Yet Roberto Mancini, the Man City manager, would do well to retract his recent comments about the Merseysiders given their victory.
In signing Jack Rodwell, Mancini said that the player was joining a team who played to win, and that this would be new for him. It was probably news to Rodwell himself, who must have wondered when he has ever played not to win, let alone Everton.
David Moyes’ is at the helm of one of the shrewdest operations in the Premier League. In a division where debt dominates, clubs spend like there is no tomorrow and loyalty is a forgotten concept, Everton are different from most. A well run, modestly funded club, who stick to their principles and the same man through thick and thin. With how many of the owners of the other clubs in this league would Moyes have survived this long?
In consistently performing as they do, Everton are out performing what they should be achieving considering their scant resources. In contrast, Mancini is still whining about needing more players – as though they do not have enough already. In terms of points per pounds spent on players, Man City are outperformed by Everton. Everton won 0.88 points for every pound spent last season, with Man City taking just .26, with only Chelsea boasting a worse record than that.
In terms of playing to win, the uneven playing field must be taken into account. If teams are judged on an equal footing, Everton do a better job of playing to win than Manchester City do. They just happen to have far, far, far less money. Mancini would do well to apologise to them and recognise that fact.
The victory over Manchester United on Monday showed Everton might just have their best season yet under Moyes. With some forwards actually fit and looking like they could score, in Nikica Jelavic, Steven Naismith and the promising Kevin Mirallas brought in, and midfielders creative as Steven Pienaar and Leon Osman, Everton have the potential to do very well this year. They usually start poorly but this time around they have got off to a perfect start.
A tough and combative team who can also play some terrific technical and passing football, Everton are a fair but competitive team who give no-one an easy game.
It will be a long season for them, and though they maybe don’t expect to win any trophies, they would surely like to beat Man City and shove Mancini’s words further down his throat.
