EVERTON SUPPORTERS had a choice on Saturday. They could gripe and mope and groan over Wayne Rooney’s impending departure; or they could nail their colours to the mast and place themselves right behind David Moyes and his remaining players. Their impassioned backing that provided the catalyst for this victory gave the unequivocal response of the vast majority.
“They’ve given us great support,” Moyes, the Everton manager, said. “The players and myself wanted to show how together we are here. This is a great football club: it’ll go on a lot longer after I’ve gone, long after (any particular) players have gone, long after chairmen have gone. It’s been here a long time before us as well. This is a club for the people of Liverpool.”
Leaflets handed out in the streets around Goodison Park appealed to supporters to evacuate the ground for the half-time interval in protest against the board and against Rooney’s agent. What are Everton supposed to have done? Donned red shirts and called themselves Manchester United? Offered their England prodigy more than £50,000 a week? If Rooney completes his move away from Goodison by tomorrow night’s transfer deadline, it is because he and his advisers want him to go.
“You know who comes out of this smelling of roses, don’t you?” one sage on the 18.35 out of Liverpool Lime Street philosophised on Saturday evening. “The manager.”
Well, good luck David Moyes, then. He has got his team playing as a unit, without discernible ego problems, and if today they can reproduce the commitment and organisation with which they overcame West Bromwich Albion, then United will not have everything their own way; on the pitch, at least.
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Leon Osman provided a surrogate focus for Evertonians’ need of a hero on Saturday, the diminutive midfield player, allegedly 5ft 8in tall, scoring with two headers either side of Scott Dobie’s nodded equaliser. “He’s a terrific little player,” Moyes said. “He helps us play, because he’s so good on the ball. You have to be big and strong in the Premiership and he’s working on that side of his game but in terms of ability, he’s second to none.” Not with the exit of Mr Rooney.
As Everton surely bid farewell to their prime goalscoring talent, so Albion hope they are preparing to welcome theirs. Although Dobie was a willing runner in the absence of the injured Geoff Horsfield, the impending arrival of Robert Earnshaw should offer them additional pace and goalpower.
The Wales forward has scored 105 goals in 163 starts for Cardiff City and at £3.5 million he seems a gamble worth taking for Gary Megson, whose hard-working team were beaten for the first time this season. “He is better than Jermain Defoe in my book,” Andy Johnson, the Albion midfielder said. “I don’t know anyone who is as sharp as he is around the box.”