Former Everton goalkeeper and legend Neville Southall never appeared to be a man who mixed his words and during the buildup to last weekend’s Merseyside derby with Everton at Goodison Park on Sunday, Southall made no bones about not caring if Jurgen Klopp’s side won the Premier League title this year.
His reasoning for, in some ways, wanting them to actually lift the trophy made perfect sense to me.
Writing a piece for outlet inews on Friday, he explained.
“When I get asked, though, whether I want Liverpool to win the Premier League, my honest answer is whether it’s them or Man City is much of a muchness to me. I’ve never had any problems with Liverpool fans and we’ve enough to be worrying about aside from them winning the league. I just want the best team to win it and if they happen to be the best team, good luck to them. And if they do win it, there might just be one positive for Everton. I imagine my Twitter will be full of people going, “You’re a knobhead” but I see it this way: if Liverpool win, it’ll put the pressure back on the board at Everton and rightly so – we’re in the same city so we’ve got to compete. If you’re in a racing team and the driver next to you has a Ferrari and you’ve got a Fiat Panda, you want a Ferrari because you want to race on an equal basis. It’s going to take time but, with the owner we’ve got, Farhad Moshiri, I’m hopeful there’ll be a time we can compete on the same level again.”
Some fans may baulk when they read his words and it’s not the kind of thing you expect an Everton man to say, especially with first hand knowledge of the derby nature between both sides, but his logic is spot on.
Farhad Moshiri has already spent big by comparison since he came on board, and with the Bramley Moor plans as well, clearly, there is a plan in place for growth and further investment, and any success from the red side of the City should keep minds focused and ambitions high.
It will add pressure, it will grow expectations in the boardroom because they will want to be on top – in some way, I can clearly see why the former Welsh international believes it could be win, win from our perspective.