Forgiving players....

[harry]

i couldnt care less as long as we win football matches.

 

[Essex Blue]

The only one that really still rankles with me to this day is Barmby to the RS. Barmby was a class player at the time!

I loved buying Beardsley off them though, he was boss as well and we should never have sold him when we did.

 

[Eggs]

................these lads are professional footballers and their career is higher priority than loyalty. Its naive to think otherwise. I've loved watching Rooney since I first saw him as a 15yo playing for our U18s. I have no animosity to him at all. He's one of us but made a move to better his career and earning capacity.
We all have players who we don't rate and wonder how they manage to get a game but I can't recall being particularly bitter about any.

 

[Royal Blue Jersey]

The same people who have a go at Lescott for leaving will then want to get rid of Heitinga a player who wants to stay and was our best player last season. Its incredible double standards but thats football.

Rooney is different, he is an Evertonian, him leaving when he did was horrible. Never scored in a derby, never captained his boyhood club etc. He could have stayed a few years and still lived his dream of trophies and all that. I think he is worse.

Players owe us nothing, I reckon fans of the club do though.

Yes. I agree with you Papa. And not once have I supported the 'ship Johnny out' brigade. I am as loyal to players as I expect them to be. It became fashionable to criticise Arteta and Cahill near the end despite years of excellent service. They are players of good character.


Rooney isn't. He treated us ****ly. I don't think it's possible to assess it from an objective standard given the investment of emotion. But I know the two subjective standards, his and my own, and I know if I'd have ****ed us off in the manner he did (which i wouldn't have) I would have at least taken the hostility with some humility, ffs, and understand why the supporters felt shat on. Remember Gary Speed? Absolute gentleman despite the chants. And his were most probably completely unwarranted.

Look at him since. Treating himself to £1k-a-night strippers while his wife is pregnant; the transfer request/wage increase fiasco at United, going out on the lash (with our very own Darron Gibson) when he has training the next day, moaning at the camera after a frankly shambolic performance in the World Cup, generally proving himself to be a nobhead. Quality begets adulation though... United fans have forgiven him because of his performances. Plenty of us seem to have done the same.
That is all this comes down to. Lets bring Lee Trundle out of retirement and get Nugent on a free when he's 30+, they are both good blues, it'd be like coming home. Or how about Dan Gosling? He only left Newcastle to further his career, he's still a blue at heart, Derby winner and everything. Before his knees finally give in I think it's only fitting we give him a couple of years.

Yes, Wayne Rooney is a brilliant player. But he acted like a prick. He is a prick. And giving him the freedom of Goodison to return as bloated, aged 30-something in the twilight of his career when he has amassed a fortune just so he can put in a few half-arsed appearances and so we can enjoy all "prodigal son returns home" headlines and their variations...not for me. I think we should have a little more pride than that.

 

[WA Toffee]

The same people who have a go at Lescott for leaving will then want to get rid of Heitinga a player who wants to stay and was our best player last season. Its incredible double standards but thats football.

Rooney is different, he is an Evertonian, him leaving when he did was horrible. Never scored in a derby, never captained his boyhood club etc. He could have stayed a few years and still lived his dream of trophies and all that. I think he is worse.

Players owe us nothing, I reckon fans of the club do though.

That's the thing isn't it - we only want loyalty from the really good players, and we definitely won't show it to anyone deemed not good enough.

 

[Jeff Jones]

I've said this before on other forums and I'll say it again. re. Rooney. I don't understand how an Evertonian supporting footballer would really care about winning trophies with another club And I don't understand why he, at 17, would move for money when he's already getting 35 grand a week rising to 50 grand shortly.

Having said that, the approximate 27 million Everton got for him was vital in terms of improving the squad to the extent that
it has been very competetive in the league since. Still not the point, though.

 

[Dell Boy]

I'd forgive Rooney, Lescott (just) and have forgiven Pienaar, but someone like Barmby will never be forgiven.

Never ever.

I must have been AWOL with the Barmby one. I honestly don't recall any off teh field crap at all. I was full on with Uni for part of his stay then a first job in London so maybe didn't get into it too much. From my simple head down matchday following I thought Barmby was a waste of space in a generally poor team. To me he was surplus to what we wanted/needed so to sell him to the RS was more a slight on them than us.

 

[maddison]

I must have been AWOL with the Barmby one. I honestly don't recall any off teh field crap at all. I was full on with Uni for part of his stay then a first job in London so maybe didn't get into it too much. From my simple head down matchday following I thought Barmby was a waste of space in a generally poor team. To me he was surplus to what we wanted/needed so to sell him to the RS was more a slight on them than us.

Barmby walked into Moyes office and said he wanted to play for the RS allegedly.

I think he was doing well for us at the time, and would have carried on to do well here. He went to that lot and then drifted into obscurity. I can't say I've ever been happier to see a footballers career go down the toilet

 

[stanleypark]

I think in general when a player says he supports someone as a kid, it doesn't necessarily mean he was a passionate fan who used to chin kopites on derby day, and would leg the away fans everywhere.

It's probably more a case of a team he sticks up for, and was more interested in the seeing the players on both sides on the odd occasion he went the match.

In school there were loads of people who loved footy, said they stuck up for someone, but were no way into football culture. I reckon most professional players are like that.

 

[Joe De Loach]

Barmby walked into Moyes office and said he wanted to play for the RS allegedly.

I think he was doing well for us at the time, and would have carried on to do well here. He went to that lot and then drifted into obscurity. I can't say I've ever been happier to see a footballers career go down the toilet

My memory of it was he moved to left midfield under Walter Smith and was a regular for man of the match, for around six months. He then got into the England squad as the answer to the problem position. There were rumours about tapping up from Owen, Fowler and the rest! That summer he was gone before Moyes time!