Steven Gerrard prefers a medal over fourth place...

On the eve of Liverpool’s momentous Carling cup semi-final defeat of Manchester City at Anfield the other night, captain Steven Gerrard spoke with passion of his desire to overcome the league leaders and go onto Wembley and win the cup. Amongst the Roy of the Rovers rhetoric that is so often synonymous with the man came a telling admission. An admission, that in today’s money driven age of football, is such a rarity and delight to hear amongst the usual drivel of wage demands and all the other things that seem to preoccupy the modern day footballer’s mindset. His words came on the subject of, believe it or not, actually preferring to win the all so often derided Carling cup over the the holy grail, the meat and two veg of football today, finishing fourth and qualifying for the Champions League. Gerrard proclaimed, “I understand there is a balance for the club financially, I understand that being in the top four is massive. At the beginning of the season, it’s probably the main aim, but I don’t want to say I finished in the top four, five times. I want to look back and say I won the Carling Cup three, four or five times.” The man has got a point.

Sadly not everyone in the world of football shares Gerrard’s philosophy. Even sadder, most simply cannot afford to. If a team wants to make it today as one of the best in Europe or even be relatively close to being considered in the same breath, qualifying for the Champions League, or finishing at least fourth to give it its less glamorous name, is both the be all and end all, and paradoxically for some clubs, the bare minimum required. The financial incentives as we all know are huge. As well as performance-related fees, clubs also receive a percentage from the vast television market pool. Manchester United, in their run to the final last season for instance, earned a cool total of €53.197million. It’s easy then to see the potential earnings a club could miss out on if they weren’t able to make it to football’s promised land. The club owners require their managers to deliver them this as if they miss out, and their rivals don’t, then they will be the ones falling behind. Clubs like United are so used to qualifying that the money earned from the competition is almost taken for granted. Only if they fail to qualify then do they realise how much they relied on this not so ‘guaranteed’ source of income.

If the owners get want they want, then in turn they will have sufficient funds to feed to their managers. A manager with a lot of funds to spend on players usually means, in today’s world, a successful club. A manager without funds - a not so successful club. In turn, the clubs ‘without’ will simply be replaced by the clubs ‘with’. It is not just the money gained from the Champions League that can help attract the higher calibre of players, but also the status acquired from participating in Europe’s elite competition. The best players want to play at the best level and won’t accept second best – especially when it goes by the name of the Europa League. Manchester City were the perfect example of needing to qualify so as to be able to attract the top players. As the new threat to the Premier League, after their Arab billionaire arrived a few years ago, the one thing holding them back was not being in the Champions League. Whilst having the money to afford anyone in the world, the fact that they weren’t playing Champions League football meant that for every Robinho that joined for simply for the wads of cash on offer, there was a Kaka who resisted the allure of Arab oil money as he preferred to ply his trade at a world class club, at a world class level. It was the one thing in the way of global domination. Fast-forward a few seasons, and with a third place finish under their belts anyone is game. That they did then drop out of the Champions League at the first hurdle is inconsequential. They’re on the ladder and they will probably be on there for the foreseeable future. You wouldn’t bet against them challenging for the trophy next season either.

Managers share this ambition with their owners. Most managers of any club, with a realistic aim of playing in the Champions League, would, at the start of the season, have their ambitions in this order: 1) win the league 2) win the Champions League (1 & 2 are interchangeable) 3) qualify for the Champions League 4) win a domestic cup. Even if aims one and two never happen, three will always remain ahead of four. Arsene Wenger and Arsenal are the perfect example in this case. Wenger has not won a trophy since the FA Cup way back in 2005, which most Arsenal fans believe is far too long for a club of their stature. Yet to his credit, since 1998 Wenger has qualified for the Champions League in every full season he has been at the club. No doubt the men above him are delighted with the financial stability this consistency has provided the club and the fans have loved the Europeans nights at both Highbury and the Emirates, as well as their run all the way to the final in 2006. Yet after nearly seven years without a trophy there is unrest among fans for some cup glory. Fair enough they came close last season with the Carling cup final defeat to Birmingham, but their trophy cabinet still remains bare. This drying up of trophies has led to key players Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri both leaving last summer claiming a desire to win some medals. Despite the unrest, given the opportunity Wenger would still pick finishing fourth over winning the FA Cup. And you can’t blame him as it would be a disaster if they didn’t finish fourth this season. If they can then their chances of keeping hold of Robin van Persie increases. On the other hand, another year will pass again without a trophy.

The importance of the rat race to finish in the top four has been highlighted by both Manchester United and City being eliminated from this season’s Champions League at such a premature stage. While obviously they now cannot win Europe’s biggest prize, they will also miss out on the funding they presumed they would be receiving. Even if they were to go all the way and win the Europa League, which they now find themselves in, they would only make around €4.6million from performance related fees. In stark contrast, just for reaching the first knockout round of the Champions League they would have received €3million, another €3.3million for reaching the quarter-final, an additional €4.2miilion for the semi-final and either €5.6million for finishing as runners-up or a whopping €9million for winning the competition. As ridiculous as it sounds, it is better, i.e. more financially rewarding, to be knocked out at the quarter-final stage of the Champions League, rather than actually winning the Europa League. It’s easy then to see why there is such a fine line between finishing fourth and fifth. Then for those who do finish fifth, playing in the Europa League only ceases to get in the way of trying to finish fourth the following year, as witnessed with Tottenham this season, who chose instead to field weakened teams.

Anyway, I seem to have digressed with all this talk of finishing fourth. Back to Mr. Gerrard’s comments. How great it is to hear a player, a captain as well, say something that nobody is really allowed to say or believe in this politically correct day and age. Next to all the facts and figures, the financial statistics of the Champions League, the life or death necessities of finishing fourth, how our whole football world is driven soley by money, and just the pure cut-throat ‘if you can’t deal with this tough as there is someone else behind you perfectly happy to abide by the rules, so please step aside’ nature of today’s game, it is simply refreshing to hear such words. Words that transport us to a parallel world where money doesn’t matter, where the main aim of playing football is, believe it or not, to actually win things, and be able to look back at your career and show your grandkids your stash of medals medals. But no, unfortunately we live in a world where most players, with their grandkids on their knees, will only have but a figurative fourth place recollection, now derived of any meaning, along with the last of their deteriorating wage packets to show for themselves.

Everton hitting a brick wall.

When called upon to think of the greatest managers residing in today’s Premier League the obvious names that first spring to mind are Sir Alex Ferguson, followed by that of Arsene Wenger. Both have obviously won a bucket-load of trophies between them and have been at their respected clubs long enough to have formed a lasting legacy in their names. Another fixture on that list would have to be Everton’s David Moyes. The Scot took a team that quite had quite often flirted with relegation and moulded them into a unit that consistently finished in the top six and were the next club outside the traditional ‘big four’. He went one step better when even managing to break into that quartet, which is no mean feat. It was an achievement that also brought along with it Champions League football, even if it was to be over before it started. After Ferguson and Wenger, Moyes is the third longest serving manager at a club in the top tier of English football, having been in operation at Everton for what will soon be coming up to a ten-year anniversary in March. Like messrs Ferguson and Wenger he has served at his club long enough to create his own dynasty, something which is becoming rarer and rarer in modern day football. It is no surprise then that he has often been linked as Ferguson’s long-term successor when the great man finally steps down.

Moyes’s Everton of today however certainly seem an age away from the side that finished fourth back in 2005. A lot can change in football, especially if given enough time to bloom, or in this case wither, and the fortunes of Everton and Moyes certainly have in recent times. Finishes of eighth in 2010 and seventh in 2011, as well their current standing of eleventh place this season, have been footnoted by a woeful array of financial problems at board level. It seems that in times of late Everton may have hit a brick wall and even stagnated. Through no fault of his own, Moyes is in danger of undoing all of his good work, with people only remembering Everton, unfairly, as the unambitious mid-table team they have unfortunately become, rather than as the next team who could realistically break into the top four.

It was announced at the beginning of the season that Barclays bank had cut the club’s overdraft facility after calling in debts totalling £45million. This basically meant Moyes had no transfer kitty to work with whatsoever, and even if funds were raised from outgoing players, that money would be used first and foremost to help pay off the club’s debts. For this reason Moyes’s only transfer acquisitions last summer were the three loan deals for Royston Drenthe. Denis Stracqualursi and Eric Dier. How can Moyes be expected to build a team with players that will be gone the following season? At the same time his hand was forced to sell strikers Jermaine Beckford and Yakubu as well as star man Mikel Arteta. How is Moyes supposed to build on last seasons seventh placed finish when his hands are tied, whilst every other club around him is spending the money needed to compete in today’s ruthless Premier League?

It’s not just this season that he has had to prepare for in such difficult circumstances. The past few campaigns have seen him having to bring in free transfers, loan deals, and players on minimal transfer fees. You have to go back to September 2009 for the last time Everton really spent fairly big on a player and that was with the £6-7million paid for John Heitinga. But even then Moyes had to sell first in order to buy – the £22million raised a few days earlier with the sale of another key player, Joleon Lescott, to Manchester City no doubt helped fund Heitinga’s arrival. You can throw in the likes of James Vaughan and Steven Pienaar to that ever-growing ‘players out’ list as well for good measure. The days when Moyes had the luxury of breaking the club’s transfer record not once, nor twice, but three times, with the signings of Andy Johnson, Yakubu and Marouane Fellaini respectively, which incidentally went hand in hand with the top six finishes, are clearly a thing of the past.

In such circumstances Moyes continues to do a great job. Drenthe has proven to be an astute signing – but one who has surely attracted many suitors and will no doubt be at one of these come next season. The manager still has to be applauded for the signing even if the reality is it will not help build a team in the long run. That is something that he has probably ruled out worrying about for now, knowing that at any time a Phil Jagielka or Leighton Baines could be the next needed to be wheeled out in order to raise funds and pay off debts. It is a foregone conclusion that Jack Rodwell will be on his way out of the club soon, especially if he features in Euro 2012. The recent acquisition of Darren Gibson for around £500,000 however is a great signing for Everton. Sure, there are better players in his position but given the budget Moyes has available these are the kind of deals that he is restricted to these days. The sum could prove to be a snip if Gibson can settle into the team.

The current transfer window has also seen the return to Goodison Park of Landon Donovan, who again like two years ago, joins the club on a short-term loan deal. That it is a repeat of an old trick, that he is now two years older and debatably not as effective as two years ago, and that he will be gone in two months time all suggest that the deal smacks of desperation, much like the resigning of James McFadden, who has struggled to make an impact since his arrival. But obviously these are desperate times and given the context the Donovan deal is a positive move. If he can help improve the team for two months then the deal will be a success for Moyes. It may be a short-term philosophy, but that is the state of affairs he is dealing with.

You just feel however that there is only so long he can take of ‘doing a great job under the circumstances,’ becoming an almost charity-like case, and that if the board don’t sort out something soon or a miracle happens, i.e. some major foreign investment, then he may want out soon. And you wouldn’t blame him. As it stands there isn’t really much to gain for Moyes. It is almost like a lose-lose situation in the sense that Everton have hit a brick wall and Moyes has taken them as far as they can go – their record under Moyes can only recline. Mid-table mediocrity awaits, something that Moyes himself acknowledges: ”It will be really difficult to finish in the top ten. I think we are going to have a big struggle. Look at the spending of Stoke, Sunderland, Fulham and West Bromwich Albion.” He is realistic and knows that they will struggle to compete when Newcastle are the only team in the league with a lower net spend than themselves over the past two and a half seasons, which even then is only down to their whopping £35million sale of Andy Carroll. The days of qualifying for the Champions League must seems like an age away and it is pretty obvious Moyes is probably not enjoying himself as much as he did back then.

If things were to stay as they were for the next few years Moyes would be in real danger of undoing his good work. While still doing a great job, he will be less remembered for building a team that cracked the top four and more just a manager who has worked well on a tight budget. He is better than that. Given the current context he has clearly taken the club as far as they can go and unless a billionaire sheik is soon to arrive from halfway around the world, as hard as it sounds, he would to do well to part with his club of nearly ten years in search of a new, fresh challenge. Somewhere that is not in danger of turning sterile and somewhere that he will be able to shine once again. His superb managerial skills deserve to be remembered for winning things and breaking new ground with teams, something that now seems no longer possible at Goodison Park. This is also the criteria that the suits high up at Manchester United will be looking for when searching, whenever that may be, for Ferguson’s successor.

