Okay this is going to be a long one. I am going to make a pledge here that I am taking a one year break from arguing about Moyes in terms of his historical performance v. others. I reserve the right to talk about team selection or things which are actually happening NOW (and definitely will argue about the board and how they suck at everything) but in terms of shouting at people who like to pretend Moyes doesn't have the best record of any club with similar resources ... I'm done. It never gets us anywhere and as I point out below I think a few people are just grasping at straws to find any kind of stick to beat Moyes with. I will think up a suitable punishment for myself if I break this promise. Perhaps a donation to the site? This also means any of you can have the last word here ... strawman away.
Royle was here only two years and we won a trophy and finished 6th
Joe Royle didn't get abducted by aliens immediately after 1995 though. He managed other teams. He got City promoted twice (although he never actually won a lower league title after 1991) but then got them relegated. He has generally failed to set the world on fire elsewhere. So if the point is that he's a better manager then why isn't he a better manager? If you have one year where he won a Cup then decades of not winning anything in the top division do you believe the decades of evidence determine his record or the one year? I'd love a Cup but there is a lot of luck involved -- I do not believe every manager who has won a Cup is a great manager (or that they are automatically better than those who haven't won a Cup yet). If you do then that's fine -- I'd suggest you shouldn't run any other aspect of your life in such a illogical sample size blind manner but this is football fandom so a little illogical favouritism is okay.
Look at Joe Royle's record for his entire career. If Moyes left and we hired a person with that record (not Joe specifically) would you be happy? Honestly. Not some snide "he won a Cup once which is more than Moyes" argument. Forget Joe for a second. Our new manager won a Carling Cup but got three teams relegated and never finished higher than 13th in the league. Happy? If not then stop going on about one-off Cup wins or one-off Euro qualifications (that's coming up later). They are one-offs! They prove nothing. If anything they are arguments for MY side ... that there is nobody consistent out there.
Righto. Stoke, Birmingham, the RS, Newcastle and Fulham have played in Europe either this year or last.
But none of those teams (aside from arguably the RS but they have a huge amount of money compared with us) have managed consistent success at Euro qualification. You must realize that's a crazy argument. If this were three or whatever years ago you'd be saying "Villa and Portsmouth are playing in Europe so FFS Moyes." But they haven't sustained the success and that basically helps proves the point you are trying to argue against -- that people can't sustain success without money. Do you honestly believe Stoke, Fulham and Birmingham will be playing consistently in Europe over the next five years? If you don't then why not? Because they don't have a good manager or they don't have the money to sustain success? What is the point? They are just one or two year outliers and soon they will regress to the mean just like Villa, Portsmouth and the parade of teams who have one decent year every now and again which doesn't prove anything. I'm not being argumentative -- I genuinely don't understand the point of this argument. It seems crazy to me and proves the point you are arguing against more than the argument you are trying to make. Maybe I'm an idiot but I just don't get it.
Case in point ... didn't Fulham finish eighth and qualify by fair play? What does that prove? It's arguments like that which seem more about having a vendetta than honestly judging someone's record. Do you want us to finish lower in the league, get less cards AND then just pray that the Prem's card rate (or however that thing is determined) is low enough to warrant a fair play spot? Would that prove something about Moyes being a better manager? No it wouldn't. So why is it a valid argument against him?
Sometimes 7th gets a Euro place and sometimes it doesn't ... is Moyes a better manager in years when things completely out of his control conspire to make more spots be Euro spots? If 7th gets Euro one year and not the other is the manager of the team who got 7th in the year it happened to be a Euro spot better than the one who missed out (but had more points)? It's insane troll logic.
Is it? Ok, maybe there's another stick to beat him with. Given that he constantly states that he determines who goes in or out of the club player-wise, he's had 10 years to craft whatever side he wanted to. That's more than enough time to nail down whatever football philosophy he has in place and to play consistently throughout the whole of the season. Why hasn't he got that in place? He's been 'time rich' and that's an asset the vast mjority of managers never get in the premier league.
He's built the most consistent no money team in the Prem. There is no team which spends less (or even the same or even slightly more) with such a consistent record. You have to go to teams spending tens if not hundreds of millions of more to find a better record over a significant sample size. I know it's 7th place trophy stuff which gets everyone's panties in a bunch but the fact is there are some teams which spend less, as much, or slightly more than us and every single one of them without exception has not been more consistently successful. One or two years of a good run doesn't count. The only teams above us in the ten years are teams which spend way more. People are bringing up French leagues -- they are just not as competitive as the Prem -- that's not being jingoistic it's a fact. Does the 8th place team in France spend as much on players as the RS? It's a laughable comparison. This league is insanely deep and rich. Maybe we should give France a shot actually.
The reason other managers aren't time rich is they get fired for not being consistent (the only exception perhaps being O'Neill although he saw the writing on the wall and got out before he was fired for poor results because the board wasn't going to be supporting him financially). Honestly, why do you think there is no other manager as time rich for non-top four/six clubs? Would Stoke (or a similar club) fire a manager for finishing fifth-seventh too much? These managers are getting fired for not being able to complete consistently at the top without the resources. You are proving my point -- it's just not possible and if it was there would be another team to point to (not just hey look at Newcastle they had one good season ... Villa had three good seasons where are they now?).
The point I was rather hamfistedly trying to make was that Moyes is a part of the regime and every time he makes a statement about his bond with the chairman and what a good blue he is, while feeling free to critisise the fans who also pay his wages, he's shoring up the board. I don't think you can seperate one from the other as cleanly as some want to.
What's the alternative? A manager who fights the board at every turn and gets fired in under a year? Aside from making the club very unstable what will that accomplish? Are you hoping the more pro-board fans would realize the board is the problem and try more to force them out? That's what I already want! I don't know what the end game is with a manager who fights against the board aside from something it's theoretically possible to accomplish with Moyes too without risking relegation which could come from a new manager every year because guess what -- they are demanding money which does not exist. "I'll quit if you don't spend more on players." "Okay then bye." If you think they have a hundred million to pump into the squad and aren't doing so because Moyes doesn't push them enough well ... okay. They don't. Looking up the technical net worth of our technical board members is pointless -- they don't want to put it into Everton no matter what someone they hired to do a job says or doesn't say to or about them.
Okay that's that. Have fun cats and kittens. I am going to try to enjoy this season of Everton playing football.
