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Sunday Apr 5: Man City wasted no time sticking the knife in, announcing today that they won’t be furloughing their staff. Their press office will have been running around like a dog with two dicks when they saw that clusterfuck from LFC yesterday, but they have no moral high ground here considering how much they were charging the NHS to rent their building. I say ‘they’ because although it’s technically not Man City, it’s Abu Dhabi which is the same thing. Well if LFC are tarred by the decisions of greedy bastard owners then why not City? In truth though I’m not even mad at City’s opportunism here. LFC gave them the open goal, all they did was take the tap in. I’m angry with FSG, not Man City. They’ve played us like a fiddle here, especially as I heard a whisper that at the Premier League club meeting the other day they intimated that they’d be using furlough for their staff. That may or may not be true, but if LFC hadn’t gone fucking diving in head first and had sat back to see what other clubs did and what the reaction was, we wouldn’t have this mess now. I don’t get why they felt the need to a) furlough so soon, and b) announce it before all the other big clubs had declared their intentions. History tells us that the reaction of the fans will probably force a u-turn, but this is such massive, unnecessary PR own goal. Monday Apr 6: Well at least when they fuck things up they aren’t afraid to admit it and back-track. It would be nice if they didn’t get things so wrong to begin with that they have to climb down and apologise, but there’s something to be said for the fact that they will admit when they’re wrong and they don’t just dig their heels in. The statement about not furloughing staff was as good as we could have hoped for. They misjudged the situation and are “very sorry”. Fair play, I suppose. Last week Jack Grealish was guilty of one of the most tone deaf, stupid acts I can ever remember from a footballer. I didn’t think that would be topped, but then up pops Kyle Walker hosting a sex party complete with hookers. I’m almost impressed, as that’s some next level don’t give a fuckery. What an absolute cunt. Stories like that make all the headlines, but there is so much good going on too. For instance, an elderly Everton season ticket holder had his house burgled and the cunts nicked his telly. Duncan Ferguson heard about it, rung the fella up for a chat and bought him a new telly. I like to think he promised to track down the burglars too so he could complete that particular hat-trick. I like Ferguson. There, I said it. There’s something endearing about how much he understands his hero status at Everton and the way he responds to it. It’s easy for us to laugh at the fact he even has legend status (the example I often use is it’s like us making Andy Carroll a hero), but the fact is they love him and he lives up to what they want him to be. I hated him when he was playing, but he comes across as a genuinely decent fella these days and this was a great story. Well in big man, nice one. Tuesday Apr 7: So I’ve been thinking more about this situation the club found themselves in with the furlough thing. I’m glad they saw sense and opted to pay the staff themselves, but having listened to some alternate viewpoints to my own I can sort of see why they did what they initially did. Cubs have no money coming in currently, but they still have to meet all of their outgoings, and by far the biggest outgoing is player salary. While I maintain that they should have enough to cover the reported £8-10m cost of the non-plying staff for three months, there will be some clubs that don’t have the finances to do it. Clubs make a shitload of money but most spend it as quickly as it comes in. From what I was told today, LFC spoke with the players and put forward two ways to do this. The first, was they continue to pay everybody and nobody is out of pocket. To help finance it, they’d take the 80% furlough for the staff on less than £2.5k a month and they’d cover the other 20% themselves. The second option was the players took a pay cut. The players apparently told them to go with option one, so they did. Then the shit hit the fan and if you read the statement carefully you can join the dots about the different ‘plans’ they had and that now they need to have a rethink on how to do it. The problem here is the players won’t do anything unless it’s backed by the PFA and the PFA are not going to agree to mass salary cuts. Where this is complicated is that every club is different. Players at Rochdale or Plymouth are probably not in a position to take a 30% cut, but equally those clubs can’t afford to pay them anyway. Another big sticking point is that players don’t want the money they aren’t being paid to go into the pockets of the owners. Again, not all clubs are the same. As much as I take exception to some of the things FSG have done (or at least attempted to do), it’s not like Henry and Werner have their hands in the till. They don’t take anything out, so if our players took a 30% cut it wouldn’t be to help out the owners, it would be to help the club during a period when no money is coming in. If you’re a player at Newcastle though, it’s entirely different. Any money saved could just as easily go into Ashley’s pockets so you can see why they wouldn’t want