This is a good summary. His articles and podcasts I think are very interesting and informative and he presents his position very well. When he was on here he was very pro Moshiri and supportive of him,so it does make me laugh when I see people on social media saying he's always negative, that was never my impression of him on here. He's changed his view, and that he held a different view initially I think gives it validity.
He's had a successful business career and I think he wants to see Everton learn the lessons from what a conventional successful business would do. I agree with much of that (I've said a few times I'd make aserious offer to Leahy/Gilvary and potentially even a David Dein figure as well). However it is not always as simple as that. Football is if nothing else quite a hard industry to measure good governance. As a game it is very dependent on luck (as it is low scoring) and single bad mistakes or poor decisions can make an enormous difference. I mean we were poor last season, but you consider Ali at Goodison, DCL's winning goal, Brighton away and they are 3 enormous and obvious mistakes which would have seen us finish on 56 points in 8th.
I don't want to dwell on it, but the point is very few other industries work in that way. That all plans you do all week are essentially reduced to a 90 minute performance, and a 90 minute performance where there is such variance. It could also be, people within an organisation can do good work, and it takes a long time for this to really be noticed. So it's hard.
Most of what he says is fine, but there is an acknowledgement that a lot of the isuses go away if there is a big cash injection. This will often be said as well, something like "unless the major shareholder puts more money in, we will have to do x,y or z" and I always think well given past behaviour, surley the shareholder will just put more money in? Surely a major sponsor will just sponsor some more aspects of the club?
What I'd also note, and we all do this, is we see the world through our own axis. And it's not that someone's axis is wrong, but it's more that there are other interpretations. I have a bias that I want to see us operate how a German/Dutch club would, and put heavy investment into younger players/the academy. Thats my bias playing out, but it may not be the clubs bias. You have to try and see, Moshiri may not want the club to operate in that way.
I'vetried to stop arguing, but I've seen lads on there, who essentially will not countenence us signing anyone over 24/5 as all other signings are bad signings. Often this is without even knowing the deal. Coutinho, James etc are all just bad signings. Surely you have to see the context of the deal before you make that judgement? It's fine to say the priority needs to be x but also to be flexible enough to acknowledge that if y comes along and fits it's ok to pursue it.
I saw Billy Beane interviewed recently and he made a very good point, that moneyball is not really about signing cheap young players as people seem to think it is. It is about finding value. Now one way of finding value in football was doing the above, but it's not the only way. It's a market, marketsare fluid, if lots of people do 1 thing, the likelihood is value exists in other areas. Being able to move away from the crowd, avoid herd mentality and find new solutions is also important. In fairness to Liverpool, this is what they do most impressively for me. When you see them linked with a player, its normally left field. You can kind of see they are not just following the trend. Once a player becomes to a level of well known, they move on, which to me seems sensible. Its not just about sauing an asset is a good or bad buy, but understanding it is a good buy, in this climate, at this price point. Once those circumstances change, value is probably a bit lost.
