-
Posts
20,601 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
161
Everything posted by RandoEFC
-
Yeah I'm questioning my memory of Lampard's time at Chelsea based on some people writing him off and making jokes already. I thought he did quite well initially and just went off the rails with a bit of bad luck and inexperience doing him in. Just listened to the ITK Twitter space tonight. Lampard is the front runner but having a final meeting with Moshiri and Usmanov in London tomorrow as well as Pereira. Ferguson in the frame to take us to the summer only and has the backing of the players if that's what gets decided. A massive waste of time though. They've spoken to both Lampard and Pereira multiple times already, what more is there to say? Feeling is we've messed both of these guys around and I learned tonight that Moyes and Rangnick had the same when Ancelotti was eventually employed. Left believing they got the job then Moshiri deciding actually he hasn't made a final decision after all. Club is messing the fans around here too. Overwhelming support for Lampard over Pereira, just get on with it. We're getting a reputation as a club of not negotiating in good faith which is why our field of candidates is deteriorating each time. Oh well. Off to bed and we'll see what the circus produces tomorrow.
-
Yeah I would. I've never been his biggest fan but we've replaced Sigurdsson and Rodriguez with nobody in that area of the pitch and a half-season loan you have nothing to lose. Lampard now in doubt again. Apparently he, Pereira and Ferguson(!?) are having a final round of interviews tomorrow. Bit ridiculous and I can only imagine Ferguson is being spoken to about taking it to the summer because he ruled himself out of the running in public at his first press conference.
-
This is why we need a reaction to posts.
-
It sounds as if the end game is here, and Lampard will be confirmed either tonight or tomorrow. Also rumoured that he'll be bringing players with him. Often a lazy link to look at his former club but if he's got players lined up before he's even taken the job and spoke to our scouts (if we have any left), you'd expect there to be some justification for looking at who he has worked with in the past. Someone like Loftus-Cheek would be welcome. We're in desperate need of midfielders who can run, especially as Doucoure has just been signed off for four weeks. Not Ross Barkley though please.
-
He has interviewed for it twice and possibly held further talks. This seems an odd take in light of that...
-
I honestly think Ancelotti leaving and us appointing Benitez simply accelerated what was inevitable anyway. Marcel Brands was supposed to oversee footballing matters. Moshiri overruled him in employing Ancelotti and in doing so put a manager in charge of the club with too much clout to allow the Director of Football to do his job. The Chelsea fans were right in their evaluation of Ancelotti when we first got him. They said he got everything that was left out of their aging spine but didn't know how to build the replacement. At Everton, he got 60+ points out of these players last season but he was also behind the signings of James Rodriguez and Allan who were in their late 20s and blew a massive hole in our budget. Shifting Rodriguez this summer seemed to hamstring us in the transfer market and Allan, while decent sometimes, is not suited to the Premier League and will become the latest in a long line of Everton signings to act as dead wood over the coming years. I don't want to go back into my thoughts on Benitez but the amount of eggs put into that basket by Moshiri in allowing him to essentially sack our Director of Football, our entire scouting team, the bulk of our medical team and dispose of two of our most creative players from last season in Rodriguez and Digne before getting sacked after just 6 months is arguably the most utterly ridiculous episode in how not to run a football club that the Premier League has seen since its inception.
-
Lampard has scope to improve as a manager and knows the league. Pereira is a bang average journeyman who comes with this stubborn 3-4-1-2 formation, has a reputation for upsetting players who don't adapt to his methods quickly and is only even in the mix because his agent is Kia J who has latched himself onto the latest moronic rich football club owner he's identified in Farhad Moshiri. Lampard has his faults but get real here. I could go to Porto, Olympiakos and Fenerbahce with @Dr. Gonzo as my assistant manager and hit 60-70% win percentages in those leagues. The Chelsea job was too soon for Lampard but this idea that he's an absolutely terrible manager feels more driven by narrative than evidence to me. We're absolutely toxic right now. Any manager with a bit of experience, a bit of potential and some evidence that they can get results, even if that evidence is mixed, is a catch for us at the moment.
-
Another protest tonight.
-
-
I honestly don't know whether or not the Sky Sports interview has ruined his chances of getting the job or not. I wouldn't rule out Moshiri telling him he should do it thinking it'd make his appointment go down better somehow. I also don't think he's necessarily blown it either because while everyone normal is absolutely baffled by him going on and talking about his interviews and thoughts on the club and think it's unprofessional, that probably makes it more likely that Moshiri thinks it went brilliantly because that's how he seems to work. I haven't even watched the interview. The Twitter reactions have given me the gist of it. There is simply too much drama and chaos to keep track of it all and I have my podcasts and Twitter spaces that I listen to with the guys who are generally quite good at cutting through the hysteria and the guff to summarise what's going on. It is absolutely a mug's game trying to work out how that interview came about and how it influences things going forward with this owner so I'm not going to bother trying.
