Everton Fc, Manager, David Moyes
THE appointments of Brendan Rodgers at Liverpool FC and Paul Lambert at Aston Villa couldn’t have come at a worse time . . . for Everton FC.
Because it suggests that English football’s love affair with the precocious but unproven foreign manager is finally fading, and our bigger clubs are turning to the Best of British once again.
And David Moyes, despite what some of his detractors claim (and there are a surprising number here on Merseyside) is one of the best British bosses around.
Tottenham Hotspur have just dispensed with the services of the last Englishman to claim a major trophy in this country – and the bookies were so convinced they would immediately target Moyes that he was backed into an unbackable 4/9 on Wednesday night, all before Spurs had even confirmed Redknapp’s departure and Moyes had heard anything from North London.
He still hasn’t, by the way, and while those prices had lengthened again by yesterday morning, Moyes still remained at the top of the betting lists.
As is the way in internetworld, some fans’ forums immediately started speculating on possible successors, with names like Slaven Bilic, Roberto Martinez and Peter Reid the most popular.
But I make no excuses for repeating an argument I’ve expressed many times on these pages, which is that I fear for an Everton future A.D. (After David).
That’s an argument backed up by figures – 7, 17, 4, 11, 6, 5, 5, 8, 7 and 7.
They’re not lottery numbers, but Premier League finishes under David Moyes.
And if they don’t exactly equate to a lottery win, they certainly add up to a solid sequence of performances, especially when contrasted to the figures which preceded his arrival.
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