English FA Premiership: Dominic Fifield discovers the elements that have transformed Everton from a relegation battling side to a team striving for a place in the Champions League.
Paul Gascoigne returns to Goodison Park this afternoon and will no doubt flash his toothy grin around the door of the home dressing-room. Yet, from the not too distant days when Everton were a struggling team whose broken morale he was personally charged with repairing, he will find plenty has changed.
Gazza is back at the club he left almost three years ago to host a gala fundraising dinner for a new addiction treatment clinic in Liverpool and, as a public figure attempting a renaissance himself, it is apt he is present to witness Everton's rebirth.
It is a year since David Moyes's side limped away from the Reebok Stadium nestling uncomfortably in the relegation zone after a pathetic defeat at Bolton. Some 12 months on, they stride united into today's home match against Wanderers three points clear in third place.
No one in these parts is talking about league titles just yet. But Everton have already won as many games as they mustered during the whole of the last campaign and are nine points off their entire tally for last season. Each week spent crashing the party among the usual suspects at the pinnacle prompts whisperings of Europe. Even the Champions League. "If you can't enjoy this now, you're not in the right game," said the stalwart centre-half Alan Stubbs.
As a former Bolton captain, Stubbs is particularly looking forward to this afternoon's fixture, though he would happily take on all-comers these days. A glance around the club's Bellefield training complex, even on a miserably foggy Thursday morning, reveals the new-found buoyancy. David Weir strolls languidly over to the television cameras, Tim Cahill bounds towards the media Portakabin, Stubbs sits propped up on the bonnet of one of the club's new fleet of Mercedes: the "R" word - resurgence, not relegation - buzzes across their interviews.
It was not supposed to be like this. Last season's disharmony, relationships strained between manager and players, spilled into a summer of turmoil. Ten potential first-team players departed with the board publicly and embarrassingly split between the chairman Bill Kenwright and the director Paul Gregg. The newly-appointed chief executive Trevor Birch was exasperated by the squabbling and resigned. Wayne Rooney's acrimonious departure to Manchester United suggested that, after half a century of top-flight football, Everton's time might soon be up.
In retrospect, the summer may have provided a necessary blood-letting. "There were a couple of meetings in pre-season and we cleared the air," said Stubbs. "People weren't standing up and pointing fingers - we've got too much respect for each other for that - but everyone said where we thought things hadn't gone right, and the manager told us where he thought we were going wrong.
"It made us think. We worked our socks off on pre-season in America and Austria, had some good nights out together, and it snowballed from there. Wayne's situation also made things a lot clearer. Bringing £27 million into the club puts other decisions in a better light because, if you know you've got that money coming in, it's easier to take the club forward."
"It was a coming together of a squad of players who were miserable about the way they'd performed last season," said Moyes. "As the manager, I was probably even more down. The team had to be more important than any one individual. It was about hard work, pulling together, and the confidence and self-belief followed. The players here are giving their best in every game. If anything, the mood in the dressing-room is getting better."
Having won at Crystal Palace on the second Saturday of the Premiership season, Everton have not looked back. To see them scuttle up the table is all the more remarkable as, ostensibly, the personnel has remained much the same.
Cahill and Marcus Bent, the summer's only notable transfer arrivals, have merely filled the considerable void left by Tomasz Radzinski and Rooney. The latter was irreplaceable, though Moyes conjured a new formation in the youngster's absence. That flexible 4-1-4-1 set-up was never a comfortable option when Rooney was at the club, but has since provided the defensive surety so lacking last season. Six of Everton's nine league wins have been by the game's only goal, and only in the success at Selhurst Park has a more comprehensive margin of victory been achieved.
"We are not claiming to have the best players in the league," said Bent. "What we do have is great morale and everybody is consistently giving everything for the team."
The solidarity smacks of the resilience that marked Moyes's first season at the club. The Merseyside club went into December of 2002 in third place on the back of six consecutive victories - five 1-0 wins in a row - and ultimately finished seventh. People talk of Everton's form being freakish. In terms of the manager's reign, reality suggests that last season's failings, and not this year's startling success, bucked the trend. "What happened last year was a blip, not what we are achieving now," said Moyes.
Next Saturday's 200th Merseyside derby is wildly anticipated, with Everton having failed to beat their city rivals at Goodison since 1997.
Evertonians will sleep easier when evidence is provided that similar foundations have been laid off the pitch. Back in the potentially dark days of early September, the poisonous mood of the club's extraordinary general meeting was drawn by Kenwright's insistence that an injection of money from the mysterious Fortress Sports Fund was imminent. Almost three months on and that capital has yet to materialise.
Everton are anxious that their negotiations with Christopher Samuelson, the Geneva-based businessman behind the Fortress group of investors, are concluded ahead of next Tuesday's annual general meeting. If that proves fanciful, serious doubts would be cast over the viability of the project. The meeting is likely to be fractious because, amid the suspicions, there is recognition that the money is badly needed, with the club's debt remaining at around £42 million, the vast majority of which is securitised - effectively mortgaged - on future season ticket sales.
In the meantime, the new chief executive, Keith Wyness, is quietly attempting to restructure behind the scenes. He will outline a three-year business plan to increase the club's turnover from £44 million to nearer £70 million at the a.g.m. and is already reaping the benefits of the team's performances. Everton had budgeted to finish 14th this season so anything above that constitutes profit at £250,000-a-place. They will also have generated their anticipated television monies by Christmas, with further appearances a bonus. That revenue might help prompt new contracts for some - not all - of the 11 senior players, including Stubbs and Leon Osman, who will be out of contract at the end of the season.
Work will hopefully begin on a new £12 million academy and training centre at Halewood in the new year, and a proportion of the first instalment of the Rooney money - up to £10 million - will be available to the manager in January. Moyes has an open mind over his wish-list but is keen to sign young current or potential internationals. James Beattie and Scott Parker, of Southampton and Chelsea, figure prominently in his thoughts.
Reinforcements will be needed because Everton's is the smallest squad in the Premiership.
"We're doing incredibly well, but we can't kid ourselves," said Moyes. "It will eventually start to stretch us, so we need reinforcements. The job now is to bring in players who will give us the strength in depth, but not disrupt the incredible group that we already have. If we do that, why should we not compete?"
"We're still thinking about getting 42 points, first and foremost," added Stubbs. "If we can do that before Christmas it will be a huge achievement and we'll be able to start concentrating upon other things: top 10, Europe."
These are heady days indeed.
Guardian Service
