coachpotato

Take care of yourselves too.

Pushing for acceptance of UEFA rules, which appear to be less stringent in the manner in which they affect the “richer” teams, would suit City right down to the ground and alleviate the pressure on the PL to be ruthless in deducting points from them. Could be a get out from years of protracted legal wrangling if they hit City with a massive fine and “agree” to drop many of the more contentious charges?

That’s a bit dispiriting of a read. Two paragraphs that stand out to me are: “I'll be submitting further FOIs to try to establish the extent of British government involvement in the PL vs City case, but others so far have been fruitless. The stakes are SO much higher than whether a football club broke some football rules. 9/n “ and “Man City's hierarchy realised around 2010 that they needed "accelerated investment' before UEFA's FFP came into force. Their solution was cooking the books. That was evident from their 2014 punishment onwards. It's all been in plain sight. 12/12” Firstly, if there’s an issue getting facts out into the open regarding governmental involvement in the proceedings, then we might as well forget any meaningful punishment for City. Plus, they’ll be protected going forwards to prevent any future embarrassment to the government. I doubt it’ll alter with a Labour government in power either. Secondly, that they realised in 2010 they’d need to cheat their way going forwards and have got away with it “in plain sight” for, currently, 14 years doesn’t bode well for there to be a fair outcome to those who haven’t cheated. Ultimately, if it is known by those in the game they’ve been taking the piss and they get away with it (again) then I could easily see the EFL or an equivalent being established as the likes of Werner and Henry would be crazy not to say “Fuck you” to the football authorities if they allow them to escape Scot free.

The 12th of never?

Tarkowski, Martinez and Romero, any of whom would happily break an opponents leg. A prial of pricks.

Haaland out for longer than first thought, there’s a chance, slim as it might be, that City will slip up against someone unexpected. I base this on the performance tonight against a Newcastle side that City would have beaten by 3 or 4 goals had they been at their previous levels from seasons past. They are usually clinical and ruthless, they weren’t that tonight despite having the bulk of possession and haven’t been at that level this season. I think more teams are equipped to have a go at them this season too. If we keep pressure on them by winning, the cracks could open up if they do slip up and we’d be in with a great chance of holding them off. We keep winning, we win the league.

Great goal.

These are much more used to hitting on the break than we are. They have to in many of the games against the “better” teams. Pity is we haven’t worked out how to break down a packed defence and we just carry on playing the same way. We need to keep knocking on the door though.

They look more likely to get a second before we get a first currently.

Our passing is way off tonight.

Gravenberch, Diaz and Elliot look ineffective. Even Jones at times, too many balls played backwards, we’re not making the pace and the tempo is far too easy to defend against. But they have mistakes in their defenders, and we have to capitalise by speeding it up and putting them under pressure. Still plenty of time to turn it round, but they’re dangerous going forwards too. Thankfully, there’s still a second game to iron out any fuck ups we make tonight.

Perhaps Onana is similar to Wijnaldum before we signed him? I remember there was a certain amount of doubt because he was coming from Newcastle, where he was one of their better players, but wasn’t seen as good enough for us, basically a squad player. Sometimes, it’s what the Pro’s see in a player that we miss that matters. Hope he goes to Arsenal and, like Everton, sinks without trace.

Ace player. Great in midfield and he helped to redefine what a centre half/back could do. No coincidence that our best teams have had similarly skilful centre backs (Hughes, Thompson, Hansen, Lawrenson, van Dijk, Matip etc.) if not always at his level, he was the first I saw carry the ball as he did. Another for whom the word Legend isn’t out of place. R.I.P. Kaiser.

We had his best years, if he goes anywhere else it weakens them playing against us and others, I hope he goes to Man City.

Dear Everton’s Fans Forum, As you are not one of the Sky 6, I see no reason as to why you should be given any explanation about anything. And even less so because you are cheats. regards Howard

They’d have been screaming blue murder for a red if that was a tackle by one of ours. In the cold light of day it was made to look worse than it was by the VAR check, but technically it fulfilled some of the criteria for a red card. Studs showing, straight leg, off the ground and not forgetting the main criteria, “ there was contact so he was entitled to go down”.

That’s a decent observation, but at least we have the benefit of their experience to ensure it doesn’t happen to us. Our owners are too smart to let that happen. Aren’t they?

