Everton 0, Portsmouth 3: Nervy opening leads to change in expectations

Sep 1 2008 by Nick Smith, Daily Post

IF it wasn’t painfully obvious before Saturday then it certainly is now. As David Moyes feared before this campaign even kicked off, Everton will have to seriously revise their ambitions this season.

That’s not just because of the two uncharacteristic home losses they have suffered, mainly as a result of a baffling inability to deal with dangerous forward players.

It’s also plain to see as each agonising day of this transfer window ticks by towards its sorry conclusion tonight.

Moyes was supposed to be making the signings worthy of a fifth-placed club who wanted to push on that extra yard.

But the fact that it hasn’t been possible is not a symptom of any incompetence in the market on Everton’s part.

It’s more to do with the impossibility of that task for any side outside the Premier League’s Champions League elite.

Full credit to Everton for knocking on the door in the past two years. They even managed to prise it open and poke their heads in once in a while.

Now they’re simply being laughed out of the room.

As Moyes pointed out, Manchester United and Arsenal haven’t been as active as they might have liked this summer either.

But the champions have enough quality in depth to cope with that. Everton don’t.

Arsene Wenger has a large, if dust-gathering, transfer pot at his disposal.

When he decides to dip into it chances are he will be able to make the signings he wants. Moyes can’t.

It’s Everton who will be trampling over Cinderella in the desperate rush towards midnight later on, not them. A sad reality reflected in the new acquisitions made so far.

After a 106-day wait, the new faces, with all respect, wouldn’t have got a second look from genuine top four challengers.

Lars Jacobsen and Segundo Casillo are largely unknown and untried, while Louis Saha is unreliable in terms of fitness.

That he is the most exciting addition so far – a 30-year-old carrying goodness knows how much long-term damage from his worrying injury history – speaks volumes.

As does the fact that most Everton supporters will accept this.

“Just get the numbers in” is now top of their wish-list rather than the proven top flight pedigree of Tiago and Shaun Wright-Phillips.

They’re resigned to the fact that the quality needed to improve the existing squad and help elevate it to the next level is not forthcoming.

And even if it is in the little time that remains, that does nothing for Moyes’ great strengths of organisation and integrating new players into his system as early as possible.

Still, there’s little point complaining about it now – they are the harsh realities mixing with the jeers and dissatisfied grunts in the air around Goodison Park at the moment.

The next thing to worry about is what those revised ambitions are and how Everton go about achieving them.

The first thing is surely getting the players who are here to play something like close to their full potential, especially in defence.

Six goals in two home games is a statistic to sap confidence, as is the sight of Peter Crouch toying with Joseph Yobo on the touchline.

The short-term solution lies in Castillo taking the defensive midfield role to allow Phil Jagielka back alongside Yobo, with Lescott free to rediscover last season’s momentum from the left-back slot that served him so well in his march to Player of the Year titles.

But even so, there’s enough international experience in that backline to be able to cope.

Phil Neville seems to have shaken off the effects of that terribly nervy opening day against Blackburn and his colleagues back there need to do the same.

If that happens – and you suspect successive trips to Stoke and Hull make that a distinct possibility – then there is enough potential further down the field to impact the kind of results needed to keep Everton at least in with a shout of a Uefa Cup challenge or even a cup itself.

Despite the scoreline, failure to capitalise on key moments on Saturday cost them the chance to keep Portsmouth within striking distance and David James has to take immense credit for that.

Once again, you look at the next games, off the back of a perfectly-timed international break, and see the perfect opportunity to restore belief.

The opportunity for Ayegbeni Yakubu and James Vaughan to help themselves, and for Mikel Arteta and Leon Osman to get back into their creative stride ahead of the Merseyside derby.

Because you already get the nagging feeling that Everton need six points out of the next six going into that to ensure things don’t disintegrate further.

All of which only highlights even more how massive that victory at The Hawthorns was a week ago.

But it’s still a week-on-week struggle for Moyes.

And to think this is a man whose main gripe going in to the final game of last season was merely that his side hadn’t been awarded a penalty in the Premier League up to that point.

And although Saturday’s spot-kick award ensures he won’t have to ensure such frustration this time, he probably wishes he was still waiting given Yakubu’s silly, staggered run-up.

Like much of Saturday’s match, it was excruciating to watch.