Monday May 2:
Haven’t done of these in a while but I can’t really be going over all of the things I missed because we’d be here forever. The plan was to pick up from today and go from there. However, there’s one thing I needed to cover because it’s pissed me off so much I needed to vent. So I’ll have to go back seven days….
The Blues wrote to PMGOL to demand why they weren’t given a penalty when that Anthony Gordon rat did his regular Tom Daley impression as soon as he got in the box. I mean, what exactly are they expecting for an answer? Surely even they have to know what happened there. First and foremost it wasn’t a foul by Matip, so there is that. Even if it was though (which it wasn’t), it wasn’t an egregious enough error to be writing letters of complaint about.
It’s a decision that sometimes you might get if the ref just gets it wrong. And if that happened, VAR wouldn’t have overturned it because that’s not how it works on subjective calls. You actually have some pundits mistakenly saying it’s a pen but I’d say based on what I heard there were more saying it wasn’t. So what you have here is one of those “could go either way” type deals.
Everton are the ONLY club in the entire fucking league that would write a letter of complaint over a decision like that. There’s absolutely nobody else that would do that. They’re missing the bigger picture here though. They want to know why the referee didn’t give them the benefit of the doubt on a subjective decision, but the answer to that is fucking easy.
It’s because Gordon and Richarlison spent the entire game trying to con the referee and fool him into giving them decisions they didn’t deserve. So when one came along where he probably wasn’t sure, he no doubt weighted it up in his head like this: “Was that a foul or a dive? It could be a foul but how do I know these cunts aren’t just trying to cheat me yet again?”. And so he waved it away, as most people would because it’s human nature.
PGMOL should reply by simply reciting the story of the boy who cried wolf. Nothing else, just that story and leave it at that. Crying fat, balding, tory twat.
The other thing in play here is that refs have been told to interpret these things differently now and that contact between two players in the box isn’t always a foul because sometimes its the striker who initiates it. The Calvert-Lewin / Lovren one would never be given as a pen now as that’s a classic example of why they’ve changed things. You could also take away 50% of the pens Jamie Vardy has won and 100% of any decisions Shane Long has been given.
We suffered from that new interpretation when the ref wrongly decided that Jota initiated the contact at Spurs, but by and large you see a lot less pens given now for the kind of shit Gordon pulled in the derby, and that’s a good thing. Fuck Lampard and fuck Everton.
Honestly, the fucking balls on these wankers kicking off over that. It’s like a murderer who kills a dozen people and then gets all wound up and outraged when he’s asked about a thirteenth one that he actually didn’t do. "Why are you picking on me? This isn't fair". Except that doesn’t really work because in that analogy Gordon would have actually been fouled for the pen, and he wasn’t.
What else has been happening? Well I've been watching Top Boy on Netflix and I'd highly recommend it. Probably the best way to describe it is like watching Arsenal Fan TV only there's a bit less aggression and fewer threats on Top Boy. Man defo says da ting worth a watch though, fam.
Anyway, back to the present. Richarlison threw a flare into the crowd yesterday as they beat Chelsea at Goodison. Firstly, I called that result a week ago. I knew it would happen. Chelsea were always going to shit the bed there, just as Arsenal and United did before them. Those three are going to be responsible for Everton staying up. They should be ashamed of themselves. Chelsea should have their world champions crown taken away immediately. I’m not even joking. Cunts.
But yeah, Richarlison has to be suspended for that. Carra got three games for throwing a coin into the crowd and that’s not as dangerous as throwing a fucking lit flare. That also happened in much different times when you could actually do stuff without there being a massive clamour for excessive punishment. Yeah, I’m saying Richarlison should be cancelled, the fucking scumbag.
The Blues actually had a banner yesterday with the PL logo and the word ‘corrupt’ underneath it. Was that there in the game after they got screwed on the handball against City, or do they only get upset when a decision goes against them in the derby? I want them down almost as much as I want the quadruple.
As for us, Klopp’s press conference today was decent. Usually these CL ones are shite because the questions he gets asked are so fucking lame that not even Klopp can make an interesting answer out of them. Even this one opened with “is the job done?”. I mean fucking hell, what kind of question is that? There isn’t a manager in the world who would say “yeah this one’s over”. The follow up was “just how important is this game in the context of your season?”. IT’S A EUROPEAN CUP SEMI FINAL!! For fuck’s sake.
The Spanish ones were shite too. One fella asked Klopp if he’s worried about the amount of times he’s lost away to Spanish teams. Klopp looked baffled and pointed out times when he hadn’t lost, and also made the point that most of the time he lost he went through anyway. He asked the fella how many times he’d been knocked out by Spanish teams and there were crickets on the other end of the headset. Honestly, some of these journos are stealing a living.
