Why Moyes can feel the fourth and break Everton into the Champions League cartel

By Martin Samuel

PUBLISHED: 17:06 EST, 30 September 2012 | UPDATED: 17:06 EST, 30 September 2012

Everton, Queens Park Rangers, Sunderland, Stoke City, Liverpool, Newcastle United, West Bromwich Albion and Norwich City. What have they got in common? Each one has already taken points from what might be termed the big five of the Premier League this season.

So, as Everton peer down the table at many of their supposed betters this morning, the only question manager David Moyes should be asking is: why not? Why can’t Everton be playing Champions League football next season? Why can’t the club still be up there in May? Pleasingly, he offered as much after Saturday’s 3-1 win over Southampton. Moyes said the bigger teams would not feel threatened by Everton’s presence now, but if they were still hanging on in April they would demand to be taken seriously.

True enough. It took the best part of the last campaign before anyone believed Newcastle United were more than a flash in the pan.

Everton should be encouraged in their ambitions. The acceptance of the status quo is thoroughly depressing and too many have been hoodwinked into believing that it must always be this way:  Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, latterly Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur, for ever and ever, amen.

High flyers: Everton's Kevin Mirallas (left), Nikica Jelavic (centre) and Steven Pienaar

To dare to suggest this monopoly could be broken by a club of modest resources is to invite charges of heresy. When Stoke City made a promising start to the season a year ago, I suggested they might want to have a crack at the top four, too.

What a fuss that caused.

‘If Arsenal were playing Stoke City on Saturday, who would you back to win? Not easy, is it?’ the piece began.

It concluded: ‘This is an unusual year in English football with so many of the traditional elite in a state of flux. There are few guarantees, making the fight for the final Champions League spot as open as it has ever been. And then there is Stoke. Unfancied, unsung, the random factor. They might just do it. And wouldn’t it be wonderful if they did?’

So far, so unspectacular. What  happened next? Travel through the land that thought forgot — Twitter, as it is known — and you will find this simple wish for change warped into a prediction that Stoke would definitely finish top four, being a better side than Arsenal. This is how preposterous some supporters of big clubs are;  this is the extent of their sense of  entitlement. To even contemplate that an unfashionable club might punch beyond its weight is to offend their precious sensibilities.

By the way, Arsenal have played Stoke three times since that column appeared and those backing Arsenal to win would have lost money on two of those occasions, but I digress.

No I don’t. Arsenal have won at Stoke once in six visits since January 6, 1990. Now I digress.

Anyway, Stoke blew it last year, unable to sustain taking on the Europa League and domestic football with a squad that lacked depth, and eventually fell to 14th, their poorest position since winning promotion to the Premier League. Yet Newcastle survived against expectation and finished higher than Chelsea.

Everton may prove more resilient, too. They have players of greater ability than Stoke, a more expansive style than in previous campaigns and a manager who took an underdog team to fourth before.

In Marouane Fellaini they possess one of the Premier League’s form players; the defence is strong and has already kept a clean sheet to take three points off Manchester United.

Class act: Marouane Fellaini has been one of the shining lights of Everton's campaign

The credentials are impressive, even if history is against them.

So will Everton do it? Experience suggests probably not. Should they aim for it? Absolutely. The most boring aspect of the modern game is that we have been brainwashed into seeing ambition as a useless emotion. Clearly, money talks, and the clubs with the greatest resources are likely to occupy the  top places, but we should never abandon hope.

It is not like this in other countries. In Spain, seven different teams have finished in the top four since 2008-09.In England, we have to rewind eight seasons to find equivalent successes, all the way back to Everton’s fourth place in 2005.

Without doubt, our meek acceptance of the natural order stands in the way of progress. We don’t just promote conservatism; we actively mock or discourage those who aspire to challenge the elite.

And yet, has there been a leading group so vulnerable? Manchester United have lost twice already, Manchester City have needed goals in the last 10 minutes to secure points on three occasions, Arsenal are averaging 1.5 points per game, which would have been good enough for sixth last season, and although Tottenham Hotspur have found their feet under Andre Villas-Boas, they must now make up lost ground.

Only Chelsea are setting anything resembling title-winning pace.

And this is not winning it outright, remember. This is about coming fourth.

And not even coming fourth for certain. Just setting that as the target, considering it to be attainable, simply uttering two little words.

Why not?

Life, you will find, is so much more fun that way.

Pat on the back: David Moyes and Everton must aim for the top four

You can drive a bus through FA plans

The National Football Centre at St George’s Park is about to open, no doubt to much praise and baseless presumption of a golden era. The Football Association will be congratulated on their vision. And nobody will mention the folly of having a training base outside Burton-on-Trent in Staffordshire and a home ground at Wembley in north London.

