A touch of Salt can pep up the season

Jul 21 2007 by Nick Smith, Liverpool Daily Post

OPTIMISM should be declared as hand luggage such is its necessity in accompanying Everton across the Atlantic.

And this year’s package was best summed up by Lee Carsley as he prepared for this latest American adventure. Okay, so his cry of “we’re still unbeaten” was barely audible through the muffled sound created by planting his tongue in his cheek, but the over-riding message is still loud and clear – Everton are looking on the bright side as they head Stateside once again.

The unbeaten record Carsley is so enthusiastically keeping tabs on was kept intact at Deepdale on Wednesday night.

It has to be pointed out that easy simultaneous weekend victories over Bury and a Northern Ireland XI (the standard of the opposition obvious by the very use of that infamous Roman numeral) preceded that draw with Preston, which only came courtesy of a late Victor Anichebe leveller.

Granted, it’s all about as exciting as the prospect of yesterday’s gruelling 17-hour slog to Salt Lake, painfully prolonged by a coach driver who should immediately check out the sat-nav system Everton are – with timing almost eerie in its perfection – promoting on the club website.

And little more celebration is likely to come no matter how the unbeaten record is kept intact tonight against Real Salt Lake when Everton kick off their one and only friendly of the tour (3am BST).

But however ironic Carsley’s observation, the attitude is one which served Everton well this time last year and looks set to again.

It was widely recognised by both manager David Moyes and his players that the bonding in Columbus and Dallas was far more valuable than the football – which is just as well, because in Salt Lake it’s clear they haven’t seen much of it from a team currently at the bottom of the MLS Western Division.

Not many true footballing towns are stalked by such breathtaking mountain scenery, which is probably why tonight’s venue will always remain famous for its 2002 Winter Olympic ceremonies than anything that happens tonight.

Maybe trading with LA Galaxy and bringing Chelsea, complete with Didier Drogba and his triple salcos, to the Rice-Eccles Stadium would help that cause.

But for now it’s back to the slippery slope of obscurity, which Everton will surely give them a hefty push down tonight.

All of which is why, despite the lack of a second warm-up game, the second leg of this tour will be far more significant when reflected upon during the coming season.

Everton will want to quietly make their mark in LA – no hideously contrived Posh Spice-style documentaries for them.

The only thing they’re staging will be a series of training sessions designed to add the final team-building touches to the start of the new Premiership season, already only two weeks away.

But just the way that great, if all too brief, blue scarf waver Sylvester Stallone likes it, there’s no getting away from the Hollywood glitz completely.

Using the LA Galaxy facility is a move that couldn’t be better timed given the all-time record deal that has brought David Beckham to the club and by next week he might actually have started playing for them if what he witnessed on Wednesday night hasn’t sent him into hiding in the Hollywood hills.

Or he might be persuaded, on a visit from old Manchester United pal Phil Neville, to ditch the MLS and make up the numbers in one of Moyes’s five-a-sides.

If nothing else, it might be a nice reminder of what playing competitive football used to be like.

But for Everton, striking up the right harmony within the squad members who made the trip is so important at this stage.

Although Moyes is on the verge of boosting the numbers with the arrival of Steven Pienaar he intimated on more than one occasion during last season’s run to the top six that having so few cogs in the machine isn’t necessarily a negative if they all intertwine to ensure it runs efficiently.

And this is the time when those stiff joints are carefully oiled ready for such a smooth operation.

“Some people – the staff and the players – look back at some of the good seasons we have had and seen a good pre-season tour as the catalyst for us to go on and do well,” said defender Alan Stubbs.

“I wouldn’t say it makes or breaks but it is important to have a good pre-season. If you miss four or five days at this time of year, it’s like missing two or three weeks later on. It’s difficult to claw it back then.

But, luckily enough, we have worked really hard so far and things have been going well. Everyone seems to be getting through the sessions and fingers crossed it can carry on that way for the next few weeks. It’s back into the swing of things.”

But even Moyes would rather have had a few more blue-clad bodies to add to the 16 he counted through passport control yesterday.

Tim Cahill’s Asian Cup campaign is inevitably rolling on into the knock-out stages as Australia prepare for today’s quarter-final against Japan, James Vaughan’s unfortunate last-minute cry-off after injury at Preston denied him the chance to travel and Andy van der Meyde didn’t go due to personal reasons.

But on the place known as the Crossroads of the West, there’s every belief that the right roads will be taken once again.

In this part of the world, Everton usually do.