The Moyes Revolution
Everton’s run to the final of the 2009 FA Cup generated some long overdue praise for the work of manager David Moyes. Geoff Edwards takes a look at how Moyes has achieved his success on a shoestring budget.
This year’s FA Cup Final was a case of the haves against the have nots or, more specifically, the billionaires against the millionaires. In this case the billionaires, Chelsea, ran out winners with a 2-1 victory over the millionaires, Everton. Everton’s run to the final was a prominent feature of this year’s FA Cup. They were no strangers to financial mismatches after having already dumped Liverpool and Manchester Utd out of the competition but, despite going 1-0 up on 25 seconds through Louis Saha, this Chelsea side proved to be one step too far as they came back strongly with goals from Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard.
Despite the defeat, Everton’s cup run won the manager David Moyes a lot of richly deserved and overdue praise from the media and fans of other football clubs, so much so that he has been linked with the Manchester Utd job when Alex Ferguson retires. Everton are finally becoming recognised as an established top 6 club and it is down to David Moyes. He has, slowly but surely, revolutionised the club based on 3 factors: Team spirit and work ethic, shrewd transfer dealings and intelligent coaching and management.
The first factor, team spirit and work ethic, was visible from the start. When he was appointed in March 2002, Everton were being dragged into a relegation battle and were recovering from a gruesome FA Cup capitulation at Middlesbrough. The squad was lacking in confidence and full of unmotivated, ageing stars such as Paul Gascoigne, David Ginola and Jesper Blomqvist. Stars whose every attribute (other than perhaps their wage packets) were long since on the wane. Moyes’ appointment was like a breath of fresh air at the time, the change in attitude of the team was reflected by a win in his opening game in charge against Fulham. Moyes publicly demonstrated no one player was bigger than the team with a dressing down of Jesper Blomqvist for a petulant reaction to getting substituted. Everton went on to win 3 out of their last 8 games to avoid relegation.
However, it wasn’t until the 2004-05 season that the second two factors, shrewd transfer business and intelligent management were introduced to augment this team spirit. It was the combination of these 3 elements that allowed Everton to recover from their worst ever Premier League season (in 2003-04 Everton finished 17th with 39 points, their lowest ever total) and the subsequent sale of the outrageously talented Wayne Rooney to Manchester United. Only relative unknowns Marcus Bent and Tim Cahill were signed for a combined total of £2.5 million for the start of the season, to supplement a seemingly limited squad that many tipped for relegation. To the surprise of most football experts Everton finished the season in a miraculous 4th place and qualified for the Champions League. In the 4 subsequent seasons, Everton have finished in the top 6 on 3 occasions.
Moyes has been the architect of this success, setting out his teams to play in a 4-1-4-1 formation that maximises the strengths of the players and minimises their limitations. Journeyman midfielder Lee Carsley was deployed just in front of the back 4 breaking up play, becoming a vital component of the team for the next 3 seasons, making them more solid defensively and allowing creative players such as Thomas Gravesen, and later Mikel Arteta and Manuel Fernandes, much more freedom to attack without concern for their defensive duties. Tim Cahill was given a role floating behind the lone striker, free to make late runs into the box and pounce on even the smallest half chances, and gain a reputation as one of the most dangerous attacking midfielders in the Premier League.
In The 2008-09 season, a 4-1-5-0 formation was introduced in response to a striker injury crisis, Tim Cahill and Marouane Fellaini alternated as auxiliary forwards – Everton went 9 games unbeaten in this period.
All this has been achieved on a relative shoestring budget. Key players such as Mikel Arteta and Tim Cahill were signed for £2.5 million apiece, a fraction of their current value. The likes of Phil Jagielka and Joleon Lescott were plucked from the Championship and developed into England internationals. Even the £15 million signing of Marouane Fellaini, a club record, is a relatively small sum in today’s market.
It remains to be seen whether financial constraints will allow Moyes and his model to break into the 4 Champions League places on a consistent basis, or whether he will decide to try his luck at a club with better resources. But what cannot be argued is that Moyes has turned Everton around from those dark days of 2002 and given them a platform from which to build, with a squad full of players committed to the cause and top notch youth and coaching facilities. That Moyes has done all this without significant investment should be a cause of optimism not just for Everton fans, but also those of other clubs not owned by billionaires.
Moyes is obviously a fantastic judge of a players ability. He’s found a few lower league players like Cahill, Lescott and Jagielka and helped them transform their careers. They have a lot of players I admire, Osman I think is vastly underrated. Arteta as well would walk into the England squad, yet can’t get a sniff for Spain, shows how frighteningly high quality the Spanish midfield is.
