THEY say it takes five minutes to make a reputation and a lifetime to shake it off. Well that seems to be true of Everton.
After years of being damned with faint praise – sides were always ‘hard-working’, ‘organised’, or ‘spirited’ – it seemed that the Blues’ sparkling start to the season had forced media figures to revise those outdated opinions.
Instead, they were pointing out the excellent football, top-class management and the fact that Everton, this season, look set to challenge up at the top end of the Premier League.
And granted, the club’s recent form has not been quite at the level it was earlier in the season. Yet last weekend’s thrilling comeback against Spurs at Goodison lifted David Moyes’s men back into the top four, at the expense of the Londoners.
So I was surprised, therefore to switch on the BBC in the evening and see their Match Of The Day 2 programme attempt to nail down who they thought to be the main contenders for fourth spot.
Ex-Liverpool stalwart Alan Hansen eventually plumped for Arsenal, in the midst of their latest winter crisis, over Spurs.
Michael Owen (pictured), though, was rather more parochial. The final Champions League place, he said, would go to a team from Merseyside that were playing some excellent stuff and looking well set for a push up the table in the second half of the season.
That team, however, was not the one he supported as a boy. It was the one he represented so brilliantly as a player. Liverpool, he said, were his tip for fourth. And he is a betting man.
Perhaps Everton fans will be on the lookout for Michael at this afternoon’s game at the Britannia. He usually watches games from the directors’ box.
Or the dugout.