Things are looking up for Yeovil Town

The announcement of Gary Johnson returning to Yeovil Town for a second spell as manager can only be seen as much needed good news for Glovers fans. They will relish a return to their glory days under arguably the club’s most successful manager and he will certainly be looking to prove a point of his own after his disappointing spell at Northampton Town.

Yeovil had always been a club with potential long before Johnson arrived in 2001. Despite never having escaped the realms of non-league football since their foundation in 1890, they had already earned themselves a reputation in English football thanks to their heroics in the FA Cup over the years. The club hold the record for the total amount of ‘giant-killings’ with 20 league scalps, the most famous occasion coming back in 1949 with their fourth round victory over top-flight team, Sunderland. Their home ground at the time grew to earn them something of a name too, due to its notorious pitch, featuring an eight-foot side-to-side slope.

Despite all the league scalps they had taken, a place in the football league had always eluded them, however with Johnson’s appointment success was soon imminent. In his first season in charge he guided the club to their first ever FA Trophy success, after beating Stevenage 2-0 at the Villa Park final. He followed this up immediately by going one better the next season and winning the Conference, but most importantly, finally gaining promotion to the football league, joining the big boys in Division Three.

His side took to the new stage like a duck to water. Rather than struggling in their new surroundings at the bottom end of the table, they finished the season in a very respectable eighth position, just missing out on the play-offs. The following year, in the newly christened ‘Football League Two’, they were champions and gained promotion into English football third tier.

After such success it was inevitable Johnson would attract many admirers. Despite turning down offers from Plymouth and Derby he finally agreed to leave Yeovil and join Bristol City in September 2005. Johnson’s former assistant Steve Thompson led Yeovil to 15^th that season, before Russell Slade took over and guided the club to the play-off final at Wembley in 2007. Yeovil were one game away from being in the Championship, yet they were beaten 2-0 on the day to Blackpool.

While Blackpool would go on to gain promotion to the Premier League via the play-off system just three years later, Yeovil fell in the opposite direction. An 18^th place finish the next season was soon followed by Slade’s departure. Club captain Terry Skiverton, who had been there in Johnson’s glory days, was given the job at the age of just 33. Despite keeping the club clear of relegation in his first season, finishing 17^th, he struggled to really build on it. Whilst improving with 15^th and 14^th placed finishes respectively over the next two seasons, the early success of Russell Slade, based on the platform Gary Johnson had built, has eluded Skiverton. He certainly has not done a bad job though. He has steadied a ship and kept it in League One for three seasons and all this whilst still only being 36 and having never had any managerial experience before. His place as a club legend is certainly still secure. Yeovil Town certainly couldn’t have expected promotion to the Championship when appointing a managerial novice. This season however, with the club having been flirting with relegation all season and currently lying in 21^st position, they have finally decided to intervene.

Meanwhile, since Johnson left Yeovil for Bristol City, he went on to guide them to automatic promotion to the Championship in his first full season. The following season he led them to being within just one game away from the Premier League in the play-off final, where they ultimately lost out to Hull. From Johnson’s arrival at Yeovil to this disappointing day at Wembley, nobody can argue with his quite unbelievable track record in which every new season has brought further progress. However that was as good as it got for him and within two years he was out of the club. An unfulfilled spell at Peterborough followed before the disappointments at Northampton. He is definitely a manager with some unfinished business.

Johnson’s return to Yeovil can only be viewed as dream move for all parties involved. Yeovil have arguably their most successful ever manager back, one who is now a more experienced manager than when he left, knowing what it takes to crack League One and compete in the Championship. Johnson, on the other hand, gets a return to the club he loves and one that loves him. After a difficult past few years that is exactly what he needs. It is the perfect platform for the man to rebuild on his once almost unbeatable reputation. Skiverton meanwhile will remain at the club as assistant manager to a man he knows very well. He will be able to learn and develop his coaching skills under Johnson, which can only help him and his future. A place in the Championship within the next few years suddenly seems like more of a possibility than it did a few days ago for Yeovil Town.