Monday, May 12, 2008

Everton Complete Successful Year

A huge victory for Everton FC yesterday with a win over listless Newcastle. Minus Martins and Viduka, this Newcastle team was a shadow of their squad from even last week. Owen was mediocre and EFC showed another great example of what a good squad they can be. There are some changes that need to be made and hopefully 2-3 young players will establish themselves next year. That being said, 5th place and UEFA Cup is a big accomplishment for this squad, especially with how they have missed Cahill and Arteta this year.

Yakubu can be a great striker in this league, but he will need to prove that he can go day in and day out for the Blues to be successful. There is a great base to develop in this team, but there will need to be some cash spent to make the next leap. Everton needs 1-2 bona fide superstars to prove that they can be in the Top 4 and Champion's League. EFC need Cahill to play the system they played for a lot of the year, but they also need other options to break down teams on the wings. Right now there is no player like Ronaldo who is confident enough to beat players all day long. This is going to be an interesting offseason for Moyes.

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Everton Season Drawing to Close

The last few weeks have been hectic in the football calendar. Everton have been producing poor form over the last few weeks. Coupled with some key injuries, the squad has shown its lack of depth. All the games have been competitive but we have lacked that killer instinct from the first six months of the season. Arteta and Ossie have been sorely missed while Aj's injury piled on the problem.

As I have noted previously, there is a need for more good squad players. We can't compete to win against the big clubs yet and results recently have put us needed a result in the last match. While I am totally confident this will happen, it would have been a lot better for many Evertonian's hearts to wrap this up a while ago. I said that Aston Villa were the squad to watch and they are definitely up and coming if they can lock down some good squad players. Similar to Everton in this regard and I think it will be the same teams locked in battle for these spots next year, depending on how loose owners are this summer.

Man Utd has been impressive as has Chelsea and these upcoming two games are ones to relish. I am looking forward to the next couple of weeks and watching a exciting final from Russia.