News Roundup – Pienaar, Injuries and Inspiration.

So the news today, apart from new season ticket prices being released of course, is that Russian side Rubin Kazan (eh?) are after our Stevie.  Now undoubtedly Pienaar is yet to hit the heights he did last season with us so far this term, mostly due to pesky injuries every few weeks, but even though he only cost us something in the region of £2.2mill, there is no way he should be sold at all, let alone for the $6.25mill quoted in the press today.

A fit Pienaar and Baines playing down the left hand side is a thing to behold, especially when we have some strikers (or stand in strikers) to whip the ball in to.  With Mikky nursing his poorly knee and possibly not back for more than the 6 months initially quoted, there is absolutely no chance that Moysey will want to let Pienaar go.  Moyes spoke out on the subject of selling players recently and reiterated the fact that Everton are no longer a “selling club” because we need to keep the good players we have together and build from there.  I won’t argue with that one in principal, but I’m not convinced the board would turn down a realistic offer (in our eyes) for any of our players sadly.

Links again with Moutinho, but obviously not until the summer and I still don’t see where the money will appear from.  The real issue of course, is that we need a playmaking midfielder now – not just in 5 months time if we want to salvage something out of this season. We will hopefully see some players coming back from injury, Ossie, the afore mentioned Pienaar and Fellaini.  It will have to do, because it is all we have.

We’re down, but we are not out.  I hope that the players feel more optimistic than I do.  What we saw in that second half against Newcastle last weekend sounded a big alarm for many of us.  Is this what we’re like with no Arteta?  The answer is probably not, but the players more than us need to be convinced of that by the time we play West Brom on Saturday.  Mikel has been in inspirational form recently, but we can play good football without him and as long as our midfield has some creativity in the form of Pienaar and Osman as well as the rest of the current squad remaining fit, then I think we’re still in  the running for some cup and league success.  We need to make sure that our second half showing at St James’ Park is the last time this season we see ourselves lacking that special something.

Some of our best moments this season have come when by rights, we should be sinking like a stone, so I’m looking forward to the rest of this season being an opportunity to find yet another gear above where we have been playing.  I hope that these Everton players left standing will ensure we have some european football to look forward to next time around again. We have the ability, but do we have the mentality?