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The Reds season is still alive after a much needed win at Fulham got their title challenge back on track. Goals from Trent, Gravenberch and Jota sunk the Cottagers in what was a more comfortable win than many expected. TLW Editor Dave Usher is joined by Julian Richards and Dan Thomas to look back on this game as well as previewing the midweek trip to Goodison. There's also a heated discussion on refs, VAR, Forest's bizarre statement and the impact officiating has had on this year's Premier League. View full article

Work-rate. Incisiveness. Nous. I don't ask for much. This is how it's gonna be. Build from the ground up. After a much improved display and decent result at Fulham, we move onto the second of 4 away games in succession (the first being the trip to Bergamo) when we visit the 'Grand Old Lady'. Like a grand old lady, it's seen better days decades ago and now stinks of piss. Countless times this season, Everton have come up against an equally shit opponent, dragged them down to their level and beaten them through experience. They and Ashley Young got a massive helping hand against Forest, who were denied 3 penalties. Forest's cry-arsing statement afterwards will not have helped their cause, as PGMOL don't take kindly to being called out for their shitness. They of course think they are doing a great job, and are backed up by Howard Webb's book of bullshit excuses. It seems as though every time Everton are staring at the abyss, there will either be 3 sides shitter than them, or they'll come up against an opponent having a stinker. We are absolutely not the former, and we absolutely must not allow ourselves to be the latter. Last season's fixture finished goalless, mainly thanks to the woodwork (the goalposts in this instance!) and the goalkeepers. For us, Darwin, Lucho and Mo all hit the frame of the goal, and for them it was Davies. The goalkeepers were kept busy, although the clearest opportunity fell to Everton debutant Maupay who somehow found Ali's arm when he had pretty much the entire goal to aim at. Bobby had a couple of efforts saved, and was still yet to score in a derby. Incredible really that for the best part of 8 years he was the central fulcrum of our attack yet never registered a goal in a derby. The blooshite were denied a late goal by VAR, who deemed Coady to be offside at the far post from a Maupay cross-shot. This was a far more clear-cut decision than the 'point of Sadio's elbow' decision by David Coote on VAR a couple of years earlier that denied Hendo a stoppage time derby winner (this was the game where Coote forgot that Virg had been recklessly crippled by T-Rex Arms). Fuck off Coady. We'd had a shit start to the season, especially away from home, so a point was better than nothing. Still shit though, considering Fat Frank was in the dugout for the blooshite. Our last game at Fulham saw an improvement in our general play, and more composure in attacking situations. We must do everything we can to get this game under control. Don't do anything that lets Everton off the hook or gives them a head of steam. Hopefully Everton's good fortune was used up against Forest. We should have everyone that was available for Fulham available again for the derby. I want maximum motivation, concentration, attitude and application from first minute to last. No excuses. Dominate them, control them, finish them. 3 points please. Get it done!

That Forest owner is a hotheaded idiot. There was actually a relevant point buried in there but in expressing it the way they did they just made themselves look amateurish and small time. For none of the mainstream to be even mentioning the five massive 'errors' from Oliver that all benefited one team is negligence. They don't even need to mention the side gigs to UAE if they think that's implying something sinister, but ignoring it completely just makes them part of the problem. If there's no accountability then OLiver is going to keep doing what he's doing. Ultimately though all of this is the fault of Howard Webb. He's the boss, he's setting these low standards and it feels like he's just abandoning protocols that have been in place forever (like not appointing refs for games who are either compromised by geography or support).

Delighted with my decision to invest zero minutes of my time on Amorin.

That's a statement that will always be true, not sure of its relevance here though. With your constant GOT references I can only assume you think these calls are insane. I was on the same page until very recently. Incidentally the decision that sent me over the edge was the one Dave references in Pod and its from months back, a goal not disallowed for City against Fulham, very similar to Wolves last week, Mo away to Burnely and countless others, main difference being this one was allowed stand. That's just not a goal anymore, the one time out of 100 it slips through and it's Man City and Michael Oliver again. Michael Oliver and his crew, since his trip to referee Sharjah and Al-Ain has been appointed and directly influenced the outcome the 3 biggest away games Man City have. 1) As VAR, directs ref to to the screen for a penalty for a grab by a Man Utd player on Rodri. Technically a foul but we're in 10 penalties a game terrority here. Happy to be corrected on this if you can point out other times dragging as been pulled up by VAR, particularly interested in occasions when Oliver was reffing the game and had his extra eyes point out an error. 2) Doesn't send off Kovacic away to Arsenal. Both tackles could be perceived as red, as yellows they are indisputable so a red card. 3) Doku kicks Mac Allister in the chest, no penalty given. 4) His mate Darren England say fuck off play on at Spurs. It's not a good look when you come back from Sharjah versus Al-Ain and started giving City decisions like that. I've repeated the names of those teams so people can familiarise themselves with them. They're not famous clubs, they don't appear to be attempting to grow the league so the idea that the top ref is needed over there is a tad suspicious in my view.

