We're back to diagnose what went wrong (and right) against Luton, preview Everton's game against Bournemouth and discuss yet another VAR fiasco for Howard Webb to deal with.
It sounds like it's a group of mates talking down the pub offside Ollie. Yeah, cheers, mate. Thanks for that. Get another pint away from the bar. I'm just going for a slash. Thanks very much.
Austin:Welcome to episode 64 of the Blues Brothers Everton podcast. I'm Austin, could be back in the chair. Andy and Adam are here. Ben is not here, but he's got a good excuse. So big congratulations to Ben and his wife, ellen, who had their first, first child on Saturday Just gone. The poor bastard was born on a day Everton lost, but it's good, but like he got used to that early.
Austin:We talked about this a lot before, but it is like I'm always thinking. This week I'm going to work out Like what portion of Saturdays, if this kid lives to be 100, let's say, which is probably not unrealistic, hopefully what portion of Saturdays of his Saturdays are likely to be ruined If Everton play a game 70 percent of all weekends for the rest of his life and lose half of them? It's like thousands and thousands of moments of disappointment that he's being set up for by being born an Evertonian Right. And how it's awful, it's cruelty. But what can you do? So congratulations, ben, adam, how you doing? I'm going to go to Andy first, because Adam's still eating a pizza, so I'm going to let you finish that before you inflict.
Adam:You inflict domestication. I will start my third slice.
Austin:There you go. Your chewing sounds on all listeners. Andy, how you doing.
Andy:Hi Austin, I'm good, thank you. Yeah, I had my tea. I haven't slept with. A couple of sausage rolls were dispatched about half an hour ago, so I'm all good. I'm currently on holiday in North Wales in our caravan. I'm sat at one end of it talking to you guys and my wife, marie, is somewhere at the other end. I can't actually see.
Austin:You say that like the caravan is so large that she could disappear into the distance.
Andy:She, I've got, I've got sort of part of the sort of part of a wardrobe in front of me, so, and a toilet, so always, she's, she's on the bed. I can just, I can just see it.
Austin:You paint a beautiful, vivid picture of domestic bliss. Have you watched any of the Welcome to Wrexham documentary which I think is on Disney. Plus in the UK.
Andy:Yeah, we were a bit not for the first time which sort of series that have entered the modern zeitgeist. I got into them a month later than everybody else. I've watched about now or 10 episodes and it's really good and both Marie and I do like it because there's there's stuff in it obviously for the football fan, but there's enough other in information and things about different, different subjects and different contexts in it as well to appeal to people like Marie, who she enjoys it as well, for the slightly less football or in terms of things. But yeah, as a series it's, it's, it's really really good.
Austin:Yeah, I really enjoy it. I like I was thinking because you're, you're near, real, right, am I making that up? That's right, yes, yeah, and I, you know I love like watching, like Ryan Gosling go, we've got this really important game against you know, more come, you know it's so it's so incongruous I don't know.
Andy:Did you say? Did you say Ryan Gosling? Then I did.
Austin:I don't know those two are just changing my mind. They really are. I can't. They're the same person. They may be the same person. Who can?
Andy:have the ever started a film together.
Austin:I bet not yeah.
Andy:So I'm DB.
Adam:Maybe you need a notebook to to know, to get the difference between the two.
Austin:No, no, no, I mean it's a bit niche. I sort of get it, but like it's a bit niche I would say the only thing I can say. Well and.
Adam:Yes, the only one I can say. Yeah, I mean, I didn't know, I didn't know it's.
Andy:I didn't know. It started in the film of called Notebook, which is why that joke sailed.
Austin:I think it's called the notebook, oh, ok, yeah, it's not very good, I wouldn't watch it. All right, so we've done Wales with movies, adam, how you doing.
Adam:I'm good, yeah, I'm good, thank you as the pizza and yeah, it's tasty and you know, roughly 60 percent finished, so I will.
Austin:I will Because it's a pizza, you should be able to visually estimate that percentage quite accurately. Yeah, like you're eating a pie chart. It's one of the great things about pizza is it's its own. It's its own performance indicator.
Adam:Yeah, can you. I won't steal your thunder, so you can take this time now to tell me listeners about the, the fact you should.
