Monday Jan 17:
So Rafa has been sacked and, incredibly even by Everton’s standards, Roberto Martinez is the favourite to replace him. The same Martinez who Moshiri sacked after huge fan protests, and the same Martinez that took them to court because they didn’t pay him enough when they sacked him. That Blue who said last week that he’s convinced this is some kind of social experiment to see how far a group of fans can be pushed before breaking, well I think he’s onto something.
I’m almost at the stage where I don’t even think it’s funny. I’m close to getting annoyed by this shit now, kind of like how Arsenal’s frequent bottle jobs leave me more disgusted than amused. Everton’s continued incompetence is almost approaching the point where it isn’t funny, but its not there yet so hahahahahahah.
Is there a worse run club in football? Half a billion quid spent to get worse. Averaging more than one manager every year, at least half of whom had really good track records until they arrived at Goodison. They appointed a manager that the fans despised (other than Dalglish and Gerrard - who would never have gone there anyway - they literally couldn’t have made a more unpopular choice) and they let him go through the staff like a dose of salts. Scouts were sacked, medical staff were sacked, the director of football was sacked and they let him sell their best player to Gerrard. They also let him buy two new full backs a week before sacking him.
Remember when Kenwright said a director from another club said to him that they ask themselves “what would Everton do, because they always get it right?”. Fucking hell, that’s his best one ever.
Meanwhile, Arsenal are supposedly wanting the semi postponed. The suggestion is they want it rearranged for during the international break, when we’ll be missing the three Brazilians. Cheeky twats. Not a chance in hell that happens because the EFL aren’t hamstrung by their own poorly written rules like the PL are.
I’m sick of people defending Arsenal (and others, like Leicester for example) and saying they’re just taking advantage of an opportunity presented to them by the PL’s incompetence. Fuck off. There’s no honour here at all. Teams were having games called off because of COVID cases and then all of a sudden cunts like Leicester started trying it on and because they were allowed to get away with it, the likes of Arsenal are now taking the piss as well.
We played against Spurs despite losing our entire midfield. We played against Chelsea despite losing key players and our manager. The game we had called off was only because the training ground was closed and half the squad were isolating (doesn’t matter whether the positives were accurate or not, you still have to then follow protocol). We literally couldn’t play the game even if we wanted to pick kids, because none of them had been able to train that week either.
Yet somehow we’re still the focus of a load of misdirected anger and some cunts are using us as the justification for these other chancers who are calling games off when they only have one or two COVID cases. We’re gonna fuck Arsenal on Thursday and it’s going to be satisfying as hell.
Tuesday Jan 18:
Naby scores a screamer as Guinea progress to the knockouts. He’s been the star of the tournament so far, which doesn’t surprise me because he’d looked sharp before he left. He’ll come back injured though. It’s nailed on. We won’t be getting any of our lads back early though, which is a shame but not a surprise as they all play for nations that would expect to qualify for the knock outs. Now that there’s no chance of them coming back early I hope one of them goes on to win it.
Over on the other side of the park, Big Dunc is caretaker again as Mad Moshiri decides what he wants to do. Martinez wants to take the job while still coaching Belgium for the World Cup, while now Rooney is being strongly linked. He’s actually doing well at Derby and he’s in a no lose situation there as if he keeps them up he’s a hero and if he doesn’t it’s not his fault anyway. He’d have be thick as fuck to give that up to go back to Eve… ah, yeah I see it, I’ll stop myself there.
Harvey is back in full training. Great news, that probably means he’s back in contention to play in about a fortnight, .
Wednesday Jan 19:
RIP Peter Robinson. Other than players and managers, it’s hard to think of anybody who had a bigger impact on all that success we had. They don’t make them like that anymore, those quiet types that just do a fucking boss job while staying low profile. We replaced him with Rick Parry, which is some Suarez / Balotelli type shit.
Meanwhile, it’s League Cup week so Pep does the presser. Interesting as ever and he had some injury updates for us. Thiago should be back in a couple of weeks but there’s still no sign of Div returning. Klopp said last week he saw him out running, so what’s going on here? Ox is said to be ‘not serious’. Ok, I guess we’ll see him in May then.
He was raving about Harvey’s first day back too and said him and Jurgen would like to pick him straight away but the medical staff would string them up. Encouraging to hear though.
Wait, what’s this I see trending? Suarez to Villa? As Livia Soprano would famously say “I wish the good Lord would just take me now”.
Thursday Jan 20:
Arsenal 0 L 2. Yep, just what should have happened. We don’t need Salah and Mané to beat these fucking bums. We need them if we’re going to score the four or five we usually do, but we only needed Jota to beat them by two.
I’m being a huge hypocrite here given how absolutely not arsed I’ve been about the league cup in recent years, but I badly wanted this and you could see by the reaction to the goals and at full time that the players did too. There are loads of reasons for why all of a sudden the league cup means more, and the gap that’s opened up between City and us is definitely part of it. Initially I thought that was my main motivation but on reflection it’s not.
Winning the league changed things because it got the monkey off our back. It doesn’t mean the league is no longer the priority but it no longer needs to be the absolute obsession it had become. The league cup is still bottom of the priority list, but lifting another trophy and updating the Champions Wall, yeah who isn’t going to be excited by that prospect?
We still have to beat Chelsea, which won’t be easy, but it’s been too long since we were at Wembley in a cup final. I’m buzzing about that but also buzzing about slapping Arsenal back down to size. Where do they get off with the bravado we see from them any time they put a few results together? It’s mental, who the fuck do they think they are? That Ben White sack of shit, laughing at Taki last week. Their fans were loving that too. That’s modern Arsenal.
