Thursday, March 13, 2008

Never felt more like singing the blues

I saw Everton's match against Fiorentina on Wednesday night. It was a cracker, full of excitement and great to watch. I didn't need reminding that Everton are a decent side now but the game emphasised the reasons why they're a decent side. As a team they worked incredibly hard, they had a two goal deficit to overcome so they had no choice, but this was a side that knew how to play this way. They closed down Fiorentina at every opportunity, they didn't make rash challenges but they made their tackles count. When they had possession they kept the pace high and had great movement off the ball. They looked to win freekicks, not by cheating but by forcing the Italians into mistakes, and launched the subsequent dead ball kicks into dangerous areas time and again. This was simple stuff but excellently executed. It's everything I like about the "English game". It's a style of football I thought we might see under Sanchez but never did. It's a style of football I don't think Fulham have ever been able to achieve. Which is odd as we've had so many managers and players, but throughout my 30 odd years of following Fulham I've rarely seen us boss a game in this way.

David Moyes gets a bit of flack on the Fulham boards, but I'm coming round to accepting that he really is a genuinely good manager. He really has turned the Blues around, and now has them well established as a top 6 club. I think he really could take Everton on to a higher level and win a few trophies for them. The board stuck by him when he had a couple of tricky seasons and are now reaping the rewards of consistency (It's what we need to do with Roy Hodgson). The style of football may not be for the purist's but it is something that can be achieved on a lower budget. £7Million for Yakubu isn't peanuts by any means but compare that with the money Liverpool spent on Torres and check their respective positions in the league and it starts to make a lot of sense.

I'm looking forward to Sunday but I'm not going to talk about what may or may not happen (I don't want to jinx us). We might only have four home games left in the top division and I'm going to enjoy every last one.

No comments: