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Why the Toffees need a sugar daddy

By Mark Lawrenson
Published 08:29 04/12/10

David Moyes will be seriously depressed looking at Everton's position in the Premier League table.
And it's even more frustrating that the answer and solution is so obvious. Everton need a striker.
In every other department, Everton have quality. A top keeper in Tim Howard, quality defenders like Phil Jagielka and Leighton Baines, outstanding midfielders in Tim Cahill and Mikel Arteta.
But up front they have Jermaine Beckford, Yakubu and Louis Saha. If you roll them all into one then you have got a terrific striker. Sadly, individually, they are struggling for very different reasons.

Moyes desperately needs some finance to buy himself a striker and then Everton wouldn't have a problem - and that brings us onto a wider issue.
It is hard to understand why there has been no buyer or takeover at Goodison Park. You see consortiums buying out Blackburn and Sheffield Wednesday but not Everton.
It is utterly bizarre because Everton are a big club, it's an open secret that the club is open to offers and they have a terrific fan base.
The problem against them is the amount of match day revenue. Goodison is an old ground, doesn't have much in the way of corporate facilities and it means match day turnover is holding the club back.
And yet, with no disrespect, that's hardly different to clubs like Blackburn or Sheffield Wednesday.
It has left Everton short of funds to strengthen the squad. While one of their obvious rivals, Sunderland, can go out and buy Asamoah Gyan for £13m, Everton pick up Beckford on a free transfer.
Saha was similar. A really top class player but so injury prone. Yakubu is so inconsistent. Rarely produces big performances and he's almost gone lame now.
People said that a player like Beckford would score in the Premier League because goalscorers can score at any level.
That's just not true. It's wrong. The reason why is that he's jumped two levels from winning promotion with Leeds, by passing the Championship and then moving into the Premier League with Everton.
The difference is that lower down you get more time. There's not so much pressure on you from the defenders, you can take an extra touch and then take your chance.
Just look at his two awful misses from their defeat to West Brom. He snatched at both and both went horribly wide.
You look at Cahill and Arteta in that game. Arteta sent off for a stamp. Cahill lucky not to be sent off. That has come out of sheer frustration. They've lost their temper and snapped.
The source of that frustration is that Everton have a good squad, good players, a good manager and yet they lack finance to get a top striker.
But the difference at Everton is that the supporters are truly supportive. They're a club struggling but you don't get fans ringing in 6-0-6 calling for the manager to be sacked or saying he's taken them as far as he can.
The supporters are intelligent enough to know that Moyes is working on a budget and doing a good job on that budget.
But now they are crying out for someone to come in and take the club forward with some financial backing.
If it can happen for Sheffield Wednesday and Blackburn then it can certainly happen for Everton.
INTERVIEW: JOHN CROSS

Why Owen Coyle is the new Wenger

By Mark Lawrenson
Published 08:27 04/12/10

Owen Coyle is already in the running for Manager of the Year.
And you can pay him no bigger compliment than to compare him to Arsene Wenger when he took over Arsenal.
Wenger saw players like Martin Keown or Tony Adams, realised they had great qualities and yet still managed to improve them as footballers.
Coyle has done a similar thing with Bolton. They are still hard to beat, competitive and tough. And yet they play some good stuff - just look at Mark Davies' goal, a brilliant team effort, against Blackpool last week.

They pass it well, the movement is good and he's got more out of the players who were already there.
Elmander is a great case in point. He has been turned into an effective centre forward, a goalscorer and he works for the team. It's helped bring even more out of Kevin Davies who was already excellent.
Coyle got pelters for leaving Burnley. But he knew what he was leaving and what he was going to. He took the job, has taken Bolton further forward and proved he is a top manager.
**
Sepp Blatter wanted the World Cup to go to a new frontier.
Russia and Qatar have been rewarded. But it feels like it was done and dusted, which leaves everyone believing they were cheated as the decision has been made.
Why waste all of the money, time and effort?
We have the stadiums, fans and passion in this country to have made the World Cup a success. It's FIFA's loss and they need to take a long, hard look at themselves as to the reasons why the decisions were made.
INTERVIEW: JOHN CROSS

