February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
After all, he was a mere squad player whose most memorable contribution in a competitive fixture was perhaps the concession of an unfortunate penalty against Turkey in the Euro 2000 playoff at Lansdowne Road. A good, if unspectacular, man to come off the bench late on, the reality is that not many considered him truly up to the midfield demands at the highest level. Nobody was to know then that Carsley would duly embark on the most productive spell of his career with Everton.
That he is the most improved player in the Premiership is without question. Last season, Carsley played just 15 games for David Moyes’s side. Flitting in and out of the team, most pundits would have speculated then that with his 30th birthday approaching, this midfielder looked destined for a move down a division. To think like that, though, was to underestimate the strength of his character. He bounced back to become an established first choice in an outfit that have been the surprise package of the campaign. This is simply what he has been doing all his life. Witness the response of Moyes to Carsley nabbing the winner against Liverpool last November.
“The people who know Lee will tell you if there’s any player they’d rather score the derby winner it was him, because of what he’s given to the team,” Moyes said. “But it wasn’t just his goal which was important. Lee did a good job in holding Steven Gerrard. I think people know how influential Gerrard is and we decided that we weren’t going to let him be that player if we possibly could. It took away a little bit from us slightly, but not too much, and he did a great job on him.”
Players with far more ability than Carsley — a few of his former international colleagues among them — have never had a season like the one he’s having now because one senses they just haven’t worked as hard or wanted it as badly. From the time he broke through at Derby County in the mid-1990s, this was a guy continually reckoned to be just a little bit short of top-class. His response after initially failing to tie down a first-team spot at Pride Park was to give up alcohol and embark on a weight-lifting program to improve his physical conditioning. He did this to such effect that Derby ended up selling their former apprentice to Blackburn Rovers for