Google Maps gives the distance and travel time from Needwood, where the camp is located, to Wembley Stadium as 132 miles and two hours, 24 minutes. To the Grove hotel in Watford, where England stay the night before home games, is 120 miles and two hours, 11 minutes. And that is on a good day. Google doesn’t give times for days when there is an accident, a lane closure or a contraflow system.

So next week, the England team will convene at Burton on Monday, stay there on Tuesday and Wednesday, schlep two-and-a-half hours down a motorway in time to train at Arsenal’s London Colney ground at 10.30am on Thursday — so will probably have to leave the previous day — stay in Watford, and play the following night. The squad will then continue to be based in the south, in order to leave for Poland on Monday.

Building for the future: But the location of St George's Park (pictured in 2011) is curious

A team who are based outside London, who play in London, who fly from Luton, have inexplicably been given a smart new home in an obscure corner of the East Midlands.

At a time when just about every major club in England is making use of air travel or high-speed rail links — Manchester United and Manchester City both come to the capital by train now — the Football Association are boarding a bus. England could do Burton to Watford by rail in under two hours, but it would mean changing at Birmingham New Street. Players based in the south are now dragged two hours north, players based in the hub of the north-west are little better off.

The FA will insist St George’s Park is about so much more than the first team, so why bother taking them there at all? It seems that, having spent a few quid, the FA are determined to get their money’s worth. It is like owning a holiday villa abroad: get a bit of time off and you feel duty bound to go there.

The idea of a national training centre is grand. Its execution appears to have centred more on a cheap land deal than the needs of England’s teams. This is the M25 of elite performance: its problems are built-in from the start.

Cool Bubba and the art of noise

He won some, he lost some, but either way the coolest sight in sport this year was Bubba Watson on the first at Medinah, encouraging the crowd to maintain their noise level while he teed off in the Ryder Cup. Fair play to Ian Poulter for following suit on Saturday morning, too.

Speaking to Andy Murray last year, I got the distinct impression he would not entirely object to a bit of rowdiness at Wimbledon, either. Looking at the clientele, however, don’t hold your breath. They’ve got to turn up for the start, first.

And while we're at it...

Next step: Claire Edwards

The International Cricket Council have come under fire over the prize money available at the World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka. The men’s and women’s events are running simultaneously, but while the men play for £619,000, the victorious women can expect a cheque for just £37,000. Daily allowances for players also differ: £62 for men, £37 for women. Why the disparity?

Well, while the men’s tournament is self- financing and attracts significant investment from sponsors and television companies, the women’s equivalent runs at a loss, and requires an ICC subsidy of roughly £1.85million. Charlotte Edwards, captain of England, said professionalism is the next step for women’s cricket, but how?

Unless people will sponsor or pay to watch a person play, whether at the ground or on television, sport is a hobby.

How the ICC catch criticism here is a mystery. Take away their support for women’s cricket and it would as good as cease to exist, internationally. Why should they then have to hand out £619,000 in prizes? Just because you enjoy doing something, it doesn’t mean you get paid.

Roll up for the Ewood circus

They have been so busy dancing on the grave of departed manager Steve Kean at Blackburn Rovers that it seems to have been overlooked that his departure was another low for the club.

Kean left because he felt his position was untenable, amid suggestions that the owners were interfering in team selection. If this is the case, why would anyone of stature want to work there?

A prospective candidate of quality, even Tim Sherwood, who may fancy breaking away from Tottenham Hotspur to land his first job in management, should run a mile.

Steer well clear: Tim Sherwood should give the Blackburn vacancy a wide berth

Shebby Singh, the club’s director of football, has already proved inept in his public utterances, and the appointment of a new manager is not going to make him any brighter.

The idea that Alan Shearer would wish to further cut his managerial teeth with these clowns is simply ridiculous and only illustrates their warped sense of self-importance.

Kean was over-promoted and much of the criticism aimed at him was justified, but there can be no argument with the principle that the boss picks the team.

If Blackburn’s executives divert from this path they will end up with nothing more than the manager they deserve.

Misguided Haye's talk is cheap

David Haye has been talking up what he hopes will be his next big pay cheque, a fight with Vitali Klitschko.

‘He has promised so many times that he could knock me out, but that is rubbish,’ he said. ‘I can only laugh. I’m too fast, too sexy and too talented to be blown away by a large, slow robot from the Ukraine.’

His last fight with Wladimir Klitschko: he knows we saw it, right?