Leicester City v Everton

Hey there. Quick one as, well, there’s not really much to talk about is there? Or certainly to anticipate between now and the end of the season. In a way it’s like the sugar crash one may experience after a night hitting it hard on the rum and coke. A head full of regrets and woes the next day. Some call it the fear, a term you’ll be well aware of following Everton over a length of time.

So as the universe continually conspires against us through the medium of limited managers and downright shitty luck we may as well get the preview out of the way, with only two more to go after this.

Last game out was a rare spotted Everton home win against a Bournemouth team who either showed some spirit or reduced themselves to Everton’s level, you decide.

It also was embellished by a couple of protests, the customary plane (and Everton win to accompany it) and a stay behind from some hearty souls at the end. In time fashioned Evertonian protesting they saved it to after the game, tip of the cap there.

Also noted was the younger age of those protesting, maybe it’s just me getting older? But more of that later. I was going to pen another try too hard article midweek entitled The Kids Are Alright but it’s nothing I can’t shoehorn into this end of season special to pad it out a bit.

What do you reckon of tattoos on girls?

In the general apathy towards this close of season I’d truly just this moment remembered we’re playing Leicester by searching Newsnow for Everton stuff so I can try and hint at some respectability in injury news accuracy.

What do we know about Leicester? Well not a lot really, they’re obviously topical at the moment at winning the Premier League which has been warmly received around the world as a VE Day for the modern masses.

Great achievement too for a sporting club to spend millions of pounds on players and wages to unsurp others spending even more millions of pounds on players and wages and finish as their superiors over a thirty eight game tournament.

There’s lots of like about the Leicester set up including a team that genuinely works hard for each other and sticks one in the eye of the perceived mighty. Their leader Claudio Ranieri is also authentically one of the game’s gentlemen and that’s exactly the type of person you want to see enjoying life’s moments of success.

It’s rather handy that we are playing them this weekend as hopefully it can answer a question which overides anything else every time the word Leicester is brought up. That question being: who and what exactly are Leicester and where exactly is Leicester?

For all intents and purposes it would seem that Leicester is the appendix to the body of Britain. Maybe someone has dropped a gary into it now and you’re only aware of it’s existence through the euphoric states emanating from it. Otherwise can you accurately point to your appendix? Or feel it? Or say it serves a purpose?

Not meaning to be arl arse either as I’m sure it’s an ace moment right now but despite the tired cliche it won’t put Leicester on the map as you’d be hard pushed to find Leicester on any map, even with a big arrow pointing towards Leicester.

It would be cruel to deny a man his day in the sunshine so I’m genuinely happy for their achievement of a group of millionaires who are in proximity to Leicester because they’re paid tens of thousands of pounds a week. They’ve done well. But an actual king of England was dug up from a car park in this Leicester place and still no one can tell you anything about it. Is it like one of these Milton Keynes new towns? Do people from Leicester have an accent? Is there any recorded tourism there?

Hopefully they’ve got the bunting out as people from a big and famed city head into town, should prove to be some spectacle. That’s if you haven’t fleeced one of them by selling your ticket at a vastly inflated price.

Also seems to be a lot of Leicester fans on the TV. A whole host of mid life crisis men wearing half a size too slim fitting replica tops, creased cords and scuffed brogue shoes getting dead excited in a pub and screaming into a camera. I believe they have a rugby team so are these a migration of disaffected rugby fans. Actually on analysing the criteria of these people, are Leicester wools? The other side of Warrington?

Well done I say, and because of that I give you a wee list of Leicester players that offers little insight:

Jamie Vardy – 40% marsupial, 10% footballer, 50% Brexiter. He belongs in a tree eating minty smelling leaves, not on a football pitch.

Mahrez – he’s boss because he’s Muslim and white people from nondescript parts of England tend to overcompensate their praise of him because they’re inherently racist. I welcome Sharia Law just for the indignation it would cause amongst the beaked up fatties that infect this green, green land. Yes you Leicester.

Kante – everyone seems to say he’s sound, so he’s sound. I’ve genuinely barely noticed him. But then people probably said the same thing about Paul Bracewell so happy to be wrong here.

Huth – I like him, seems like many people you may know or even go the game with.

Wes Morgan – a big lump of a defender whos about to lift a Premier League trophy, let’s spice it up a bit and start Naisse after telling him ten minutes before that big Wes has been Snapchatting Pookie from the shower.

Schmeichel – and here’s us trying to make our Dads proud by buying them a crate on offer from Bargain Booze.

Steven Gerrard – a former Liverpool captain with an Anfield career stretching 16 years.

As a special Player List edition I’ve included a player who’s the odd one out this week, see if you can spot him.

So onto Everton then. Not that we’re too arsed.

The Niasse experiment was inconclusive last week resulting in a strange mix of people already written him off and some desperate to see some sort of hope to spite the former. Not everything has to be polarised, give the lid time. Lukaku would seem to be off and I can’t work out if he’s took his foot off the pedal but the moment players start talking themselves up as above Everton then I become apathetic about them. We’ll miss the goals but we also miss someone busting a gut up front to make this current system work. Not saying that it ever will work before you start foaming at the mouth about any endorsement of Martinez, you angry weirdos.

Barkley is a gifted player and an Evertonian to boot. I’m exactly that same type of person I criticised above in that I’m truly desperate for him to realise it in a blue shirt. He has been bashed somewhat forcefully with the meek stick which he needs to shake off and also smacked over the head with the doesn’t-move-his-arse-enough-to-win-the-ball-back-stick, which will never win many fans at Goodison. Or away from home really. Sort it out Ross, you’re ace, if only you knew it.

Midfield blah blah. Two wide players, well maybe one wide player and a central player playing on the left.

Couple of defenders who are susceptible to crosses and a few full backs who will not play to their potential. Weirdly alluring Spaniard in goal.

You know the drill by now. But for how much longer?

I forgot to reference the filler I promised earlier about the average age of those most upset with the Manager right now. It’s a very lot of young lids in their late teens and early twenties.

What does this demographic tell us?

Well before you can shout “the self entitled beauts was brought Playstations and iPhones by Santa and think the world owes them everything” I’d like to empathise for a moment.

I started supporting Everton as a lid in 1983, absolutely beautiful timing for a young scouse lad to get into Everton and not be scared off, initially. I loved beaming with pride in the mid eighties. My general gloom was punctuated by genuine moment of hope and glory in the mid nineties and like many of you I bore people when drunk of my personal experiences around those periods and elevate the players of the mid eighties to pedestal heights that would threaten satellites. The Moyes era had me comfortably numb for a long while because I was still scarred from what preceded it and painful traffic jams returning north up the M6 every other week when Everton would get comprehensively beaten and I sweated looking at the remaining fixtures to work out where the points would come from to protect us in the top division.

Imagine having the dullness of Everton but without the moments of occasional glory to keep your heart married to them. Imagine being shuttled into adulthood in an era of utter hyperbole for English football where blanket coverage is either promoting something or someone as the best thing ever ever or shaming others as the utterly woeful.

It’s a particular toxic cocktail as an Evertonian. So rather than being that most revered of all Evertonians: a bonafide arl arse, I am trying to empathise with the unrest gripping those who put an hour and a half of their own time into a Goodison closing down for the evening.