So it looks like that’s it. Eto’o came, scored a few goals, appeared to be loved by the players (including our £28m striker who needed/needs guidance) and has now gone to Sampdoria, seemingly on a free transfer.
Sounds like Everton have done an ‘Everton’ and messed things up massively, letting a living legend come to the club, dictate that he wants to go and push it through. Also makes Everton look weak due to no fee being involved and no replacement being lined up.
Maybe we need to look a little closer though, and perhaps listen to what people have been saying about Eto’o in and around the club.
When Samuel Eto’o joined us back in August I was slightly underwhelmed I must admit. I just saw it as an aging striker joining us who wanted one last payday. I couldn’t see him playing very much either. Then he started coming off the bench and scoring the odds goal for us. His goals against Burnley were great (he nearly got a hat-trick too) and his influence on players like Lukaku seemed to be of massive benefit to the club. He didnlt seem to be getting too much game time until November/December time when strange line-ups started being put out by Roberto Martinez.
Eto’o suddenly started being put out as a second striker by Martinez in place of players like Barkley or Naismith in what seemed to most fans like a degree of desperation by our Spanish manager – almost as if he was trying to put a team of players out in the hope that it would come off for him. It would now appear that via ‘sources within the club’ that Eto’o was perhaps having more influence than he should have.
An interview dug up over the weekend from just after Eto’o left Anzhi Makhachkala shed some light on what Eto’o was like when he was at the club. Guus Hiddink has signed Eto’o and a number of high-profile and expensive players and was having some success. Hiddink has suggested that Eto’o decided that he knew better and started dealing directly with the chairman, trying to sign his friends on high salaries, and telling the Board how the club should be run. And this isn’t the first time – he has issues with both Inter Milan and Barcelona that made him fall out with team-mates and be moved along when the next bid came in.
So has Eto’o been having ideas above his station, and has the atmosphere within the Everton dressing room been affected by this? We know that there is some disharmony in the club and the fact that Eto’o has been left behind as the squad goes off to Dubai tells us more than we need to know?
In the meantime Eto’o and his team, along with Sampdoria have behaved in an extraordinary manner concerning the transfer, essentially pushing the transfer through against Everton’s will, being seen in Italy watching the games, organising medicals and even showing the player off to the crowd – all before anything is signed. Sampdoria have even placed quotes in the media to suggest that Everton have problems internally with them ‘not knowing who was in charge’.
So what is the truth? Well what also became clear was that Eto’o was about to trigger a clause in his contract that would have given him a contract extension and a pay rise – all he had to do was play a couple more games. This would seem to suggest that in the midst of the aggressive stance from Sampdoria that the manager sat down with Bill Kenwright and decided whether it was worth keeping Eto’o, wages and all, on the payroll. Would it be worth having an expensive and (potentially) disruptive player sitting on the bench for another 18 months, as he clearly doesn’t fit into Martinez’s plans with Lukaku looking good and Kone returning to fitness?
Also to take into account must be Eto’o’s personal circumstance. His family live in Italy and it can’t be easy being away from them. We know that he travels to see them as much as possible, but living near them will no doubt make him happier both in his personal and his professional career.
You know what? The manager needs to be trusted and supported at this time. I think he might just have made a good call. We just need to work out what to do with all those apostrophe’s now at the club shop. Must be why we’ve been linked with Charles N’Zogbia again I guess…
And good luck to Samuel Eto’o too. You know what? I once saw Samuel Eto’o score a goal for Everton. Think back ten years or so and see whether you’d have believed that statement…