Everton out of the blue on Moyesyside

MANCHESTER United fans will be allowed their celebration at Goodison tomorrow afternoon after all. The curmudgeonly Scousers had been inclined to tell United to leave the champagne at home, until relentless pressure by Sky TV and the competition sponsors softened their intransigence.

United fans would disagree, but it’s a pity that the Premiership couldn’t have been decided on the last day of the season. That wasn’t possible because of United’s inexorable form in recent weeks, and because of Arsenal’s willingness to succumb to tabloid clichs about the French not fancying a fight.

It’s a shame because of the identity of United’s opponents tomorrow. Everton have been the Premiership’s most intriguing club this season, and it would have been diverting to see them cast as kingmakers. To an extent, they have already had a decisive impact on Arsenal’s challenge, thanks to a couple of league goals against the Gunners from English football’s most exciting discovery in the last five years, Wayne Rooney. Rooney v Manchester United would have made a fitting finale to a compelling title-chase.

Instead, Everton fans gathering for the last match of the season will be entitled to brood on what have been, and what might still be, for a club beginning to emerge from more than a decade on the fringes. Looking at United’s status, old Goodison hands might feel inclined to speculate on what their strong team of the mid-1980s might have achieved if it wasn’t for the European ban caused by the behaviour of the fans of the rival club across Stanley Park. Everton won the title and the European Cup-Winners’ Cup in that period. The Eighties were an era when an English club was virtually guaranteed a place in the European Cup Final. Denied that opportunity the Everton team broke up, and Gary Lineker headed for the more promising environs of Barcelona.

Under David Moyes, European competition is beckoning again, although Everton may have to beat United to confirm a UEFA Cup spot.

Sixth place would mark a considerable improvement on last year’s flirtation with relegation and most of the credit will go to a manager who hasn’t been able to make too many alterations to the squad he inherited from Walter Smith. Moyes’ achievements have been accomplished through rehabilitating demoralised players, and, in Rooney’s case, unleashing the unknown.

The endomorphic teenager has been harvesting all the headlines since his meteoric ascent to become an England regular, but until then the spotlight was playing on the manager, who seemed reassuringly old-fashioned.

Moyes gives the impression of being Ferguson by temperament, but forced to live in a Wenger world. As a young manager yet to forge a reputation, he hasn’t quite the vestigial authority of the Govan grand-master. It’s difficult to be a disciplinarian in an era of seven-figure salaries, and Moyes has had to temper his instinctive hardline impulses with a certain pragmatism. He’s a manager who’s not shy of making tricky decisions though; his first moves on arriving at Goodison were to ship out Paul Gascoigne and David Ginola.

He is still too young to have developed Ferguson’s gum-chewing resilience, and a study of Moyes on the touchline reveals a man kicking every ball, sliding into every tackle. For much of the season he has enjoyed what he has seen, with Rooney’s precocity perhaps even eclipsed by the consistent excellence of Tomasz Radzinski. Still, he has had his share of disappointment. Everton lost to Shrewsbury in the FA Cup, a club that eventually proved incapable of retaining their League status. More painful still for Moyes was the capitulation in the Liverpool derby last month that stopped Everton’s momentum towards a top-four finish.

IF SUCCESS has been relative it hasn’t prevented regular speculation connecting Moyes with jobs larger than the one he holds at Goodison. His name has been lodged in the ever-altering frame of successors to Sir Alex at Old Trafford. In fact, Moyes, when still at Preston, was offered the job as Ferguson’s No2 to replace the departing Brian Kidd. Moyes chose to stay at Preston, and subsequent events have vindicated the decision.

In addition, those voices who still nurture the fond notion that football revolves around Glasgow, insist that Moyes might be the ideal choice to take over at Celtic Park should Martin O’Neill ever depart. The evidence for this goes little further than the fact that Moyes played in the same Celtic youth team as Paul McStay and Charlie Nicholas.

In truth the English Premiership offers far more rewarding vistas for a manager like Moyes than the insular pressure-cooker of the SPL. A second generation of Scottish managers are proving as much. Tomorrow afternoon, Moyes will be hoping to edge out his compatriot Graeme Souness for a spot in the UEFA Cup, alongside Gordon Strachan’s Southampton. It would be difficult to find three more articulate and streetwise managers in the division.

Moyes will look across the dugout at Ferguson tomorrow, and the comparisons will be unavoidable. For now though, Goodison is enough, and the home fans will be wondering if this can be the new beginning it promises.