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rowlo-efc

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  1. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/...-adventure.html point proven me thinks
  2. names aren't in the pot but he is cup tied (see official EFC website FFS). Barry was cup tied when he played in the qualifyer for Villa - hence the shite turning their noses up at him. The simple fact is, he has played in a UEFA competition and is therefore cuptied. He now can't play until End of Jan/Start Feb when the knock out stages begin.
  3. pienaar's fitness reocrd aint bad...this is the first that I can recall that has kept him out for any serious amount of time. Cahill - he needs iron boots to stop him from breaking that foot again. Arteta should be okay now after the op...he's not quite fit though (thats apparent). Vaughan is also not fully fit yet (also apparent). I think the midfield will be okay with Castillo and fallieni available. (Rodwell has played well too). Defence has been a joke.
  4. Well Shinwatra was hardly the right buyer but he has done a fabulous thing for Shitteh. Why, oh why, can't we sell to a billionaire group that wants to make us Number 1...I'm hoping that this Abu Dhabi lost have some business enemies that want a bit of competition! (and buy us!). Okay - we can all dream.
  5. HE IS 100% CUP TIED UNTIL THE NEXT PLAYER REGISTRATION IN FEB...HE PLAYED IN THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE...IF YOU REMEMBER THAT WAS WHAT ENDED THE BARRY SAGA...WHNE HE PLAYED IN THE UEFA CUP FOR VILLA A FEW WEEKS BACK... and for info, its against UEFA rules to have a 'gentlemans agreement' over a player playing .... we got in trouble (nearly) for that with Tim Howard after we had signed him from his loan...
  6. there is only one question to ask...how come Man City look more attractive to buy than us? They finished lower than us, their stadium is only leased (so would our new one, if we ever get it). How come, when the ADUG listed the teams they looked at, Everton were not one of them? Newcastle, Shite, Man City - - but no Everton. In the last 5 years. United, Liverpool. Chelsea, Portsmouth, Villa, Newcastle and now Man City have all had massive takeovers...why are we always overlooked??? Simple question
  7. Ideal team...(apart from UEFA cup where the new lad is cup tied)... ................................Howard................................... Hibbert....Yobo.................Jagielka........Lescott ......................Feliani (Or however you spell it)..... Arteta...............cahill.............Pienaar ...............YAK................... ..............................Saha.................... Subs...Hibbert, Baines, Rodwell, Valente, Nash, Jacobsen, Castillo, We could go 4-5-1 with Castillo, Baines or Rodwell when needed. ( I would have baines at left midfield though...he's lost his wingback pace).
  8. Okay, I was one of many blues (no doubt) who sat up last night and watched the repeated story of Robinho and the repeated pictures of Berbatov at Old trafford on Sky Sports news. Boring it was but I couldn't drag myself off the couch until the clock had counted down to zero in the shear hope that Everton maight have been mentioned. We were actually mentioned less (other than to say we had signed Saha) then Newcastle, who frankly, were all tucked up in bed by 8pm. Disappointed, I finally poured my last coffee and took myself to bed. Saha...injury prone, Nash...second rate keeper from Wigan. Not a happy chappy. Then this morning came and I was listening to citytalk and caught the back end of 'Everton club record'...what? for Saha? I thought because we couldn't possibly have signed anybody else... Then I tuned in to talk sport where it was confirmed...a young lad from standard liege - a team that almost destroyed the shite (lets face it, if they hadn't of qualified they'd be in more shit than us financially). I checked the web...confirmed. Awesome...something to be happy about at Everton. I haven't really got much more to say other than, a few good signings (Saha will play as much as Johnson did and cost ous a lot less...), come on Pienaar and Cahill and Hibbert...lest see what happens from here. My personal opinion is to get to the group stages of UEFA and then that's it...we haven't got the depth and we will need real time and energy devoted to the league position. Don't know what you guys think but I'm much more optimistic now. SO LETS SING (BECAUSE WE DIDN'T AGAINST PORTSMOUTH) AND GET THE LADS GOING!
  9. http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=32241240768&ref=mf Not sure if this works - if not, search for the group: 'stop global warming - ban kopites from flying to home games' lol...
  10. rowlo-efc

    Apparently...

    the shite have been refused planning by the City council for their new stadium. Quoted today the council spokesperson said: 'Its okay to have a fair in Stanley park once a year, but a circus every two weeks is taking the piss!' Made me laugh anyway!
