Our second castaway of the week is resurgent Everton’s Vital Toffees’ Everton Mike…
VMC’s Desert Island Shinpads: Everton
The scene, far away from Stanley Park…
You’ve followed your English Premier League team’s global marketing tournament by way of a dream football holiday tour where you are to face Manchester City, Droylsden and The Timbuktu All Stars?but Michel Platini has alledgedly shot your plane down somewhere over the Not Specific and you find yourself washed up on a beach in the middle of nowhere?
Thankfully, you’ve got a smartphone and Vital Manchester City is texting you XII questions in an effort to keep your mind off going mental like in that series LOST and back on the football…
1. Why Everton?
‘Those who understand, need no explanation.
Those that don’t understand, don’t matter.’
2. Favourite and worst all time Toffees moments as you deliriously alternate between dread and delight?
‘You don’t have to go back far to find bad moments, since we’re currently in the worst prolonged spell of our history. 6-1 at home to Arsenal, 5-1 in Bucharest, Rooney’s departure, the ‘Clattenburg Derby’ (It’s a good job I was not in the front few rows that day or I may have actually run on and killed him), Collina robbing us of CL group stage football, and then there’s the regular FA Cup humiliations against lower league sides – getting battered by Tranmere, losing to Shrewsbury, losing to Oldham at Goodison.
‘But there have been some good times in recent times too. The whole season 04/05 after Rooney left and was replaced with Marcus Bent following us finishing with less than 40 points the year before, and then somehow manging to scrape together enough points for 4th. With very, very special mention for Duncan Ferguson’s winner against United at Goodison near the end of the season. Or Dan Gosling’s 118th minute winner against Liverpool in the cup last season, and Jagielka scoring the winning penalty against United in the semi final.’
3. You could be here for years. If you had to set up a squad of natives with one of the following Everton gaffers parachuted in, who would it be and why? David Moyes, Howard Kendall, Mike Walker, Walter Smith or Big Joe Royle?
‘Well obviously, Mike Walker would be instantly ruled out due to being hopeless, and Walter Smith never managed to achieve anything except Premier League football for the next season. It would really only be between Moyes and Kendall, and since I wasn’t old enough to really enjoy Everton in their prime under Kendal, I would pick Sir Davey Moyes. Okay we haven’t won anything under him, but he’s at least given us a little bit of pride back again, and the hope for something better.’
4. Where has it all gone right or wrong for your club this season?
‘Where has it gone right this season? Nowhere. Where has it gone wrong? Everywhere.
Okay, I’ll expand slightly, starting with the summer transfer market where we had a grand total of **** all to spend provided by the board, to try and build on finishing 5th and getting to the cup final. We didn’t have anything to spend until you boys kindly gave us £23 million for Lescott. For some reason we wasted £6 million of that on Dustbin, but Bilyaletdinov and Heitinga do look decent signings.
We then had an absolutely ridiculous injury crisis where for a 15 game spell we had between 8 and at most 12 senior players fit and available. We’re starting to come out of that and find a bit of form now, and have 14 or 15 players to choose from for most games, but the damage is already done. We’re too far adrift now in all likelihood to take 4th.’
5. Which of your players would you happily see fed to the sharks and which player would you bomb it out there to save?
‘Yobo, Dustbin and Osman would be left behind for sure, whilst I’d make sure to save Fellaini, Pienaar and Arteta first!
(I’d also save Jo so you boys didn’t get out of having him back again that easily!!!!!)’
6. What’s your verdict on Joao Alves Jo??
‘He did well for us last season providing us with goals when we were lacking any other striker, and this season he had started to improve his all round play and for 5 or 6 games was starting every game and doing well, albeit seemingly having lost the ability to score regularly.
However, obviously that all changed when he disappeared back to Brazil without telling anyone at the club, at a time when Yakubu was unfit and not having yet returned to the player he was pre injury, and Saha, Anichebe and Vaughan were all injured. Evertonians won’t easily forgive and forget when (if) he plays again for Everton.’
7. Then there’s Manchester City. Do you think they will conquer the world or at least part of it in your absence?
‘I expect you’ll probably finish top 6 at worst, probably top 4. In the long term, obviously eventually you will likely become the dominant side in the league as it’s all about the finances these days. Still 4 or 5 top quality players short of a title winning side, but then obviously you can just go out and buy them.’
8. What do you think of Manchester City supporters?
‘I’ll be honest, a large majority of City supporters I speak to these days are long gone into a land of delusion where they are now the biggest side in the world as their owner has the deepest pockets.
I spent the majority of this season to date hoping City would lose every game so that arrogant **** Hughes would get found out. Now he’s gone, and Lescott is widely known already now for not actually being THAT good, I have no real dislike for City as a whole.’
9. Give us your Premier League Top Six and Bottom Three for May 2010…
1. Chelsea
2. Arsenal
3. City
4. United
5. Everton
6. Liverpool
18. Hull
19. Wolves
20 Pompey
10. City’s canoe pulls up a mile or so down the beach. Which of The Blues’ players would you prefer to greet you out of the heat haze and which one would you probably run away from screaming from…?
‘I’m assuming this question is asking which City player I’d like Everton to sign, and not which City player I’d want to spend too long on a island alone with!
‘Going with that assumption, Carlos Tevez is pretty much the complete player. He has the work rate, the ability and an eye for goal from inside or outside the area. Special mentions to Stephen Ireland and Vincent Kompany as well!
‘Who I’d run away screaming from? Again I’m going to assume your asking who I wouldn’t want us to sign. There’s only one answer to this really, Joleon Lescott.’
11. If you make it back to Everton by 1st May, what do you reckon will have been achieved at Goodison Park during your exile?
‘We have a very simple final 10 games of the season for which Arteta and Jagielka should be back and I’d expect us to take 25-30 points from those, so a lot depends on what results we can scrape together until then.
‘If we can struggle along until Arteta gets back and not fall too far adrift I still expect a top 6 finish and to win the FA Cup so long as we get a few favourable draws.’
12. What would the result have been on January 16th at home to The Citizens?
‘I’m fairly confident going into this game we should be able to get a result, we’ve at least stopped losing but are drawing far too many games so 3 points is absolutely vital.
‘We finally have a starting 11 made up of senior players, with a few options on the bench now too so there’s really no excuse for us not beating anyone at Goodison.
2-0 Everton.’
Very Many Thanks and Respect to Everton Mike and The Vital Everton team for this excellent catch up on all things Goodison.
Vital Everton’s Q&A with MCFC Goatboy will be published shortly so staty tuned!
VMC Castaways 2010:
Blackburn: Mikey D
Everton: Everton Mike
VMC Seven Deadly Sinners 2009-2010:
Blackburn Rovers: Mikey D
Wolverhampton Wanderers: Akela
Portsmouth: pompeyrug
Arsenal: Paul Mustchin
Manchester united: Nobby Allcock
West Ham: Rossy
Aston Villa: The Fear
Wigan Athetic: Worbo
Fulham: Andrew Joyce
Scunthorpe: Luke Thornhill
Burnley: Turfmanphil
Liverpool: Chubby Alonso
Hull City: Matt Wilson
Chelsea: Merlin
Bolton Wanderers: Richard McC
Tottenham Hotspur: OxfordSpur
Sunderland: Gaz Johnson
Stoke: Chris Baldwin
Middlesbrough: Steve Goldby
Man united: Eric Whiteside
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