Austin:Austin's rule of pizza. Yeah, because you should always order the largest pizza because of pie squared. So a pizza. That is like, if you get an eight inch, an eight inch pizza and a 12 inch pizza, you would say, well, the 12, how big, much bigger is the 12 inch pizza? You would say it's 50 percent bigger. It's not, it's. It's more than twice as large, but it won't be priced twice as much. It'd be priced incrementally. Yeah, so you get pie squared, more pizza. So always order the biggest pizza, always the listener. Thanks, adam.
Adam:And the taxi, or pizza taxi, yes, and you piece taxi.
Austin:Yeah, yeah, he's the invention of my, my good friend, dave McCobb, who now has a very prominent job. He's the head of campaigns for the Liberal Democrats. So he's like on TV now. So next time you feel it, he was. It was in the garden this week. If you ever see Dave a guy called Dave McCobb who talked on TV talking about, you know, political stuff.
Austin:I want you to remember this story that Dave was once out on a night out in Hull with some friends and he. They went, they went to a kebab place and he was ordering a kebab and then, like it was a place he knew and had ordered a delivery from before and he had a bread and wave of genius. He said to the guy they were going to get a cab home. But they were like I'm not sure how we're going to get this before Uber, how are we going to get a cab after weight? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he goes to the guy behind the counter. He gives you deliver to like any, gives us a dress and he goes yeah, because can you deliver this order there? Can we come with you? And they were like he basically won with logic. So I can't see why not. So that's how he did. So the delivery got drove, drove them home with their car because they did free delivery. So it was Reminds us, andy, you might remember this because you were around at the time there's a, there's a Domino's pizza Do an ad in the US. Now it was a covert thing where they could do delivery to your car so you would order on the app and you could pull up and they would bring it out to you. Right, mcdonald's do this. Our dad invented that 30 years ago In an argument at a Domino's pizza place, because I remember he and he went, we were in and I'm on holiday and we went to a Domino's pizza place and order piece in the guy.
Austin:We. We walked in, the door was open and the guy said I'm sorry, what clothes. We're only doing delivery now. And, dad, when can you deliver to that car over there? And they looked like all right. So we ordered, paid, sat in the car and ten minutes later they brought the pizza out. So there you go. Domino's will take, will take a check for that idea that you could stole from us. All right, shall we talk about Everton.
Andy:Unfortunately, the time has come. We're going to have to.
Austin:And you went to the Loot and Game. Am I right in saying this?
Andy:You, I did go to the game.
Austin:Yes, I'll start with you. Tell us about. I watched it, paul. I think Adam did you watch it. You watch the highlights? Adam's eating pizza again.
Adam:Dear listeners, this is swimmingly well. That's why you started with Andrew. I thought it was safe to.
Austin:You know, I think, I think, I think it's when you when you record the podcast. I think it's a general rule, but I'm going to state it just for clarity that you should be available to speak. So I just say that expectation has not been fully communicated.
Adam:I mean before we started record, before we start recording, I said I'm afraid my pizza is like no, you never did that.
Austin:You stated I am going to eat my pizza and I believe you're an adult. You do what you want.
Andy:Did you ever check?
Austin:No, but like you, know, you know, you know. Anyway, adam, we'll come back to you.
Adam:No, no, my pizza has been disrupted. I might as well answer the question. Yeah, no, I did not. And what any of this? I was walking back to look at my phone and then I saw we were two no down and nearly threw my phone at a wall.
Austin:So we all fell out, All right. So, Andy, you go first Tell us you were there. Was it like? What was the atmosphere like? What do you think of the we got? Well, I want to talk a little bit about team selection. That's been a debate, but we'll get. We should. We'll get to that.
Andy:But the you know what was the vibe inside the stadium for those who weren't there, Well, prior to the game, the vibe amongst the other supporters, as far as I could tell, was the same as mine. Namely, we all went into the game fully expecting a victory. I went to the game last weekend with as much confidence that we'd win a game that I'd had for a very long period of time, so therefore, it was incredibly disappointing to lose that football match. First of all, luton Town did just. Yeah, they won the game. Fair play to them for that.
