The Game
Can't remember the last time I saw Norwich play and the only action I've seen of Everton's pre-season was a 2 min video of the Under 19s drawing 1-1 in Betis, on my phone, whilst waiting in the foyer/lobby at work - both goals were really nice moves worked up from the back and neatly finished, but I dont think this offers too many clues as to how things are going to go over the next nine months - so for a full tactical run-down its fair to say there's probably better places to go.
I'm quite glad about my lack of revision as far as Everton go though, as
i) non-competitive football is high on the list of things that could just be culled from TV without any value whatsover being lost
ii) watching the games just seesm to have made people miserable earlier than usual. Both Greg O'Keefe in the Echo & Mark O'Brien (thisisnotfootball.co.uk) were pretty pissy about the win(!) over Betis' "over 19s" on Sunday.
I'm sure the game was pretty uninspiring stuff, but its a pretty accepted Everton thing that this 'traditional' home friendly is a total waste of time - there have been two 0-1 defeats against similar opponents in fairly recent seasons without any of the negativity. I suppose any change to the extent there's been in Moyes leaving and Martinez coming in will make people look at things in a different way, but I'm of a very broadly supportive view of the new regime and if we keep the same squad as we have now, can only see us finishing 6-8th again.
Norwich have apparently bought well, with 'that Leroy Fer' who we wanted in January but failed his medical, Hooper off Celtic and this Ricky Van Wolfswinkel guy (right):
As far as I can tell, the two strikers are fixing the mistakes they made last January in getting in the absolutely dreadful Becchio off Leeds and Kei Kamara - who scored a total of one goal between them (see below) up til May. More goals, then, has to a likely result - although certain blog co-owner's predications of them making up a 19 point gap on us seems less on the cards to me.
For what's it worth (ie not much) I think it will be an open game and if I had to bet, I'd go 2-2 with Everton playing well and maybe doing something annoying like throwing away a 2-0 lead.
Last Season
One of the least enjoyable venues for one of the least enjoyable halfs of Everton. Watched it, breaking a self-imposed exile from Cuffs on The High Street to watch a 1-0 up stroll turn into a spirit-sapping 1-2 defeat following the inexplicable tactical switch to take off the only striker we had on and try to hang on to the slender lead in a 4-6-0 set-up.
Both games against these last season were exactly why I was never signed-up to the In Moyes We Trust battalion (1-0 up at home, no changes, no going for the 2nd. 90th minute inevitable equaliser followed by reactionary gesture substitution of putting Vellios on in the 91st minute) - and why I do think there's room for improvement. The pressure and lack of keeping the ball up the other end paving the way for Kamara and Grant Holt to score horrible goals and leave me saying we got what we deserved whilst some of the more rabid patrons joined Moyes in blaming the ref for playing too much stoppage time.
Obviously, I've actually stated just now that I think the same kind of thing might happen, but hopefully that would come from failure to shut-up shop rather than doing it unnecessarily, too soon, and unsuccessfully.
Info on Cuffs from http://www.inapub.co.uk/venues/cuffs/liverpool/l158he/11323
Facilities available:
The nearest thing to a Real Ale i've ever seen there is a Tetleys, its not City Centre, and the rest is pure fantasy based on my intermittent ventures there over the last decade
Jelavic
The player who was bafflingly taken off was the Croatian One-Touch specialist, who despite losing all remnants of form last season is probbaly my favourite player in the current squad. Even amid ignoring all the friendly buisness I managed a smile at seeing him spoaching a few goals.
Hopefully he will be the first choice striker as to my eyes he's a class and a bit above Anichebe & Kone. If we are going to create more cahnces in general then he shouldbe in there - its interesting the way when a player did well and the perceptions people have can be shifted. Everyone agreed he had a rough time last season but he still got some vital goals and his record (although pretty average) of 8 in thirty odd games was excatly the same as Big Vic - who in general was seen to have had a really good time of it.
Jelavic is sound by me anyway.
Classic Game
Bringing together all the elements from above, a match at Carrow Road, watched in a grot-hole converted police station, with a 2-0 lead squandered and a vital contribution from a not-everyone's-cup-of-tea but coll-as-fuck-to-me striker.....Norwich 2 Everton 3 from October 2004. Kilbane & Bent put Everton totally in control , it went 2-2 before Ferguson nudged home a minimalist classic of a towering header to snatch the win.
Talking of uninspring management, I remember being absolutley certain Norwich would go down when the one-man charisma typhoon that is Nigel Worthington said in his after-match interview that he "never really thought they could go on to win" despite them having a nothing-special Everton line-up totally rattled and the crowd rocking at 2-2 - if he didnt think they could win then, then it wa shard to see when he would....
Ed Balls
Hopefully I will be able to shoe-horn in a reference in every one of these (if there are any more like), but this is an easy one:
http://www.edballs.co.uk/blog/?p=3199
a by-all-accounts very knowledgebale Norwich fan as well as being one of my favourite names on the scene, it has to be said that he and Labour are having a poor time of it at the moment.
Mark Steel's column in the Independent today is basically right - he does his trademark thing of thinking of one funny comparison ("It'd be like if..."), then stretching it that bit too far so that you end up thinking 'yeah, its not actaully like that is it though mate?' - but the general point that the party's reluctance to come out hard against the Government has now reached a tipping point is spot on.
As a member and from the grudgingly-accepting of the need fro them to play some issues a bit less radically than would be ideal, even I am a bit confused as to why they have been so silent and so almost deliberatley easy to ignore of late. Balls went to the game with Andy Burnham a few years ago, and I think they played up front together in the Labour v The Press match a while ago but from the hints in the Guardian interview with Burnham last week it sounded as though they're unlikely to cosying up next to Delia and Stephen Fry tomorrow.
Hopefully that's wrong and they get back working together and get the party's collective arse into gear again soon, and realising that they personally have to take responsibility for getting people interested, getting people engaged and getting the idea out there that they can make a differemce and are determined to do it. Because, as politicians go especially, they both surely as people realise that they are just not getting through currently. The imperative need for this is two-fold:
i) the country is in serious danger of sleep-walking into sticking with the shower who are in power at the moment in the next election if Labour do play-down to their current suppine form, with absolutley horrible consequences for society
and ii) even more paramount, we need really, as a nation, need more pictures like this:
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