to agree to that. Then there’s this thing about players being expected to help out the NHS. I liked this idea initially. They all donate a percentage of their salaries and it goes towards getting all the equipment the doctors and nurses need to save lives (including their own). It seemed like an honourable cause and it was good hearing that the captains were all in discussions to see what they can do. Then I thought about the money they’re already paying in tax and it doesn’t seem right that they’re ‘expected’ to prop up the NHS. The NHS isn’t a charity. The taxes paid to the government should fund it, but the government chooses to spend it elsewhere. If I’m on 100k a week and I’m paying 50k a week tax, I’d be pretty fucking pissed to see that Hancock cunt on telly asking me to ‘do your bit’. They are doing their bit, they’re paying massive amounts in tax, unlike most of Hancock’s mates and party members and donors with their offshore accounts. I have no idea how this is going to play out now. With the PFA involved the players’ hands are tied somewhat. And the clubs don’t have the spare cash lying around that people seem to think they do. They could take out loans to cover the salaries until footy is back, and that might end up being the best outcome for the bigger clubs. For the lower leagues it’s going to be a massive struggle and some might go under. I don’t have the solution here, it’s a completely fucked up situation. Wednesday Apr 8: The club are still putting out entertaining content even during lockdown. Today they had a yoga session featuring the whole squad all in their homes connected to each other online. It was Harvey’s birthday so Klopp went throgh the usual ritual of having all the squad sing Happy Birthday in their own language, only this time there was a twist as Ox joined in all of them. He’s obviously been spending his free time learning the words to Happy Birthday in all sorts of different languages, and the lads were all pissing themselves. They should probably put more stuff out on their own social media accounts but I suspect they’re keeping it low key because of how dire things are with this fucking virus and how many people are dying. Maybe they think it would be in poor taste to be putting out funny stuff on their instagram accounts, but anything that puts a smile on people’s faces is a good thing, surely? I say that, but no doubt there’d be some gobshites who’d cane them for it and say it’s inappropriate. Thursday Apr 9: So Rio Ferdinand has been banging on for weeks about how the season should be voided, yet when BT suggested to their pundits that with no games to show they might need to work something out in terms of reduced pay, Rio & co were straight onto the lawyers. If the season is voided though, then those games effectively didn’t take place so any that Ferdinand worked on and was paid for, he should refund his wages to BT. Seems only fair, right? This is the thing that all these ‘void the season’ dickheads don’t understand. Luke Shaw is another one, the fat prick. “Just scrap it and start again” fails to take into account one massive, game changing factor. If the games are wiped from the record, then effectively they didn’t take place. So fans will be entitled to demand refunds, TV companies will want money back, sponsors and advertisers likewise, and therefore clubs will be entitled to take back money from players. You can’t simply pretend that 3/4 of a season didn’t happen. The season needs to be finished, no matter when that is. Even if there’s no footy for two years, when it returns these games need to be completed before a new season can start. Friday Apr 10: Charlie Nicholas says Van Dijk has been “sluggish and cumbersome” at times this season. When’s that then, Charlie? The only time Big Virg might be sluggish and cumbersome is when he first gets out of bed in the morning, and even then I imagine he’s as fresh as a daisy. It’s hilarious really, he’s held to so much higher a standard than anybody else. There are compilations out there of times when he was apparently made to look stupid, and most of them are incidents that you wouldn’t even think twice about. Like when he was ‘beaten by Pepe’. Remember that one? Pepe booted the ball down the line and chased it, while Virg chose to stay goalside and cut off the angle. It came to nothing as Pepe ended up having to pass the ball, but this is shown as a sign of Virgil’s vulnerability. Hilarious. Charlie Nicholas is a fucking joke, and not just because he still wears an earring. The only positive thing I can say about him is at least he isn’t Matt Le Tissier. Now there is a massive twat. Meanwhile, reports today have us as favourites to sign some kid from Villa who is billed as “the best 16 year old in the country”. Sounds great, except the man who gave him that billing is well known talent spotter Christian Purslow. Still, I love these kind of transfers. It’s probably the ‘Footy Manager’ fanatic in me, but you can’t beat signing a wonderkid. I’d do one of these deals every summer if it were up to me. Last summer we got Elliott and that’s turned out alright. He never looked out of place whenever he played, so any more deals like that one and I’m right on board. Besides, given the financial state of play after all this is over, these might be the only deals we can afford. and that was the week that was….