van Nistelrooy next for Everton
Posted by Ian Marshall's Double in Everton, Premiership, Van Nistelrooy | 1 June 2006
I’d say the biggest problem all my life……it’s money. It takes a lot of money to make these dreams come true. Walt Disney
Sorry just kidding about the equine boat-ed one. You almost believed it though didn’t you, the way we’ve been splashing the cash around this week.
Hats off to the board for the excellent job they have done in securing the services (to coin a weird phrase) of Andy Johnson. No one knows how he will turn out but you’d be hard pushed to find a Blue who didn’t want to get him, despite the fact that we’ve probably paid slightly over the odds.
And a massive well done to Johnson for his textbook behaviour upon signing. Within 48 hours he managed to offer 110% effort, say that he would rate his sense of anticipation at 12 out of 10, both wore and held up an Everton shirt at the same time, and managed to praise the fans and the ground. Perfect. Let’s hope he becomes a legend and reserves his special efforts for the team against whom he missed a Cup Final penalty.
It’s pretty confusing as to exactly where the money is coming from, the new TV deal maybe, but hopefully we are not just ‘living the dream’. Next through the door marked ‘in’ at Bellefield will be Joleon Lescott. It says a lot about what is bad about football/Sky that very few blues will have seen much of Lescott. He looks like he’s strong and rugged, like a ‘proper’ centre half, and could be a good partner for Yobo in the long-term. That’s if we can get Joey to sign up again.
One thing to say about Johnson and Lescott is that there appears to be a lesser risk in signing players from the Championship than from abroad. We know Johnson has cut it in the top flight for Palace anyway. We have also witnessed just how impressively Tim Cahill adjusted to life in the top flight. Moyesy has had his problems in the transfer market, but most of his home based signings have been sound (yeah, we're treating Simon Davies as a foreigner here)
If we do sign Lescott we could conceivably start the season with a side which reads;
Howard – Hibbert, Lescott, Yobo, Valente – Osman, Cahill, Neville (or Carsley) Arteta – Beattie, Johnson, which looks pretty handy and at least a top half side, if not better.
Back to Johnson, it looks like he’s very unlikely to go to the World Cup, with Defoe defo ahead of him. Suits us just fine, after the Barmby and Rooney experiences, we don’t want Andy Johnson putting in some Kenny Sansom/Clive Allen style 2 month stay before pissing off somewhere else. Lock him away and get him ready to fly from August.
On the subject of En-ger-land, a little moan, don’t worry, this isn’t going to go all Toffeeweb on you. There was one moment which illustrated a lot of what is wrong with this game we never, ever, ever call Soccer. On Wednesday night BBC showed 4 half-wits in curly wigs in the crowd wearing T-shirts which, once arranged in the correct order, spelled out the word ‘T-H-E-O’. Cack. Worse still, an overzealous Old Trafford steward was straight over telling them to sit down. Awful.
Next up we’ll take a look at the Everton players who are off to the World Cup, and no doubt report on our next multi-million signing.