Team-mates and fans are back onside...now watch the return of the REAL Wayne Rooney

By Mark Lawrenson
Published 08:32 27/11/10

Wayne Rooney is on a mission to prove himself to Manchester United once again – and he's taken the right steps to win over the team-mates and fans whose loyalty he came so close to betraying.
Not surprisingly there are still quite a few United supporters still unhappy with the way he behaved.
Asking to leave, rumours of Manchester City or the Spanish clubs wanting him, then doing a U-turn when presented with a new £250,000-a-week deal is hardly a way to win respect.
So it is understandable many are thinking: Prove yourself to us again.

His reception back at Old Trafford was decent, though slightly muted. Some of the United faithful are thinking: We'll take a look at him, how he behaves to us, and make up our minds.
On the pitch, and away from Old Trafford, Rooney is sort of on trial. His first steps back to redemption were taken this week at Rangers when he scored the winner from the spot.
He roared with relief, celebrated in front of the United fans, and then gave an interview saying sorry for his recent wobbles.
The next step is to produce a sustained run of form, and more goals, to get United hitting top gear. It will take him time, but he will rediscover the magic.
In the past few weeks Sir Alex Ferguson has been cute by keeping him out of the spotlight. First he was dispatched to Dubai with his wife, and Fergie knew there would be paparazzi around looking to take his picture.
So there he was in a pool sipping champagne or having a beer miles from home in the sunshine.
He would have got the same attention back home. So Fergie sent him away for a rest, let the photographers snap him well away from Manchester and his football club. The distraction was thousands of miles away, off United's radar.
It was a masterplan in dealing with the turmoil. Fergie told him: Have time off, go to Dubai, but then you're off to the US to train intensively for a week, working on your fitness.
It took a lot of the sting out of the *situation.
Now I believe Rooney, like United, is ready to go bang. Rooney just needs games. You can train all you like, eat all the right stuff, go to bed early, have *practice matches, but you cannot replicate real games.
The encouraging thing is Rooney never seems to lose his hunger to win. That's what you get from him.
I watched United play Rangers in midweek. It was Rooney's first start since the controversy, and it is clear his fitness levels are not bad. He seemed to improve as the game went on. Now he has simply to play regularly, with a regular partner, Dimitar Berbatov.
Ferguson said he was a bit rusty in Glasgow, and he was. Before he scored the penalty a couple of volleys were miscued, and a free header sent wide.
But once the penalty came he was grabbing the ball and completely nonchalant about taking it. The way he celebrated, running to the United fans and roaring, showed it was a relief. That was his first for United since West Ham in August. The next challenge is to get one in open play.
Rooney obviously has fantastic ability, he's proved that year after year, *especially last season. Had he not got injured against Bayern Munich, who knows what the World Cup would have held for him. Now he just has to get himself match-hardened again.
There is a theory that the seven or eight years Rooney has played at the top level – for many *footballers that is an entire career – has taken a toll on body and mind.
I don't believe that is a concern for Rooney. For 80 per cent of last season he was the main man, scored 34 goals and dealt with the pressure of leading the charge.
In the summer, yes, he looked washed up – like most of the England players.
It will help if United stick with Berbatov as Rooney's partner. He is one of their cleverest players. He will never go chasing down defenders or tackling back but he sees passes and chances and is a better player to coax Rooney back into the goals.
The scoop pass he did at Rangers no one else would attempt, apart from perhaps Paul Scholes.
As for United in general, it was amazing to see Sir Alex admit they were not playing that well and needed to find a rhythm. He is usually totally belligerent about all things United and rarely makes such a *concession.
However he knows this is an odd season. Chelsea, Arsenal and City are all slipping up unexpectedly. United have won games while playing below par, and that is the mark of a good team. It is nothing to worry about. One day soon it will click and they will hit four or five.
And in any case, we all know United are strongest at the business end of the season. That is when they go mad.