RandoEFC

"After matches". I wonder how much scope this leaves them to release parts of conversations where it suits them? Sounds like a positive step in theory but I have such little trust in their willingness to embrace accountability. A live feed that some anoraks on social media could listen to during the game and then live-tweet about? That would be transparency.

New season ...

The Dynamo team that got put out did pretty well to be fair to them. Didn't trouble the goal too much but a good level of intensity and they took advantage of our weakness in midfield at times.

I would say more or less if we can get a central midfielder in. The Chelsea game isn't really the type that has our season riding on it so a good performance is all we should be expecting. But with Villa, Forest, Brentford, Leeds after that we could do with carrying some momentum into those which potentially shape our season.

Everton 3-0 Dynamo Kyiv Last pre season friendly and the only one at Goodison Park watched by over 30,000 fans including a good number of visitors from Ukraine. A decent win against competitive if not formidable opposition. Some good patterns of play from us but still need a bit more in terms of link up play in the final third. Doucoure and Iwobi played most of the game as the midfield two which isn't what we should be looking to do going forward. Calvert-Lewin bagged the only goal in the first half nodding home from a long Tarkowski pass. Pickford made a good save late in the first half from Kyiv's best chance. The game jumped back into life with the introduction of fresh legs for the past half hour, McNeil bagging a brace on his debut with Vinagre assisting the last goal marking a nice outing for the new recruits. Everton fan Paul Stratton was "subbed on" in the 90th minute to take a penalty in front of the Gladwys Street end which he duly converted. Paul has been doing a lot of work in Poland with refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine so this was a part of the festivities. Too bad Kyiv couldn't bag a goal for their travelling fans!

I've forgotten its name but there was something just before Netflix that was like that. LoveFilm or something? I remember people knocking on doors when I was at university so about 10 years ago offering subscriptions.

Yeah but if I want to watch a film like right now I'm not buying a DVD and waiting for it to arrive days later when I won't be arsed anymore.

There is genuinely so much shite on Netflix. Probably the best thing you could do is unsubscribe until you've piled up 4-5 things from Netflix you want to watch and then subscribe for a couple of weeks or maybe months if you're a big pussy and your binge game ain't great. Prime has comfortably overtaken Netflix for me now as basically any film I can think of, you can pay about £2.50 and just watch it on demand. Might be on top of the subscription fee but for me it's worth it for the convenience. I've given up searching for films on Netflix because it has lost so much stuff to the other streaming services like Disney+ as well. That said, I'm yet to unsubscribe from Netflix and it's not something I'm thinking of at the moment.

Harsh . McCann works for Sky News (or at least she did) and is generally very decent. But yeah, bad enough appearing on a questioning panel alongside that oaf Harry Cole who has spent the last few years fellating Boris Johnson in public after having his girlfriend stolen by him.

Vinagre to join on a season long loan. Everton paying all the wages at ~£20k per week. Option to buy for about £10m next summer. One priority sorted with a deal that makes sense financially. Might not be one of the top 3 or 4 priorities but some depth at left back was still on the list.

Multiple sources reporting a loan to buy deal for Ruben Vinagre from Sporting. Good because Mykolenko is still our only left back. I don't know what other positions Vinagre can play but hopefully he can provide cover further up the pitch or at right back. The right back situation is a discussion in its own right. Kenny has left the club, Coleman has missed all of pre-season with a groin injury and isn't fit for purpose at Premier League level anymore anyway. It leaves a lot on young Patterson's shoulders at just 20 years old. He missed his chance last season with injury problems but I've seen him for the under 23s, for Scotland and in pre-season, and he's always looked really good so hopefully he can carry that into the Premier League. With Ashley Cole, Leighton Baines and Seamus Coleman around the club in different capacities it should really be a golden age for the development of young full backs at Everton.

The £32m fee for Moise Kean from Juventus edging closer and the club still looking to offload Andre Gomes (who is a lovely bloke but needs to be moved on given his wages and unsuitability for the Premier League). We might have to wait until later in the window but there's still stuff to pan out that can play in our favour.

I didn't watch the debate but just saw someone remark on Twitter that they're both like those toys where you can pull the string on their back and it makes them say one of about five catchphrases and now I can't stop thinking about how many other mainstream politicians you could say that of for the past decade or certainly the 7ish years I've been paying any attention.

I've watched this four times and I still can't figure it out. Are the pair of them actually stood there or is it some kind of ropey hologram?

We should do better than last season even with the loss of Richarlison provided that the manager we're starting with this season is unlikely to go to war with the Director of Football, multiple key players and the entire scouting and medical backroom teams halfway through the season and get the full backing of our lunatic owner two weeks before getting sacked. Tarkowski is an important signing and with Pickford in goal, if Mina can stay fit for more of this season than last, our defensive core actually should be quite good in theory. However, the squad still has gaping holes and Lampard is still having to pick line-ups with players playing out of their best positions to cover weaknesses elsewhere, so I'm not really confident and like I think I've said, with the current state of things I'd probably take it if someone offered me 14th place or something right now, which is a pretty disgraceful state of affairs for Everton Football Club. Still time for the club to pull a couple of gems out of the bag this window but I'm not particularly impressed by the majority of names we seem to be pursuing. It's depressing because last summer when we spent £1.5m on two players was made out to be a one-off yet we're back here a year later and it isn't even sell to buy. It's sell Richarlison just to get almost back on track with FFP.

