RandoEFC

Going to stick with my -1 handicap approach because in this game refunds can be really valuable so as to avoid losing £10 even if the winnings are a bit slow and steady. Hopefully I'm not underestimating Union Berlin here but at Real Madrid I'd be surprised if they can come away with anything. Hoping Madrid can win by a couple. I'm really surprised by the price on the Bayern v Man Utd match. United have been awful to start the season and I have very little doubt that Bayern can see them off. £10 > > £0 if Real Madrid or Bayern fail to win. > £10 if Real Madrid and Bayern both win by 1. > £15.75 if Real Madrid win by more than 1 and Bayern win by 1. > £18.80 if Real Madrid win by 1 and Bayern win by more than 1. > £29.60 if both Real Madrid and Bayern win by more than one goal.

Word is there isn't even enough money to pay off Dyche and any of his staff, let alone try to go big on a new manager. If results force their hand on Dyche then we'd be fishing in the Dean Smith type of pond.

It looked like he was just following Lando too much. Lando clipped the wall on the same corner and got away with it and George just followed in his wheel tracks and must have just been a few more centimetres to the right to lose his right rear corner. Unlucky but still his mistake.

It looked like he was just following Lando too much. Lando clipped the wall on the same corner and got away with it and George just followed in his wheel tracks and must have just been a few more centimetres to the right to lose his right rear corner. Unlucky but still his mistake.

I saw Dyche was favourite the other day and with Moshiri, if we'd gone on to lose to Arsenal and Brentford next, you wouldn't be that surprised, but now that he's found a buyer and isn't as desperate to keep the club in the league to sustain the value, he probably wouldn't be arsed enough to pay Dyche off if we lost every game from now to Christmas. It does all seem to be going very pear-shaped very quickly for Ten Hag. He's better than most of their post-Fergie managers for me but that club is broken and if their season continues in this fashion then he'll be the one who gets the bullet. Also wouldn't be that surprised if Luton or Sheffield United thought it worth pulling the trigger because they're probably fucked either way and if they roll the dice they might just do what Bournemouth did last season and go from being an early write-off to actually clawing their way out of the bottom few teams.

The stats on this match are actually criminal. I was following this match because I had a silly 120/1 accumulator on and everything else had actually come in. The last leg was Metz to win or draw this match. When I saw that Lens were 75/25 up in possession and had registered about 8 shots within the first 15 minutes with none from Metz, I cashed out (still at 40x my stake so no complaints) and obviously hoped Lens would go on to vindicate my decision. I don't think I've ever seen anything as lopsided as 31 shots to 2 end up in the result going the other way. Mental. In happier news, Spurs scraped a refund for me from their leg and Barcelona won by five so that's £10 > £15.50 for me this week. Slow and steady...

This is where we are now. Don't even have a thread for the race . Maybe we've found a secret curse because the first time we've not had a race thread looks like the first time Red Bull won't win.

It's not even really about the level of success. Obviously the on-pitch decay is a symptom but Everton had relegation battles in the 90s and 2000s and while I was very young at the time, nobody refers back to that as a time where they struggled to identify with the club like they do now. The fanbase is clinging on to the hope that as long as we stay in the Premier League there's a slim chance that somebody might want to buy us and run it properly. I don't want to get into arguments about whether Everton, Aston Villa, Leeds or Newcastle are bigger than each other or not because it's irrelevant. Maybe the relegation comment isn't really what distinguishes Everton from Man Utd but if the Glazers decided to sell Man Utd, they actually have a chance of being salvaged by good owners. I don't really think Everton can be which is why I say that between them, Kenwright and Moshiri have ruined the club and 777 will continue to do so based on their track record. I just can't be arsed anymore. The shite we've put up with throughout the past decade has been horrendous as an emotionally invested football fan. Other clubs have had worse but I'd probably limit that to the ones who have actually gone under and not many more. People might argue "at least you haven't got relegated" but come on, this is Everton. Next on the list of "most unthinkable relegations" would be Spurs. As far as football goes, it's been emotional torture watching the way this club has spiralled and I have absolutely no interest in trying to convince myself that a sale to the 777 cowboys has any chance whatsoever of being some sort of brave new chapter. Where I'm at right now is that, whether this sale goes ahead or not, Everton will be relegated, into administration, probably then relegated again or reincarnated as a "phoenix club" within five years. Anything better than that is a bonus.

Says it all that I read this on Twitter about an hour ago, should be absolutely miserable/furious over it but had actually completely forgotten about it until I checked the forum. Gonzo summed up a lot of things about why we're so fucked but it also goes even deeper than that. I listened to a podcast and it took "the esk" basically an hour and a half to describe in detail all of the debt, lack of stadium funding, wages vs turnover, the Ukraine war seeing Usmanov's assets frozen (he was the real financial muscle behind Moshiri), and the rest of it, so I'm not going to try and enlighten people by posting an essay and barely scratching the tip of the iceberg. It's hard to see why fans should care anymore. It's one thing seeing your club get shitter and shitter. Let's not pretend that the David Moyes era was "good" by Everton's historical standard but it's the best I've ever known. You could be proud of the club and you'd prickle when people criticised them fairly or unfairly because you felt like a part of it. Everton Football Club now feels like it's just a thing I follow out of habit. I still have the emotional attachment to the team but I don't bother getting excited about what they could achieve or worrying about the ownership situation because it's just the latest in a growing list of English (and non-English) football clubs that have been picked up as a play-thing by someone with too much money and will now be passed around between investment groups trying to make a quick buck or Middle Eastern governments with an ulterior motive. Everton are probably the biggest club in England that have been absolutely ruined by incompetent ownership. Man Utd might argue but they don't face a potential existential crisis like we do because they'll never get relegated. It goes to show though that it could basically happen to any club.

