Blue watch: David Moyes gave it best shot to get Aaron Ramsey

Jun 12 2008 Liverpool Daily Post

AARON RAMSEY’S decision to go to Arsenal comes as a bit of a surprise, although most people expected him to choose Manchester United, not Everton.

However, you can’t blame David Moyes for trying, and reports that he met with the player and his family – something that Sir Alex Ferguson failed to do – shows that the Goodison manager was determined to give it his best shot. However, the odds of Ramsey preferring the chance of first team football at Goodison, as opposed to life on the sidelines at a Champions League club, were always pretty slim. For Everton’s part though, this clearly certainly wasn’t some sort of bogus bid – what’s commonly referred to as a ‘Shearer’ by our supporters – and it’s kind of refreshing to see us referred to as one of the ‘top clubs in the country’ for a change.

Who exactly Moyes is going to bring in though still seems no clearer at all, although it will be a shock if we are not linked with Holland’s Orlando Engelaar soon, given that the FC Twente player seems to fit the description of the gargantuan defensive midfielder we are looking for to replace Lee Carsley. So does Tom Huddlestone, who is an intriguing prospect, but the only way he is worth the rumoured £10million is if Spurs are pricing him by the pound.

Beeb go to Euros mob-handed

IT’S become a bit of a post-modern cliché, commenting on the commentators at big football tournaments, but they really are hard to ignore, especially at the BBC.

The Corporation have recently copped a load of flak because of the money they lavish on ‘talent’ such as Jonathon Ross. Surely that’s missing the point though – greater opprobrium should be provoked by the money being spent on the patently talent-less, ie the pundits at Euro 2008.

For a start, why do we need to have so many of them? On average, for every match there have been four bored-looking heads in the studio at half-time, and there seems a real danger of actual violence erupting as they squabble over who has what inane line. Although Alan Shearer seems to have found a compromise by essentially repeating exactly what Alan Hansen says and then clenching his jaw, as if daring someone to pull him up. If only he’d taken the Blackburn Rovers job he’d have saved himself another two-and-a-half weeks of agony.

Then there’s the Libero, or ‘spare man on the end’, usually Martin O’Neill or Gordon Strachan, complete with his rather luxurious new Diana-esque hairdo. Don’t be surprised if Gary Lineker starts introducing him as ‘the coach of hearts’. What is it about being the main man at Celtic that has made the pair of them so intense though? O’Neill makes even the most straightforward of comments look like the final stages of a hostage negotiation, while Strachan permanently has the air of a man who hasn’t quite understood your accent but thinks you might have just insulted his mother.

Going back to the Beeb saving money, and indeed the planet, what is with all ultraviolet lights in their studio? Every programme looks like it’s being broadcast from Vienna’s first football-themed sunbed shop. Which if it were anything like the salons on Merseyside would be called either ‘Tan Point Lead’ or ‘Tan Nil’.

To give the BBC their due though, at least we can now watch the games in glorious High Definition. And you have to admit that now when they show a close up of the players the detail is simply spectacular – the phlegm just looks that much, well, phlegmier.