-
Our fans were arguing last night all over Twitter about the banners they put up outside the Liver building, and whether it was a protest or just putting banners up. I can't keep track. Pereira was thought to be over the line but is now apparently considering pulling out of the race because of fan protests (protests which have been aimed at the board and Kia J with the exception of one lad spray painting "Pereira out, Lampard in" on the wall outside Goodison), leaving Lampard as the front runner. Honestly because none of the candidates inspire me at all, I'm not really emotionally invested in this managerial hunt, so it's sort of just funny to watch the twists and turns. None of the candidates we can employ look like they're any good on paper anyway so time to just get on with making a bad appointment, whoever it is, and hoping we get lucky and they turn out to be alright. I can see Lampard falling into that category. He's not going to have a fun time managing us though between the meek players, imbalanced squad and insane boardroom and owner.
-
-
I'm not putting any bets on. Johnson won't be Prime Minister when this is all over though, be that a week from now or six months.
-
Apparently some desperate government members tried to make up an excuse - we can't publish the report now because it might influence the police investigation. Too bad for them, the Met came out and said they have no objection to it. Sue Gray's report establishes the facts of the matter, describes the parties, etc. It's down to the Met whether there are criminal charges and it's down to Tory MPs to decide whether or not he is removed as party leader and Prime Minister.
-
In the 74th change of the day, Sue Gray's report is now due to be published tonight and fully released to the public tomorrow morning.
-
Not quite brave enough to jump to this conclusion myself and put it in writing but I do tend to agree with it. On Farage and Brexit, we've come a lot further down the road than we ever should have, but with our EU membership over and none of the challenges we faced as a country actually getting any easier, reality will ultimately succeed where the Remain/pro-EU campaigning failed in convincing the majority conclusively that leaving the EU and regressing to a more isolationist approach was just a bad idea. There will always be hardcore supporters who refuse to acknowledge reality but the majority of the population are actually sensible and willing to eventually, reluctantly change their mind about things. People have largely already moved on from Brexit and the consequences will only continue to be laid more bare. The whole Farage/Brexit axis is one that continues to devour its children. Farage is now irrelevant, Cummings has nothing left but a bitter vendetta against the Prime Minister, Johnson is being found out to not only have no substance to back up his bluster now that he's "got Brexit done", but also as just not a very good human being at all. Cameron and May were both brought down by Brexit not to mention the string of foreign secretaries, Brexit ministers and other members of the cabinet that have been and gone in the last 5-6 years. I heard a claim a few weeks back that the number of ministers that had been seen off for Brexit-related reasons was in the forties now, following Frost's resignation in December. I'm not convinced yet that Labour are in control of the situation. I quite like Starmer but he's very cautious and if the Tories go into the next election with a new ace up their sleeve, I have my doubts that he can sell Labour's vision for the future of the country and himself as Prime Minister. It's too soon to call but all of the polling, both at surface-level and in the deeper detail, looks very bad for the Conservatives. Still, even if we get stuck with them for another term, I don't think we'll see another Tory government that's quite as horrific as this one, with Patel threatening the RNLI to stop them from saving migrants, the Policing Bill designed to crack down on protesters, and the existential threat to the BBC. I know I shouldn't allow it of myself but I do have a stronger sense of cautious optimism about the way politics is moving in the UK than I have done for a while. We are a long, long way into the shit but it at least feels like the next couple of years will present an opportunity to at least start digging our way back out of some of it.
-
My understanding is that what Sue Gray has found while she's "establishing the facts" has led her to refer the crimes to the police. Some good info on Twitter I was reading at lunch time. It means that her report won't drop this week and finish Johnson off but instead could result in criminal charges which takes longer but is even worse for them.
-
Just listened to the weekly Twitter space with the two lads who know the ins and outs at the club and get all the news before it happens. It's an absolute madhouse in there. Kia J is right in Moshiri's ear and his stance on the next manager changes from one hour to the next. Pereira closest to being appointed with Lampard in the race as well. Pereira will accept the job on a six month interim basis with an option for another year which Moshiri apparently likes because of the low risk, whereas Lampard won't accept anything below 18 months. Rooney and Niko Kovac are the other names on the list but haven't been contacted yet. Here's the best tidbit though. Cannavaro was interviewed as a favour to help him raise his profile and get him a job in one of the European leagues instead of China, because he's bezzie mates with Kia J. Seriously this is how they're spending some of their time on this managerial hunt. In other news, key players at the club are waiting to see what appointment gets made next and have said out loud they'll be looking for a move if the club keeps chasing its own tail and makes another mental managerial appointment. Calvert-Lewin was named and Pickford was alluded to as well. Both currently fully committed to the club and want to move forward with Everton, but won't hang around if Everton don't start showing some signs of progress and stability. Sounds similar to Lucas Digne before the Benitez argument. These lads aren't agitating for moves or being disruptive at this point, just don't want to waste their best years at a club carrying on like we are right now. You can't blame them either.
