That was the Week that Was (Nov 29 - Dec 3 2021)

Monday Nov 29:

Some mad videos of shithousing doing the rounds over the last couple of days. I love all that, they’re great fun and the one of the Brazilian lad throwing himself to the floor after being touched on the back by the ref was great. I’m completely on board with all that. This one though....

Two teammates fighting and the goalkeeper dived to get his own player sent off  pic.twitter.com/hw5gANJG9N

— Football Shithousery (@FootyRustling) November 28, 2021

Fucking hell, that’s just so bad. Doing that to your own team-mate is completely unacceptable, even if you hate him. It’s not about the lad he got sent off, it’s about leaving the rest of the team a man down and then that player also probably facing a further suspension. That goalkeeper is a massive cunt and I’d have sacked him on the spot if I was his manager.

The only other footballer on the planet I could envisage doing something like that is Richarlison. 

Meanwhile, how funny was that Carragher / Keane argument yesterday! Carragher was right and Keane was talking nonsense, but not too many pundits would have taken him on over it and that was just great TV. Keane was wound up even before that, he had a face like thunder when he was talking about what Carrick said post-match and that segment was absolute gold.

Keane is great. He’s not there to be calm, collected and making salient, incisive points on tactics. He’s an entertainer and he entertained. So did Carra. And just as funny as those two was how cool Hasselbaink was sat in the middle of them. Sensational stuff. Shit, I even laughed at Neville’s video in reply to it.

So Messi won the Balon d’Or again. The problem with this award is it should be awarded at the end of each season, because this just looks stupid really because Messi has done fuck all since going to PSG and then you have Mo on fire for us. So this looks ridiculous, but Messi’s numbers for the year are actually really impressive and he led Argentina to the Copa America title.

There’s a decent argument that he deserved it based on the criteria they use that they got this right, but it just doesn’t feel right does it? Poor Lewandowski. He got screwed over last year and he had a strong case this time too. 

You know what the mad thing is though? The importance that this thing is given when it was decided by coaches and national team captains who are not impartial, and random journalists from around the world who most of us have probably never heard of? Now it’s back to just journalists voting again, but for all we know it could be the French and German equivalent of Garth Crooks and Paul Merson voting on this. 

Tuesday Nov 30:

Ray Kennedy passes away aged 70. He was before my time but he’s one of those players I always wished I’d got to see in his prime as everyone raved about him and he was Paisley’s favourite player, which is just about the highest recommendation anyone could have. He’s battled Parkinson’s for as long as I can remember and a result of that we never really saw him in the public eye. Just a real shame, but he left quite the legacy as he’s a legendary figure at two of the biggest clubs in the country.

In other news today we’ve appointed Taffarel to the coaching staff. He’ll work with Achteburg and Robinson but it seems a bit odd to have three goalkeeper coaches. Obviously he’s got a strong relationship with Alisson so that’s why he’s here, but we have another Brazilian keeper too. No idea if he’s any good or not like.

This is such a footy manager move though. Every game I ever played I did this. I’d end up with a coaching staff full of all mad names like Baggio, Moller, Costacurta, Branco, McCoist… shit, the last time I played it I had Darius Vassell, David Bentley and that crab Gareth Barry on my staff!

Wednesday Dec 1:

Everton 1 L 4 Yep, just how it was meant to go. A lot of the old clichés about footy don’t really apply in the modern game. “The magic of the cup” is an obvious one but “form book goes out of the window” is one that is clearly bollocks. Sure, sometimes the shitter team will win but that isn’t because it’s a derby. It’s just football. West Ham beat us, Brentford and Brighton drew with us. 

If by some miracle Everton had avoided defeat tonight it would have been a miracle. The form book would have had to not only go out of the window, it would have needed to be doused in petrol, set on fire, and the ashes scattered in the fiery pit or Mordor. Everton’s only hope was if we completely forgot how to play football. And we didn’t do that. They’re lucky it was only four.

I think the whole ‘form doesn’t matter in derbies’ thing doesn’t apply any more because the games can’t be as physical as they used to be (last season notwithstanding) and that takes away any chance Everton have of being competitive. If its a football match and not a scrap, they can’t compete. It’s that simple really. 

Klopp’s comments afterwards pretty much said the same thing without being as blunt as that. You can translate what he said as “Liverpool are magic Everton are tragic”.

