This is the thing really. 'Taking time' after 40 years of being a quite awful football club is so frustrating, especially since the Moshiri spending spree years, having seen clubs like Nottingham Forest qualify for Europe despite having been out of the Premier League 20-odd years, and Aston Villa, who were every bit as bad as us when we had Gerrard and Lampard respectively, Champions League regulars and now Premier League contenders with an excellent manager. Everton being the team still in transition, still coming nowhere near close to any domestic cups despite teams like Palace, Leicester, Newcastle, Wigan having won cups over the past 10 or so years... little old Everton not being capable of enjoying even this minor success - frustrating.
There is a kernel of truth in this. People who have waited more than 30 years for any tangible success can't really be accused of impatience. We have always been told that patience and assiduous management will be rewarded, but football doesn't always work like that. Very often, it's sudden improvement - an injection of money and intelligence, or just good timing - that moves the needle. Nothing clubs have had more to cheer about than us over those years. Fellow fallen peers - such as Villa - have reached heights that we have only seen in our glory years. Patience is demonstrably very close to being "a waste of time" as an Evertonian... I was 22 when we last won a trophy. In my young life to that point, I had seen two league titles, two FA Cups, a European trophy, and multiple British record transfer fees. What has patience brought my generation? A trophy cabinet as bare as our heads.
However, while I think Europe needed to be the aim this season, I don't think it was or is an expectation. Had we gotten the squad building right in the summer, we could have genuinely targeted. But the window is - at this point - a failure. What I am looking for is two things: a competent, solid team that has a go - and a future where winning a cup and making Europe regularly becomes more likely than not. I am not asking for the Champions League or a title. But against Arsenal I saw a craven, damage-limitation performance that barely provided a shot on goal. I didn't expect a result - but I didn't even get a performance. Not good enough.
"We only lost 1-0 to the league leaders." That's all they needed. They got out with the points, we got out with our dignity. A mutually-benefitical outcome if you are so inclined (I'm not). We didn't fire a shot.
"At least they didn't hammer us" is not really the inspirational vision people think it is...
Moyes has done a very solid job - but he's never the future in a million years. He refuses to be measured on stretch goals. He sees his role as stability and respectability. Fair enough - to a point. But the selection and performance at Wolves in the League Cup was a disgrace that betrayed his intentions and limitations. Patient Evertonians get ever balder with every passing thrown competition where we refuse to even compete.
We need a change in the summer if we have genuine ambition. I remain to be convinced - not by
Moyes (a competent high-end manager for clubs who aspire merely to respectability) - but by our new overlords. What is their true aim? To nurse their investment (Strauss being the latest good move to that end), or to actually challenge our Kenwright-era self-imposed limitations? Will they be transformational leaders or merely time servers, ready to flip the club (really, the stadium) in five years?
The summer will disabuse us of any notions we may have one way or the other.
