That was the week that was (May 17-21 2021)

Monday May 17:

According to the Athletic, Trent won’t be going to the Euros and what he’s done in the last couple of games is “too little too late”. If he doesn’t go he should just tell England to fuck off altogether as frankly it would be the most ridiculous non-selection in the history of English football.

Too little too late implies he’s been shite all season and has pulled a Gareth Bale and turned it on in the last few weeks. He’s been our best player in 2021, it’s just that in the last month he’s really hit form and is now back to his very best. Alongside Kane, he’s England’s most talented and accomplished player by a fucking mile.

If Southgate wants to pick Kieran Trippier, Kyle Walker and Reece James (who I like) ahead of him then while I feel bad for Trent, it’s fucking hilarious as the incompetence would be staggering. I don’t think it will happen though. Southgate is a fucking wet lettuce, he doesn’t have the balls to make a decision that conttroversial.

In other news, I was just thinking, remember when Everton fans flooded the charts with old cup final songs earlier in the season because they won four games #wedontknowthemeaningoflosing

Tuesday May 18:

Ancelotti is asked how to fix Everton’s home form and says “I’m not a magician I am only a trainer”. Hmmm, not sure about that as ‘Carlo Fantastico’ defo sounds more like a magician’s name to me. Like the Great Raymondo, last seen leaving Raquel’s flat to retrieve a suitcase thrown out of a window by Del Boy in the Jolly’s Boys Outing. 

Greatest episode of a comedy show ever that one. When Del realises there’ nothing going on between Raquel and the Great Raymondo and he goes all posh and says “Oh dear, I seem to have thrown your suitcase out of the window”. Kills me every time that. Anyway, no idea how I ended up on the Jolly Boys Outing but I make no apologies for going off on that tangent.

Klopp says Jota has a tiny chance of playing at the weekend. The bench is the best he could hope for and maybe Hendo might be on there too. He's close apparently. Can't believe how long he's been out when they initially said he had a chance of being back for the second Madrid game. Has Klopp ever been truthful about an injury?

Wednesday May 19:  

Burnley 0 L 3. If only they were all as stress free as this one. I'd have preferred the first goal to have come earlier but other than that this went as well as we could have hoped. It wasn't perfect and the lads at the back had some tricky moments, but the balls and character on those two are beyond reproach. They aren't Van Dijk and Matip but fuck me, they've performed above and beyond haven't they?

There's actually an argument to be had for Phillips as our Player of the Year. Our record with him in the side is great and even on this recent run the only two games were didn't win were when he didn't play. And now he's scoring as well? What a fucking hero.

So now we're 4th and we've got a sizeable goal difference advantage over Leicester. Basically win and we're in, although Spurs looked so bad last night you couldn't completely out them shipping half a dozen on Sunday. Ideally Villa will beat Chelsea and we'll take care of business to finish third.

Speaking of Spurs, Kane told them he wants to leave. Yeah good luck with that, especially in this financial climate. Bottom line here, Harry Kane is a £150m player as far as Spurs are concerned. There’s no point in them selling for too much less than that. Is he worth the much to anyone else though? Nope, not when you can get Mbappe, Haaland or Sancho for similar or less.

Kane is a fucking brilliant player and I’d love him at Anfield, but we can all see that it would be madness for us to spend that on him (even if we had it, which we don’t) when he’d have very little resale value. You can justify it for an Mbappe or Haaland whose value will most likely go up rather than down, but not for Kane.

City could afford him but have absolutely no track record of spending that kind of money. They prefer to sign a dozen players for £50m apiece so they can fly under the radar by not breaking transfer records. United might pay what Spurs want because they’re fucking mental when it comes to spending on players and don’t seem arsed about resale value, but I don’t even see them doing it.

And Levy isn’t going to be pushed around, so at this point I’m not worried at all about Kane ending up in Manchester. If by some chance it does happen though then it’s bad news for us as he’ll score 40 goals a season.

