It’s been one of the worst kept secrets in English football, but it’s official now that Jermaine Beckford has completed his free transfer to Everton. Leeds had cancelled his contract on Friday which is an unusual step. Regardless of the fact a player has agreed to join another club, clubs usually keep the registration until the very last day of the contract. Often this runs until June 30th but both parties seemed to agree to part the ways earlier than required.

Questions are liable to raised in regards to Beckford’s abilities, as he’s jumped 2 divisions after firing the goals that helped return Leeds United to the Championship. Yet taking a risk on such a player who has scored 85 goals in the last 3 seasons for Leeds is hardly risky. There’s no fee involved and the wages that Everton will be paying him will be more than he earned at Leeds but nowhere near the top end of Premiership players.

Beckford’s star has certainly been rising over the last few years, he struggled at Leeds after joing the club from Wealdstone in 2006, but he’s quickly become one of the most feared strikers in England outside of the Premiership. His goal at Old Trafford certainly gave him column inches world wide and made sure that people outside of the U.K. became aware of his potential. By joining Everton, he’s at a club that will give him the support and guidance he’ll need.

Moyes has been searching for more striking talent to back up his current crop of attacking options. No-one doubts the abilities of Louis Saha and Ayegbeni Yakubu but both are not getting younger. Saha has developed a reputation of being injury prone but has managed 68 appearances for Everton in the two years he’s been on Merseyside. Yakubu, for all his early promise at Portsmouth has found goals hard to come by since he joined up with the Toffees.

I’ve always thought troubled Everton for the last few years is the lack of depth in the striking department. They would usually have two first choice strikers, but then the back up would fall away. Victor Anichebe has struggled for goals when he’s had the opportunity of being giving a chance for Everton and James Vaughan seemingly suffers from a rotating knee injury that have blighted his early promise. Both have simply had some bad luck.

One thing Beckford will bring to the club is pace, he is lightening fast and he gives the striking options more weight. Moyes will be delighted to have captured him in face of some healthy competition and it increases the clubs options. As I mentioned earlier, people will point to his lack of Premiership experience, but sometimes you’ve got to take a risk on players. Some will relish the opportunities that will come their way and of course it will take time for Beckford to settle in to the top flight, but that’s only natural.

Everton will be hoping to avoid another slow start to the season which derailed an excellent campaign from being even better. Surely they’ll get the breaks they need next season and with one or two additional signings, they’ll be back up there again. No doubt, they’ll be also hoping to avoid a repeat of the Joleon Lescott transfer saga and strengthen a side that can consistently push into the Europa Cup qualifying places.

How do you think Beckford will do? Leave me your comments and you can find me on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/paulbestall

If there’s one positive about David Sullivan’s outburst last week, such was the reaction to it, he’ll hopefully keep quiet until the end of the season. It’s a tricky situation when you’re a chairman of a club struggling at the wrong end of the table, but sometimes, you’ve got to keep quiet. In Sullivan’s case, that may be trickier than it sounds, such is his penchant for shouting about everything from the rooftops.

During his tenure at Birmingham City, Sullivan was quick to judge and had a constant battle with the fans of his ownership. The crowds were poor, even when Birmingham were chasing down the title last season, but having spoken to some Blues, I don’t think many people would pay £40 to watch your team play Scunthorpe in the second tier of English football.

Now, don’t get me wrong, Sullivan is certainly not to blame for West Ham’s current ills, but the rant last week simply confirmed for me that he doesn’t rate the current manager. Gianfranco Zola maybe one of the nicest men in football and a was a damn fine player in his time, but Sullivan, for me, clearly doesn’t rate him.

Of course, once Curbishley walked out due to the boardroom interference, the Hammers were always walking a tightrope. They are paying the price for splurging money on some very bad buys indeed and the Icelandic financial meltdown. It was always going to be tough for any manager and whilst eyebrows were raised at the time, the financial situation clearly scared most of the experienced candidates away from Upton Park.

That’s no offence to Zola, but it now seems certain in my mind that he was only given the job due to the lack of applicants. Managing a Premiership club, despite the financial implications, is a tantalising opportunity for anyone. Zola would have been mad to not take the job but he is beginning to resemble a dead man walking. The Hammers squad looks bereft of confidence and belief, two things you need in abundance when trying to get clear of a relegation scrap.

This is a side with youngsters being thrown in at the deep end and then left to drown, loan signings and journey men footballers bolted on to the players still remaining from the biscuit buyout. It is not a healthy mix for a squad and when you’re picking up strikers who have struggled in the top tier of France, you are always going to be in trouble. Zola seems unable to instill any fight in the side, though most teams would struggle to get anything out of a trio of games against Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea.

