Stuck in a massive blue toilet

His message before the game read:

‘Dad, it’s weird, all the Burnley fans look dead old. Even the kids…’

And that was the only thing that made me smile last night.

So here we are, stuck in a massive blue toilet, barely floating, heading directly for the shit-pipe and just waiting for the final flush. It seems clear now… well it should do if we look at the fixtures. I see the games ahead and I see this team… and tragically, factoring in both – I simply can’t see any points from anywhere at the moment. It’s not even the hangover from last night that’s made me feel this way… it’s just a boiled down acceptance that’s hit now really. Who do we blame? The board? The owner? The management? The players?

Us?

The answer, by the way, is all of the above and to varying degrees. But at this moment – right now – it’s on the players. All of it.

Dele Alli has seemingly shown so little vim, vigour & jizz-jazz in training that Mason ‘what the f**k am I doing here’ Holgate is preferred to him in midfield.

Mason – a player completely devoid of spatial awareness and, it seems, any footballing sense at all at times, outlined perfectly last night when challenging his own player to a header.

Kenny – seems a nice kid, has a nice name – but he’s just a bang average footballer. If you don’t believe me then ask a Celtic fan. And a Schalke one. He’s been farmed out to both and quickly farmed back again. There’s also a bit of the Father Dougal about him which is concerning.

Micky Keane often plays like a 10 year-old who’s been offered a fiver by a drunken uncle to pretend to be a pro-footballer ‘round the yard for a bit just so he’d go away, a player who often seems only seconds away from punching his own teeth out.

Seamus, sadly, is dearly loved but now has Nan-legs.

Branthwaite’s your big daft cousin that talks funny, who you don’t often see and who also gets quickly pissed on WKD at every family doo & is a BAD pain in the arse but he does lead the ‘Ooops upside your head’ line VERY well.

Godfrey – prone to the occasional up-pitch legger like he’s just come up on a clinger and little else it seems of late. Was he boss once? Can’t even remember…

Calvert-Lewin? Well, he loves clobber doesn’t he? Clobber & big Elton John Sunnies.

Iwobi plays like a big soft Labrador does with a burst casey ie keen for a bit & then quickly loses interest.

Micky-Lenko’s another who seems like a nice lad & who’s clearly having a bad time. And I like watching Patterson play for Scotland, so that’s something innit. FFS. I could go on but, honestly, what’s the point? The rest of them remain – as it were – in the pan but madly off the boil.

I feel for Lampard at the moment, the man has visibly withered in a matter of weeks & I fully expect him to be completely bald on top by the end of the season, probably to be found in a far corner of Finch Farm, quietly weeping and mumbling about the Champions League whilst sniffing his medals. He must be gutted though. Consider everything he’s done in the game as a player only to find himself here, at the head of this group of footballers who are so devoid of fight that, frankly, it’s really, genuinely embarrassing at times. You can drill them all you want in training, baby them as much as you need to through the week and say ALL the right things in their little softly-scented ears…but when they’re on the pitch they’re on their own, they’re a team, supposedly.

I don’t know what’s wrong with Everton. Voodoo? A big Red Hex? Built on ancient & hoo-doo’d burial ground? Who knows?

Wait…it was Rafa. Was it Rafa? Well, yes, of course it was.

And no, of course it wasn’t because it was like this before he arrived. Nothing is ‘settled’ at Everton. It hasn’t been for a long, long time. That said, his whole tenure & appointment was an absolute disaster and that’s on the owner, no-one else. Moshiri owns that. Or at least he should because it split an already fractured fanbase, divides were deepened & almost all trust of board was spent. Last thing I saw Rafa manage well was the Toy Store in Toy Story. That said, he shit that up too.

Anyway, forget that, it is now that really matters and ultimately we’re where we are because we have a group of players that don’t seem to give a fuck at all about the shirt they wear. They don’t gel as a team. There’s no flow, no leadership and – to many of us at the moment – very little hope of them staying up either.

Are we to blame also? Well, without question – yes. The 80’s was a long time ago now. We don’t ‘deserve’ anything just because we’re Everton…we have no right based on that alone. Chat all the history you want but it’s not gonna make any difference to a majority of players who really aren’t that arsed about Everton because it’s just a job to them. It’s a shirt & it’s an employer and if it doesn’t work out here then there’ll be others.

End.

But I’m not strictly sure what it is we want as a fanbase anymore either. Effort’d be good…a load of graft week in & week out’d be cool also. Perhaps we should support more & moan less – consider how we often nail players – BARKLEY/DAVIES et al. Remember that ‘lazy bastard’ LUKAKU? Crap him wasn’t he. Good grief. See, thing is, as much as the team are a shitshow you cannot deny that we embarrass ourselves at times as well. And we need to desperately lose this weird sense of entitlement because – and as with any other club – we’re not entitled to anything based on the past or how big a club we think we are. It just doesn’t matter…as the table shows.

All those shouts of ‘we’re Everton & we demand & deserve better…’

Do we? No. Because we are, at this very moment in the history of the club, getting EXACTLY what we deserve. We are where we are meant to be…

So, financial disaster now looms because the hit we’ll take if (when?) we’re relegated is going to be huge, the damage will be MASSIVE and you’re a fool if you assume we’d come straight back up as well. We very well may not. Who’d stay? The manager? What players? Being realistic you automatically lose a load to the vultures that’ll rightly circle – PICKFORD, RICHARLISON, DOMINIC, ALLAN’ll see out his career in Europe, DOUCOURE, MINA’ll go off to a club content to have players with pipe-cleaner limbs, sure there’ll be more ready to jump ship as rats are prone to doing…we’ll end up captained in the championship by FABIO DELPH with a frontline of HOLGATE & RONDON. And what days they’ll be.

On the plus-side there’ll be some interesting days out & some away fans will arrive at Goodison Park that will make us rub our eyes in wonder that they don’t all belong to a travelling sideshow of barnyard oddities.

All very depressing isn’t it. On the quest for a positive I’m gonna side with our youngest Son I think, he is 10, and he’s looking forward to us going down because he reckons he’ll then get to see us ‘…win loads & loads of games’.

I shan’t dampen this belief. That’d be mean.

Our older boy, incidentally, went to his first away game last night, and I fear the bug has bitten already as he text me at the final whistle.

It just said ‘…we’re so shit’.

I didn’t even bollock him for swearing.

I just replied with ‘Yes…yes, we fucking are Son. Love you. #UTFT’

I can’t wait for this season to be over.

And today I hate Everton more than I ever have.

And today they probably need us more than they ever have.

Onward to Saturday it is then…