Bent double laughing at Everton's Euro hopes?
Posted by Ian Marshall's Double in Everton | 7 April 2006
There is no strong performance without a little fanaticism in the performer. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Mark O’Brien’s excellent When skies are Grey coverage has mentioned this as well, but it was really interesting to read Marcus Bent’s comments about Everton. He has actually stated that he is now an Everton fan after the time he spent at the awesone Goodison, the ground with the wow factor. Maybe 3 sides of the ground worshipped him but most of the Park End seemed to be calling him a ‘lazy bastard’ when he was running around like a madman on his own up front.
In fact it’s fair to say that in the early parts of the 2004/5 he was THE most important player in the side, with his athleticism being integral to playing a 4-5-1 system. The other heavy irony about his words are that he’s big mates with James Beattie, yet he seemed to ‘spit his dummy’ at Everton the minute the Mersey Beatt was signed. Having had the dubious privilege of sitting behind the dug-outs a t’Reebok on the last day of the season, Real Life Blues can confirm that so far was his bottom lip protruding that it could have been deemed to be ‘encroaching outside the technical area’.
Another Marcus memory is after the potentially (but not actually) crucial defeat at West Brom last season. He had blazed a decent chance miles over the bar just before West Brom took the lead. He came over to the fans at the end and and held his hands up in an apologetic manner. Nice gesture, nice touch. All that said, hope he ‘has one’ on Saturday.
Elsewhere things are looking up from the despondency of earlier in the week, especially after Joey Yobo’s relatively positive comments about hanging around. Keeping your ear to the ‘internet ground’ is a hazardous occupation, but his apparent words in the past 24 hours have seemed better. Elsewhere in the murky interworld, we're linked with a measly 2 more players today, Gary McSheffrey and Dario Simic.
The artisan Arteta will start tomorrow by all accounts which is positive, but any side with Naysmith and Wright in it, which we reckon ours will have, is bound the have some susceptibility.
Turning to our opponents, the enormous amount of toadying around Alan Curbishley leaves Real Life Blues pretty irritated to be honest. Yep, he’s done a good job getting Cholton (or however they say it) to a certain point, but does that really make him a future England manager. Whenever other bigger jobs in this league we don’t call Barclays Premiership come up, and let’s face it there are few smaller than Charlton, he seems to stay in his Sarf Landan comfort zone. And he’s a proper miserable get.
Let’s hope that goes for tomorrow too. Everton need a minimum of 4 points from these next 2 games. Allez les Bleus.
