?

We had to find heroes in unlikely places. Big Dunc ( love him but some of our great sides wouldn't have let him clean their boots) lower expectations. From winning everything to survival for near on a decade that was our lot.

Then at the end of DM we started to play (at home atleast& against the less3r sides) nice football. And we were the fittest bunnies on the park. Season after season always EFC are the top of the league for late goals. Martinez had us up for 1 glorious season that most years would have scored us 3rd! A blip that set us up for the inevitable fall.

I feel a real desire from the club to have a couple of decades in the sun again. And it's going to take time because everyone's loaded and we can't just go out and buy the title.
My heart yearns success but My head sort of thinks we may just stay at the same level. The goal posts are always changing. As we take one stride forward, someone goes out and breaks transfer records and gazumps our targets.

Let's not end up like city and Chelsea etc, with a million players and no path to the 1st team. We need the youth stuff to work. Look at Man Utd. being relegated from u23s. That is an indictment of modern football. MOURINHO is the easy blame but the club is also to blame. They buy finished players.

Like what the architects are saying about the Dock. We need to blend ideas we know work and use a hybrid approach. No one. has designed a stadium for 40 years that had fans as close as the new gaff will have (so the plans I've seen suggest) . Hopefully common sense will prevail and safe standing will also be allowed too. Instantly makes our atmosphere better than anyone's home.

We need to keep our identity. But also be thankful that someone has finally seen our club as a real proposition. Everyone else sold their souls to the devil a long time ago and we were left on the shelf.
Someone had best call a locksmith cos we need to get into the trophy room again.

8.) 19 Apr 2018
19 Apr 2018 20:30:08
In my humble opinion, the European ban (which led to the departure of key players - and the manager) started our decline from being a “big” club, but this was worsened by us not taking advantage of being in the Premier League (despite being one of the prime instigators) , and then compounded by the ownership of Agent Johnson, and then our current “also-ran” status was cemented by Bill Kenwright’s chairmanship (who, despite being a “fan”, never had the wherewithal to re-establish our place at the top-table) . Mr Moshiri gives us hope, but you have to wonder about who’s advising him - especially on footballing (rather than business) matters.

9.) 19 Apr 2018
19 Apr 2018 22:51:17
Yeah Moshiri has made a few blunders. Let's hope he is a fast learner.