Blue Watch: Talking a good game – for now

Oct 17 2007 by Mark O'Brien, Liverpool Daily Post

WHEN it comes to ‘stoking the derby flames’, the comments coming from either side of Stanley Park before Saturday’s game have been about as inflammatory as those phoney clips that those freaky American wrestlers do before their so-called fights.

Alan Stubbs has claimed that given the sort of money that Liverpool have spent they should be looking at winning the league and that a lot of Liverpudlians he knows have become a bit frustrated with Rafael Benitez.

In truth, would many Liverpool supporters argue with that? They have spent huge amounts of money and they started the season hoping to win the title.

They have had some poor results though and the fact that they have been booed off at home a couple of times indicates that the supporters are indeed disappointed.

It’s almost a backhanded insult though, if you can have such a thing.

After all, while their title hopes have been dented, given that they are six points off the lead already, they are still in a quite enviable position compared to most clubs, i.e. that actually winning the title is seen as an achievable target at all.

It’s been a long time since that has been the case for Evertonians, and the fact that their closest rivals have spent so much money in their vain attempts to catch up with the likes of Manchester United comes as little consolation.

While the comments from Peter Crouch’s book, where he talks about the aftermath of their 3-0 reverse at Goodison, have the whiff of sour grapes about them, it has to be noted that at the time a number of Evertonians made similar observations.

He refers in particular to the fact that Everton rushed out a DVD of the match, and that therefore it must have meant an awful lot to us. The fact of the matter is that it did, as it was our biggest win over them in decades, but still it is undeniable that we struggle to defend ourselves from accusations of being a bit small-time when we do things like that.

That doesn’t make the DVD any less enjoyable though, especially Pepe Reina’s cameo at the end.

Evertonians are famously wary of their players reporting for international duty, because of the twin hazards of having their heads turned by their national team-mates and also the risk of injury.

Say the words ‘Lansdowne Road’ to a Evertonian and they won’t recall any of the Republic’s famous matches there; rather they will instantly recall Neville Southall’s fateful ankle injury in 1986.

One player who has certainly benefited from representing his country though, and as a result has seen his performances for Everton get better, is James McFadden. He looked a lost soul for so long at Goodison, struggling out on the wing, and every transfer window saw him linked with a move back North of the Border. During that time though he continued to get picked for Scotland and to score important goals.

He’s on for them now and looks to be fulfilling the potential that he showed at Motherwell. David Moyes has also realised that he needs to play him in his right position if we are to see him emulate his international form and he’s started to do that this season – his improved showings culminating in that crucial goal in Kharkiv.

Hopefully he continues to star for club and country, as he is certainly the sort of talented yet unassuming character that the supporters of Scotland and Everton love to watch.