The defeat to Wolves left a bitter taste in most people’s mouths but it shouldn’t take anything away from the quality of Wolves’ performance. They were magnificent throughout the 90 minutes, despite West Ham’s problems. Of course, the one shining light throughout all the recent trouble has been the form of Scott Parker, who has continued to give 100% throughout his tenure. If only he could instill some of his grit and determination into some of his more experienced colleagues such as Matthew Upson or Mido.

Zola has been making do since he came to the club and I feel sorry for him and the West Ham fans. They expect better after seeing so much talent come through the club in the last 20 years, though sadly, none of it stayed for very long. The current crop of youngsters certainly have plenty of potential, but blooding them in a relegation scrap with chairman mentioning financial armageddon every other week doesn’t help any of them. Yet what can Zola do? His hands are clearly tied financially and with the players taking Sullivan’s words the wrong way, it doesn’t auger well for the fight that is yet to come.

With Hull suddenly finding a bit of form, and the gap to safety having stretched to four points, the Hammers have it all to do. A visit to Goodison on Sunday, with Chelsea and Manchester United already beaten there is a cause for concern. The final match of the season against Manchester City points to the irony of Carlos Tevez being in a position to relegate a side he kept up just 3 seasons ago.

You’ve got to feel for David Moyes and the never ending injury situation at Goodison Park. Since they finished fourth in 2005, it seems every season starts in December due to the injury affliction that seemingly curses the Toffees. Thankfully, we’re past the days when teams blamed gypsy curses for bad luck or injuries. I never understood those strange tales, especially as they always seemed to affect sides that had previously had success.

Do theses curses have timers included in the spell when it’s cast? Thankfully, Goodison seems to be the type of place were such nonsense isn’t given a second thought. There is no doubt that Everton have consistently punched above their weight for the best part of David Moyes’ reign. They’ve finished lower than 6th once in the last 5 years and now once again, Everton are charging up the table.

Wednesday’s nights victory at Manchester City acted as a reminder for people that for all the excitement on who would finish fourth, Everton can still cause perceived better sides problems. In the shakedown of the season, Everton seem to be the one side everyone forgets. Since the turn of the year, they’ve only lost 2 league games against Spurs and Liverpool and beat Manchester United and Chelsea. An injury time equaliser from Thomas Rosicky saved Arsenal’s blushes at the Emirates Stadium in January.

The upturn in their fortunes is consistently overlooked, but they’ve clawed back a 13 point gap on 7th and are now breathing down Aston Villa’s neck. It would be easy for Moyes to blame lack of investment compared with all the teams above them, but he simply does the best he can with what he has. It is a return most chairman would die for, yet in giving us the most consistent Everton side since the mid 80′s, Everton still don’t get the credit they deserve.

Perhaps people miss the point with Everton, but on song, they are a damn fine team, with the delightful Arteta in the side pulling the strings. Any side shorn of the quality that he, along with Saha and Jagielka, brings to the Toffees side, would find the going tough, but they simply seem to get along with it. This season, the emergence of Leighton Baines as a top quality left back has allowed Moyes to use the criminally underrated Phil Neville to slip in at right back in place of the erratic Tony Hibbert.

Added to that, John Heitinga’s flexibility in his ability to play seemingly anywhere in defence or midfield shows his transfer fee to be an absolute steal. For £6.2 million, the Dutch international has shown that Ajax still produce such adaptable and talented players that no other club can compare to. In comparison to the man he replaced, Joleon Lescott, Heitinga is simply a far better player on every level. He even seems to have survived a spell at the modern footballers graveyard, Athletico Madrid.

With the breakthrough of Jack Rodwell and Dan Gosling to consistently make the side and grow as players can only be a good thing for Everton. For a club with the stature and history that they have, why they struggle to gain any real investment is a mystery to me. I grew up watching an Everton side that were real challengers for titles both at home and abroad before being curtailed by English footballs ban from European for that dark 5 year period between 1985 to 1990. I have no doubt that Everton could have won the European Cup in 1986 rather than perhaps the worst European Champions in modern history, Steaua Bucharest and their blanketing tactics.

Moyes is well aware of the history and tradition that Everton have. The halcyon era’s of Howard Kendall and Harry Catterick may be distant history to some as many remember the side that struggled to hang on to their top flight status throughout much of the 1990′s. Everton have been a top flight side since 1954, the second longest in English football behind Arsenal. That’s 56 seasons in the top division, if that’s not history, I don’t know what is.

