I must announce my arrival here by confessing that for the past two seasons I have been willing Everton out of the top flight. Not for any Everton-related reasons but more to prove myself correct over my judgement of Martinez, which was that he just wasn't very good despite what the media tell everybody, who decided to gush over his 'great escape' every year at Wigan without ever acknowledging that he had got them into that situation in the first place whilst his predecessor in Steve Bruce had just achieved their second highest Premier League finish before Martinez took over, if i remember rightly.
Besides this, Everton never really entered my thoughts much until the last 24 hours, what with also being the supporter of a mid-table Premier League club I only tend to really look up the table to see where we could be, rather than what is going on underneath us. I often thought of Everton as being the more cultured, civilised sibling of Liverpool, but a lot of what I have read on here and on twitter suggests that delusion must be on the Merseyside curriculum. Being a child of the Premier League era, my interest in club history is limited, I tend to watch what is in front of me, but I have heard a lot mentioned about your glorious history in the last 24 hours (i'll google it later). Which got me thinking, there was some club that came down to us at the end of last season and chanted from start to finish about how much more they had won than us which really put a dampener on our 6-1 victory as it obviously sunk in how we just weren't worthy of our visitors' company... I wonder what ever happened to them?
Now this is football, whilst most of our fans and many in the media are asking the question of 'why?' (albeit it's more of a 'WHYYYY!?!?!?!?') with regards to whether our Ron would opt for Goodison, it really wouldn't surprise me that much, but I have to think if I were him then I would think what is the point? Having secured a couple of more than respectable finishes with a side that has its best players sold every season, he's shown himself to be very adept and very versatile, often switching formations and styles and 9 times out of 10 getting it spot on. Whilst I don't think the big boys abroad would come calling as of yet, I think some of the ones here would take a keen interest, and if I were him that's where I would head whilst my stock was high. Stepping sideways (or backwards really, looking at the table), would be make or break for his future options, if he fails at Everton then he would sacrifice his crack at a big job, i think it'd be a very dangerous move for his career. Added to that, i'm not convinced "Ronald Koeman is coming" would be words strong enough to convince the likes of Romelu Lukaku or John Stones (who's horrendously overhyped, by the way) to forego a chance at Champions League football elsewhere. Whilst a great manager he is, a miracle worked he ain't, players would be sacrificing more than just a solitary season if they were willing to wait and see if Everton could offer them CL football. Which would essentially leave him in a similar position to when he joined us - rebuilding from scratch - that's not really progression is it. Plus he's passed up equally illustrious roles this season at the likes of Swansea and Sunderland, and now Watford are on the look out for a new boss I really think he'd be too spoilt for choice of lower-half Premier League clubs that it'd just be easiest for him to stick with little ol' Southampton. But, then again, he wouldn't be able to say "yeah but look how much we won last century!" when questioned why his team is sat in 12th, so it must be a tough one.
Anyway, hopefully he stays with us, but as I said, nothing would surprise me in this league anymore, sometimes manager's can have their heads turned when we least expect it (£££££). Does Pep know you're looking for a manager? Surely the ink hasn't quite dried on his Man City contract yet, i'm sure he'd jump at the chance of managing one of England's super-clubs...
