Football World Cup 2002: Is it time to sell the badge kisser?

Byline: Philip McNulty

THOMAS Gravesen's Everton career has been liberally laced with crass indiscipline and the type of phony bombast that gives pantomime villains a bad name.

Not so much boo and hiss as laughing behind your hands at the fact that he actually thinks this sort of fistclenching ham acting fools Everton's fans - who can spot a transparent badge-kisser at 100 miles.

So what are we to make of the Thomas Gravesen who is making a very respectable fist of ensuring Denmark emerge as one of the World Cup's surprise packages?

And, perhaps more importantly, what does new Everton manager David Moyes make of the slightly more controlled ``Mad Dog'' that has been patrolling Denmark's midfield? This is the same Gravesen whose lack of discipline saw him hauled off by Walter Smith before he was sent off in the defeat at Sunderland.

And the same Gravesen who will cross swords with England's midfield when the Sven-Goran Eriksson roadshow moves north to the Japanese city of Niigata tomorrow.

Everton are, to put it in polite terms, skint. And Gravesen, like it or not, is actually one of their more saleable assets.

Moyes is not exactly falling over talent as he makes his way through Bellefield, so he faces an interesting dilemma with Gravesen.

Does he attempt to tap into the brain cells that occasionally make Gravesen look a half decent player?

Or does he accept that the mad dog cannot be taught any new tricks, and flog him while his stock is relatively high?

My own personal view is that if Everton receive anything like a decent offer they should sell - but such are the vagaries of football management that Moyes may be tempted to do otherwise.

The World Cup is a notoriously bad time to make definitive judgements on a player - and Gravesen has not looked anywhere near disciplined enough to convince me he is part of Everton's long-term future under Moyes.