Everton FC Back in Old routine – but time tosnap out of current slump

Nov 23 2009 by Chris Beesley, Liverpool Daily Post

Everton FC Back in Old routine – but time tosnap out of current slump

SATURDAY night’s trip to Old Trafford marked David Moyes’s 350th game in charge of Everton but the scoreline against Manchester United was depressingly familiar for the visitors.

Everton also lost 3-0 in Moyes’s first visit to the home of the Red Devils back in October 2002 but at least on that occasion, they were level with their hosts until a dramatic late collapse in the final four minutes.

The game seven years ago featured Wayne Rooney’s debut appearance at the stadium he now calls home but the then 16-year-old’s lively cameo as an Everton substitute failed to stop the rot in the Premier League’s most one-sided fixture and nobody connected with the Goodison Park outfit has been able to halt the slide since.

Yes, United have been thoroughly dominant during the Premier League era, enjoying a blanket success of titles unparalleled in the history of the English game and you would expect them to win the lion’s share of all their home fixtures be it against Everton or any regular opponent.

But while others have picked up the odd shock victory, the fact is that Everton sides, good and bad, through thick and thin, have continued to fail at Old Trafford ever since their first ever Premier League visit in August 1992.

The 3-0 success for the visitors that day, inspired by goals from goals by Peter Beardsley, Robert Warzycha – who tore PFA Player of the Year Gary Pallister apart – and Mo Johnston, came in the embryonic first few weeks after top flight football’s rebranding revolution.

Ever since, trips to the ‘Theatre of Dreams’ have been mostly horror shows for Evertonians.

There was a time in the not-too-dim and distant pass that Everton would regularly overcome United at their own manor but this must seem a strange concept to the likes of Jack Rodwell who would have been taking some of his first steps as a 15-month-old when Howard Kendall’s men last succeeded.

The problems Moyes faces are highlighted by the fact that for all the improvements he has brought to Everton, he has not, in eight seasons of trying, recorded a single victory away at any of the Premier League’s ‘big four.’

Indeed, Everton’s only successes of any kind against United in the Premier League era have come when they really ‘needed’ them. The 1995 FA Cup final, the game at Goodison Park in the run-in for the club’s highest Premier League finish in 2004/05, and last season’s FA Cup semi-final against a weakened side at Wembley.

When it comes to the bread and butter fixtures, Everton haven’t had a sniff. The latest failure was the embodiment of a ‘routine’ win for United.

Before kick-off, United’s very own devil, ‘Fred the Red’ patted the Everton mascot on the head. It summed up the whole evening.

On your way Everton, thanks for another three points.

Which must be absolutely galling for both Moyes and all the travelling Evertonians.

For all the passion still felt for this fixture from Evertonians, they’re seen as just another side by United.

The announcer on the Old Trafford public address system even struggled to pronounce their players’ names like he hadn’t even heard of them. Experienced internationals were dubbed John ‘Hetanga’, ‘Fellarni’ and ‘Yakubo’.

Minus marks for sloppiness have to go to the researchers of the matchday programme ‘United Review’ too. Despite what they tell their readers, Leighton Baines did not displace Joseph Yobo from the left-back spot last season, Belgian Marouane Fellaini is of Moroccan descent but he wasn’t born there and Everton won the European Cup-Winners’ Cup in 1985 not 2004 – the competition ceased to exist after 1999.

Given their wretched record against United, Everton must have realised that Premier League wins were always going to have to be picked up elsewhere.

The midweek trip to Hull City is now a real ‘six pointer’ as could be next Sunday’s Merseyside derby with both sides going into the game on the back of some disappointing form.

Just how many square pegs Moyes will have to knock into round holes for these fixtures remains to be seen – Tim Cahill and Fellaini both had to operate on the wings at Old Trafford given the scarcity in availability of natural wide players – but like their manager said afterwards, the club’s crippling injury list, as mitigating as it is, cannot be continually used as an excuse.

Players who are fit and in the side should be using these chances to nail down their place on the manager’s team sheet and unless they start doing that soon, a hat-trick of top six finishes and European qualification will be making way for mid-table mediocrity.