James Beattie has claimed ‘I intend to prove my critics wrong’ following the injury filled start to his Everton career.
Beattie moved from Southampton to Everton for £6million following a tug of war with Aston Villa but has found his ten months on Merseyside frustrating as he has picked up injury after injury.
Beattie said: ‘It has been difficult for me, but there is only one person who can put that right and it’s me. I intend to do that this season.’
It seems he is used to the criticism from fans:
‘I have had fans knocking me all my career and I have always come through the other side and proved them wrong. That is what I intend to do again – that’s the only way. You hear what people say, what the papers say, so it is up to me to prove them wrong again.’
He also says there isn’t any pressure because the season is still just starting: ‘I don’t feel under pressure. Only eight games have gone. I can remember a situation at Southampton when we had three points from 12 matches and still stayed up, so this is not as bad a position as I have been in before. I just intend to start scoring and getting us some points. The manager has been cool and calm about it, he’s not been edgy and has tried to stop the players getting wound up.’
He added: ‘We need to be realistic this season, with all our players fit we will climb the table and two wins will put us 13th. It is ridiculous to start talking about relegation so soon. We are only the target for critics because we have gone from playing Champions League football and now everyone says we are going to be relegated eight games later. I don’t think we will be, but we have to knuckle down and get ourselves out of it.’
Sounds like fighting talk to me, lets hope the whole team can convert the talk off the pitch to battling performances on the pitch.
Meanwhile, Moyes is being linked once again for a January striker raid. This time the target is the often linked Spurs striker Robbie Keane.
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