Well that was a week wasn’t it? That first bevvy of the weekend is going to taste very much sweeter. Time for some much needed togger distraction. Ev-er-ton.
A week that started with the dullest derby for quite some time and ended with, well, us not quite knowing what’s quite going on.
What, who, when? But some questions just can’t be answered, like who invented the six pack first: Marky Mark or Peter Andre? Trying to let your mind free to explore the possibilities of this particular junction of the good train Everton can be a dangerous thing based on some of the crap Evertons you’ve bear witness to.
It’s been a weird few days for obvious reasons. The forums have battered the topic to death so I’ll try and swerve it as there’s not much I add. I’m just not looking forward to the meltfest that Sunday’s game is going to bring. There’s going to be two hundred cameras taking photos of Moyes’ every expression as a sideshow. You’ll not see Everton patronised this much for quite some time unfortunately.
It all stems from being too average for too long, a generation has been born, grown up, got pubes and now has three kids in tow while we’ve been not troubling the top of the league. Sack the money, sack the stadium, sack the modern football excuses. We’re Everton and that’s absolute sh*te. If you’re on the payroll at Everton and you’re not striving to get back to those days then do one.
Were now in for a period of uncertainty and it’s the not knowing which does your head in. Twitter certainly hasn’t helped with the assorted beauts clamouring to be in the know on there. I think the world is a sadder, less informed place without Clubcall to ring up to put you in the picture. BROLIN IN AT TOFFEES?
As promised, back to the footie. West Ham United turn up for an end of season dead rubber. While the kopites will be quietly hoping we clusterf*ck up no one’s really arsed. We’ll finish sixth and probably with the highest points total for over twenty years but we won’t be playing in Europe next year, again.
West Ham done well this year as it’s their first season back in the top division and there’s a good chance they’ll finish top ten which you’d take all day in that scenario. Apart from less money for finishing a couple of places below us it’s to all extents and purposes a good season as we’ve had.
They’re in the hands of the perennial lecherous old goats in Sullivan and Gold. Just f*cking look at them. Smug, self serving Thatcherite beauts who rape society merely by offering an opinion to anyone who’ll listen. Take Gold´s face for example, I half expect Apollo 13 to be circling him looking for the right area to land and take rock samples. The ugly little c*nt Sullivan isn’t much better. Sullivan, the weasly little bastard, has eyebrows like a Birkenhead brass and the moral compass of an African gold mine owner. They’re in football as an ego boost sleazing their way around the media like a Farmfoods Alan Sugar. If I hope we beat West Ham this weekend, it’s merely just to make them Victorian factory owning bells wince a little.
Sam Allardyce wasn’t too popular an appointment but he’s done more than well. I know his style of football isn’t too popular and he’s apparently a moneyball whoring percentages manager (given to managers who regularly bloody the nose of the mighty strangely) but he’s effective and is given an unfair bumming by the British media for being perceived as a failure in the Newcastle job. Which isn’t anything out of the ordinary up there in belterville. He’s assembled a hard working well drilled team with some flashes of flair. Teams seldom get an easy game against them. They’ve got some work to kick on in the next season though as their fans will demand some more of the football they’re accustomed to watching, as the stabilising process in the Premier League takes gathers some pace.
It’s not as if West Ham are small fry either, one of the decent clubs of down south with a dedicated parochial support not unlike ourselves and one eyed firmly on doing things in line with the history of their club. Ace pie and mash shop outside if you’ve ever been down there too. They also have a lesser bell count than most other Premier League clubs so they do for me.
Their forward line is going to evolve around the aerial threat of Wor Andy Carroll. The big galoot has done well at West Ham where he managed to shed the unfair price tag on him and the misplaced prejudices of forty thousand kopite bells. He’s the closest thing to Duncan I’ve see and not given near enough credit for his ability on the floor. I’d love a c*nt like that thumping the ball into the Gwladys Street net while wearing our number nine but he’s have to promise to shave that rat’s tail and the city temptations that have succumbed the Van der Meydes and Drenthes of this world.
They have a tight five in midfield including O’Neil and Noble who won’t be scared to put a tackle in and make the space in the centre really tight and either that sh*thouse Nolan further up the field or more probably Diame who’s a splendid player. Steven Gerrard’s Messi elect Cole will play on one wing and Matt Jarvis, who is an identikit of a Moschino wearing wool sniffing round a hen party in Tenerife, will play on the other.
Collins, Reid or Collinson will form two at the back and are very much Allardyce defenders so you can expect more than a hint of grock and their full backs aren’t particularly all that. Seal bothering Jaaskelainen is their keeper. They’re the very epitome of top flight averageness but with that new stadium they’re sadly be spunking all sorts of money all over the show in a few straight calendar years. I’m not feeling the love for footie at the moment either but I’ll stop short of the kopite induced against modern football campaign which is a front for fuming at United winning everything.
What’s our name? It’s the last home game of the season – thinking on it does invoke memories of a tremendous Kevin Campbell hat trick and six goals against West Ham twelve years ago. When was the last time we truly spanked someone? That was one of the pay offs of Moyes teams, despite their proven consistency we rarely pulled the opposition’s pants down and football bukkakied over their grids. If you excuse the term.
We’ll probably play five in midfield too to win the battle there with the opposition so it’s probably going to be Anichebe assaulting defenders by back up there with Fellaini very likely making his last appearance at Goodison just behind him.
Neville will be injured and denied a token goodbye game but good luck to him, he mixed opinion with his football but he’s been a good captain for Everton and seemingly “got†what the place was about. Minus the lifting cup things which was unfortunate. So Osman and Gibson will start there. Pienaar and Mirallas have been remarkably dull on the wings of late but will probably get another game there, save for Barkley starting somewhere across that middle.
You know the defence and its soul destroying sat here on my uncomfortable couch trying to second guess the starting eleven of a departing manager in an end of season game with nothing riding on it. A real uninspiring moment of any preview I’ve wrote. F*cking hell Everton, sometimes.
This the last of the Moyes team you’ll see in royal blue and there will be some personnel changes the next time they run out at Goodison in a competitive fixture so I just hope they’ve kept the flip flops stashed away and go out on a tw*tting. But then part of me wants it to go off so the media don’t get their sunray moment.
Eleven years is a long time, even more so if you’re in a Cleveland basement, so a bit of change will be unfamiliar, anxious but exciting. The season hasn’t worked out how we hoped it would and will end of somewhat of a bum note for many.
But were not here for the politics, were here to watch them sometimes boss royal blue shirts tonk the opposition for our weekend entertainment. If you can’t enjoy that then you can’t enjoy anything.
Ev-er-ton.