Black Belt Jones
Player Valuation: £20m
Stayed on a couple of years too long - although as said above the club's financial stasis post 2009 is critical in whether you think he should have gone then. His presence ensured a respectable tranquility to first team affairs - at the cost of endorsing Blue Bill's regime. Had he left it could have turned everthing upside down - for better or worse.
The latter part of the Johnson years were horrific - you're a very senior citizen if you can remember worse Everton teams. So Moyes deserves a lot of respect for banishing those memories - then the 04/05 Champs league qualification was unbelievable. I remember driving down from Scotland listening to some football show on fivelive and pundit after pundit was picking us for relegation. We had just sold Rooney after he looked a world beater at the Euros, and then gotten smashed by Arsenal first game at Goodison. Driving that team to 4th place - even if it was a v lucky 4th place, was some achievement. I don't even hold the Romanian debacle against him (much). The team was just shell-shocked after moving heaven and earth to get in the CL, and getting turfed out first tie.
Anyhow, it's all been gone over a million times - I think when the dust settles his legacy won't be that controversial and there'll be broad agreement on what he did, and did not do, for us
The latter part of the Johnson years were horrific - you're a very senior citizen if you can remember worse Everton teams. So Moyes deserves a lot of respect for banishing those memories - then the 04/05 Champs league qualification was unbelievable. I remember driving down from Scotland listening to some football show on fivelive and pundit after pundit was picking us for relegation. We had just sold Rooney after he looked a world beater at the Euros, and then gotten smashed by Arsenal first game at Goodison. Driving that team to 4th place - even if it was a v lucky 4th place, was some achievement. I don't even hold the Romanian debacle against him (much). The team was just shell-shocked after moving heaven and earth to get in the CL, and getting turfed out first tie.
Anyhow, it's all been gone over a million times - I think when the dust settles his legacy won't be that controversial and there'll be broad agreement on what he did, and did not do, for us