Andy:But they didn't do anything outside the parameters of what I expected them to do. They're a very functional side, a very limited side. Manchester City, when they played them, could score 12 or 14 goals if they want to, because they gave us so much space in the middle of the park and in the final third that we were just unable to exploit. And they've got one way of playing with long balls and play for set pieces, and it's to our detriment that we just couldn't handle it. I mean, prior to them scoring, they had two headers one over the bar, then one was deflected over the bar. That led to the corner that ultimately led to the first goal and the second goal, the defensively, it's one of the poorest goals I've seen any team concede at the top level for some years. Because I called it as soon as the frequent is taken. You look over to the far post and I called it out loud just before the guy received the ball and I was like you know what's going on here? They've literally got a three man from a dead ball and it was a good finish. But the defensively we were very poor and we thought we'd turn the corner in the Brentford and Aston Villa games where we'd finally scored some goals and converted some of the chances.
Andy:Unfortunately, those early season failings came back to haunt us because our ex G in the lute game, I think, was 2.58. So we had some guilt edge chances better when Ghana especially had two headers that they should have buried and unfortunately didn't take them. And I don't think the performance by us was quite as bad as what some other commentators and reporters have said and I certainly don't believe that Luton deserve to win the game, like some other people have said. But we create.
Andy:It's the old failing that we've alluded to so many times already this season. We just didn't convert chances. We could have been three in a lup in that game, you know. Two or three shots went only just past the far post. Another day one or two of them goes in and it's a completely different game. But as always in football, if you don't take your chances then you run the risk of the other team scoring up the other end. But yeah, having gone all that way, first game of the season, it was extremely disappointing to lose, because I never thought in a month of Sundays that that was the sort of game that we wouldn't get three points from.
Austin:Yeah, and I think am I right in saying, andy, that Luton had two shots on target in that game.
Andy:That's correct.
Austin:Yes, yeah, there's an element to it. I wasn't there but I watched the whole thing for better or worse. There's an element to which you, how I want to say you're unlucky because it was on us to score the chances that we had to put the chance we had in the back of the name, which we found to do, and that's not lucky, it was poor finishing. If you're playing a team where every time they hit the ball on target goes in, that's a bit unlucky. You know, like you, you play that game again and you get a different outcome. They don't score at all, right, so there's a little bit of that. Because I don't know if they created a ton of other great opportunities. I agree with the goals we conceded with defensively poor. I don't think Pickford could have done anything about them, but the like, the there is a bit of like. You know, the fundamentals, I agree, were not as bad as the result may have implied. Adam, as you finish that last mouthful to delicious pizza, and I'll ask you very slowly One of the things that was, I think, controversial with a lot of evertonians was the reversion back to playing James Garner on the right, and I love your view on that.
Austin:I mean, I sort of know what your view on that is, but maybe I'll ask you more interesting question why do you think Sean died and did that? And also, it'd be interesting to read how it sort of evolved through the game, with us ending up with a four four, to which I felt and I know you're interesting your view on this as well like I felt we actually were at our worst when we ended up with two strikers on the pitch. We seem to have no idea how to create a chance, which we done pretty consistently up until that point. But, adam Ston, with you, what do you think about kind of the team selection and tactical approach that you think was as bad?
Adam:for that game. I think it was disappointing when the line up, when, when I saw the lineup, because I think in the previous podcast I made the point that I would have liked to have seen a midfield three of an honor to Corey and James Garner, because, and then with and more to not, not not so much that you've got James Garner's creativity inside, but you've got to be attacking wingers. You know you're going to have like Dan Jumer on one side and McNeil on the other and you know Jack Harrison, jack Harrison on the bench, you know, working his way back to fitness and like you know you can. On paper that's a, you know a different, you know a difficult thing to to measure, but on paper that Luther at home is, you know, everyone's easiest game of the season. It's disappointing to see that he stayed with that midfield three, which I don't think is necessary, was necessary and you can take it like in that sense, where you know you think that they're sort of that, they lack creativity, but what I imagine you know, you know. So at whatever, to get an answer out, get an answer as to why what you probably say, I would guess, would be not so much that he likes James Garner on the right. I think, like Ben said in the podcast last week, he likes that midfield three and the way they they're very, very energetic and they can win the ball high up and he likes to play decor a, you know, quite high, quite high, and he likes that a little bit of defensive solidity with with gay. And so he said that it's it's lute, it's lute at home and it was just disappointing. But you know we went to Brentford with the same. You know you went to Brentford one through one with the same sort of setup. And I'm a bit of a segue into my next, my next point you know it didn't hamstring us in terms of like, creating chances. So you can say like it it was a cause of us losing, but it wasn't. I think it was disappointing at the time but there was no in the game. There's no justification for why that was a bad idea because the game didn't pan out that way. And Andrew's obviously alluded to the, the xg, the lute in game.
