RandoEFC

It's closer to his level than a title contending Arsenal side. He's really not that special of a goalkeeper.

This is it though. Often enough new players have gone there and looked like they'll make a positive difference but then look around and see team mates phoning it in, a lack of standards across the club and yet everyone gets a new contract for 5 years on 150k a week as soon as they put together a 4-5 game run once a season that's a bit better than mediocre. Why would you bother continuing to give your all and put your body on the line? They're the worst run club in the league. Because of their revenue they'll never have problems with PSR or face the threat of insolvency or relegation battles like Everton, Leicester, Sunderland, Leeds, Newcastle, Aston Villa, etc have over the years but Man Utd have been run just as badly as any of those clubs in my opinion and it's been going on longer than almost any of those as well.

Winnerrrrr

The first goal is so pathetic. Van de Ven did the same thing against us I'll acknowledge, but it was pathetic on our part as well and our team is full of pensioners and free transfers while Man Utd's has seen heavy investment. Rashford gives up on the ball, four players choose not to stop him with a professional foul and two of them give up and pass on the responsibility to the next player. In the past you'd see one player give up like that and substitute them on the spot. Sadly for them you can't take a whole team off. The standards are in the toilet at that club. The manager is clearly poor but the next one will come up against the same problems just like the last half a dozen that have failed.

Man Utd still as spineless as they have been for about a decade now.

Wow we actually won! I missed parts of the second half, especially the last 10-15, because stream trouble, but we looked largely comfortable after going ahead. Strange performance from Palace. We didn't lay a glove on them in the first half and then their heads just dropped when McNeil scored the equaliser. Most fans said the minimum from Leicester and Palace had to be 4 points and that's what we've got. Dyche lives on for now, but it's only a step or two away from the brink still. Hopefully we can put a run together now. We need to be looking at double figures from our next six. We'll need it to because it's followed by Man Utd, Liverpool, City, Chelsea and Arsenal in the space of six league games.

McNeil again for 2-1. The mean expectation here is still a 3-2 defeat but Palace should have been out of sight by half time and will be kicking themselves for ending up in this position.

Brilliant equaliser from McNeil.

First leg ️

I'd hoped for a better response following the takeover news this week than "there's not long left for us to break the record for the worst performance yet of the Moshiri era so let's go for it today lads". Fucking shite. If we can't get a result here then surely the manager has to be on his last legs. We're not a good team but we shouldn't be only getting 1 point from six games when we've played Bournemouth, Leicester and Palace.

£10 > £19.60

It's hard to believe that this episode could become any more tedious but it has. I don't trust the Premier League at all to do what needs to be done when it comes to Manchester City. If they couldn't get Leicester because of a literally ridiculous technicality, then I fully expect Man City, who have more expensive lawyers and have been allowed years to prepare for this case, to find a way out of serious punishment. And even if the Premier League could get them bang to rights, I fully expect them to bottle the punishment based on how the Super League fiasco was (not) handled. On a more general level, I'm absolutely fed up now of needing to self-study a law degree and an accounting degree in order to keep track of and discuss the main stories surrounding English football. I know I probably feel that more than most after the exhausting process of Everton's PSR process last season but it really isn't what football should be. I'm sure there's a way to run PSR or something similar in English football without it descending into the farce of Everton's multiple charges in one season for different time periods, the appeals panel slashing the first punishment almost in half, Man City's 115 charges taking this long to deal with, Leicester getting off on a stupid loophole and Chelsea getting around PSR by selling hotels to their own owner's companies. The people in charge of the Premier League are over-promoted clowns. The sooner there's an independent regulator the better.

We really need to be winning this. Palace will be thinking the same of course. Goodison should be refreshed and behind the team. Hopefully if we suffer a setback the whole team/stadium doesn't go instantly toxic. We've got enough about our current squad to stay in the league but you can't afford to get no wins from Bournemouth and Palace at home and Leicester away if you don't want to end up in a real scrap. Hopefully Dyche gets his head screwed on as well now that he isn't basically untouchable once the new owners come in.