Thursday Dec 2:

I don’t think anywhere near enough has been made of some of the antics of the Everton fans last night. The TV coverage didn’t show exactly what happened when that fan ran on the pitch and was ejected, but he went after Alisson. They showed the replay of Alisson accidentally kicking the lucozade bottle into the stands and that was clearly the reason that knobhead went onto the pitch.

There’s also a video of one of them (maybe even two actually) throwing a punch at Mo when he ran into the hoardings. There’s a steward right there and he does fuck all. It’s outrageous, it’s scummy, it’s embarrassing…. it’s Everton. 

On a serious note though, I don’t know how nothing is being made of this. You can clearly see the cunt try to punch Mo. There’s no doubt about what he’s doing and he’ll be easy to identify as there’ll have been cameras on him. There’s cameras on everyone in stadiums these days.

There’s no condoning that regardless of who the player is, but when it’s Mo it’s even more outrageous. What has Mo ever done to incur the wrath of Evertonians other than just being a great footballer? The funny thing is that this was only ever going to end badly for them. You take a swing at the world’s best footballer when your team isn’t good enough to keep him in check and he’s going to make you look stupid. 

That incident is the literal definition of “you come at the king you best not miss”. Mo’s the King, they came at, they did miss and look what happened. Stupid angry cunts.

Some of the videos I’ve seen have been absolute gold though. The best one is the Red who was in their end and pretended to be one of them at the end. Booing, shouting “time to go lad” and then asking “Where’s the Arteta money Bill?” Absolute gold.

There’s also one of two angry, tearful Blues who left early (after the second goal) and for some reason recorded a massive rant about the players not giving a fuck because they go home to their “million pound mansions and their fit wives”. It’s great.

There’s loads of this stuff going around now. This is the worst mental state Evertonians have ever been in because it’s a combination of us becoming great again and them getting their hopes up when Moshiri came in only for things to get worse than they’ve ever been. If they didn’t have Calvert-Lewin to come back in I’d say they might even get relegated, but he’ll make the difference as he’ll get 15 goals which should keep them lower-mid table..

Friday Dec 3:

Klopp talks a bit more about Taffarel’s role and then announces that John Achteburg has signed a new deal. I loved that because the “LFC Fam” had their tiny little cocks out thinking Taffarel was replacing Achteburg, only to now have to deal with the realisation that Tafferal is working for Big John. 

Klopp was also effusive in his praise of Big Nat. Saying of all the players he’s coached, Nat has probably had the biggest leap in his development. He talks about him now like he’s a genuinely top class centre half, which he might actually be you know. I think even those of us who love him and think he’s boss are probably still a little prejudiced against him because of the level he was at a year ago. By that I mean in the back of our minds we kind of think “he can’t be as good as I think he is because a year ago he was a Championship level player”.

The thing is though, some players (especially centre backs) develop more slowly than others. And Phillips has a couple of things that a lot of other players don’t have. Firstly, he’s clever as fuck. He’s a real deep thinker and as a result of that he knows what he can and can’t do and you never see him doing risky shit. Secondly, he trains every day with some of the best players in the world, being coached by some of the best coaches in the world. 

With all of these things combined, he’s been able to take a massive leap and he could go to most teams now and be first choice. At least I think he could. The counter point to that is how good will he be when he’s not playing with our lads and for Klopp? We’ll find out soon enough as he’s almost certainly going to leave in January. I hope he gets a run out at Anfield in front of a full house before that happens though.

Some good comments by Klopp about Jota too. Talking about how the first time he saw him play he thought “that’s someone who could play for me” because he was relentless. He said that the relative lack of goals at Wolves didn’t bother him because the way Wolves play meant the wingers had to work harder than anybody in the league, which impacts what they do in attack.

You know what that made me think of? Jared Bowen and why we were interested in him. I like him, I think he’s a good player, but I didn’t want us to sign him as he hardly ever seems to score. Makes you think though, maybe he doesn’t score because he works so hard defensively he doesn’t get the opportunities. 

Not saying I want us to sign him, just making a general point really that one of the things our recruitment team look at go beyond what many of us see. We get a lot more right than wrong, and Jota is the perfect example of how well we’ve done, as he wasn’t even first choice for Wolves in his final season.

There’s a lot to be said for the sexy signing and I’m not going to turn my nose up if Mbappe shows up next summer (I know, I know, I’m just sayin’) but the Mané, Salah and especially Jota type signings are really satisfying aren’t they?

….and that was the week that was.