Douglas adams hit the nail right at what is probably the most dangerous of all human…living traits…when he realized that any universal book on how to survive (cue H2G2) would have to start with

DON’T PANIC !!!

Evertonians around the world are a worried lot today. After all the positives of being a club on the progress last year, finally breaking the pattern of following up a strong season with a weak one by two successive strong finishes, most blues were more optimistic at the end of last year than they were the season we finished  4th.

But with all the bubble built up with names, from as exotic as the Russian magician to as unknown (to me) as the African enforcer, the bubble has finally seem to reach its limit with everything starting to go wrong at least on the surface creating the negativism that I  find online and that exists offline. Of course being a blue from India, I am far removed from the “real” picture happening on the ground, but I can still sense that general sense of despair that is being felt by us blues.

Many a times fans have been frivolously been accused of being away from reality, more as a form of protective rationalism on the part of vested interests , be it the different clubs or the media, but this is one case where I think we are actually refusing to leave our blue heaven and come down to earth.

Looking at out squad, one can only help but wonder who we are going to but the 11 + 7 people on the bench as the season progresses and this is truly a major cause of concern. But what we fail to understand is that the global economy is facing a credit crisis. Once we internalize this fact and take off our blue tinted spectacles off for a moment, we can see certain things.

• There is a global banking crisis and credit is getting harder to get for a football club or any institution for that matter. This is not really a good time to take out loans if we cant realistically project where the money is going come from.
• There are chances for as slump in the economy and this can lead to lower expendable income and football is one of the things that, at least for the less passionate of the fans will cut down from their budget. From what I perceive this is something that will affect Everton less than other clubs because the very fact that our catchments area is lesser compared to London clubs making us a relatively bad investment choice, will work to our benefit for the kind of club loyalty we have from out “small” catchments area but none the less there can be a decrease in the amount of people coming to matches and this must be accounted for
•  Just because other clubs are spending heavily does not automatically make it the best thing to do. I want to quote the oft repeated example of ManU’s golden years to drive home this point. We have good players coming through and not spending heavily and accepting a mediocre (as in maintaining our 5th spot rather than going all out for a 4th spot)  season might be the best thing to do. This is not a pessimistic plea for us to lay waiting while the other clubs to buckle down and implode under financial mismanagement but more a plea for a pragmatic look at the transfer scene and credit situation of today. Going in with Rodwell, Kissock Baxter and Gosling etc may actually be heralded as one of the boldest management moves in the history of club football if the Moyeasiah is able to pull it off.
• From my basic understanding of finance, the real “extra” money for a club comes from the world wide merchandising and not winning and this is one place we are lagging behind. But the thing to note here is that we have taken some concrete steps to alleviate this problem and should be able to reap in the benefits in time. But again this is not something that will happen overnight and we need to give it time rather than lament about the “gap” between us and big four and then try solving it the “leeds” way.

To conclude, I would like to say that, the general negativism is understandable, but would urge blues all around to take a closer look at the financial and practical side of things before writing us off.

Everton Forever.