Stagnant Hibernation

Another season has passed like the darkness before dawn. The overriding feeling, I guess, is one of relief coupled with a slightly scary feeling of deja vu. For those of us of a certain age (I'm 64) the feeling is one of uncomfortable familiarity — hope dashed with a seasonal helping of piss on chips.

The question, I suppose, for every Evertonian far and wide is, when will the Head and Shoulders (rinse and repeat) cycle end? We can't keep replacing managers at the drop of a hat/the whim of the owner or an amalgam of both. The feeling that David Moyes has reached the crossroads is palpable and I am probably in the "let's see what else is out there" camp. But I also get the reasoning for him to see out the next season.

Eighteen months ago (is it already that long?), when the Gravel-Gargling Blagger decided the players had had enough of his anti-football, our magnificent club had once again allowed itself to be backed into the darkest corner imaginable. Step forward, with torch in hand, Moyes; the Mighty to lead us once again toward the light.

The problem with that was two-fold: 

Firstly, because we were again sitting in the pitch black with a sack on our heads. He was offered an 18-month deal which he instantly refused and negotiated himself, at a fair old salary, a two-and-a-half-year deal.

Secondly, the vast majority inside Goodison Park at the time could see, as plain as day, that there wasn't a huge amount needed doing football-wise to ensure our continued participation in the stained Premier League.

While the first four months of Moyes's return looked hopeful/promising, with some positive signs of fresh new growth, this last seson has seen the return of the Moyes of old — cautious, indecisive, dithering... every word we used in the previous 10 years which were never as good as we like to believe.

My old Dad used to say to my brother and I when we where younger: "Always remember, no matter how much training you can give, no matter how much time and money you invest, a man put under the right pressure and circumstance will always revert to type." Our current Manager is a working example.

So... what do we want to see?

The Friedkin Group appear to have righted the business side of the club buying it at a bargain-basement price, investing some money but mainly restructuring the strangling debt through some genuine and credible financial institutions, not some unlicensed backstreet bagwash with no employees and no discernible income.

The issue would seem to be that, so far, they haven't really come out and said (publicly) how they intend to move the football side of the club forward.

From the outside, and going off the small bits we hear, we once again look like we are caught up in the muddled thinking bin. Some expense has gone into luring bright new talent from other Premier League clubs' backroom staffs to form this "innovative" transfer committee for the club then to give all-encompassing power to the Manager who openly admits he signs off every deal.

The working of a Transfer Committee would seem to signal that they decide the football style, they find the players, they negotiate the transfer deal, and hand the player over to the 'Coach' who then implements the philosophy (for want of a better word). But we've got ourselves stuck again, like trying to upgrade your Ferrari with a really reliable ford Focus VTech engine; it will start every time, it will never let you down, but you'll always walk away thinking, "what if?"

I also get the argument from the "be careful what you wish for" brigade but I think that is part of the Stockholm Syndrome instilled into the fanbase by Bill Kenwright and the first-time-around Moyes. The deliberate and carefully planned "dumbing down" of expectation has allowed Everton Football Club to enter an extended period of merely existing — no appetite for relegation but also no real hunger to improve.

How do TFG go about raising expectations and hope? Raising season ticket prices by far in excess of the rate of inflation would indicate a short-sightedness that doesn't line up with their previous lines of thinking. So exactly who is driving that particular bus, as to allienate the fans to increase stadium imcome by paltry £1.5 million is frankly bizzare?

They won't change the manager this close season so, barring an other-worldly intervention, we are looking forward to another season of (Forest, Chelsea home and Villa away being the exceptions) hanging on to try and pinch a goal, giving up posession cheaply, never actually domimating games and coming out of our glorious new stadium (it is truly magnificent) shaking our heads with a "surely it can be better than this?" slant.

Andoni Iraola looking like he's going to the burning treacherous cesspit of Mordor. Oliver Glasner has been mentioned, as has a slighty singed Thomas Frank. I genuinely have no idea who should go into the hotseat whenever it becomes available; all I know is it is time the club stopped looking back and eyed the dawn of a new era of football.

It is time we wake the slumbering giant, release the brakes of the juggernaut, let the club smash down the barricades of the Sly 6 (Tottenham? Really???), but for that we need a plan, we need strategy, we need foresight, we need ambition, we need adult, joined-up thinking, and sadly we need even more patience; more patience from a fanbase starved of joy for 30 years. 

For all that, we look forward with blind optimism to the new campaign buoyed by the hope of an exciting transfer window with a few shekels to spend and then are immediately dragged back to reality by the realisation that the manager oversees all deals.

The joys of being an Evertonian...

Maybe we'd be happier in our chrysalis of Stagnant Hibernation.

Up The Fucking Toffees!