Thursday May 20:

Bizarre outburst by Fat Sam last night. He saw his fat arse over some throwaway comment made by Antonio about them “knocking it into channels”. Antonio wasn’t wrong and the reaction from Boss Nass was way over the top. It’s not like Antonio was in a studio with a big screen and a pointer, giving a detailed breakdown of Allardyce’s tactics.

So what was this about? His next job, that’s what. This is about damage limitation. The one thing he had was that he’d never been relegated. That counted for a lot as it meant teams would overlook the shit footy because it was a means to an end. Now he isn’t the guarantee of survival that he was, so the football is a factor and he wants to rid himself of the ‘long ball’ thing.

He’ll have all his media mates trot out the names of Djorkaeff and Okocha as evidence that “there’s more to Sam than long ball”. They’ll probably throw in the name of Pereira too as he’s been great these last few months.

And you know what, they’re right. He isn’t Bobby Gould or Dave Bassett. His teams aren’t just full on alehouse all the time, he’s just an arch pragmatist and if the need is alehouse then he’ll happily do it. This won’t be a popular opinion but Allardyce is better than a lot of his detractors give him credit for.

The thing is though, he’s a bung taking, arrogant, loathsome cunt. So I’m made up he was relegated and I hope we never see him managing again. We will though, probably in January when some desperate underachieving club hits the panic button and calls for Fireman Sam. I just hope it’s Everton. Again.

Friday May 21:

Transfer rumours today have us linked with Adams Traore (again) and Tielemans. Neither is happening as both would cost more than we would be willing to spend. I’ve said before that I’d love Traore but he’s flopped badly this season. I’d still jump at it if the price was right though because his talent and physical prowess is off the fucking charts.

The problem with him is he is never going to be that wide player who scores twenty goals a season. That’s not who he is, so in a team like ours where we need goals from the wide attackers he’s not going to much use. What an impact sub he’d be though. Or imagine him rotating with Trent as an attacking right back in those games against packed defences. I’d fucking love it. Not for the money it would take though.

As for Tielemans, I don’t think he’s that good. I mean, he’s a good player and he’s been class for Leicester. He’s just not someone I watch and think “he’d be great for us”. You know who I do look at and think would fit our midfield like an arse in a bucket? This one is a bit out of left field and some of you will scoff, but I could see Ward-Prowse being a boss little addition to our midfield stable.

Meanwhile, Klopp says City or United wouldn’t have been able to win the title if they’d lost their top three centre halves. It was just a throwaway line to highlight how well he feels the team has done to get themselves into the situation they are in, but as soon as he said it you knew that was going to be the ‘headline’.

Is he right? Maybe. I mean fucking hell, we were told all last season that Laporte’s injury cost City the title. Even though he’s been on the bench for most of this year and they’ve still won it by a street. Would City have won it without Dias, Stones and Laporte? I reckon they might have, because everyone else has been shite.

United can’t even cope without Maguire, let alone two others. I still say the defensive injuries have been a bit of a red herring though. I agree it would have been impossible to win the title given the hand we were dealt this year, but I don’t think that’s the cause of everything that has gone wrong.

Put it this way, despite our defensive problems we’ve conceded less goals than United. We have five less points though. Why? VAR, that’s why. I know that sounds very Everton-like but it’s fucking true. This good run we’ve been on lately, it’s as much about us not being fucked over as much by refs as it is anything else. That terrible run we had? The biggest factor in that was refs and VAR. I just hope they don’t have one more kick in the balls for us on Sunday.

I hate the new kit by the way, but like I said last time it doesn’t matter what I think or what any of you think. It’s all about whether the kids will buy it, which they will. I miss New Balance though. Nike aren’t doing it for me, the kits aren’t as nice and I don’t feel like we’ve had the big bump in exposure that we expected. And where the fuck is Mbappe? That’s the only reason I was on board with Nike and they haven’t delivered him. LeBron needs to pull his fucking finger out here. 

…. and that was the week that was.