http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/apr/04/steven-naismith-roberto-martinez-everton-wigan
Good manners cost nothing and burning bridges is never a smart idea. Those who disagree with such life sentiment need only study the case of Steven Naismith.
It is the summer of 2012. After deciding that his future lies away from
Rangers amid a move by the club's then chief executive, Charles Green, to force players to move their contracts to a newco business, Naismith is on the verge of a move to
Everton as a free agent.
"Contract-wise everything was sorted out, the facilities were tremendous," Naismith recalls. "I liked what I had heard about the manager. The team was great."
The manager of another club, though, was refusing to take "no" for an answer.
Wigan Athletic's
Roberto Martínez, made it clear to Naismith's representatives that he must speak to the player. "A day or two before I was meant to be coming to Everton I got that phonecall," says Naismith. "In all honesty, Roberto Martínez blew me away in the conversation.
"It was unbelievable, the way he knew everything about my past, where I was most comfortable playing, so much about my career. He said he thought I had given too much defensively in the past, that if he was my manager he would rather I kept my energy for when we were attacking. The way he spoke about the game was amazing."
Naismith was to complete his Everton move but not before an important piece of housekeeping. "I texted him to say that I appreciated the call, how he had blown me away and I was very grateful, but I felt the best move for my career at that point was Everton," the Scot says.
"I did that with every manager I have spoken to. It's something I have learned over the years. Just be straight-up and honest. There's no point losing relationships with people. One year later, I am taking a phonecall at roughly the same time from the new manager at Everton. He said: 'If the mountain won't come to Muhammad then Muhammad must go to the mountain.'
"He has such good charisma and is such a good man-manager that you want to work for him. This season is the most I have learned football-wise in my whole career. David Moyes is a British-mentality manager, which I have seen a lot of. He was only tweaking and giving you a more advanced lesson on what you already knew. With the manager now, it is a totally new way of playing football. It opens your eyes to the fact football can be played in such a different way."
Not that Naismith would ever contemplate joining in the criticism of Moyes, which has reached deafening proportions since his switch to Manchester United. "He believed in me," Naismith says. "I was just coming back from a knee injury and he brought me to England. I loved the way David Moyes worked. He was the most thorough I have ever seen in preparing for anything. David Moyes was the first manager I had seen who was so hands-on, he took the majority of training every day.
"His standards were so high. I think my standards are high; if someone isn't pulling their weight in training then it annoys me. David Moyes would nail somebody for that and I liked it.
"Probably at the moment, a lot of Everton fans don't appreciate what he did for the club because the new manager has come in and hit the ground running, probably playing a more attractive brand of football. We have taken some big scalps this season. But I'm sure in 10-15 years' time we'll look at where the club was when he came in, where he left them, and nobody will argue how good a job he had done."
Under Martínez, Everton's major disappointment has been the 4-0 loss to Liverpool at Anfield in late January. "We didn't perform and it wasn't good enough," Naismith admits.
Naismith's on-field class, which he hopes to display once again when Everton take on Arsenal on Sunday, is matched by his character. He is an passionate supporter of charities, having sponsored a series of lunches for the homeless in both Glasgow and Liverpool, worked with Dyslexia
Scotland and backed Help for Heroes.
"When I was injured at Rangers I got a letter from a soldier who was serving in Afghanistan, telling me he was gutted that I had done my knee," says Naismith. "He was out fighting for our country, I am just a sportsman trying to give entertainment to people. It is life or death for them, not win or lose.
"They should get all the support they need. You hear of so many servicemen coming out of the army struggling to get a job or get any help, struggling for homes. It's incredible that it can happen that way. It's not good enough."
In a professional sense, Naismith insists even matching last season's sixth-placed finish would constitute a fine achievement for a club who have been placed in the Merseyside shade by Liverpool's title charge. "I would say it had still been a very successful season because of the transition. It's not as if we had just changed manager after a couple of years, it was 11. A lot of these guys had seven years or more under David Moyes."
Naismith, now 27, only had one. What came next has been of mutual benefit.