  11. I'm after a large picture of Duncan Ferguson to turn into a pop art canvas for my new 'sports room' at my new pad... I have an everton etched window, signed shirts on the wall... just want a decent picture of the only 'near' legend that we have had over the last 15 years.
  12. Had to admit i thought that was amazing. Although to be fair to the lad, he does go running most nights (I live near him). He also goes on the pop most nights!
  13. Do you actually think that Moyes was given any of the Rooney money? It was certainly not counted in the Deloitte revenue calculations for that season. The first £10m (when it arrived) came during the transfer freeze between Sept-Jan 04. Then it disappeared. We borrowed for BT on the back of the second £10m installment. Then...we managed a £15m wage packet from Sky and a further £12m for finsihing 4th. We never got the other £10m from Rooney - it was reduced by the introduction of Neville by £3.5m. So when you look at it a different light. If Moyes was given the Rooney money (in its entirety) and the sky money and the 4th place finish money... then we would have had (without selling a player) £47m Did he get this much over the space of two seasons? Did he sell any players to bulk up his transfer budget - if so, does it all marry up? Dont forget that he would have had money from the 7th place finish, the 17th finish, 4th etc. I think that you find that it doesn't add up - why....he never got the Rooney money. And one other thing... We didn't get £28m for rooney. We got 2 installments (1 per season) of £10m per installment. The other £7m (not £8m) was offered based on several conditions. 1. Manure won the FA Cup in his first season - they didn't, Arsenal beat them in the final 2. European Cup within his first contract - FAILED - he has since signed his 2nd Contract 3. He signs a 2nd contract 4. he scores a certain amount of manure career goals - not yet met. 5. he plays a certain amount of games each season for the entirety of his manure contract - not yet met. and so on and so on....(those were just the ones I could remember)... Lets fact it, we sold he onthe cheap because we were desparate to keep the bank manager away...
  14. Rob - couldn't really agree more. Whats the point of bringing in a new, fresh, talented, young, upcoming manager - didn't we do that with Moyes? Moyes has done a terrific job and has, in the main, had his hands tied. apart from the season after we finished 4th, Moyes has had little in the way of available investment. Its great to sit at Goodison and say 'he's got £15m this year to spend' - but at Everton there is always a catch and thats simply that our transfer budget has to spread across new players fees, wages AND Current players CONTRACT EXTENSIONS/PAY RISES. So the year after we finished 4th. Moyes gave Cahill a pay rise, signed Arteta, signed Neville, signed Kroldrup, signed VDM, signed Davies, signed Ferrari and although some of them didn't cost much - it did dent the budget as he had to pay the wages. I think that he has done a superb job and thats that. Until he is given some serious cash (like £50m) then he is never going to be able to take us to that 'next level'. He may, on occasion push us into the next level (yo-yo in an out of european places) but nothing more. ANd in my (humble) opinion, no other manager could do any better with out funding. Moyes is doing a fantastic job when you consider the pieces he had to pick up and the utter crap he was left from the Smith era. I say that we rally around him and give him the chance he more than deserves.
  15. I agree that he has signed some rotten eggs. But he more than makes up for it with the better players he signs. My only reserve is whether or not he has the capability to keep them (i.e. Arteta)
  16. I take your point. Moyes is not very good on the day. Can't really argue with that. He seems to take ages to make up his mind and sometimes (not that often) it can be costly. Sometimes he makes the wrong decisions but then so does every manager.
  17. I have to agree with the underlying theme of replies - if Moyes was to go (be it be choice or not) then who would we be able to replace him with and would they be any better. Hughes is not that great in the transfer market and he has absolutely no time for defence (which is the opposite to what we have got now!) Dave Jones is dire - his track record speaks for itself. Billy Davies is David Moyes in disguise - so there would be no point. We wont get a top european manager because there simply aren't any. they all do a mediocre job to be fair (Rikaard, Lippi etc. they never product fantastic teams - they inherit them - and still dont take the world by storm). If I was to take over at Chelsea tomorrow - would I do a worse job?