I'll have these two for this week please: £10 > £0 if either Spurs or Barca fail to win. £10 if they both win by exactly one goal. £14 if Spurs win by more than 1 and Barca win by 1. £15.50 if Spurs win by 1 and Barca win by more than 1. £21.70 if both Spurs and Barca win by more than one goal. Yes I like to be complicated .

Didn't Sevilla have to sell a bunch of players this summer as well? In better news they at least secured a £100m loan off MSP to fund the next chunk of the stadium project which is apparently significant in keeping us out of administration.

I can't really be arsed bemoaning the state of this football club any further. As I've said, an absolute corpse of a football club thanks to two men and yet it's the fans that really feel it.

Yeah that was unearthed quickly in Everton Twitter circles . He's clearly just a whopper. It's the teenage lads in the background where one of them is carrying the flag that concern me more. Everything the Saudi government/royals could ever want from their investment in Newcastle.

Medvedev just bottled the second set against a struggling Djokovic so I'm off to bed.

Young Geordie lads heading up to St James Park on a Friday night draped in the Saudi national flag but sportswashing is a myth/doesn't work.

With France winning 2-0 and Spain 6-1 up with 20 minutes left I think I've finally probably pulled off a winner .

As it stands, Everton are en route to go into administration, with the best hope of investment to stave that off coming from 777 Partners who have a disastrous track record in the clubs they've invested in across Europe and prompted protests from fans of clubs they've been involved with. The thread below explains what a financial hole the club finds itself in thanks to the board and Kenwright getting into bed with Moshiri and Usmanov and their links to Russia which has led to them having their assets frozen due to the Ukraine war. This is why Everton fans are just starting to check out from it all and aren't arsed about whether or not Demarai Gray is a little diva or not. That money we've just got for him goes straight toward paying off the mountain of debts and loans the club is saddled with. The Director of Football and manager won't see a penny of it.

Going a bit defensive this time just to try not losing a tenner. If both of these teams win by more than a goal, £10 > £19.50. If Spain win by more than a goal and France only win by one, £10 > £14.50. If Spain win by one and France win by more than one, £10 > £13.50. If one of these teams fails to win, £10 > £0.

Honestly felt like I was cursed whenever I tried to play this game last time you ran it 3-4 years ago and it's happening again this time .

More fool me for forgetting about Forest and their superpower for any team they play having their worst performance of the season against them without exception.

So we finished the transfer window by shipping out Iwobi and Cannon for nearly £30m, getting Maupay out the door and terminating Gbamin's contract so saving some money off the wage bill. Shame none of those last takings were reinvested. Not sure what happens with Gray and his move to Saudi but we won't be able to spend that money until January now. The squad that finished 17th last season is only really stronger up front with the additions of Beto and Chermiti. Young replacing Vinagre as one of our two left backs I suppose goes down as "better than nothing". Iwobi and Gray replaced by Danjuma and Harrison in the wide areas could be described as breaking even but both of those players are on loan. We've lost Mina, Coady and Holgate from the centre back area with Branthwaite returning to the club. A probable downgrade in quality and certainly in depth. Right back area unchanged. Begovic has been replaced by Virginia as backup goalkeeper which isn't hugely significant but is still a slight weakening. In midfield we're mostly unchanged with Tom Davies leaving and Andre Gomes coming back, neither likely to see much game time under Dyche anyway. The one concern here is what happens when Gueye and Doucoure go to AFCON. Maybe that's where Dele Alli will play the 7 more games before we owe Spurs £10m. Overall, the squad is weaker than what we had at the end of last season. We are forced to sell players without replacement because the club's cash flow problems continue thanks to the new stadium. Apparently Moshiri is waiting for that to be complete to boost the value of the club so he can make a sale. In the meantime, they gamble the Premier League status of the club on a squad that doesn't really even have two senior players for every position on the pitch. As a fan and a spectator, I grew up proud to be an Everton fan even if we never had the best team or won trophies. Now we just wait for eventual relegation, and every time we finish 17th, the only prize is having to sit through one more relegation battle with a slightly weaker squad and hope we get away with it again. The only benefit to staying up is it gives us another 12 months for someone to come in and buy the club off Moshiri to turn things around. I can't think of any reasons to still be arsed. There's nothing left except that irrational emotional connection you have to the club and I can even feel that starting to break. Football is supposed to be a hobby that brings you fun and joy. Being an Everton fan is an absolute chore in the present day and when you invest your time and emotion into something that just brings you negative feedback, at some point you have to detach yourself from it to some extent. I could take it if we were just shit with shit players but the manner of how we've got there being so heavily dependent on one or two people at the top of the club really just makes you realise it doesn't matter who's managing the team or playing for us, it isn't getting better so there's no point being excited or hopeful about any signings, matches, good transfer deals or occasional improved performances. The club in the long-term is still heading in only one direction.

Time to get on the board. £10 > £17.60

Yeah we haven't seen much of him. All I really know is that he was banging them in for Preston when he went there on loan last season.

I think both of these tips are pretty self-explanatory. £10 returns £24.90.