A late charge for 4th would be miraculous, but I wouldn’t bet on them finishing 8th. As Villa stutter, City keep missing chances and Liverpool’s dreadfully negative football keeps failing, they could be well pressed to finish above at least one of those sides. It would be a massive fillip for Moyes, the wonderfully supportive chairman Bill Kenwright and the fans for them to push upwards.

Then this summer hope that he can keep a full strength side for the beginning of the season and add a bit more strength upfront. The perhaps Everton’s fans may begin to think of more than the Europa League and cup semi-finals for once and bring home a bit of silverware once again.

The government’s rejection of Everton’s plans to move the club from Goodison Park to a stadium outside Liverpool, in Kirkby, is the best thing that could have happened for Everton FC and its supporters.

Financially speaking, the rejection of the Kirkby plans is a massive blow to Everton. The club has allegedly spent millions to pay consultants to champion the move. And the long-term financial implications are even greater as the club continues to suffer from not having modern matchday facilities to generate massive streams of money from corporations.

The reason why the Kirkby rejection is good news for Everton is because of fate. The blue half of Merseyside has a proud history which has been deeply intertwined with their rivals across the park at Anfield. In fact, Everton’s home used to be Anfield before a dispute forced the club to move down the road. The owner of Anfield then created Liverpool FC.

Even before Everton played at Goodison, Stanley Park was their home. The irony is that where Everton played is now near the site where Liverpool planned to build their new stadium.

The logical choice for both Everton and Liverpool is to build one world-class stadium that all of the people of Merseyside can be proud of. The two clubs aren’t as close as they once were, but it seems like fate that the two clubs should work together and create a legacy that will be remembered in the city for hundreds of years.

With the current economic crisis, it only makes sense from a financial perspective for both clubs to share a ground. In fact, just this morning Everton’s chief executive has said that Everton would consider a ground-sharing agreement with Liverpool. The ball is now in Liverpool’s court to make a wise choice and to realize that by the two clubs working together they’ll both benefit. The time is now. Let’s trust they’ll make the right decision.

Fittingly, Everton plays Liverpool in the Merseyside derby in the early Sunday kickoff at 1:30pm GMT/8:30am ET. The game will be shown on Setanta Sports in the United States.

For most football fans, when discussions come round to arguing about who was the greatest English striker of all time, one name will surely always be brought up. William Ralph Dean or Dixie Dean as he became better known is a legend throughout footballing history, with a record that possibly may never be beaten.

Born in Tranmere in 1907, Dean was signed up as a schoolboy by Tranmere Rovers whilst they were in the Third Division and he managed to start 3 games in his first season, but didn’t find the net. However, his first proper season aged just 17, saw him unleashed hitting 27 goals in 27 games in the league. This brought him to the attention of Everton, and he was bought for £3,000 in April 1925.  He managed to get 7 games under his belt for the Toffees, getting 2 goals but few fans would realise the potential the young striker was about to show for Everton over the next 13 seasons.

His first full season, 1925-26 at Goodison saw the striker smash 32 goals in 38 league games. From relative obscurity, he had become the most feared striker in English football for his goal rate, his power and his strength on the ball. As his career continued to ascend, he came to the attention of the F.A selection committee and made his England debut in the 1926-27 season. From being one of the most feared strikers in the English league, Dean unleashed himself in European football, scoring an incredible 12 goal in 5 games, including 2 hatricks in 10 days, against Belgium and Luxembourg. The footballing world was at Dean’s feet but he almost lost it all.

Injuries curtailed Dean’s playing time the following season, but it wasn’t down to the attentions of opposing defenders. Dean had a passion for motorcycles that very nearly killed him. Involved in a near fatal crash during the summer, he had suffered a fractured skull and jaw, shattered his right kneecap and nearly had the other ripped out of his leg and was covered in cuts and bruises. Doctors warned him against ever contemplating playing football again and advised him to concentrate on being able to walk. He’d had a steel plate inserted in his skull to protect the damage he’d done and when he left hospital, he couldn’t walk more than a foot unaided. His career looked finished.

A cigarette card from 1927

Dean was taken under the wing of Everton’s physio, Harry Cooke. Cooke and Dean were united in their belief that Bill Dean would wear the famous blue shirt of Everton again and slowly but surely, Cooke got Dean back to full fitness just in time. Everton were facing a relegation battle and Dean came to the rescue, hitting 21 goals in the final 27 league games of the season. Everton stayed up in 20th place, 4 points clear of the relegated Leeds United and West Bromwich Albion.

