Leicester City v Everton

So then.

Everton making sure that you have sufficient hope just to retain first option on crushing you is very on brand. Naturally most of us will be wishing Sunday’s unified-angry strategy from manager-players-fans can be some form of timely reborn fulcrum. Right there in the soil and sweat of Goodison was what it is to play for Everton, and something that shouldn’t be a surprise, but the norm.

The battleground was set by so many of you turning up with verve and flares, from which the players seemed to respond. We’re a simple tribe really should anyone want to get us onboard, get the best of us. If really need be we can understand lack of quality but never a lack of character or commitment.

In an age of the Premier League being a a premium global product it was a sort of pleasant antithesis around L4 4EL to see that despite a season of abject failure that still the club means so much to so many people of its community. Everton should always be reflective of that community. They find a way, they fight, they’re staunch, and they’re proud. That there has been so little to be proud of this season is no deterrent as there, amongst a thick blue fog, was what it truly means. It’s time for Everton to respond and make this a reciprocal relationship from all those leading and playing for that badge.

My inclination is that it won’t last, we enter this game still in the bottom three and facing a cataclysmic Everton event on the horizon. Sunday’s game may hint at how this will play out, should the club can finally replicate a home performance away from Goodison and scrap for its future. Or not. I won’t dwell on that as you’re likely sick of doom and gloom, and those wanting to exploit a speck of good feeling and moment will do more good for Everton’s fate. 

Oh and shit on Azpilecueta. Even guessed your name there such of the contempt I have for even checking it. Right up ye and anyone else thinking they can come to Goodison and our nark us. 

Leicester away isn’t an easy game and the type of game most will look at and opt for home win. They went out of a European semi in a drab effort where as some were wishing for them to prevail so they may be distracted come Sunday. Personally I smiled as they went out. Why don’t you want then distracted, no one asked? Well since no one asked the answer is simple, Leicester fans.

Let me qualify this with some reasonability by confirming there’s good and bad elements amongst every single fan base. What concerns me however is when the normal, sound element loses control to the helmets amongst them. Everton’s decades long continual civil war both in person and online may be disliked by some but it has does come with benefits. The main one being that nowhere is Tall Poppy Syndrome more prevalent than amongst Evertonians. Any misguided show of ego or grandiose is a red rag to many blue bulls. Everyone is subject to it, I’ve (correctly) been on the receiving end of it and find it a great leveller. We’re not short of calling out our own and the this passionately extends to calling out bell behaviour. Leicester fans, and particularly the profile of 20-35 years, unwashed and masturbate frequently over Danny Dwyer have very sadly taken over their fanbase, and as such become representative of their club and city. 

As a proud bastion of Ingerland, Brexit and Boris Johnson these Leicester fans are trying way too hard to be edgy. Just go the game and have a few beers with your mates, lads. Be less arsed about what others feel towards you, enjoy the best times of your club’s history right now. Acting all that to other’s fans only reveals a great vacuum of charisma or wit amongst your fans. Ahahaha ur losing ur head mate. No, mate, it’s a casual – almost nonchalant – expressing of the contempt I have for scruffy copy and paste personality moonhowlers souring any cubic square mile of oxygen I may have to breathe or polluting whatever my eyes have to notice. You’re from a place 99% of the world can’t place within 200 miles on a map that’s famed only for a king found buried under a car park. Your commendable spawning of the league a few years ago’s biggest achievement was giving Americans spasms of the tongue trying to say the name of the place you associate yourself with. A place where the merest ray of sunshine spawns 1 in 2 gardens dragging the couch into the front lawn and Dambusters blaring on the HiFi. A place where legions of nondescript humans run an almost Squid Game pursuit of meaning in the life through pints of Bombardier, the TK Maxx discount rail, futile expressions of alpha male cringe and boasting about holidays in a pub where everyone’s talking but no one is listening. Should a Leicester fan fall in the woods would anyone hear them? Should Leicester be swallowed whole into magma itself would anyone notice? Leicester is a dystopian Truman Show and it’s a real shame. Maybe if the decent amongst you managed a hostile takeover of your fanbase back from the bantzlizards holding you hostage then our relationship can change. I stand with your cause. If not then I’ll take the relegation to avoid proximity to suffering their fans twice a season.

Apart from that they’re alright. 

You’ll be familiar with their players so nothing I can add of value other than Vardy looks like he hassles orphans to pick a pocket or two, Maddison drives an XR3i and sleazes the most vulnerable of wine bars, Johnny Evans has an unnaturally long neck if you hadn’t noticed, Dewsbury Hall is somewhere you slide on your knees aged 7 to Agadoo and that their Manager had a painting of himself hanging in his mansion before leaving his family to split up another young family after he got into jogging and new teeth from Turkey. The warning signs were all there, some would say.

As for who Everton may play on Sunday I’d be inclined to go with the same as who started Chelsea. Partly as reward and partly hoping for momentum. That line up also means he has two ways of playing depending where he places Iwobi. That’s my nadir of tactual appreciation really, I’ll leave it for XG needs to illustrate better.

There may be the temptation of DCL up front but I’ve not seen anything from him in quite some time to suggest he will do better than Richarlison playing there right now. The Brazilian is fighting much as anyone to keep Everton up and it looks alright with Gray and Gordon flanking him, although I’d prefer more goals from them. The latter in particular looks to be developing into quite some player, and with noticeable improvement in stamina and bringing the ball forward. 

Someone said Delph limped off, which is true for nearly 90% of games he’s played for us, so if the week long break doesn’t heal then perhaps Allan would step in. We will know more after Lampard’s press conference today. Doucoure produced a performance more like we know he can and the less that blend in the middle is changed the better it will be for the run in. Can’t see the defence changing much as the full backs are playing well and Holgate/Mina looks at least competitive, and not so anxious. Special word on Mina, if Gordon sets an example for effort and willing, Mina sets it for the beautiful dark arts of shithousery. You beautiful big delicate samba wardrobe, please continue. Pickford was brilliant, but you all seen that, he will start in ze nets.

This isn’t a preview of hope and rallying. As long as Everton remain either in or within reach of the relegation zone then it will be def con 1 as every edge, every marginal gain is required. Should that be meeting the bus, a narky crowd, Richarlison, setting fireworks off during the night, Yerry Mina goading the opposition, burning out their team bus, or a rather lovely dog being raised as a pre match offering to the Togger Gods then so be it. 

What’s our name?