The best bit of the presser was on Thiago, who a Spanish reporter asked about because he’s not been getting selected for Spain. Klopp said Spain have great midfield players but that Thiago could play in any national team in the world and look like the best player.
That’s true, he often looked like the best player in a star studded Bayern side, and recently he’s looked a level above even in this incredible team. I joked on the pod last week that I’m looking at Thiago recently and wondering if he’s the best player I’ve ever seen. He might be, but it’s way too soon to make that kind of statement.
Tuesday May 3:
Villarreal 2 L 3. There’s no real logical explanation for this. Had this been a 1st leg we’d never have gone 2-0 down. Had it been a group match it wouldn’t have happened either. But weird things happen to us in Champions League semis. Look at our history in these games This was never going to be easy even though last week we made it look like it would be. We should have known better.
That first half was so so bad. Some of it is due to how well they played, but some of it was just inexplicable, like Thiago being unable to find a red shirt with easy passes. Thankfully they ran their race in the first half and we battered them in the second half to avoid the potential embarrassment that was on the cards at half time.
So on to the final and hopefully we’ll be facing Real Madrid in what would be a proper iconic European Final between two of European football’s royalty. Us, Real, Milan and Bayern are the four. Throw in Barcelona too for the glamour aspect of it. Real Madrid in Paris, that’s what this cup is all about. Not having to play them scruffy twats from up the road. Hala Madrid, you got this.
Meanwhile, Lingard’s brother launched an instagram attack on United after poor old Jesse didn’t get a proper send off last night. It was their last home game, and Rangnick let Cavani go on late on instead of putting Lingard on. I don’t blame him actually, that’s pretty fucking scandalous. Cavani has wanted no part of what’s been going on this season, and although Lingard is a bad whopper he’s a United lad and has given everything he has for that club.
They really can’t get anything right though any more, and it’s not just the club either. Take the fans, please. Sorry, slipped into Henry Youngman in Goodfellas mode there for a second. Seriously though, take their fans. Last night they planned a protest on 73 minutes but they were playing well and winning for a change, so they just stayed instead (the old ‘green and gold unless we’re good’ mentality). Pathetic.
Why 73 minutes? Because the Glazers have been there 17 years. But why 73 though, you ask again. Well 73 is 17 minutes from the end, see. Can’t be leaving on 17 minutes, can we. They can’t even leave on 73 because Ronaldo was doing his thing and they might all get to shout “SIIIUUUUU” like the sad little virgins they are. They’re a fucking shambles from top to bottom, and it’s great.
Wednesday May 4:
God I enjoyed that. To steal a phrase from Noel Gallagher, it’s just “too funny”. I’ve got no love for Real Madrid but the sense of relief I’ve got at not having to deal with playing City in Paris is fucking enormous. It’s not even that I think City would beat us. I make it a 50-50 game but potentially losing to them in a European Cup final, to give them their first one, honestly I’m struggling to think of a (realistic) football scenario that’s worse. Fuck all that, I wanted no part of it.
We might lose to Madrid again too, which would also be awful and would take a lot of getting over, but losing a final to fellow European royalty is far more palatable than having to see City's corrupt paws all over our trophy. We’re miles better than Madrid and should beat them, but this is a strange competition that almost seems to have a mind of its own so it's in the lap of the footballing gods.
This trophy decides who it wants to be lifting it, and clearly it fucking hates City. It loves us, but it loves Madrid more. They’ve got out of jail three times in a row now and you do wonder if their name is on the trophy. The only thing is, those three comebacks all came at the Bernebeu and the final is at a neutral venue.
Meanwhile, I don’t know the details of all this because I can’t be arsed reading up on something that is almost certainly not going to go the way it’s being reported, but it does seem like Abramovich is trying to call in the debt owed to him by Chelsea. Initially it was claimed that he was writing it off, which let’s be honest does seem like just the kind of thing a billionaire crook would do.
It was also reported that he valued Chelsea at four billion quid, which is essentially the value of the club inflated by the one and a half billion they owed him. Yeah he’s a real stand up guy isn’t he.
Anyway, there’s now talk that they will go under unless the government relax some of the sanctions imposed and allow the sale to go through. That won’t happen. As if a tory government is letting the most tory club on earth go out of business. So Chelsea aren’t going under but it does feel like their days as a superpower are probably coming to an end if they don’t have his money propping them up.
All the fucking trophies they’ve won since he got there and it turns out that his motivation for it all was just needing somewhere to launder his dirty money. Yet Abramovich isn’t even close to being the worst owner out there. Football is fucking rotten.
Thursday May 5:
Mo gets his POTY award from the writers. His agent was with him, and so were Julian Ward and Michael Edwards. What the fuck are they doing there unless it's for contract talks? Imagine we announce a new deal before one of the finals.
Mo was asked when he collected the award if he would still be in England next year and he said "I'll be back on this stage next year". Amazing. Such levels of swag but it's done in such a cheeky way it never comes across as arrogance.