-
Sounds almost identical except our right wing party is slightly less driven by corporate and money stuff and more by staying in power, because half of them are already millionaires who have inherited estate from Mummy and Daddy and never spent a day in the real world. The likes of Johnson and Rees-Mogg have spent their lives believing they have some sort of divine right to rule the country because of their background and private education, and the influence the Auld English class system still has at every level of our political system. We have our country run at the behest of cripplingly mediocre posh white men and their fetish for cosplaying as a long-past Victorian upper ruling class, along with those from more varied backgrounds who are willing to sell enough of their soul to prop them up in return for a slice of the pie. Also the current specific iteration of our Conservatives haven't shied away from exploiting isolationist, nationalist sentiment in a rather Trumpian manner, driven by Farage and his Brexit project. Brexit is slipping out of the public conversation though and Johnson's popularity is in a tail spin. They've had 12(?) years in power under three different Prime Ministers though, each one even worse than their predecessor, so I'm more optimistic than I have been in a while that the electorate might actually grant us a reprieve from another Conservative government at least for just one term. A man can dream.
-
Agree with a lot of this. People need to look past Blair and Iraq when it comes to the last non-Tory government though. The difference in stuff like child poverty, food banks, NHS waiting times, school funding, access to higher education, were astronomically different and these are all things worth caring about, even if anything resembling a genuinely progressive economic model or a social democracy would have you labelled a heretic in the current political climate.
-
Kenwright is still the chairman but has very little sway in any decision making at the club. The issue is that he turned down several other potential owners who were interested in buying the club but he kept putting it off. The line was "I know you're frustrated that there has been no investment in the club but I don't want to sell to just anyone, I want it to be the right owner for Everton Football Club". So essentially he let the club stagnate for several extra years and the payoff is the current regime. As far as I'm concerned, he has "blood on his hands" for every absurd turn Moshiri steers this club through. It's also well established that waiting was nothing to do with getting a better deal for the club and all about waiting for a new owner who would let him remain as Chairman or at least on the board because he can't let go. Kenwright is the ultimate architect of the club coming apart at the seams and I believe that he genuinely just doesn't see any of it as his fault. When he says to the fans outside the stadium "we've had some good times", he genuinely thinks that losing the FA Cup Final in 2009 and finishing 4th in 2005 before getting knocked out in the qualifiers for the Champions League fall into that category. You wouldn't know it nowadays but that's not the standard for success at Everton.
-
An idiotic dinosaur defending an idiot and a dinosaur.
-
Yeah the thing is they're polling like shit in those constituencies though. There was an in-depth "Red Wall" poll over the weekend. People largely think Boris Johnson is a liar now and Brexit just doesn't register as a priority. They also did some hypothetical polling of which way they'd vote at the next election depending on the Conservative leader. Under Johnson, Labour are projected to win back 45 of the 48 seats they lost in 2019 and under every other leader apart from Sunak, who was projected to a bit better than Johnson, the Tories are polling even worse. It's a shame there isn't an election tomorrow because the Tories certainly wouldn't get a majority and Labour might even get one themselves without a coalition. Just got to hope this shit sticks in the long-term and Starmer makes a decent case when the next election comes. The Tories are in a lose-lose at the moment though. Johnson has shot his bolt and it looks impossible for him to chart a path to recovery, and they don't have an obvious replacement who is anything more than just palatable in Sunak, who's economic policies are likely to go down very poorly in the seats they need to keep. We'll see anyway. Regardless of what it means electorally, I'll enjoy the retribution of Johnson having to go down in history as having an even shorter stint as PM than Theresa May after spending a lifetime lying and cheating his way through with that one goal in mind. Couldn't happen to a nicer bloke.
-
Christ it's like a morgue around here. The defeatism is off the scale! Gone from believing there was a genuine chance of a Corbynite revolution to thinking Boris Johnson going down isn't worth celebrating because everything is just shit. Each to their own, I'll be having myself a glass of wine or two when he's no longer Prime Minister.
-
Iwobi was Moshiri's signing as well. Assume there was some super agent involvement. This was within 12 months of Marcel Brands being signed and the same summer his importance was raised by his appointment to the actual board. Brands didn't want Zaha or Iwobi but Moshiri wanted to make a big money statement signing and ended up with his second choice. Not long after, Moshiri overruled Brands, who wanted to give Silva a bit longer, to sack the manager, this after Moshiri was so enamoured with him that he got us in hot water legally for pursuing him as Watford manager. Brands also didn't want Ancelotti as the replacement because it flew completely in the face of what he'd been employed to do as Director of Football, Moshiri overruled him on that too. He is a maniac.