Adam:But if you actually look at Everton's xg and x and xg and expected points, we have the largest difference between our expected number of goals and our expected number of an actual number of goals and the same for our expected number of points and actual points. So I mean, just for the reasons of clarity I can read them out. So our xg, our xg is 14.4 and the number of goals we've actually scored is six. And our expected number of goals actually puts us. If I just sort of very, very quickly look here, our expected number of goals is actually higher than man cities expected number of goals and spurs and arsenals. Oh, sorry, no, no, it's not, it's not it's, but it is higher, sorry, it's higher than, like, villas and West Ham's, who are fifth and seventh respectively, and it's only slightly less, one less than the arsenal and spurs. And that's the biggest difference between any, any team. And the exact same for our number of points where we've got obviously got, we've got four points and we're, and our xg would give us an expected points total of 11.63. And that puts, you know, that would put us in ninth behind in front of Crystal Palace. So xg is probably the best barometer in terms of like, how your team is performing in a in attack minded sense.
Adam:And so the problem is not, as the looting game showed, and as the fallen game showed, as the wolf game showed, it's not taking, it's not creating the chances which you know we had real trouble with last season. It's, you know, it's putting them away and the you know the stats back that up. So it's, we saw against Brentford where we would. You know, we took our chances and we got to deserve victory there. And you know, these results, these results will, these results will come and looting was really, really disappointing. No one's going to get away from that. But it's like they're going to win event. They're going to win a game eventually. They were good, they were going to win at some point and we went to Brentford and went away and you wouldn't say anyone could have expected, expected that. So you know, little bit of swings and roundabouts there. So and it just obviously makes it makes Bournemouth just a much, much, a much bigger game.
Austin:Yeah, it's a really good point at that. Like people got hung up and I got hung up on the selection point because it showed a lack of ambition, and I assume you're right. I feel you're right Like he did it because it worked the last time and we'd had a lead cup game in between, but the last league game he plays a certain way, he plays the same way. It kind of makes sense and it does show a lack of ambition in a way. But you're right, it didn't. We didn't lose the game because we didn't create chances. We lost the game because we didn't score them and we can see two relatively soft goals, neither of which would have been changed by playing Garner in the middle, and so it's a good.
Austin:There's a real lesson going on here about the difference between like you know an outcome. You know, just because you get a bad outcome doesn't mean you will everything you did was wrong. Yeah, there's a. It's frustrating. I sounded a bit like Roberto Martinez, but like, if you look at the underlying, you know the performance as I saw it, and then the stats. It's actually not that bad, andy. You know, based on what you've been there, what anything else sort of is how that kind of game of all the changes we made and how we responded to go and being behind. Any more thoughts from you on that.
Andy:Yeah, I mean Garner was much better once he started playing in central midfield and he he bossed that area of the pitch for a good portion of the second half. So where possible, a space needs to be found for him in in midfield in games going forward. And they weren't both on the pitch together for a very long period of time but Calvert Lewin and Beto didn't immediately look like they were going to be able to sort of dovetail together. There was one incident when Calvert Lewin got got free down the right and he really should have squared it to better, but instead had a shot from a narrow angle that went into the side netting. So he should have, he should have squared it to a teammate for that one.
Andy:And lastly, garner Gay needs to be banned from shooting because in the first half had a shot, you know, but ball was bouncing nice height, 20 yards out, and you could see the expectation rise in the ground oh, there's a player that's going to be able to have a shot here. And then almost instantly that bubble was burst when we all realized it was Garner Gay and yeah, let him be hold of all flies up into the park, stand. So that man should be banned from shooting a goal.
Adam:Well, because he's kind of like some other guys used to fire his players, didn't he? If they used to outside the box and like not score?
Austin:And when he was at Bolton.
Adam:Yeah, I just about sorry. I've said that for ages. Okay, like I don't know how you can get to a point when you play professional football, and not just professional football, but you play for Paris and your man. For like two seasons We've like seen it behind Messi, neymar and Mbappe. They must have been kissing themselves in training, Like how can you be so bad at shooting when it's striking a ball cleanly at something that's 21 feet wide?
