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Southall Challenges Farhad Moshiri Over Everton FC Standards

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Neville Southall has questioned Farhad Moshiri over the standards and direction of Everton Football Club. The Toffees greatest ever Goalkeeper and record appearance holder with 751 club appearances, has been speaking to the Liverpool Echo.

Southall told the Echo :

“There may be factions in the board room that need sorting out, there might need to be a restructure over how we look at the players, there’s certainly a recruiting problem because we’ve brought in signings who haven’t got us any further on. “If your recruitment is poor in any business then that will reflect badly on you, leading to poor results.

“When Evertonians go to the game they want pride, passion, work rate and skill.

We seem to be getting a little bit of each of those in everybody. There are a few players there who are having a really good go but there’s a few that aren’t.

“I think that in this day and age if you can’t run about for a club like Everton, you don’t deserve to be there.

We need to get an identity over what an Everton player is but what we have done is gone with the identity of the manager.

“We should be saying, ‘no, this is what Everton’s identity is and the managers have to fit into us’.

“Maybe it’s become the time that we just need to be a bit stronger as a club and say, ‘this is what an Everton player is, this is our philosophy. We want to give the people what they actually want which is the kind of football they’ve seen in the past’.

“That’s pressing high up, getting opponents to make mistakes in their own half and then steamrollering them.”

Southall recalls that such striving for excellence was the key to success in the mid-1980s when Howard Kendall made ruthless decisions like replacing fan favourite Andy Gray with Gary Lineker and that Everton should try to re-adopt such an approach.

He said:

“If there’s somebody out there better then we should sign them. That’s the problem we’re having. Jordan Pickford and Dominic Calvert-Lewin are two great players but shouldn’t we be looking for better already?

“Shouldn’t we be looking for a better centre-forward than Calvert-Lewin? Shouldn’t we be looking for a better goalie than Pickford?

“Not because they’re doing anything wrong but because the club should be looking forward.

“We just go, ‘oh well, these will do for a bit’, and then when somebody comes in, it’s like, ‘we might have to sell someone here’.

“While you’ve got decent players in decent positions, you’ve still got to be looking for better and that’s all over the pitch.

“It doesn’t make any sense to sit there and think about resting on your laurels.

“Howard was always looking for something better. When we won the league he was looking for someone better.

“He wanted to change things a little bit and make it harder for everyone.

“We’re living for today but we should be living to win trophies.”

“Do we just want to make do and mend until we go to the new ground or actually move there with a chance of winning things?

“The owner has got to value the club at more than that. They’ve got to value Everton as much as the fans but at the moment I think the fans value this club far more than anybody else.

“Their ambition doesn’t seem to be matched by anyone else at the club.

“This club is going to a new stadium soon and we’ve got to look at whether this team is going to carry us into Europe, is this team going to win us the league?

“The benchmark has to be when recruiting, ‘is this player going to win us the league?’. If it’s no then don’t sign him.

“You look at the people he’s brought in. They’ve come in to do a job but haven’t been allowed to do it.

“If I’m putting that much money into the football club, I expect them to do their job.

“Lots of owners and chairman, wouldn’t have the same kind of insight as Sharpy and that’s where he’s important.

“Evertonians don’t want to be sat at Norwich, holding a cup of Bovril with their head in their hands, thinking this is a ridiculously long way to come for this. They want to be going to Wembley singing like they used to.

“It’s got to be a long-term project because this is a big job. We’ve got to live up to our motto (Nil Satis Nisi Optimum – Nothing but the best is good enough) but at the moment we’re not.”