  18. Having been a season ticket holder for the last 20 years (8 of which have been in the Park end), I have seen my club go through some good but mostly bad times. I think that this puts me in a good position to comment upon the Here and Now of Everton FC and the state that I think it is in. I start on a fairly cold evening back in the 1994/1995 season. It was a Wednesday night and we where playing West Ham at home. We hadn’t won a game in the league and things were looking very desperate. We were propping up the league, singing ‘the premier league is upside down’ at every game and ‘things can only get better’ was often the full time song after another dismal performance. Our attendance was somewhere in the high 20,000’s (~28,000) and our Manager was Mike Walker. The game itself was scrappy. West Ham were not a great side and we only had 3 points to our name going into the game(and yes, we had all endured months of Redshite abuse regarding the difference between us and a square…). If I recollect correctly, this was our ‘unlucky’ 13th game of the season (not sure if that includes any cup games!). The game was decided down at the park end when an unlikely diving header from Gary Ablett secured our first three points of the season. It turned out to be a fantastic evening and I remember the Radio city commentator on the way home describing the atmosphere as if we were on a title chasing run. But that aside, the harsh reality remained. We were still bottom and still facing a long season, fighting for every point that was available. Then a strange thing happened – Mike Walker was sacked and Joe Royle was appointed – during an International break, at the end of which we were to face our high flying neighbours. I don’t need to comment upon the result but it was the game that created the all too familiar ‘duncan, Duncan ferguson’ chant. That season was highlighted by two main things. 1. Staying in the league 2. Winning the FA cup. We then started to pick up. We were in Europe (CWC) and we had a fantastic winger in Kanchelskis. End of the season we just missed out on Europe to Arsenal who managed a draw on the final day of the season to finish above us on goal difference (again, if I remember correctly). Heartbreaking, unlucky even but nevertheless the club seemed to be going in the right direction. Then the horrific happened. Joe Royle and Peter Johnson got crossed wires and we were manager less – Kanchelskis had also given us the long goodbye and flitted to Italy for the money. The next years are thankfully a blur. Not because I can’t remember them but because I don’t want to remember them. Lots of money was spent, lots of dire players purchased and a hell of a lot of disgraceful management was witnessed - from board room to pitch level. Peter Johnson crucified us – and part of me can understand why. He spent a lot of money and got nothing in return. So why not take us for every penny? I may well have done the same. We ended up penniless, relegation battlers with a negative array of managers and some of the worst players to ever have stepped on the Goodison turf. You may have been forgiven for thinking that some of the kids at half time participating in the cross bar challenge had more talent than some of the then squad. What I am getting at in this blog is that, back then, my expectations were low. The club, if it where an alcoholic, would be described as being at its rock bottom. I expected the nail biting games, the sickness in my stomach and the occasional tear of fear. We were nothing better than 15th place – and that was because Boro had points deducted one season. We seemed to nurture class players and then let them leave for buttons. Our squad didn’t want to know and loyalty from all sides was at an all time low. Then came a ray of hope – a new, fresh, young manager who had dealt with not having money and changing an average side into a good side (Preston). David Moyes arrived and immediately got the fans on his side by declaring us the people’s club ‘the people on the streets of Liverpool support Everton’ – just not sure what he meant by ‘on the streets!’. We finished 7th. He found players in the ranks that were capable of doing a good job, signed some quality with little funds and he chopped out the dead wood. Since then my expectations have raised. Unfortunately they got a little too high when we finished 4th. I thought we had found our new Peter Reid in Cahill and our new Sheedy in Osman but they are, in reality, way off the pace. The season that followed brought me back to Earth with a bump. We didn’t even finish top half, which was disappointing. Looking back, things just didn’t go our way. Moyes was being named ‘dithering dave’ for his ramblings in the transfer market and the performances were just not good enough. This season, the same people have called for Moyes head as they had the season before, claiming that he is an awful tactician, negative and indecisive. And as a Manager of a Great, massive football club, its simply not good enough. I have to disagree. He makes mistakes but then so does every manager. The season we finished 4th, had Liverpool’s manager not underestimated the derby and dropped his prised asset against teams like Crystal Palace, we may not have finished in a Champions League qualifying spot. Mistakes are made and you have to take them on the chin and learn from them. I believe that Moyes does this well. He made a terrible decision against Spurs this season when he held out for a draw. He made up for it and showed that he learnt from it by playing very positive football the following Saturday against Watford. His Transfer dealings have, to be blunt, been excellent. Look at objectively, Cahill £2.2m, Arteta £2.5m, Neville £3.5m, Lescott £5m, Howard £undislcosed, Osman Free, Hibbert free, Vaughan Free, Anichebe free. And yes he’s had some bad buys – Kroldrup, Davies, van Der Meyde. So what? Every manager has had bad buys – lets look at our neighbours. Nunez, Cisse etc.etc. Things work, things fail. That’s football and that’s what keeps us watching, chanting, singing, smiling, crying, moaning and groaning. I am not making excuses for Moyes instead I am attempting to justify my point of view. We are currently mid-table, sitting in the top half of the league with a decent prospect of finishing in a European place. Apart from Reading, the teams around us spend (Or have spent) a lot more money and can afford bigger wages, attracting the best players. (Yes, even Bolton seem to be able to afford a bigger wage bill….Anelka, Campo). So in relative terms – sitting in between the likes of Spurs, Bolton, Portsmouth (small club – big budget!) and Newcastle is a fair improvement on the situation I described at the start of this blog. If finances rule the game (which Chelsea sort of prove that they do) then we should be sitting below the teams mentioned. The reality is that we are not and this can only be down to the decisions made that effect the game directly – players bought, tactics, team talks, team selection, training etc. So my point is this. Moyes makes mistakes but he really isn’t a bad alternative to what we have experienced almost year in year out before his arrival. I am not settling for mid table mediocrity – far from it. I want continual improvement. I want to be regular qualifiers for European competition. I want to improve so much that we are considered a top four team. I want the league and every other competition. But for the moment, I can settle with knowing that my finger nails will remain in tact and I wont get that sickly anxiety feeling that turns the stomach as each opposition shot skims the post or each pass goes astray. Now a misplaced pass is disappointing, then it was a crucial mistake. I feel as though Moyes has taken us as far as he can…with the current resource that he has. I don’t think that he can get anymore out of his squad than he is already getting but I don’t think anybody else would either. Unless we get a serious injection of available wealth, the team will always sit within the ‘oh yeah, I’d forgotten about them’ bracket of the league. If he doesn’t get the cash then we will always watch a constant difficult battle to attract the odd new face with enough quality to maintain the status quo. I am not asking for a Roman or Randy but I am hoping for a decent enough investor to sort out a nice £50m for Moyes to invest in where it matters most – the team.
  19. Its Moyes 5th Anniversary of taking the reins at Goodison and I reflect on the last years and remember a plan that was set up by the Red head and ask whether or not it has been achieved and where it can all go from here. Many fans have been calling for Moyes' head after recent displays of 'negative' football that have seen the team end up sixth in a tight top half of the league. I have to be subjective and do my best to put things into perspective. what of Before Moyes and what of the situation after him. What has he achieved. There is no doubt now that every Evertonian up and down the land and indeed all over the globe looks for a top half finish and the worry of relegation is all but diminished by the mid-table mediocrity that we now face. However, you only have to look back to the Smith and Walker days to realise that the clubs current status is a fair distance from where it was only 6 seasons ago. Moyes came to us and gave a passionate speech about us being the 'people's club'. He recognised that the club was losing its passion and its drive for better things and decided to concentrate on the way forward rather than survival - he left that to the fans and financially, he left it to the board. I believe that the following article from the Telegraph sums up a few things that People often over look about Mr Moyes and his efforts at our beloved club. 'In his first game among his 'people', Everton scored within 30 seconds to trigger a victory sealed by Duncan Ferguson. If anyone who left Goodison Park that March afternoon was to be told that Moyes would render Everton effectively relegation proof, qualify them for the Champions League and finish above Liverpool for the first time since Derek Hatton ran the city, they would have thought the blue Shankly was among them. Moyes celebrates his fifth anniversary on Merseyside, placing him behind only Harry Catterick and Howard Kendall among Everton's modern managers. And yet his last appearance at Goodison saw the man they called "The Moyesiah" denied more than three times by his own supporters, who aimed match programmes in his general direction. The fact that this same evening, the one which saw Everton howled off at home to Tottenham, witnessed Liverpool's astonishing comeback in the Nou Camp is perhaps not a coincidence but it signified something wider. For those on the Gwladys Street who believe that Moyes' time is up it is pointless arguing that this is astonishing ingratitude. "You don't go to Goodison every week," they will argue. "The football's boring, the chairman has produced no investment. The club is drifting." You cannot lecture people on gratitude when they pay £30 they can ill afford and your view from the press box is free. It has been too often Moyes' misfortune to be overshadowed by events at Anfield at precisely the wrong moments. In 2005, when he took Everton above Liverpool and qualified for the Champions League, Rafael Benitez responded by winning the European Cup in arguably the greatest final that competition had