Austin:And it's not like how is shooting different to kicking a football in a particular direction? You know it's a which he can presumably do competently. No, it's ridiculous. The other things funny actually did fight. You find players whether they scored or not, because his point, which he's right about, is, even if you score, still the wrong decision, which sounds perverse. But overall, if no one shot from outside the box, they'd score more goals over the season. So, as an example, like you're focusing on the process, not the process.
Adam:But he was the first one to bring in the you know, working with averages and stuff and bringing stats, which is obviously why he played for set pieces and winning the ball high up the pitch.
Andy:Yeah and just yeah. And one of the points about midfield for that game is there was Luton was so long ball that a large part for large parts of it Everton didn't need a midfield because Luton would just bypass in it.
Austin:Yeah, I mean we're going to report team and I wouldn't say they got lucky. I mean they took their chances and credit to them.
Andy:But it's one of those games. If you played it 10 times, we probably win six of them. There's two or three draws and they win one. It's one of those, and Saturday, unfortunately, was the one where they score with their two attempts on target.
Austin:Yeah, um, in my plan for the show, which is my extensive, detailed pre-ballot points that we always have, I put Brent for preview, but I think I met Bournemouth. Yeah yeah, we would come to a preview.
Adam:I guess whenever there's what March time or something.
Austin:It would be it would be premature. Well, maybe I met a preview of the one we just played, which would be easy. I could do that with stunning accuracy. Anything else on Luton before we want to, before we move on to thinking about the future and leaving that little horror show behind us.
Adam:Now pick everything.
Austin:No, not for me.
Austin:All right let's talk about the Brent Bournemouth game. Fuck me, bournemouth game. The these, these guys have been a bit of a bogey team for us in the last kind of a few seasons, but home and away, and I can't really get a handle. I paid half attention to Bournemouth because I kind of like them as a club and I follow a couple of their fan accounts on YouTube and stuff. So there's, I'll put a shout out to a couple of those in the show notes because they're really good, but I don't have real sense of how they've been this year. You know, I've seen their results, obviously, but I haven't watched any of their games. I'm not sure what to expect. Adam, start with you. What are you thinking in terms of how, ever since the first game, like, what kind of challenge Bournemouth are going to offer?
Adam:I'll just talk about Bournemouth To start with. Bournemouth is again that worries me because you know they are. They are winless so far this season. So you know they've played, play seven and drawn and drawn three in the point behind us. So, yeah, they've obviously got rid of Gary O'Neill, which surprised pretty much everyone, including, I imagine, gary O'Neill in the summer. And then they brought in the you know a great, rare Valorant O'Boss, who did a really good job. Obviously they have a vision of how they want, you know, the team to play.
Adam:In there, you know, possibly like looking at some sort of, you know, brighton and Brentford model, where you know you try and marry up a philosophy with a, with the type of manager and his style of play. I imagine that's the sort of thought process. But it's safe to say you know it's not really worked for them so far. You know they've conceded the third highest number of goals in the Premier League this season, at 15, which is three more than others. So in the in a from that point of view, and you marry that up with our high chance creation on paper in big fat, capital letters, you know we should be looking at this game and going. You know this is a really good chance at three points. But we all know, you know there's no team you'd rather play when you're winless than Everton and, as you correctly say, austin, you know he's it's they're a bogey team. But I said, I said in the preview to the to the looting game that I would hope that we go in there, you know, with confidence, create and create chances and you know, hopefully, the difference between this game is why we won the Brentford game and not looting game, which is just taking those chances and putting them, putting them to the soul, Because then there are, there are a team that I think will will stay up, that I think will probably, you know, or at least you know, come very close to to stay up if they don't stay up.
Adam:Because I think they're a good team and you know I share similar likeness of Borma, I think they're a nice, you know a good club with. You know they do things in the right way and and yeah, but I think we should be looking at that and expecting, expecting three points and hopefully, in terms of you know, a formation, I would like to see Garner in the middle, you know, albeit and I said before about you know, he not necessarily being a problem with how it turned out. I just think I like Garner, james Garner, that is in the middle. I think he's a lot more creative and offers more than he does out wide. And you know we should.