Season getting close again is it?

Mykolenko has been really good for us since he got settled. It's gone quite under the radar outside of our fanbase. Hoping he can carry it into this season.

Blackpool 2-4 Everton. A reasonably good outing from what I saw. Conceded a sloppy set piece goal which needs to not become a habit after it fucked us last season. Some good attacking play with the wing backs heavily involved. Two assists for right back Patterson and a goal and assist for left back Mykolenko. Alli with a confidence boosting brace. Tarkowski also a standout performer in defence. Much needed improvement on the performances out in the US.

Keane is a bizarre player because he's good sometimes and shite sometimes but not in one of those ways where a player is generally good but has a game or two in every ten where he has a nightmare. He'll have 2 months where he keeps his nose clean then 3 months where he's awful every week and so on and so on. I'm pretty sure Tarkowski is better than Keane just because he's actually consistent. I'd also rate Mina, Godfrey and usually Holgate above Keane as well so ideally we should be getting him sold but he'll be one of those players who we've inexplicably extended his contract to 2026 on 80k a week after he put together a good run of 6-8 games which obviously means we can't get rid of him because that's how this owner operates. The Minnesota badge is certainly unique but personally not to my taste. @Dr. Gonzo I was more gutted by the breakdown of the takeover talks than Richarlison leaving. Obviously the latter is worse but the false hope of the former compared to the resignation of selling one of our best players has just left me feeling pretty disinterested in this season because as long as Moshiri and Kenwright are around there's not going to be a big picture or pathway to get behind. We have been linked with plenty of players though, just not got far enough to make Paul Joyce's radar and others like him. We were in for Emanuel Dennis but talks broke down. Currently working on a deal for Cornet but we won't even pay his £17m release clause in one go apparently so it looks like even selling Richarlison hasn't even given us room to manoeuvre FFP wise. Also looking at a midfielder from somewhere like Wolfsburg called something like Franckx who sounds good. It's probably a bigger priority than replacing Richarlison to be honest because a Gray-DCL-Gordon attack has enough about it not to be horrendous whereas a midfield containing Allan, Davies and/or Gomes on a weekly basis will see us bang in the mix at the bottom again this season. The right back situation is also fully dependent on Patterson hitting the ground running this season after missing last year's run in due to injury, otherwise we're asking Coleman to play regularly again and I just can't with that for another season.

We lost 4-0 to Minnesota out in the US overnight . That in itself doesn't really matter, it's still just a friendly. I've seen us have great pre-seasons and start the season like shit and I've seen us have pre-seasons where we've barely scored a goal and go on to qualify for Europe. It is tipping some of the negativity over the edge though, and understandably. We need to get a couple of signings in the door. We haven't replaced Richarlison and our midfield still isn't up to standard. Right now, if we can't sort out the transfers we need, I'm very much in a place that if someone offered me a boring 14th place or something I'd take it just to avoid the stress of another relegation scrap. I'm also finding it really hard to get arsed about this pre-season or the season ahead. We have absolutely no chance of even flirting with Europe as it stands which has never been the case for me as an Everton fan since I was old enough to follow football properly. Moshiri's statement asked the fans to judge when the transfer window closes in September but he's been at the club for 7 years and taken us entirely backwards. He doesn't deserve patience and nor do the rest of the board.

...

Truss probably wins from there to be honest but not nailed on. Like I said before, she's just a poor candidate. A lightweight political chameleon whose only electoral "quality" is to shift with the opinion of the moment, yet remains unpopular with the electorate. She polled the worst or second worst with the general public on both debates and worse than Sunak or Mordaunt on hypothetical voting intentions vs Labour and Starmer. Also this from the polling that was done earlier in "Red Wall" seats. Not much in it but she's less popular than the other finalists (Badenoch wasn't included for whatever reason) here too. All Labour need to do to beat Truss in the North is a couple of pictures of her cosplaying as Thatcher and she's finished.

Truss is easily the worst candidate in the final three, four, six, however far back you want to go. Both from a governance perspective and an electoral one. It's absolutely incredible that there's a serious chance of her winning. If I was Keir Starmer, I'd be absolute delighted if Liz Truss became the Tory leader. Of course, the damage done by ramping up the rhetoric on N.I. that you've mentioned is no small problem. The Tory party really is eating itself alive and just depend on constant distractions and a media that will assist them in kicking the can down the road but it's finally dawning on a sizeable proportion of the population just what a fucking mess they've made of just about everything. 12 years in government. Half spent chasing the failed dream of austerity balancing the books and the other half spent on Brexit which has brought no discernable benefit to anyone's lives even six years after the referendum which has proven to be six years that could have been spent on issues that are coming to the fore now.

Enough of that you bastard. I'm voting Tory now.