Wednesday 31 August 2011

What Next For Everton?

I've spent much of this evening ranting on Twitter about Everton's desperate transfer deadline day disaster. But now I feel it's time for me to apologise to my followers, collate my considered thoughts on proceedings, and try to move on.

Having taken a few minutes to reflect on Mikel Arteta's seemingly certain (at time of writing) move to Arsenal, I have to say Mikel has given us great service over a number of years and cannot deny he deserves this move. We need the money. But why, oh why, couldn't this have been done even 12 hours earlier, to give David Moyes some hope of spending a little of the proceeds on someone who is not a foreign unknown?

We've also seemingly sold a young striker who would probably have got us 10 goals this season, and improved after that (Jermaine Beckford) to loan an unproven Argentine for a year. And, whilst under normal circumstances I'd be happy to see the back of Yakubu, who exactly is going to score enough times to keep us up?

I've always backed Bill Kenwright because he is a true Evertonian who is doing his best. I'm sick this evening but, Blues fans, we must support him. The fact is, if anyone was going to buy us they would have done so by now. Nobody wants to. We have to make the best of what we've got.

The really worrying thing is this reminds me terribly of the situation in my first season working at Sheffield Wednesday. A colleague, a massive Wednesdayite, having observed the Owls' wretched Division One (now Championship) defeats to the likes of Wigan, Bolton and West Brom, said the best thing about those losses would be to pass all those smaller clubs when we were on the way back up. Look at them now. Stoke were languishing in the lower divisions...and now they're signing Peter Crouch whilst Everton live off scraps.

I'm trying desperately to find a happy ending for this post. But the coup de grace is that I can't now believe Moyes will see out the season with us. And without him, a Wednesday-style descent down the divisions is a horribly realistic possibility. We need to find some cash from somewhere, and fast.