By Dave Woodhall.
I had a more than passing interest in the internationals last week. Not England of course – being bothered about the Three Lions is far too uncool – but rather those minnow nations Scotland and the Republic of Ireland. The Scots were indebted to Alan Hutton and a midfield masterclass from Barry Bannan to beat Lithuania, while the Republic’s game with Russia saw a lively display from Shay Given and a McGrath-esque performance from Richard Dunne that drew praise from even the great man himself. And so back to the proper stuff.
Funny place, Everton. Most of the Villa supporters I know respect the club, yet their supporters, for some unknown reason, hate us. Quite what they have against the Villa is beyond me, particularly as they seem more than any other group of fans to reject the shallowness of the Premier League and revel in their own authenticity and history, which is very similar to the Villa’s. We’ve both had brief periods of dominance and longer ones of mediocrity, with a nagging feeling that for some reason we should always be doing better.
Everton supporters are so convinced they should be doing better that they were out protesting on Saturday, although what against nobody seemed to know. They back manager David Moyes and chairman Bill Kenwright but they’re definitely against something.
They were definitely complaining at the end of the match, and with good reason. Their team had been in control for most of it, but still only managed to get a point thanks to Villa’s new-found resilience. Stilyan Petrov gave us the first equaliser with a blistering shot from fully thirty yards while Gabby Agbonlahor showed that he’s as good as any striker in the country when on form, with a late second.
For the rest of the game Messrs Bannan and Dunne continued with their international form but the real start of the show was Shay Given. If there is such an award as the Buy of the Summer (and with Sky it’s only a matter of time) he must surely be favourite for the award. A striker scores enough goals to win his team 15 points a season and he’s worth upwards of £20 million. A goalkeeper such as Given does the same by saving as many certain goals and £3.5 million was reckoned to be too much.
Anyway, a month into 2011-12 and we’re still unbeaten. Compared to how we started last season it’s a vast improvement, but it’s still only part of the battle. We’re hard to beat and we don’t ship many goals, which is always a good start. Now we have to start scoring and winning matches, even if it means taking a few risks. We’ve got the players to do it and I hope Alex McLeish has the inclination.