Yeah I can imagine. I wouldn't have thought we'd have that problem ourselves though. We don't exactly have many "club legends" which are ever likely to manage us. Duncan Ferguson is managing in the second tier in Scotland after failing at Forest Green and Tim Cahill has chosen to pursue a career tarting himself to the Qataris over management. David Unsworth I'm not even aware of anymore. If Arteta started to lose his way at Arsenal and started tumbling down the ladder then maybe but he's not beloved of the fanbase like De Rossi at Roma. Everton fans aren't shy about cutting loose an under-performing manager regardless of how popular. Nobody really wanted Duncan Ferguson appointed permanently after either of his interim periods and everyone wanted Lampard out despite him being very popular on a personal level. I'm happy for owners to be cut-throat although I hope they don't act in a manner totally deaf to the fanbase. The best example of that at Everton was when Moshiri appointed Benitez as manager. Just a terrible appointment of a manager whose merits were lacking at that point in his career regardless of his history with Liverpool, that was always going to get ugly with the fanbase at the first sign of trouble.

Roma were only half-filling their stadium before Friedkin took over and are now back to selling every ticket. They've won the Conference League and made the Europa League final in that era as well. I'm no expert and I'm not going to go believing Friedkin will be perfect and turn us into world beaters overnight but even if they've got decent nous and little more, that's a colossal improvement on what Everton fans have had to put up with for literally 30 years. Moshiri has ended up selling the club for almost nothing and walks away having made a £750m loss or something close. Everton's debt problems are decimated by this deal. The £200m we owed to The Friedkin Group is now irrelevant, the £225m debt we owed to Right and Media Funding which was costing us £30m interest per year is being paid off. They've reached an agreement with 777/Leadenhall over the money owed to 777 which was a sticking point previously. The expenses of building the new stadium will go away before Christmas. This is a huge deal for the football club before you even get into assessing how good they'll be at football operations. Moving into the new stadium will transform the balance sheets as well next season. Sponsorship and commercial deals have already started rolling in over the past couple of months and we still have a naming rights deal to make for the new ground as well. And I can state with absolute certainty that they'll be better at football operations than Bill Kenwright and Farhad Moshiri have been. I've been worried for years that relegation would ruin Everton FC in their hands and we'd be gone for a long time. With the circus finally moving out of town, I actually think we could take it on the chin and rebuild effectively. Not that I want that to happen but seeing an ownership with a disastrous track record leaving the club finally gives you hope again that you'll be able to be proud of your football club on the pitch again at some point in your lifetime.

I don't know about a ban but I do at least think we should all agree to fall on the "what a nobhead he is" side of the argument rather than the "haha that was well funny what a maverick" side that I saw doing the rounds online immediately after the match.

To be fair, throwing a ball at someone's head unprovoked is more aggressive than most things players get booked for.

Yeah though apparently they may be braced for an Arab bid to take Roma off them. They've done a lot of good there by the sounds of it.

It sounds like this is actually "it" this time, at long last. A lot of damage to undo first but the amount of equity they're reportedly putting into the club should go some way to dealing with the debt problems which have strangled our cash flow in recent years. Pretty funny to be honest how John Textor sent Mangala our way when he was due to join Fiorentina, and tried to push Nuamah in our direction too, and he's not even going to end up owning the club. Nobody has a crystal ball but the Friedkin Group seem to be a much better proposition than John Textor. The only thing I don't like is that I've already seen a rumour that they fancy Southgate as an option if they remove Dyche .

Oh my god how unlikeable can you actually get?

The latest twist. It's not Moshiri . It's not Textor . Multi-club ownership model .

Rodri literally went down holding his face 5 seconds into the game in an attempt to get Havertz sent off. City can't have any complaints about other teams being snide, time wasting, using dirty tactics. They're such an absolutely odious team. They're just like prime Man Utd the way they surround the referee and scream in the officials' faces with no repercussions. Haaland is an absolute bellend as well squaring up to everyone he can get his hands on. People on social media thinking he's "funny" for mouthing "who are you" at that Arsenal youngster and chucking the ball at Gabriel's head I just can't understand. Yeah maybe you'd love it if he was your player but I see neutrals rimming him for it. He's just a nobhead. Shame Arsenal couldn't see that out.

Saturday 28th September, 2024 Motherwell 1-1 St Mirren Oxford 0-2 Burnley Bologna 1-2 Atalanta, 19.45 Monaco 1-0 Montpellier, 20.00 Sunday 29th September, 2024 New York RB 3-1 New York City FC, 00.30 Aston Villa Women 2-2 Tottenham Women, 16.30 AZ Alkmaar 2-0 Utrecht, 19.00 Atletico Madrid 1-1 Real Madrid, 20.00 Sao Paulo 1-0 Corinthians, 20.00 Benfica 4-0 Gil Vicente, 20.30

️️

Terrible race.