A bridging loan too far?

If Amorim is considering West Ham, he needs his fucking head examined the beardy Iberian tramp.

Saw something the other day with a former PL ref doing a podcast and he was telling a story about how Ian Wright pissed him off so he decided to not give him any free-kicks. The opposition realised what was going on and started booting fuck out of Wrighty while he kept saying play on. He thought it was really funny, I just thought "yeah, this is the same shit that's been happening to Mo for years".

I do recall Michael Oliver getting involved in the Manchester derby for hojlund brushing someone with his arm on a set piece. Weird that. I don't recall these conflict of interests being an issue before Howard Webb presided over PGMOL. Refs weren't on the payroll of states which own clubs in this country - something he not only promoted, he also subsequently said it wasn't an issue when it was raised and said will continue. The idea of refs not refereeing their clubs or rivals existed in the entirety of football in my life. It was relaxed during COVID for obvious reasons. But since Webb has taken over, it has been completely disregarded, except when it's not. Standards of refereeing and VAR have dropped significantly in his time as head of PGMOL. And he followed mike fucking Riley, who had been widely seen as a disaster. Of course he should be fired, as would happen in any other walk of life after such abject failure.

With Premier League safety all but guaranteed after the win against Nottingham Forest, Sean Dyche’s plucky low cost underdogs who are a top club face their second Cup Final of the season. Midweek see’s the arrival at the Old Lady of overrated bottlers and cultist disciples of Satan, Liverpool. Everton will be looking for a much improved refereeing performance than they saw versus Forest, as is well known they never get a decision and are singled out by the PL for merely Cooking the Books on a regular basis. It’s PC gone mad. Liverpool themselves are fresh from victory against Fulham where fortune shone on them yet again this season with three obvious off side goals, whilst Fulham were penalised at every turn, one player was booked for smiling in a “Smarmy way” and another for “ Continual foul smells” you couldn’t make it up. The game will is sold out but can be watched on television all along County Rd and the surrounding area, it will also be shown live across North Wales and Widnes. Everton are offering a Limited Edition Souvenir Programme for the Derby game featuring greats such as Phil Neville, Glen Keeley and Dan Gosling amongst others giving their Derby Day memories. It is available for £25 just go DerbySovUzzy.com. The first 100 sold will receive season tickets for the new stadium. Unreturnable.

If it weren't for the refs, we would likely be 5 ahead of Arsenal and 8 ahead of Man City at this point of the season. So although some of our displays lately have pissed me off, we aren't second place because of them. It's because these cunts have effectively decided the season for us. How anyone can say that's not corrupt is beyond me.

