SAFETY FIRST NO LONGER ENOUGH — FANS DEMAND TO BE ENTERTAINED

Call it the Guardiola effect. Suddenly, for all the money, clubs and fans want more. What’s wrong with that? Sam allardyce moved Everton from 13th to eighth playing a brand of football that was functional. He did what he was employed to do, which was remove the threat of relegation — but Everton should never have been in danger of relegation. They are bigger than that. They have the money to do better.

Not in the table, necessarily, but certainly on the field. They have the wealth to entertain. Everybody does, these days.

Everton aren’t up to winning the league, as yet — they haven’t seriously challenged in the modern era — but watching them should at least be fun. That is what the television deal should provide. Enjoyment. Escape. It is now possible to buy the best players, to develop the finest academies, to play better football. Someone has to go down, of course. So there will always be tension, fear, a price to pay for getting it wrong. But with the riches at Premier league clubs’ disposal, there really is no excuse for dour football. Bournemouth don’t play like that, with far greater limitations than allardyce (right) had.

It was a little different for David Moyes at West Ham, but not much. The relationship between the board and the fans has grown so fractious that their priority this summer is to prevent further uprising, to stop the first defeat of next season poisoning an entire campaign. Moyes kept West Ham up but was viewed as conservative.

That may be unfair — West Ham were in more perilous circumstances than Everton, certainly after the 4-0 defeat when the teams met in November — and he organised a squad who had become lazy and complacent. Yet, once secure, Moyes became the fallback option if no one better, or more exciting, came along this summer: Rafael Benitez, or a bloke from Ukraine in a Zorro mask. Moyes found that insulting and jumped as much as was pushed.

‘I came to the club with the team struggling and we finished eighth in the table,’ said allardyce. ‘I’m more than happy with what myself, my staff and the players have achieved from when I came in.’ But that’s the point. With the money now at Everton’s disposal, finishing eighth playing boring football is no longer seen as an achievement.

Pep Guardiola, and contemporaries such as Jurgen Klopp, have changed that. Even Jose Mourinho, second with Manchester United, is feeling the heat.

Supporters do not expect their clubs to play like Manchester City, but they expect extra. More football, more fun, more ambition, more excitement. It may be that the old guard of British managers become the firemen, the ones who are called when the place is in flames and Premier league clubs look increasingly to a younger generation, who will at least have a go.

Everton’s income from the Premier league alone this season was a pinch under £130million — for that, is it too much to expect to at least be entertained? ARSENAL are pursuing Borussia Dortmund defender Sokratis Papastathopoulos. Technically, they could partner him next season with Konstantinos Mavropanos in a squad that also includes Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Henrik Mkhitaryan. On behalf of everybody who works to deadline at midweek matches, may I just ask: what’s wrong with Jonny Evans? SofIaNE BoUfal has the talent to have scored one of the goals of the season, for Southampton against West Brom in october. Since the arrival of Mark Hughes, however, he has been frozen out of the first team and now he wants to leave. ‘I have three years left on my contract, but my aim is to find another club with a manager who counts on me,’ said Boufal (left). Yet, given the position he inherited at Southampton, Hughes would have loved to count on a player with Boufal’s skill. He couldn’t. That’s why he was out of the team.