seen. It was a competition Everton then failed to qualify for and, as a triumph, it proved horribly short lived. In all other respects, Moyes has admirably fulfilled what George Graham described as a manager's brief. Your first task, he once said, is usually to salvage a club, which because it's easy to identify what has gone wrong, is actually relatively simple, although Alan Curbishley may beg to differ. Then, you turn them into a mid-table side (harder) and then a top-six club (very difficult). Despite accusations that he finds it hard to make up his mind about a player, Johnson, Cahill, Arteta, Lescott, Neville and Howard are a fine core to any squad. There have been victories over Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United; there are two manager-of-the-year trophies to go home to. And yet something is missing, perhaps the same kind of something that made Kevin Keegan submit his resignation from Manchester City two years ago this month; the realisation that the scenery was not going to change, that he had taken the club as far as he was likely to. It happened to Curbishley at Charlton and his chairman, Bill Kenwright, must wonder if it will happen to Moyes. If Everton want a few more anniversaries, they need to back their manager with money and vision. A few years ago they had the vision but not the money. Had the club found £30 million in 2002, they would probably be building Goodison on the Water now, a vast, beautiful arena on the King's Dock that would have slotted into one of the most famous waterfronts in the world. Thirty million was their share of the investment on a vision which would have given Everton something it has seldom possessed; genuine glamour. But in 2002, Everton were a struggling bottom-third club whose relegation was likely sooner rather than later. Had Moyes arrived two years before, £30million might not have seemed such a towering sum. The problem with Moyes is not that he has stayed too long but that he came too late.' So the upshot is simply this. We are relishing the mid table scrap for Europe and we are developing a decent team - from the ground up when you consider what Moyes was left with (If I remember correctly, the last team that smith played had Linderoth, Gascoigne, Unsworth in - the first team Moyes played didn't!). We need money and we need it fast - £10-15-20m every pre-season is not enough to give us the nudge we need to ensure that we are consistently better than Bolton, Blackburn etc. £20m buys you one superstar (who often cannot change a team) or 3-4 decent players. Decent players keep you 'relegation proof' but they don't win you leagues and cups on a regular basis. We need investment. For those that dislike Moyes - I can't do anything about that - for those sitting on the fence, aim your concern more at the money men as that is where our next progression lies.
  20. I have hundreds of them. You can have them - they take up way to much space in my house. Drop me a PM.
  21. Lads, Is anything happening with the Born to be Blue website. Would love to get it back up to date - perhaps a take over? Let me know
  22. last night was poor. We had a poor side and the bench was almost laughable - but it was the best we had and unfortunately it was not good enough. If people dare to go to toffeeweb.com's mailbag they will see nothing but doom and gloom, moaning and groaning - but was it all that bad. Terrible tactician? Hardly - 4-4-2 we were going nowhere. 4-5-1 and for the majority of the 2nd period we dominated. but we didn't have the attack. My only gripe is that the subs were awful decisions - naysmith, hibbert... But...to reinvent Moyes ambition for our club, here are some interesting facts to help keep it all real!: 1996/97 season. We finished 15th with 42 points. 39 points seen two teams get relegated - one of which was Boro, who had had 3pts deducted for failing to fulfill a fixture. Joe Royle had resigned and Dave Watson was stand in Manager. Peter Johnson had begun to destroy the club from the inside. Had we lost one more game that season, had Boro not been treated so strictly by the FA, then we perhaps would have been playing in the championship. (or Div 1 as it was then). 2006/2007 This season in comparison. We have spent on players. (8m AJ, 5m Lescott ?m for Howard) We are lying in 8th position. We haven’t had relegation fears for a few seasons and Moyes has had some, not much but some, money to spend each Summer. Its hardly a backwards step is it? Its worse, for me personally, to see seats empty because people can't be bothered or 'dont have the time' to attend the team that they are supposed to love...the people's club just aint got the people. Sad, we should be ashamed of ourselves.
  23. This topic may already have been started but... what do we need to turn the team into a consistant european qualifier? I reckon we need: A central midfielder a Right back A left back What do you think?
  24. Thats not a good thing. He looks superb on the youtube video but he aint produced any of that for Portsmouth (although they are in the top 6!) I do believe that we are lacking a good centre midfield player that isn't scared to shoot...Carsley is too old now and it shows. Lampard goal - carsley should have been closing him down but was missing. Wigan on Sunday - they hit the bar from a similar position - Carsley's man again. He's been an excellent servant but i think he is now a squad player rather than first teamer. Plus at wigan we had loads of chances to shoot outside of the box (notable Tim Cahill) but we didn't for some reason. VDM would shoot but for some reason wasn't playing. Fernandes shoots like he does on that video - i'll be happy!
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