Moyes maintains dignity as Everton slide

In the end David Moyes handled it very well as he stepped forward to collect an award for taking Everton into Europe.

It could have been hugely embarrassing for all concerned, and there was an audible intake of breath from the gathering in Manchester at the weekend for the northern football writers’ annual awards.

Moyes may well have taken Everton into Europe – in two competitions as it has turned out – but they are out of both and languishing at the foot of the Barclays Premiership with just three points and one goal all season.

The team who finished above European champions Liverpool last season, forcing their neighbours into pre-qualifying for this season’s Champions League, are floundering around at the bottom of the table desperately in need of some sort of lift.

It is surely not about to happen with Chelsea next up at Goodison Park on Sunday, and all this must have been rushing through Moyes’ head as he stepped up to collect his trophy.

He could easily have feigned illness and sent an underling to the presentation ceremony. Rafael Benitez even dispatched Ron Yeats to receive his award.

But Moyes showed the strength of character so desperately needed amongst his team by turning up, speaking proudly of what Everton achieved against all the odds last season and promising they would battle their way out of this mess.

The applause was as supportive as it was sympathetic from the assembled gathering, which included Sven-Goran Eriksson, Mick McCarthy, Sam Allardyce and Paul Jewell.

Then Moyes returned to his Bellefield bunker to plot Everton’s route away from relegation, having spent £23million since January to bring a hard-running, workmanlike squad up to European standard. Or so he thought.

The manager of the year knows it has not worked. James Beattie, the £6million record signing and the first to arrive in January, has been a disaster.

Frankly Southampton boss Harry Redknapp must be laughing all the way to the bank having picked up £13million for Beattie and Peter Crouch from the two Merseyside clubs.

Moyes insists he is trying everything. The squad were taken to the Lake District this week for a spot of outward bound activity. Fell walking, messing about in canoes and some abseiling. Cue joke about another mountain to climb.

The spirit is weaker at Goodison than it has been in months, but it is still there. New signing Phil Neville talks of “maintaining concentration and believing in ourselves.”

He looks at the daunting arrival of unbeaten Chelsea with the fierce competitiveness ingrained in him from his Manchester United days, insisting: “People will give us no hope whatsoever and we will go into the game with no pressure because everyone will be writing us off.

“You never know. It might do us good. No pressure, no expectation and we can just go out there and give it a right good go.”

And that has been the real problem for Everton this season, what Neville wants and saw from afar last term is something Everton have just not been doing.

They have lost that fire, the all-consuming desire, physical fitness and sheer willpower that saw them run all over teams in the final minutes of many a match.

Since those days, Moyes has tried to buy better quality and if he was really honest, attempted to rid Everton of their long-ball label.

The problem is that at the first sign things are going wrong, on comes Duncan Ferguson and the aerial barrage begins.

But there are other differences. Players who were producing displays far above expectations last term, are back to being ordinary. Tony Hibbert, once talked of as an England player, has been poor.

Veteran David Weir is struggling against pace and in the air while Joseph Yobo makes far too many mistakes.

In midfield Lee Carsley has been missing all season through injury. And badly missed, because he played a major part in last term’s miracle of fourth place.

It has meant there is no defensive screen to protect Weir and co, which allowed Tim Cahill to maraud forward last term.

Cahill looks worn out after three solid years of action, and even Australia could not bear to give him a break last week – they insisted he joined up with their squad for the friendly against Jamaica and played him for 11 minutes.

Up front Everton cannot buy a goal. Marcus Bent, disturbed in pre-season by transfer talk, is a shadow of last season’s performer. Beattie barely figures and Ferguson now looks like a relic from another era.

After the Chelsea match, Everton have two games with Middlesbrough in league and Carling Cup, a trip to fellow strugglers Birmingham and then an away match at West Brom.

If Moyes goes into December with Everton still in this state, the alarm bells will be clanging so loud chairman Bill Kenwright will not be able to ignore them and something will have to be done about the situation.