Monday Apr 15: Feels somewhat inappropriate to be as down about the Palace game as I am considering what today is. It’s always a sobering day, especially when you see some of the things posted on twitter by survivors or the families of one of the 97. To be honest, I try and avoid it, which I’m not proud of, but even now after all these years it’s so upsetting and the sense of injustice is as strong as ever, and I didn’t even lose anyone close to me. I never know what to say either, even JFT97 feels kind of hollow now because what does it even mean? There’ll never be justice, I think the only thing we can do is ensure they’re never forgotten, which of course they won’t be. The Blues had a nice banner on display at Chelsea, as they usually do at this time of year. For every shithead who sings Always the Victims there are a dozen sound Blues who know the score. One of the best was always Bill Kenwright, and I found myself thinking of him today for some reason. He was always a top fella when it came to standing with us on this issue. Everton’s support is always appreciated and maybe that’s part of the reason I didn’t take any particular pleasure in them losing 6-0 tonight. Maybe it’s because it was Chelsea beating them. I don’t know, but whatever the reason it did nothing for me. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted them to lose, of course I did, but it’s just not really getting my juices flowing anymore because it kind of feels pointless. If they ended up in the bottom three the PL would give them some points back on appeal anyway. Tuesday Apr 16: Bradley is only going to be out for 2-3 weeks which feels like a let off as it looked like a bad one when it happened. Hopefully Trent doesn’t need to be overplayed and rushed back, as this has been happening all season. We get one player back, then someone in the same position goes out. It’s been so weird. Meanwhile Keita has been suspended for the rest of the season after going home when he found out he wasn’t in the team. What a train wreck of a season he’s had. I wasn’t expecting great things from him but fucking hell, his career has gone into the toilet. It’s a bit weird in the sense that he actually seems a bit of a cunt, when despite his under-achieving here he seemed extremely popular with everyone and there were never any murmurings of him being trouble. Maybe that’s the Klopp effect? In the CL quarter finals tonight PSG went to Barca and sprung an upset to go through. I didn’t watch any of it but some of the lads in the chat did and their view on it was similar to what I saw on twitter. An awful lot of talk about a ref who looked like he’d been paid off. Now the first thing to say here is fuck Barcelona, they were nobbling refs for years so if PSG did get to this ref then you reap what you sow. The second thing to say is fuck PSG too, hopefully Dortmund send them packing and go on to win the whole thing. Meanwhile, FA Cup replays have been scrapped from next season and there’s a load of uproar about it, with Evertonians predictably leading the charge against “the sly six”. Look, I’m not in favour of replays being scrapped either, but apparently every Premier League club voted this through, it’s not just “the Super League six” or whatever. And since when did Everton become the Patron Saint of Little Clubs? These cunts were part of the original breakaway Premier League and they recently voted through that multi club loan bullshit thing too, which sure as hell wasn’t to help those less fortunate than them. Actually I’m not sure there is anyone less fortunate than them, but you get my point. And all those points they had docked? There was a reason for that. They cheated, trying to gain an advantage over the Burnleys and Leeds of this world. So they need to pipe the fuck down. In terms of the replay thing, I have zero sympathy with Premier League clubs on this issue, for several reasons. Firstly, if you aren’t good enough to beat a lower league club at the first attempt then that’s on you. Secondly, virtually every top flight club fields weakened sides in the cup now, even those who aren’t in Europe, so if they have to play an extra game then fine, pick the squad players or give kids a chance. Every PL club has enough players to put a team out without having to risk their top players. The solution to this is simple though. Let the two clubs decide beforehand if they want a replay or not. So if we’re playing Man United, both teams will want that settled on the day. If we’re playing Newport, they’ll probably quite like the idea of a potential replay, which is fair enough. Bottom line here though is that it feels like Klopp and Guardiola (Arteta to some extent too) are getting most of the blame for this shit, even though it’s got fuck all to do with them. The clubs had a vote and it was unanimous. View full article

If we want De Zerbi then tell him the interview is on Thursday evening at 8pm on all our tellies.

I think Toxic by Britney Speers is a great pop song. There, I’ve said it.

You heard it here first......

Dutch and bald We are fucked

I didn’t know Bjornebye was in Chicago.

Hating Tony Blair is proper trendy, always has been, but this was a good country to live in. We were respected in the EU, rule of law was a thing, and his cabinet wasn't filled with basket cases. I'd pay good money to see Blair debate with Truss, Raab, Johnson, Braverman, Patel, and any of the other cunts even for 10 minutes, it'd be like watching someone throw stones at a Panzer.

The bonuses are like taxes. Once it’s set up , you can’t remove them even when they say it’s just on temporary basis.

Fans were really good up until the 80th minute mark. Singing about the Mancs, when you’re not playing them, and are in the middle of a title race is smalltime.

Good read Dave, enjoyed the two bonus days. Michael Oliver, unbelievable, needs calling out but not in the twitter way like Forest did. However I doubt he will, bent fucker that he is.

TBF Goldbridge nails it again. Calling out Oliver who is the worst of a bad bunch and also the lazy journos who are happy to take the easy way with one or two exceptions. like lots of others I’m done with Sky / BT at the end of the season because my money is perpetuating this shit show. It won’t happen because most people are happy to swallow this crap but until fans withdraw their money there will be no change.

