Frank Dacey

I just looked at the match stats and we had 66% of possession but of the 21 fouls in the game, 15 were given against us. I'm struggling to see how that is possible.

Glad to see you gunning for Mike Riley. He was a terrible referee and I was amazed that he got the top job. Ever since, the standard of refereeing has declined badly, to the extent there was no English referee at the last World Cup, for the first time in my memory. Riley also fucked us over at Old Trafford when he gave two pens against us there, even Roy Keane looked embarassed at how soft they were. I also recall Moyes, when he was at Everton, protesting about Riley being given an FA cup semi-final they had against United, on the grounds he was notorious for favouring them. Proof that even Moyes can be right about something.

They beat us in the '71 cup final, still one of my worst moments in watching football. Then the George Graham years of utterly mechanical football, culminating in robbing us of the title in 1989, also one of my worst moments. They were a good watch under Wenger when he was in his prime. Their problem was that they didn't deal with Wenger's future when it became an issue. Every Arsenal game for about 4 seasons was viewed through the prism of whether Wenger should stay or go. The result was that the players effectively got a pass; they could be awful but the focus would be on the manager and Arsenal are suffering for that now. The players aren't up to much but it's Arteta in the firing line. Any manager going in there, other than someone from the top tier is going to have their work cut out.

I was quite confident about this with them having no crowd in and Benteke being suspended just as he'd finally located the net after about five years, then I saw that Fat Jon Moss was the ref ad that got me worried again as any game with him in charge is a lottery. It shows how well we performed that probably for the first time this season a match report didn't mention either the ref or VAR.

David Coote began the long road to redemption by sending off Benteke.

Alan Evans got 3 in his first 2 games and then struggled. Frustratingly, he had flashes of brilliance but was never consistent. Got replaced by Keegan, a bit like replacing a damp quib with high explosive. I seem to recall Aspas having a good pre-season....

We're going for the unbeaten at home record on Sunday. The team that ended the last unbeaten run was Leicester...Reds fans of my age can remember Leicester as always being a tough nut to crack. Football has failed to respond to the pandemic seriously. UEFA should have scrapped the Nations League (it's hardly a long established competition) and, I would argue, they should have scrapped the Euros next summer. Domestically we should have abandoned the League Cup for this season. Instead, the authorities have tried to squeeze everything in, with obvious consequences for player's fitness. Ray Clemence was a great goalkeeper in an era of great keepers. Even omitting Shilton, there were Gordon Banks and Pat Jennings about, two of the best ever and Ray sttod out in their company.

Alan Ball made his debut (for Blackpool) against us in our first game back in the top flight. They won (at Anfield) so that distinguishes him from the vast majority of Everton players. He was a very good player, so much so that Shankly had Ian Ross man mark him in a couple of derbies. The only other player who got the same attention was Beckenbauer, so not bad company.

Harsh on Mike Dean, who doesn't deserve to be on that list of baldy no-marks. Is Anthony Taylor lined up to ref us at the week-end? Try watching the Watford v Stoke highlights on YouTube and have a look at the Watford equaliser; a truly awful decision and proof that keepers aren't always protected

My grandad reckoned Jimmy Melia lost his place in the team in 1964 because he was Catholic, but Smith, Callaghan and Lawler from that team were Catholic boys. In all my time at Anfield I can't ever remember any sectarianism from the crowd, even in the early 60s when sectarianism was still rife in the city. My brother did get thumped in the Boy's Pen for wearing his (Catholic) school scarf but only because the colours, purple and grey, were mistaken for Burnley's colours, who were beating us that day.

Great report! My concern about VAR was always that the people who operated it were the same incompetents who'd made its introduction necessary. Obviously, Coote is the villain this week, but the root of the problems lie at the top, in Mike Riley who chooses these refs and keeps them on the list despite the mounting evidence of their uselessness. David Elleray is also culpable because he's at IFAB and seems determined to mess around with the laws with the effect of making them more complex and uch harder to enforce.

Apparently it is with the E Street band; 9 new songs and three reworked oldies. There's lots more about it on the Backstreets site.

I'm out of the loop now but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be UCAS predictions that were used. Exam boards often complain that predicted grades are inaccurate, but which would you rather trust; an examiner who may spend 20 minutes marking a candidates work, and may not know much about the topic being examined, or the teacher, who has known the candidate for two years? Doesn't seem to me a difficult choice.

This is an Ofqual fuck up. The algorithm was used in Scotland and was going to be used in Wales, neither of which have Tory governments. Of course, Williamson should be sacked, not least for ignoring the experience in Scotland but heads have to roll at Ofqual as well. All of this nonsense stems from the fact that Education Secretaries for the last 40 years (of both major parties) have taken the view that teachers are part of the problem, not part of the solution. The result is that teachers are the most marginalised profession in the country. These people were simply never going to accept Teacher assessed grades and instead came up with this algorithm which was a predictable disaster. Any teacher will know that children don't progress in neat straight lines; some can't step up to a higher level, some flourish when they drop subjects and can focus on those they enjoy, some sail through puberty, others don't. The list is endless and the idea that an algorithm could detect that is ridiculous.