Moyes and Pulis: Lower leagues to the top

Premier League new boy Tony Pulis has said Everton need more cash if they are to break into the top-four. Hmm...I'll forgive him because he's new, but not only is he stating the obvious, he is stating what now appears to be the extremely unlikely!

Everton owner Bill Kenwright has already told fans the club needs a billionaire owner to progress but, in reality, they look further from breaking into the top-four than they have for some time. The dominance of the top-four, combined with the massive investment at Manchester City, appears to have caused a lot of damage to Everton's chances of moving on up.

But back to Tony Pulis. The Stoke boss will be hoping his team can beat Everton on Sunday (Sep 14), but ahead of the game he has spoken about the amount of money involved in the modern game - and took a swipe at Man City new boy Robinho, by suggesting the player didn't know anything about his new club before his move from Real Madrid.

Pulis was quoted by SkySports.com as saying: "It is no secret that money talks in football - we have seen it recently at Manchester City with the signing of Robinho. Did Robinho know about Manchester City? I'm not sure Robinho did know much about Manchester City but the money was there and as we all know that money attracts players.

"David (Moyes) has done a fantastic job at Everton, last year they finished fifth and now he is looking at it to see if he can take them into the top four again. But to break into the top four you need more resources, and that's not having a go at (chairman) Bill Kenwright or anyone at Everton Football Club. David Moyes is being really, really ambitious from a personal point of view to take them on to that next step again, and there is nothing wrong with that at all."

Of course, those who read SkySports.com and think the Premier League is the only league worth bothering about in England may not be aware of the fact Moyes and Pulis have had success in the lower leagues, with Moyes once managing Preston North End and Pulis managing a variety of clubs including Gillingham.

Now their work with those two teams, even if Pulis did Gillingham under somewhat acrimonious circumstances, make the current cash injection and death of top-flight football all the more disgusting. Pulis and Moyes have both managed at the sharp-end of the game - how many other Premier League managers can claim such experience?

And how many will be able to in the future? Mega-money owners seemingly prefer to employ "top-name" former players than proven managers, so the rest have to work their way up through the leagues. If Stoke weren't promoted from the Championship, it's unlikely Pulis would ever have managed in the Premier League.

It's just another example of how the top-flight cartel is getting harder and harder to break.

Everton's £15million man was not first choice!

Headlines sometimes jump out of the page (well, screen usually these days) and leave the reader thinking "What?" Of course, that's exactly the intention, as the reader will usually want to read the article to find out whether their feeling of disbelief was justified.

I had such an experience a few minutes ago, when a headline popped up from Setanta Sports - "Moyes: £15m man was a Plan B". Now, why should I really be surprised about Everton signing a £15million back-up? Probably because I didn't realise the madness had quite reached the non-top four (plus Man City) sides in the Premier League to this extent.

According to David Moyes, a manager I have a lot of time for, Marouane Fellaini may well have been a last-minute signing after Everton missed out on a number of other targets. Or, at least, he appears to me saying that.

Moyes told Everton's official website: "People will say that Fellaini was a last minute thing and he wasn't on the radar and a lot of that is correct. We were after other people; Mbia, we were after two or three people who we couldn't get. But we weren't sitting about doing nothing. We were looking to see who our next targets were.

"We haven't got a lot of stature in the team. So, our criteria was that we had to get someone who was bigger than what we had. We have a lot of smaller people in the team, Artetas, Osmans, Pienaars, so there were lots of good midfielders about but they didn't meet the criteria.

"Fellaini was one who we knew could do that and we have watched him. His games against Liverpool were very good and that probably tipped us over. We realised then that instead of having the potential, he was there."

So, assuming Moyes is being genuine in that Everton had watched Fellaini, it seems the player's performances against Liverpool tipped the balance. Amusing in terms of rilvarly, but Lierpool really were below par against Standard Liege.

And while £15million may not be much money for the top-four (it won't be once Liverpool are bought out by DIC, which I'm convinced will happen within months), it is a lot of cash for Everton. So was it a signing based on ability and a genuine belief the player would improve the squad, or to placate fans? That's one question destined to remain unanswered.