It’s mad how much stick Guardiola is getting over last night. I know his record in the competition screams out “bottler” but what the fuck could he have done about that last night? If anything it’s the players to blame as their arses went when they were finally put under pressure, but to me it’s just one of those mad things this competition throws up all the time. The European Cup didn’t want City’s corrupt paws on it so it did its thing. City fans think it's UEFA conspiring against them when really it's just old big ears itself.
I hope City fans start turning on Guardiola though and thinking they can do better. They won’t, because they’re not complete fucking idiots. Yeah you’ll get some knobs calling for change, but most of them know what they’ve got in him and appreciate it. I tell you this, if he left then they wouldn’t get within 15 points of us and they’d be back to what they were under Mancini and Pellegrini. Occasionally that was enough to win the title, but that's because we weren’t piling up 90+ points each season.
I heard some fans on the radio having a go at Grealish too for not killing the tie. Fucking hell, I’m all for him getting shit but come on, he was fucking boss when he came on and was desperately unlucky with those two great efforts. It’s the low hanging fruit to blame the £100m signing who hasn’t really done anything, but it’s mental slagging him specifically off for last night’s game. Still, never mind eh.
I also love the crysarsing about Casemiro somehow escaping yellow cards all night. It’s a valid point but when Fernandinho is in your team it’s not really a point you should be making. Poetic justice that, the kind that the European Cup often likes to dish out.
In other news tonight, Rangers once again overcame superior opposition to advance in the Europa League. They’ve been incredible, it’s not even like they’ve scraped through these games either, they’ve played out of their fucking skins and deserved to win every tie they’ve won. It’s not quite Leicester winning the title levels of beating the odds, but it’s one hell of a story.
I don’t root for or against Rangers and Celtic, the whole Old Firm thing and the shite involved with it all bores me to be honest. I really hope Rangers win this competition now though, and if it were Celtic in the same position having played as well as Rangers have, I’d want them to win too.
They’ll play Frankfurt, who beat West Ham. You’d think that a team good enough to beat West Ham would be too much for Rangers, but Frankfurt are below Dortmund and Leipzig in the Bundesliga and Rangers have knocked both of them off already so who knows.
The Hammers going out is good news though. Ordinarily I wouldn’t begrudge them getting to the final or even winning it, but they play City three days before the Europa League final and we can’t afford to have them sending out the youth team when we need someone to take points off City. So bad luck West Ham, hopefully you’ll want to give your fans one more special occasion this season and you’ll turn up against City next week.
Friday May 6:
Moyes is in trouble after booting the ball at a ball boy last night. It was a pretty low class thing to do and he’ll deserve whatever punishment comes his way. However, every time I watch the clip of it I laugh. I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help it, it’s just fucking hilarious, especially when you see him saying "ye wee shite, fucking throw it quicker". So is his explanation / apology. “I have to apologise but the ball boy left it short and it fell nicely on the volley for me”. I’m torn here, because I don’t like Moyes and the natural thing here is for me to rip into him, but that’s funny as fuck.
Also hilarious, Ancelotti calling himself “an Evertonian” and saying he’s treating the final like a derby game. Where to start with that. He didn’t even need to say it as they’ve already stopped hating him now that he’s their only hope of stopping us getting number seven. He's "Don Carlo" again now. He'll soon be "that fat Italian cunt" again if he doesn’t win, so there’s no need for him to be sucking up to them.
Another funny thing from last night was Mourinho completely breaking down in tears of joy after knocking Leicester out of the Europa Conference to reach the final. A few years ago he’d be absolutely ripping the piss out of any ‘big’ manager even being in that competition let alone taking it that seriously. How the mighty have fallen. Look at this…
José Mourinho in tears after reaching the Conference final. Might not be the biggest final in his career, but man does this show how much he loves the game. Imagine not loving this man. pic.twitter.com/ZNXoAGqzOq
— Xav Salazar (@XavsFutbol) May 5, 2022
Klopp talking about Diaz today was interesting. He said how the Spanish / Portuguese lads had helped him a lot to settle, but then mentioned how close he also is to Harvey and Curtis. You can see that on all of the videos the club put out. Diaz is with Curtis and Harvey quite a lot. Those videos are good for seeing the dynamics of who hangs around with who, but the biggest takeaway I usually have is how Kostas seems to be in the middle of everything and seems to be loved by everyone. I’m getting the same vibe from Diaz now too. What a signing he’s been.
We’ve apparently made £100m from this year’s CL run. The question is what to do with it. We could do what Chelsea and City did and buy a Lukaku or Grealish. Or alternatively we could just set fire to it, the end result would be the same. We'll probably go out and sign a couple of players of the calibre of Diaz though because that's how we roll these days. Great isn't it.
and that was the week that was....
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