Adam:I would hope that we would go into that game with, you know, two genuine, two genuine wingers out wide in Dan Juever and McNeil. And then you've got the nice headache of you know who do you start up for, which I imagine will be, will be Calvert Lumin, if he's, if he's still, which he still fits, obviously. We've not heard that he's, you know, lost a foot or, you know, snapped his patella tendon in training this week. So, yeah, nervous because you know, as I said, they are winless and lutein at home, bomb at home. People were looking and saying, you know, we should be looking at six points there and we're looking in the prospect of only three.
Austin:Yeah, it's fills me with some, some more feelings, Andy. How are you feeling about it?
Andy:Yeah, I'd agree with everything Adam said there. Really, I share his trepidation about this game because I, dan and I were talking prior to the lutein game and saying that six points had to be the expectation. Now it's absolutely got obviously going to be a maximum of three. Yeah, bournemouth are a reasonably well run club. They're trying to grow organically. They're trying to have a sort of bit of a hybrid model. In many ways I think they're not. They're not. On the one hand, they're not spending money. You know, hand over fist. They're trying to, you know, get players in for, you know, relatively, relatively inexpensively. On the other hand, they're not afraid to spend money either. When, when, when. When required, I think was was Dominic Serranchi, about £20 million, something like that, when they bought him that season of the season before.
Adam:He bought yeah, they bought him about. It was about two, three years ago and it was. He came a bit of a, a bit of a joke, because he didn't score he didn't score for ages, did he? He scored for about like 700 games. Yeah, but he's, but he's doing, he's doing quite well this season, to be fair. I think he's got. I think he's got at least he's got at least two and he looks quite a good, you know a good, a good player for them at the end.
Andy:Yeah, yeah, because what worries me is this is, I think, a more difficult game. Well, it is a more difficult game than than than the Luton game, because Bournemouth are obviously a small, small club in terms of you know, sort of stadium size and fan base and things, but they've been established in the Premier League now for a few years and we obviously can't ignore the fact that, whilst we beat them 1-0 famously at the end of last season, they spanked us 4-0 in the league just prior to the World Cup break down at their place last season, and then the four days after, or four days before, I forget, which they also knocked us out the league cup by the same score line, I think.
Austin:So yeah absolutely so.
Andy:We can't afford to take them lightly at all, and I mean but in many ways, will it be easier for me? Obviously, I'm not saying that Dyson is assistants and the club didn't do their their homework on Luton, but is it easier to play a team like Bournemouth? That you already know? You've got a bit more of an idea what to expect. Maybe it is, I don't know, but this, this is going to be a more difficult game than the Luton game was, and we've we need to get three points out of it. It's as simple as that.
Andy:In terms of who should play, I would, I'd like to see, I'd like to see Patterson right back. I know he's got his critics, but I've not, and I've not personally seen enough of him to maybe make a judgment, but I'd like to see Patterson right back. I'd like to see James Garner in midfield I've already said that and I'd like to see Calvert-Lewin start with Beto coming off the bench, but I'd be reluctant to play them together because that didn't go so well against Luton, albeit for a relatively short period of time.
Austin:Interesting point you make, andy, about the homework point, because I'm sure Sean Dice is a professional and thorough manager. I'm sure he and his staff did all the homework. I wonder to what extent you do see this unfamiliarity play, though, often with promoted clubs where, in particular, individual, even individual players who can get away with stuff. I wonder how diligent the players are at doing that kind of work, because I'm sure a certain degree to which it's done to them and they're given stuff. But how much time are they spending watching these teams, getting to know their opponents, understanding their one-on-ones versus? They've played the same guy for the last five seasons. They know exactly what he does and doesn't do, and I can imagine that's probably part of it. All right, so we'll wrap up the Everton bit of this pod with some predictions. Adam prediction for Bournemouth on Saturday.
Adam:Oh God, I'm afraid I mean I.
Andy:Feel free to ask God if you like.
Austin:It's good we've been to not here, but someone's fulfilling that role. I like it. Please carry on.
Adam:I mean I asked, I stated last time, you know, be a quite comfortable winner for us against Luton at home. I mean I said 2-0-1. So I'm going it only makes sense, I'm going to go 2-0 to Everton because we're going to win and I'm an optimist.
Austin:You know if it was like If the fact that we're shitting predicting what's going to happen in football games only just occurred to you in episode 64,. I would say you haven't been playing attention, because I've said I'm also like in danger of.
