RandoEFC

Need Brentford to win and get themselves on the beach by the time they come to Goodison. Whatever happened since Christmas, we've been the 18th or 19th best team in the league since then. We could have got away with it based on our first half of the season but the points deductions have taken that off us. Forest and Luton will both be licking their lips at the prospect of facing us in the run-in. Need favours from elsewhere again.

MSP have decided that they'd rather just get their £160m loan repaid late than activate their option to become the majority shareholders of Everton. £160m is more appealing than owning a Premier League football club because of the mess that football club is. Encouraging for our future prospects. I honestly can't see how this ends in anything other than us going into administration and languishing in the lower leagues or going bust entirely.

Difficult one with Dyche now. Can't sack a manager who's taken a team who finished 17th last season, lost a few players, had the team patched up with a few loans, freebies and Beto, and racked up 35 points and certain safety pre-deductions with half a dozen games to spare. But can't defend a manager who has 1 win in 15 in the league and tries to play a high press away to Chelsea with Palmer, Mudueke and Mudryk counter attacking against Coleman, Tarkowski and Mykolenko after setting up for a 0-0 and hoping for a set piece or lucky goal at home to Burnley. Everton in complete limbo. Tonight at 5am UK time, the deadline for one American investment consortium to repay another American investment consortium who leant us some money to prove to the Premier League that they have the money to complete the purchase of the club runs out. We might wake up tomorrow and see that MSP are the new owners of Everton. We might wake up and find out that the purgatory continues as we potentially drift towards administration. The off the pitch nonsense often makes the 6-0 defeats and the turgid football look like the fun part of being an Everton fan.

Probably was a foul by Doucoure. After he gave the ball away as well. Sums up his form since returning from injury earlier this season. Not that it's made a difference.

Switching off now but this game can't be allowed to pass without mentioning the fact that one team here has been deducted 8 points and plunged into the pressure of a relegation battle for spending too much money despite making a net profit on player transfers and selling almost all of their quality players in the process, and the other has spent £1bn on players in the same time frame and been allowed to get around the same financial rules because their owner sold a hotel to another company he owns for £70m+ and that's apparently fine. Best league in the world and all that.

The commentators don't even know . VAR have gone home for the night as well by the looks of it. Palmer scoring four in a match will get them more interactions on Twitter so they probably haven't bothered checking it.

Corpse of a performance from a corpse of a team representing the corpse of what used to pass for a football club. Fitting that we perform like this the first time Moshiri has turned up in over a year.

Absolute disgrace this. You can lose at Chelsea but the manner of this is putting huge pressure on us against Forest at the weekend now. Pathetic effort tonight. Sort of occasion that calls for first half subs.

2-0. Absolutely shite from us. Pace killing us after we initially set up quite well. Completely capitulated after one moment of quality.

Great from Palmer but that is so poor from our defenders.

The part that nobody wants to talk about is how the Premier League along with a few teams who parted their cheeks and lubed up for the rampant capitalism that entered the sport to lock in pretty much permanent advantages over the rest of the pyramid, created the conditions where the only way anyone else could ever compete again was by doing what Chelsea and Man City did. City's owners are horrific cunts. Everyone knows this. But they and Chelsea and Newcastle are symptoms of the shift toward excessive, unsustainable spending and "the brand" that occurred in the early 90s. Anyway, feel oddly optimistic about the game tonight. Maybe just because any points here would be a bonus. Just have to get into these.

Not sure if there is choking. Think Liverpool have just run out of steam after punching above their weight all season. Arsenal possibly the same but possibly just that they didn't take advantage of the half they had the better of today against the team sat in 4th and Villa did. City left the door ajar this season with a poor first half of the campaign but their only dropped points since Palace at home before Christmas were draws with Arsenal and Liverpool and that weird 1-1 with Chelsea. But if you look at the three squads with all/most players fit, City should still be a bit ahead of Liverpool and Arsenal.

Bookies have City as roughly 70% likely to win the title now. Arsenal 20% and Liverpool 15%. It was about 40%/35%/30% on Friday. (I know they don't add up to 100% but that's how odds work).

Naturally I don't want Liverpool to win the title but I was hoping Arsenal could stop City who are just about as unpalatable. I know it's still close and "it's not over yet" but I don't think City will blink now. They do not lose a close title race. But maybe this will be the time...

I'd basically forgotten about Gakpo as well. He looked like a decent pick-up last season.

It's mad that you went on that improbable run where those kids were playing quite regularly and they did enough to win the League Cup and keep you in Europe and the title race and then when you've got a bunch of your senior players back from injury they've fucked it all in the blink of an eye. I do think there's an element of some squad players like Elliot, Jones and Tsimikas who have played above their level for a lot of the season and just haven't been able to keep it up all the way. Nunez and Diaz have put some good numbers up but I think Liverpool should listen to offers for either really because I don't see either of them having the ability to step up as the "main man" when Salah is out of form like he has been recently, or when he leaves. Jota is a bit better but none of them are as good as Mane or peak Firmino. All players who can complete a front three combo if you've already got 1 or 2 world class players alongside them to raise them up but not world class in their own right.

Almost certainly curtains for Liverpool in the title race. They know it as well. Especially if Arsenal win next. Have to say I'll be delighted if that's it for them this season because the Jurgen Klopp farewell tour would have been absolutely nauseating from a media perspective if they were in contention for any sort of title or treble.

Henderson has been all over the place here. Probably going to be the worst performance to keep a clean sheet at Anfield if they see this out.

Robertson does well to clear off the line to prevent 0-2. Van Dijk needs subbing off at this rate. Stood there gawking for the first then gone full Gerrard for that chance.

I think a lot of the bickering and misunderstandings around this topic could be avoided if people on both sides could understand better that "the Jews", "Israel" and "the Israeli government" are actually distinct groups of people. It's a fucking mess down there. Our whole lives, the vast majority of leadership in the Middle East comes from bad actors convincing their populations to hate and be scared of their neighbours so you better vote for me because I'm going to protect you and reassure you that it's okay to feel that way. The West (mostly the US) have shown themselves to be bad actors looking after their own interests also. It's going to take more than "strong leadership" and a stiff upper lip to sort it all out. There are clearly deep and long-standing cultural and psychological issues. You've got hundreds of millions of people who have never really lived properly in peace and you're trying to convince them to trust each other and live happily side by side. You'll have about as much luck convincing everyone in Europe to stop watching football and follow water polo instead. It'll take something seismic to reset the board down there. Hopefully it doesn't need to be world war 3.

Got robbed on the second leg. Bournemouth were one corner short for me but there was a shot in injury time that clearly deflected wide off a United defender but the officials gave a goal kick. Ah well.

Absolutely robbed the W on that first leg .

Nice job from City and we'll take the Forest draw.

To the tune of about £75m as well apparently. Corrupt. Corrupt. Corrupt.

Leeds 0-1. Gonna be Ipswich 1st and Southampton 2nd at this rate.