By John P
October 11 2005

News broke out today that the Academy is getting new premises. Both time and effort have been put into this scheme over the last few seasons to improve the conditions for the youngsters coming through the ranks. Its great to see something positive coming forth from Goodison in this dark hour.

Hopefully something positive can come from this venture as previous hopes and dreams have been dashed in the dying seconds of becoming reality (like Kings Dock for example). One thing is for sure is that Everton is growing stronger, and the foundations are being cemented.

But it may be some time before we see the benefits off this new venture, so where are we left? Rock bottom some may say. But we still have a good core squad. We have been unlucky with injuries. Other teams have players out for a week or two, we seem to have them out for months on end. But is this down to training methodology? We have had so many promising young goal keepers in recent years ...Paul Gerrard, Steve Simonsen, Richard Wright...all with excellent abilities but just could not step up to the next level. For some, they could not step up past reserve team football.

There's no doubt that Moyes is one of the most highly decorated and capable coaches in the premiership. This is a guy who stayed behind after training to get another badge or qualification whilst playing north of the border.If there where issues with the training then surely he would spot them. Or would he?

When Gazza was leaving the club, I remember him stating in the papers that there was a bad core that he would not discuss in public. But would discuss to Moyes if he wanted to listen. I remember when an assistant manager had a boxing match with some youngsters quite a few years back. This bad core has been here for some time. But if anyone can get the club straight, it is Moyes.

When James Beattie was bought everyone thought it would be a turning point. Guarenteed to score 10 goals plus per season. But injury after injury, the striker is struggling. Hardly surprising he doesnt want to play first team football as Sunderland are ahead of us for attempts on target. sunderland? Ahead of us? We where in the champions league! Sunderland where one of the teams tipped on going down. But the shot shy crew at Goodison will soon have Beattie, VDM and Kroldrup in the first team. But that isnt enough or is it?

Moyes is hunting down another striker. Bent, Ferguson and McFadden just cant score goals. There are names being passed around like Nugent, which, to be honest, have eminated from pre-season speculations. Kenwright himself was surprised that we never signed a striker to bolster our options. And even in a poll, on this very website, at the beginning of the season, we stated loud and clear that a striker was needed.

But Moyes seems to be delving again into the bargain bin for a striker. A Forest midfielder, Preston North End striker and an Icelandic one. This is the team that claimed a bid for OWen and Kuyt in pre-season. Does this really sound like a club willing to spend 10m on a striker now that we are out of Europe and next season as well? Again, Moyes will have to scrimp around for another Bent or Cahill and try and get into Europe again with a thin squad and rely on plugging up the leaking defence. This is Everton. We don't score 2 or 3 in a match. We plug up the back 4 and ride out a 1 goal lead and hope the opposition can't score. Is this what we should be doing in the Premiership? Is this what we did in Europe?

With European qualification now riding off into the horizon, the board is now faced with a choice. Spend the money we had in the summer and bring quality in, or ride out the storm and buy 'plugs' in the squad. Only time will tell.....