Yet no-one, not even the most optimistic of Evertonians could have envisaged how the 1927-28 season would turn out for both the club and its greatest ever player. It is a year written in to the annals of footballing history and I doubt that I will ever see anyone come close to breaking it in all competitions for an English Premier League side.

Dean actually missed 3 matches in his record breaking season, which makes it all the more remarkable an achievement. In 39 league games, Dean scored 60 goals, as Everton won the title. The Blues scored 102 goals that season, and Dean amassed an incredible 8 hat tricks amongst his record breaking haul. He also scored 3 in F.A. Cup games and another 4 goals for England. What a season!

The following season saw a horrific injury in which Dean actually lost a testicle and missed 13 league games, but still found the net 26 times in the league, but Everton could only finish 18th. Worse was to come the year after, as Dean once again missed nearly a third of the league games and the Blues slumped to the bottom of the table and were relegated.

For some, the easy route would have been to have left Everton to return to the First Division and Everton could have made a fortune from selling him, but Dean didn’t want to leave and the club were loathe to sell him and face a backlash from the supporters. Instead, Dean was about embark on the most successful period of his career, trophy wise.  Everton romped the title by seven points and scored an incredible 121 goals in the league, Dean hitting 39 in 37 games. They followed it up by storming back to the summit of the First Division the following season and pipped the new power in English League football, Arsenal, to the title by 2 points.

That season once again saw Dean, with his steel plate, missing testicle and smashed knees once again destroy defences, with an astounding 45 goals in 38 games and Everton reaped the benefits. The following season Dean fired them to F.A. Cup final of 1933 against Manchester City, which saw the players wear numbers for the first time in a match. Everton wore numbers 1-11, with Dean wearing the number 9 shirt, City wore 12-22 and as both sides wore blue, they had to choose alternative colours. Everton wore white, City choose red and Dean pulled them to pieces, scoring one and setting the other two up as Everton won 3-0.

Whilst Dean’s career didn’t drift away, he never managed to beat the highs of the period between 1926-1933. Another injury ravaged season followed in 1933-34 and missed a large chunk of the season. Time was beginning to catch up with his body through both the repercussions of the motorcycle crash and the dreadful treatment that strikers often received in those days. Yet, as always with Dean, just when people began to write him off, he blasted back and got another 67 league goals in the next 3 seasons.

Time was eventually called on Dean’s Everton career in 1938 and he left to join Notts County. By now, his body simply couldn’t cope with the demands of even Third Division football and he wound his career down after only 9 games for County by finishing up with Sligo Rovers. He still managed to score 10 goals in 7 games, including 5 in one match, which is still a club record. At only 32, Dean retired as a professional footballer.

The 1927-28 season often overshadows the rest of Dean’s career which is wholly unfair. In 12 full seasons for Everton, he scored an astonishing 346 goals in 387 league games and 28 F.A Cup goals in 32 appearances. He was adored by the Everton fans and his team mate’s alike and set records that are unlikely to be surpassed by anyone. William Ralph Dean passed away in 1980, suffering a heart attack as he watched Everton play Liverpool in 1980 at Goodison Park.

“When I tell you that the great Dixie Dean did all that with a steel plate in his head, you will realize what a miracle it was that he ever came back.” Tommy Lawton

• Scored a total of 377 goals in 431 games for Everton
• 18 goals in 16 games for England
• 60 league goals in the 1927-28 season & 45 in the 1931-32 season
  
• Never booked or sent off in his career
• Also a scratch golfer, played local Liverpool league cricket and baseball in the summer “to keep fit”
• Complete career of 407 goals in 473 games for Everton, Tranmere Rovers and Notts County
• Despised being called Dixie and insisted people called him Bill or Billy
  

If you’re bored with the same old story lines in the Premier League that are repeated on blogs and websites around cyberspace, choose from the following Premier League-related articles that you may enjoy instead:

• ECB Abandon Plans for English Premier League (The Cricket Blog). We can now thank the Credit Crunch for one thing. Cricket authorities have decided against the creation of the English Premier League — a new cricket league that was not only going to have the same name as the Premier League (outside the UK), but also the same acronym and the same acronym as this site (EPL).
• Goodison Redevelopment & Everton Stadium Presentation (Keep Everton In Our City). Web design company BlackWidowDesign.com has created a video and presentation to show how Everton’s Goodison Park could be redeveloped to take the club into the 21st century without having to move to Kirkby. I’m in support of this campaign. Everton should stay where they are to preserve the site of one of the oldest football grounds in England.
• Ultimate XI: Broadcast Edition (The New York Times). Fox Soccer Channel’s Christian Miles picks his favorite 11 sports broadcasters. There are a couple of surprises. I’m not a big fan of Jon Champion, but the Setanta commentator is on his list. What do you think about Christian’s picks?
• Sport’s No Longer In The Pink at FT (Sports Journalists’ Association). The Financial Times newspaper has announced that it’s removing its sports section and firing approximately 20 staff members. The only salvation is that FT journalist Simon Kuper will write a weekly sports column.
• Africa’s Biggest Media Company Super Sports Secures Premier League Rights (Standard Times). Super Sport has secured the TV rights to the Premier League in Africa (outside of South Africa) after GTV recently liquidated.