Do you think Moyes is there forever now? Building a legacy? Surely you must do all you can to keep him.
I think Moyes has hit the roof with Everton now and should be looking towards a bigger job (which he’s be a very strong candidate for). Once a job comes up he’ll be in the running – it’s just a matter of time I feel.
It’s a shame for Everton really but as Bill Kenwright said – Everton need a billionnaire and until they get that they’re going to struggle to break into the next level.
I like what Everton have done, they know they haven’t the financial resources of the bigger clubs so they have looked at the lower divisions and looked at promoting youth players. They have the right idea I think, and although some people seem to disagree I think that with a lot of luck and the right manager they can go all the way with their current set up.
Perhaps it’s just the romantic in me that sees great football and winning teams not just being based around money? Hopefully Everton can press on, bring more quality young players through and push for the top 4 this season. If they do it once, they can attract one or two big names and push on potentially. When Arteta and Cahill are both fit, if they had a consistant centre forward, and perhaps another winger they would have a very exciting attacking unit.
I think you’re both right. You could argue that an extra winger and full-back, along with a lot of luck with injuries, could have been all it would have taken to get Everton those extra few points to really push the top 4 in the last couple of years.
Moyes really seems to have become a true Evertonian in his time at the club, which I think is the main reason while he’s still at the club and I think he genuinely wants to break through that roof that Steve mentioned. But with the money that the likes of Man City, Tottenham and Aston Villa have at their disposal, I think it’s only going to get harder.
“If you’re talented, you must move to a ‘big’ team.”
This is rubbish. People with dignity and integrity have loyalty to their teams if the teams and managers have loyalty to them. There is just as much honor as bringing a small team to glory (see Sampdoria, for example, or Villareal) as in playing for Liverpool or Madrid.
Commentators said Fernando Torres had to leave Atletico to make it big. Yet Liverpool has won nothing in his time there, and had he stayed with Atletico he could have formed one of the most deadly attacking tridents in world football for sure, with Torres/Kun/Forlan being spoken of in the same breath as Messi/Eto’o/Henry or Kaka/Ronaldinho/Pato or Rooney/Ronaldo/Berbatov. Who is to say that Atleti with Torres wouldn’t be as good as Liverpool.
In short, this whole “to attain true success, he has to move to a bigger club” attitude needs to be discarded. Don’t move to a big club, make your club big.
Joseph – I had to moderate your comment as we don’t accept that kind of language here on World Football Columns but the rest of your point was valid and worth discussing.
Also I’m wondering where your quote is taken from as it’s not included in this article or any of the comments – nevertheless I’ll bite.
I think it’s a sad situation that the smaller clubs can’t keep hold of their players – but unfortunately a realistic view. It’s especially true in South American and continues right up the food chain to 2nd tier European teams such as Atletico. The question has to be begged – would Atletico have been able to keep together all those talents at once? Once Torres left, that was time for Aguero to shine – sure they could have all played together but at the smaller clubs you normally see one top player with a supporting cast rather than big name after big name.
I think from your quote – the players move to big teams to win silverware. Rooney at Manchester United has won 3 Premier Leagues and a Champions League – in all seriousness if Everton had held on to him would they have done the same? You have to remember that the money that Everton got for Rooney has been spent towards the team as a whole. They would have not have had that money otherwise.
One comment that always annoys me but is always true throughout is that all the top players have won the World Cup – this means essentially you have to play for a team capable of winning the World Cup such as Brazil, Italy or France. I can admit Ryan Giggs never made it to the very top of the sport but it was always the case that he wasn’t going to win a World Cup.
I feel that alot of people won’t truely rate Messi as the one of the greats unless he wins that World Cup – but in all honesty he’s probably the best player I’ve seen in my lifetime for his age, even if he doesn’t win the World Cup surely he’s going to have some career?
To summarise – top players making their small teams big (by winning silverware) is not the ordinary. Teams are struggling to break in the top tiers of their league because of the financial prowess that the top 3 or 4 teams possess. There will, as always, be exceptions to the rule but in general I think your views are based on a fantasy attitude towards the game – nothing wrong with that at all, but maybe it’s time to take a pragmatic stance on the situation.
Steve J – I too am confused by Joseph’s comments and quotes. I’m an Everton fan and found this article a good tribute to David Moyes. He accepted Wayne Rooney would move on and planned after that to make Everton a top 6 club. I think overall we’ve benefitted from selling him as Tim Cahill, Mikel Arteta and Fellani have been superb as has other recent buys by Moyes. I don’t like to depend on one certain player at a team because if he gets injured then it gives you big problems.