Sunderland v Everton

Hello again. Third game wrapping up a really important week and on which success hinges on this game.

Four out of six including away at Arsenal is no bad feat but were chasing positions no one can make their mind up on and time is running out. It´s just our luck that the top five in the league are in a little elite league of their own when were trying to crash the party again. Were the ones to show at the party, with the Burton shoes and jarg Naf Naf shirt, to sneers from the rest and the expectation we won´t stick around. Bit demeaning that sorry, we´re Everton after all aren´t we?

The Arsenal game was getting off with a fit bird but getting a grip of the arse and nothing else. Every time our hand went north of the belly button it was swatted away. It was a tight game and there were periods where we gave a not all that Arsenal side a very uncomfortable time but ultimately we needed the three points and we failed to do so. In the end we were hanging on a bit too, as is often the case for many at the Emirates stadium.

Was peculiar to see Arsenal trying to play a different code of football, a non contact game and reminding the referee about it every three or four minutes. Touch rugby was always sh*te in PE though so hopefully they´ll come to their senses, although with obnoxious tits like Wenger and Wilshere leading their way it may be a long time coming. Boo hoo Arsenal.

Which leads us nicely to this weekend´s game against the acceptable face of North East football in Sunderland. While the others have a propensity for punching horses and reeking of kopiteism, Sunderland generally go about this business in one of the more nicer ways of modern top flight football. Surrounded by Newcastle on their north they unfortunately have Middlesbrough as a neighbour to the south which for it´s dress sense, social practices and unique culture could have you fooled for thinking you´d stepped foot in the capital of Turkmenistan.

With typically great Everton timing they´ve just appointed a new manager and in his first game bagged a three nil win away to their hated rivals. Imagine if we done something similar to that?

Paolo Di Canio has unfortunately had to endure all the bad fascism accusations since taking the job which leads to you to conclude that right wing fanaticism is permitted as manager of Swindon Town but not in Sunderland. His plight wasn´t helped by that tw*t of a Milliband brother grandstanding by resigning from the Sunderland board or something. Yeah I´m socialist too but come on you North Korean haired tit, no need for that.

Di Canio is liked in some quarters of EFC by picking up a ball rather than taking advantage of an injured Paul Gerrard just over a decade ago. Nice stuff Paolo. Still don´t think him scoring was so cut and dry but it was a nice difference from the usual Premier League football behaviour.

The aghastness over Jimmy Saville being nailed as a paedophile was heightened by just looking at him. His dress sense and behaviour wasn´t right was it? How could he be so blatant yet slip under our collective radar? To avoid another obvious thing going under our noses I´m going to state the obvious about Di Canio too – he´s a cokehead.

How can he not be? Take a step back and observe his behaviour throughout as a footballer and coach. He´s beaked off his f*cking tits on high grade Colombian flake. Seen how he talks? Bugle. Overly animated and too friendly when interacting with strangers? Lemo. Too excitable and liable to flip over innocuous things? Three bags for fifty. Why else would he push over a referee? Bare that in mind when you look at photos of him and it makes sense. He´s out of f*cking control. And he´s the new Sunderland manager.

Their stadium is going to be as excitable as and end of year school disco with more than forty thousand Mackems baying for us to be took apart. While it´s a happy hunting ground for us, we need to keep a cool head and play our togger.

Sunderland have spent loads of money but for it haven´t got a great deal to show. I know Moyes was showing some solidarity for Martin O´Neill in the pre match conference for this but O´Neill has a long history of paying over the top for sh*te players and playing dull football. So it´s a little patronising for a good sized club like Sunderland to be patted on the head and told that staving off relegation should be appreciated.

Case in point is Danny Graham up front, it´s not Danny´s fault that modern domestic footballers are vastly over priced but the big pikey faced lump is no way a five million pound footballer. Neither is Connor Wickham worth is price tag although he is unlikely to be fit and join Graham up front. Sessegnon is a footballer though. He´s very dangerous indeed if afforded space between midfield and defence and when his tail is up, which we´ll have to prevent.

Adam Johnson hasn´t been all that since his move to Sunderland but will start. He scored in the reverse fixture at Goodison but he´ll meet our in form full backs so I´m not too arsed about the width opposition teams provide now. We´ve got it as covered as can be for the first time in a long while. Watch him rape Coleman for that now. McClean has had a quieter second season as is often the case but like Johnson he is in possession of great pace and the urge to beat the full back. The centre of the park is solid if not spectacular with the-Rola-Cola-Di Caprio himself Seb Larsson and N´Diaye.

Defence is where we might get some purchase. Cuellar, Bardsley and O´Shea are sound enough but not all that, but on loan left back Danny Rose has had a fine season there. Mignolet is a good shot stopper as a keeper and will be in their nets.

Ha´way the blues. Wasn´t Anichebe´s best game up front against Arsenal as Mertesacker has his number all game but he´s still done more than enough to justify starting ahead of the boss slotter formerly known as Nikica Jelavic.

Behind him poses our manager some decisions. Barkley looked far more accomplished as the game went on in that role behind the striker. When it clicked that he was far from the worst player on the pitch he started to find more time on the ball and do his thing. Fellaini being dropped deeper to accommodate him was a bit hit and miss but I´d persist with this rather than bring Osman back in. Why not? There´s a good chance we´ll be doing a lot more of the pressing in this game and something like Barkley should feel at home in that scenario. We´ll see.

Pienaar was poor and needs to buck up. We´ve not really got the value for money that we anticipated in buying him back for four million this season all things considered. Perhaps we can sell him to someone as a token gesture then loan him back? He´s boss when he´s on loan. Mirallas wasn´t all that either. He had a glorious chance at the end but was having one of his off games where he tries too much and delivers too little. He needs to rape Sunderland. Gibson will complete the middle.

You know what the defence will be and it´s about time that they´ve started falling love again with clean sheets. As I referenced before it´s ace to see Everton genuinely have two attacking full backs of some talent. Distin will play in the middle with Jagielka, who´s had one of his best seasons at L4 this year. He´s like when you play someone boss at table tennis and you´ve top spinned them to death yet somehow they manage to return the ball. That block he done at the end of the first half was quite brilliant. Howard will play in the goal.

In all reality we´re not going to finish fourth, maybe not even fifth, but we have a talented team who no one will like playing. How long it will last and will it improve so we can win something is for another day. Maybe a day in the summer, who knows? The pressure isn´t on us though, it´s on the teams around us with wage bills as twice as high as ours and budgets for the Champions League and on the teams fighting to stay in the league who we play.

The pressure is off Everton and we´re free to play our sometimes ace football. So unless you´re reading this hiding in someone´s attic in a Boston neigho(u)rhood trying to swerve the police then how bad can the weekend really be?

So go and do it blues.