Overcoming Adversity: The Everton Way

By Taylor Fisher | 30th December 2008

Overcoming Adversity: The Everton Way | read this item

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david-moyes It happens all too often in any and all sports. The star player goes down, and the team’s season follows suit. Nobody ever makes a good enough attempt to save the season. Nobody ever steps up into that leadership role. It’s as if the star player was the manager or coach of that team. All of a sudden, the actual leader of the team can’t get their team to perform, and the losses start piling up. With that in mind, it wouldn’t have been all that surprising to see Everton’s season tank after losing Yakubu for the rest of the season about a month ago.

Except this time, somebody did step up. That somebody was none other than their own manager, David Moyes. I will admit myself that once Yakubu went down, I thought that Everton was completely done. I have said many times that Everton is done without Yakubu. However, after watching Everton’s run of results while playing Yakubu-less, I am a changed man. Everton will be fine without Yakubu. Yakubu is a fantastic player, but Everton is not centered around him being there. They are truly a team in every sense of the word. With the help of David Moyes, they have compiled a 3-1-1 record without Yakubu – that’s 10 points out of a possible 15! It’s not just about David Moyes, though. Just because Moyes knows what he is doing doesn’t mean that everybody is going to go along with his tactics and schemes. Everybody has to buy into the system, and Moyes’ squad has done that. That is why the squad has been so successful, and that is why my outlook on them has changed so dramatically.

I have been charged with flip flopping like a politician, but that has changed. I said it on the podcast, and I’ll say it again. I have jumped on the Everton bandwagon, and I plan on staying there for the rest of the season. I’ve become a huge fan of David Moyes over the last month, and I will be extremely interested to see what he will be doing with his team for the second half of the season. Go Everton!

Editor’s Note: Let’s not overlook Tim Cahill and Marouane Fellaini – two class players that Everton is lucky to have. Mikel Arteta isn’t too shabby, either.

Hear Brian and I discuss topics like this and more on this Sunday’s LIVE podcast at 1:00pm EST, 6:00pm GMT.