A much better performance overall than of late, which sounds daft considering we’re top and by a couple of points This game was another where I felt there was still some room for improvement. Perhaps comparing us with our pomp in 2019-21 is unfair, but the point made that our press was back to a level which made us the team to avoid is a better guideline to where we have to be, and it was there in this game, where we forced the pace rather than stroked the ball backwards and forwards as we have in recent games. Both Newcastle goals were disappointing for different reasons. The ease at which Gordon broke through on our right for the first was scandalous given he was double teamed by Trent and Dominic and the way that Botman got up above all our tall defenders and a 6’2” keeper to head home was poor. I’ve said it before, Allison is a great keeper, yet Botman heads that in from 6 yds out with Allison on his line. There are no Newcastle players blocking him off. So I can’t understand why he isn’t out there punching that away with the advantage he has with his height, presence and arm length. Maybe I’m being overly critical and fair enough if that’s what you think, but we’re probably looking at being near perfect to win this league and sketchy defending and missed goal scoring opportunities will catch us out, probably against teams that we won’t expect them to. Having said that, I wouldn’t have expected us to be in this position at the start of the season, yet here we are, and I think the title is there for the taking as I’m not certain City will do their usual runaway unbeaten run, given how they have played this season so far either. We scored good goals and there were top performances from almost everyone, Jota is back, Mac too and Diaz looked effective, if Nunez can put the finishing touches to his play, we may not miss Mo as much as is thought, and it could keep us ahead of the field.

Van Basten-esque, pity it didn’t go in, looks more spectacular when it cannons in off the woodwork!

Inter Cities Fairs Cup, Bobby Moncur, those were the days! Don’t think they had bare bellied biffs in the away end then though.

From when Wenger took over, Arsenal had a case for arguing they were up there with the Red Mancs and us, and they actually won things. They played good football and went toe to toe with Ferguson for several years, however from when they got rid of Wenger, they became more petulant and entitled, appearing to think they were the only team to play anything other than hoof ball, but without actually winning anything. Now, they play decent stuff at times, and actually look as though they could start to win things again, but the manner in which they look down on other teams grates because they haven’t actually won anything since 2020 when they won the FA Cup, unless you count a Charity Shield win over City earlier this season. Last League title as 2003/4, Champions League - nada. Not really grounds for having the superiority complex some of them do, although they are more storied than City, Chelsea or Newcastle.

Guardiola will expect them to go on a run of wins and will also likely expect us and Arsenal, in particular, to not be able to keep up with them. He won’t be alone in believing that scenario. However, the longer it goes with us at least matching their results, and hopefully getting the result against them in March, the more he’ll get agitated and stressed. It is really in our hands to win the next 19 games, 1-0 in every game if necessary, and while unlikely, it isn’t impossible. It’ll also put us through the wringer as well!! What a piss boiler that would be though.

Another one of those games where we seem to struggle against the dross, or at least make hard work about putting them away. Had either of the two disallowed goals stood, then perhaps Burnley might’ve collapsed, but they didn’t because of entirely subjective, personal views on our players involvement. It is now obvious there’s an agenda, certainly from Tierney, to fuck us over every chance he gets, and he’ll always get back up from whoever is on VAR. That’s how the PGMOL work. It has been said before, but I hope the club is building a dossier against these “decisions” which can be used at some stage to call out such biased officials. He shouldn’t be near any of our games and had it been against United when Ferguson was in charge, he wouldn’t be near any of theirs. We didn’t help ourselves with some poor finishing in between good finishes from Nunez and Jota, and the stat that we’ve had 66 shots in the last 3 games resulting in 3 goals, if correct, goes a long way to indicate where we need to improve the most. Our shots to goals ratio must be pretty poor in comparison to other teams and could explain somewhat why it’s not always sacrilegious to say some of our players, while scoring, should do much better with the chances they get. However, three points gained, and if we keep winning, we’ll likely be champions.

If recent history proves anything, it is that we are likely to sustain further injuries to some of our players. The problem is we don’t seem to have players who get a “niggly” injury, they’re out for several weeks or even months. Klopp will say that a certain player is now training and is close, but we don’t then see them in the match day squad for ages, and I know other teams get injuries too, but we seem to have had this for several years! Currently, Endo is on 4 yellows and Trent on 3 so it would be likely either or both could get a suspension in the near future too which won’t help. It’s not going to take too much to place us in a precarious position, so although it might be asking for too much, I hope we’ve got one or two players lined up to bring in come January. We’re likely going to need them to win anything this season.

It could be close, or one or other could have a really good day, too close to call I think. They’re good going forwards, inventive and skilful, I think they are vulnerable at the back though, and we need to show that’s the case, but without letting them show how good they are offensively. Could be down to which keeper has the better day. Don’t lose, preferably win.