Monday’s Merseyside derby is the 209th time Liverpool will have battled Everton. As usual, there’s a lot at stake for the match and it isn’t just bragging rights on Merseyside. Liverpool need a win to regain the top position in the table, while Everton need a win to edge closer to European qualification.

The first Merseyside derby was played in 1894. Amazingly, there is footage of the derby from 1902. Read the fascinating story about the match as well as how the footage was discovered in an article by the Liverpool Echo.

Despite the video quality being poor, you can still catch a lot of the action from the 1902 derby by watching the video below. It’s also interesting to see how Goodison Park looked more than a hundred years ago and how little it has changed.

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Everton manager David Moyes has finally ended months of speculation by signing a new five-year contract with the club, worth a reported £16.5million. Some have said that Moyes’ failure to sign the deal has contributed to the Toffees poor start to the season, with the club currently in 15th place with eight points from their opening seven matches. Not only has their league form been poor but they already find themselves out of the Carling Cup and the Uefa Cup just two months into the new campaign. However will Moyes’ signature really help the Merseyside club our or are they destined for a tough season?

Last season Everton very nearly made the Champions League and had a very good year by their own standards. Since Moyes took over at Goodison Park in 2002 the only way has been up for the ‘peoples club’ but this season it looks as though Moyes magic may be beginning to wear off. Its not just Everton’s poor start but the fact that they don’t look like the same team they were 12 months ago, Joeleon Lescott and Joseph Yobo looked like rocks in heart of the Everton defence last time around.  However this season they look like they have never played together before. Right through the team things don’t seem right, perhaps its because of Mikel Arteta, who they rely on so heavily as a creative influence has been lacking this season or maybe its because Tim Cahill has been struggling on and off with injuries. These two are instrumental for Everton but neither have quite managed to hit the heights of last season and with Arsenal away this weekend  Everton’s Premier League odds don’t look like they are going to improve.

So will Moyes agreeing his contract sort all this out? Probably not because the clubs future is still surrounded with uncertainty. Chairman Bill Kenwright has admitted he would be interested in selling the club and with the help of Keith Harris the two have begun a search for potential buyers. Kenwright has admitted that the club need to find some financial backing if they are to compete with the ‘big four’ along with completing the proposed new stadium.

So as one cloud is lifted another still remains in the form of the future of the whole club and the question must be asked whether this is a bigger doubt than Moyes’ new contract ever could be. For example with new owners will come new ideas on how the club should be run and those might not include David Moyes or perhaps a proportion of the current squad. Whilst the sale of Everton is probably months, possibiliy even years away, these doubts may still be lingering around a side that really needs to concentrate on its football if they want to maintain the high standards of previous seasons.

As such I am predicting a difficult season for the Toffees, although they are too good to go down it looks as though  they will struggle to reach Europe again and look to be heading for a tedious middle table finish. Unless Moyes can turn it around once again Evertons odds for success are destine to take a nose dive.

Everton plays Liverpool this Saturday in the Merseyside derby at Goodison Park. The winner will have the bragging rights in the seaside port of Liverpool for the next few months. Will it be the blue half or the red half that will be victorious?

Be sure to catch the game in the EPL Talk Chat, which will be live at 7:45am ET Saturday hosted by Johnathan Starling. I look forward to seeing you there!

Everton has become only the second club in the Premier League to feature a webcam showing live pictures from its stadium.

The other club is Chelsea who have had webcams pointing at their ground for at least a few years.

Everton’s Goodison Park, one of the most historic stadiums left in the Premier League, has hosted World Cup matches and FA Cup Finals, and has been in existence since 1892.

The two webcams show views of the Gwladys Street stand, as well as a view of the pitch at Goodison leading up to the Park End Stand. The shame, though, is that the webcams don’t capture one of the most unique parts of the ground — the St Luke The Evangelist Church that sits in the corner of the Goodison Park.

The webcams are a simple but effective idea. I don’t know why more Premier League clubs offer the feature on their website.

View Everton’s webcams now.