And of course collymore like loads of them completely missed the point. There doesn't have to be corruption. There only needs to be a conflict of interests. I feel like getting out there and shaking them all till they understand this basic principle, that applies across every industry. We can't assume at all times there is no impropriety, the question really is why we think referees in PGMOL would be different to say referees in other countries or for instance the police or politicians, who are people who've had the same (if not more) trust put in them, but there have always been bad apples. And which industry in the world is free from corruption? Corruption is a global problem, which is why it is absolutely crucial that any impression of a conflict of interests should be eradicated from the game. It's frankly absolutely mental to make your starting point that there can't possibly be bias from referees and everything should be done to remove accusations of corruption. It's essential conflicts of interests are removed. It's essential that they don't "mark their own homework" in the way they run var. The appointment system should be transparent, including firm restrictions on club and regional conflicts, applies equally to all teams and regions. They shouldn't be on the payroll of any organisation that is connected to owners of clubs in this country. And most of all, the bald copper who's dragged PGMOL this low should be fired.

D'Angelo Barksdale.

I don’t care how we play, how many chances we miss, how many big chances we give up, how many times we sloppily give the ball away, how many heart attacks we all suffer through the game…. I only care that we score 1 more goal than Everton. Just fucking win.

He is awful but we like him.

If we’re giving everything, improving and winning, the connection will come. Look at Benitez, he’s one of the coldest coaches we’ve ever had. I can’t see him ever being as friendly with the players as Klopp (Gerrard’s books confirm this), he never celebrated when we scored, barely ever smiled or showed a sense of humour… but, for a time at least, we all loved him.

Keith Hackett said today when he was head of refs (and before that when he was just a ref) it was standard policy to find out who every ref supported and ensure they didn't referee their own team or any local rival. Then when it reached the business end of the season, they made sure none of them were involved in games that could impact the team they support. Jeff Winter has also said the same thing about when he reffed. Hackett says this has been kicked into touch by Howard Webb. All of these issues we're seeing are his fault. A football team reflects their manager, and these PGMOL meffs are a reflection of their boss. He's taken something shit and made it a million times worse because he thinks he's not accountable to anyone and can do whatever the fuck he likes. So far, he's actually right.

Rumour is DeZerbi. Not for me. In fact I'm already calling for his shittly gelled head, the little shit beard. Fuck me, what a kick in the balls this is gonna be.

Brimful of Asha is similar to mmmbop in that sense. But would go with Our velocity, really didn't like them at all, but would usually end up dancing if this came on at the end of a uni night out Also, this might fit the bill for some. I actually really like the cribs, first two albums were shite, but mens needs was great and the album with Johnny marr was all right too.

Quite the breakdown on this 1hr 48 min podcast about Liverpool's 3-1 victory over Fulham: 7 minutes on the actual game Another 7 minutes chatting about Rafa and Brendan Rodgers 1 hr 34 minutes on arguing about refs Up the Reds.

Looks like he’s heeded this warning.

The Netflix doc is called Untold: Operation Flagrant Foul.

The little cunt was being a provocative little cunt then played the victim and is trying to cost people their jobs. He’s also a lying prick.

Mrs HL has been making her sourdough again. Sourdough pancakes and a sourdough fruit loaf with another couple of loaves in the oven.

It can't be corrupt lads. We are different in this country. The colour of our passport makes us immune to money and bias. Don't you know that once a referee puts on his kit it automatically wipes his memory of any allegiance he had the day before? Neville is a shouty little fucking knob. Who the fuck is he to say it 100% can't be true. Never mind that Forest questioned the integrity of the referee on VAR, BEFORE the game. Never mind that Clattenberg is an ex referee and definitely has way more information than Neville/Carragher or the rest of us. He knows the inner workings and knows refs personally. Maybe just fucking maybe it is true? Why not shut the fuck up, and let an investigation take place before you shout your mouths off, maybe there is a can of worms that needs to be opened. The arrogance of them two last night was what was embarrassing. Never mind the decision on 2 out of 3 of those penalties. The main stream media is pathetic, it's jobs for the lads, keep the controversy to a minimum to protect your pay packet. Not one of them says "hang on this has happened so many times some of it may be true" Wake up, it's happened in other major European footballing countries, so it might be happening here too you idiots.

He always does something like that. I hate a celebration where you think you're too cool to actually celebrate it.

Menzies said: “Due to the pressures on myself and my elderly mother, I have decided to resign from the Conservative party.

1st half fuck em in the ear 2nd half fuck em in the other ear

This is Britain. There is no corruption here. Just 100% old fashioned British honesty and integrity.

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