One negative today was that cryptic photo Mo’s agent posted. The obvious conclusion to draw from it was that the club have made a contract offer that he and Mo find to be a joke, but keep this shit to yourself knobhead. We’re in a cup semi final and you think it’s ok to post that kind of crap in the build up? Tit.
Meanwhile, Rhys Williams is back from loan and Nat Phillips might be headed to Watford if they stump up the cash. Williams hasn’t had a good time of it at Swansea but this seems to be a common theme with most of our loan players. That kid held his own in a team that went on a run to qualify for the Champions League next season and he wasn’t being carried by Van Dijk. He was partnering Big Nat. Now he isn’t good enough to get a game at Swansea?
This is the Klopp effect for me. Players don’t perform as well when they leave him. It happened with loads of Dortmund players and we’ve seen it with loads who have left us. Who has left us and either played as well, or better, than they did under Klopp? Ings has done well but he hardly played for us so we can’t judge. Emre Can, Coutinho, Gini.. even most of the loan lads haven’t thrived. Elliott is the one exception that immediately springs to mind but he’s such a special talent he could shine almost anywhere.
Anyway, glad to have Williams back because he’ll improve far more training with us every day than he will being out on loan.
See Spurs have had a 315m bid for Adamants Traore turned down? Interesting. If he’s available for anything less than £20m he’s a steal. You know I’d take him, I’ve said it often enough, but I can see why Spurs want him. In Conte’s preferred 3-4-3 he can either play alongside Kane and Son, or he could play the wing back role. Didn’t Victor Moses play there for Conte at Chelsea and turn out to be a revelation? If Traore goes to Spurs he’ll make them better, no doubt about that. And at that price it’s a no brainer.
Friday Jan 21:
Oh I like this. Looks like we’re making a move for Fabio Carvalho from Fulham. He’s available on a free this summer and he’s meant to be fucking boss. Can play in the front three or as an attacking midfielder, so very much in the Elliot / Jones category. I heard one of the Talksport commentators raving about him earlier in the season and I assumed he was some Portuguese or Brazilian kid they’d signed, but he’s actually an England youth player (born in Portugal) who came through their system with Harvey and he’s seen as being just as good a prospect. Elliott, Gordon…. get them wonder kids signed!
On that note, I watched a couple of our u18 games in the past week and the left back caught my eye. Callum Scanlon he’s called, and when I googled him it turns out he’s the kid we signed from Birmingham for 500k last year. He’s 16 now and playing above his age group. Looks quality. Mind you, there’s a few kids in that team I like the look of. We might go all the way in the youth cup this year, but we’ve got to get past Chelsea in the next round first.
Stevie takes Villa to Goodison tomorrow and some of his pre match quotes have been gold. Basically said they can give him all the shit they want to because he’s got broad shoulders and can handle it. No doubt they’ll dust of “the baby’s not yours” chant and if that’s the case and Villa win I really hope he breaks out the Bebeto celebration at full time.
This was funny too.
“How would you feel, as a player, being on the receiving end of one of Ferguson verbal rants?”
Stevie: “I’ve never wanted to be an Everton player, so would never be in that position”
Bet they boo the shit out of Lucas Digne too, which would be fair enough if we didn’t know that they’d be cheering him from the rafters if it was Rafa in their dug out and not Duncan. Coutinho and Ing will get it in the neck as well, but the potential for hilarity here is strong if Villa weather the early fire and brimstone and let their football do the talking.
I wouldn’t go within a 10 mile radius of Goodison tomorrow because COVID is transmitted through particles in the air, and will all the screaming, booing, spitting and general bile being spewed out there’s going to be fucking big huge mushroom cloud of COVID over that stadium.
Meanwhile, Carra reveals on Friday Night Footy that earlier in the season Messi sent him a DM on Instagram calling him a donkey because he said on Sky that Messi wouldn’t be a good signing for PSG. This blows my mind to be honest. Not that Messi called him a donkey as in Messi’s mind anyone who can’t dribble past five players falls into that category. He called Milner one too, let’s not forget. Then Milner beat him 4-0, but that’s beside the point.
Why this shocks me so much is that firstly, what Carragher said wasn’t derogatory or or disrespectful. It wasn’t some flaming hot take either, it was a reasonable shout. But even if it wasn’t, I can’t wrap my head around why Lionel Messi, the second greatest footballer ever (behind Diego, obviously) and the best of his generation, would give a flying fuck what anybody says about him, let alone a pundit in another country.
I could see why Ronaldo might take issue with something said on Sky as he plays over here, and even if he hadn’t come back he at least did play here before and knows the pundits who are talking about him. For Messi to hear about Carragher saying something on Sky and be pissed off enough to send him an insulting message on instagram is staggering to me. Mind you, you’d get this kind of thing with Michael Jordan all the time back when he was with the Bulls. He took every bit of criticism personally and carried it around with him, wanting to get payback for it. He even made stuff up to get himself motivated, sometimes the greats do have incredibly fragile egos and can be unfathomably petty.
Difference is, Jordan used it as fuel to destroy people and it always worked because nobody could beat him. Messi on the other hand has bottled most of the really big games he’s played, the little shitbag. He took Carra’s criticism of him being a bad signing for PSG and followed it up with… wait for it…. one league goal in six months!! Wow, you really put him in his place there Leo. If I’m Carra I’m posting up that stat along with this….
….and that was the week that was.
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