Adam:I'd love to see the difference in the R expected, our actual number of points accumulated and how many times I've said that we won.
Austin:Oh exactly.
Andy:We've touched on.
Adam:Lawrence. Did you ever see that thing with Mark Lawrence when he did the? Oh, yeah, yeah, Liverpool would win the league every season. Yeah Well, he never predicted them to lose in about Something like three seasons. He said that they'd be on poor form, like lost the last three, going to, like you know, a city away, united away. I think it's going to be time that Liverpool turn their seat. They're going to end their bad form and they're going to scrap their way to a 1-1 draw. Come on, mark.
Austin:I've seen people like predict like, because actually Lawrence's predictions overall are actually quite good if you look at it. I've seen people in the past who look at like how many points he's actually predicted. We look away, it's actually ludicrous numbers of points, more than any. It's like 120 points. It is absolutely absurd numbers.
Adam:That's important, that is impossible.
Austin:You can't get 120 points in every level 114, mark. So, andy, what's your prediction?
Andy:I will go with a 1-0 Everton win, with a you know repeat of the game at the end of last season which kept us up, because I think if we keep creating this many chances Keith having XGs it well in excessive two per game At some point we will start to convert them on a more consistent basis. So I think we will win the game 1-0.
Austin:I love the optimism. I'm going to make a different kind of prediction, because it's just hosts privilege to change the question. I'm going to predict that our number of goals scored will be too less than whatever our XG is.
Adam:We lose or draw, who the hell knows, but we'll once again create a bunch of chances and not scare school men.
Austin:All right, that's the ever some bit done. We've spent the last few minutes talking about Va now because we just felt like it was an under discussed topic right now. Like who is going to look at Va and I don't look. I just think this is hilarious.
Austin:It validates you know I'm not going to go on about this because I talk about it too much but you know one of my games, the conclusion a long time ago that English football, particularly the Premier League, was just suffered from a complete delusion about the quality of its officials. And you know this is all sort of you know, coming out in the wash now. So I think it's just underlined the absolute, just incompetence. There's a friend of mine I was saying this to Ben last night there's a friend of mine in New York Hello, kev McGraw I know he listens sometimes who is convinced I don't think I'm being unfair here Genuinely believes that the Premier League is rigged, and you know that Va is a mechanism for doing that. So the one good thing I will say about this is it takes that question off the table, because these people couldn't rig a tennis net.
Andy:Never mind a league, I mean.
Austin:I'm sure everyone's listening to the audio right now. It is the one of the most embarrassing. I was cringing listening to it so, and it's obviously very funny. It happened to the football, because I understand why they're upset, but it is very funny. So, andy, I'll ask you this what would you do if you were Howard wet now? What would you do? We know what he said they're going to do and then, in my view, pissing around the edges of a process and saying, oh, we're going to make people the bar in the assistant bar could have talked to each other before they agree and decision. It's like, oh great, so you, you're so worried that they may not do that. You have to make it a bullet point on a word document. You know it's ridiculous in my view, but what would you honestly do with the bar in this situation if you were in that position and had power to change the rules? However, you wanted.
Andy:The first thing that can be done in the short term is improve the communication between the on field officials and the bar officials, and when I see improve, I mean standardize the method of communication. There was a great article about this in yesterday's Times, about Matt Dickinson, where he was comparing the bar in the Liverpool Tottenham game to the air traffic control audio of when Chelsea Sullenberger realized he couldn't get his plane back to an airport and was going to have to ditch it on the Hudson River, and he was completely calm all throughout that process.
Andy:This is when he's you know flying a, you know 100 and whatever tonne air 187 people, with 187 people in it, knowing that he's going to have to put it down on water, which he obviously is famous which has never been done which has never been done, and he is the first dude to actually successfully do it. So just to run that experiment in real time.
Andy:Yeah, but all throughout that he's having to make split second decisions in the most incredibly, you know strenuous and difficult circumstances. Yet his communication and the audios on YouTube you can search for it and look for it, and I'd urge you to do so because it's clear and it's crisp and it's concise. And the reason, of course, is because it's a standardized method of communicating in, you know, between aircraft and air traffic control all over the world. And compare it to VAR in England, where it sounds like it's a group of mates talking down the pub offside Ollie, yeah, cheers, mate. Thanks for that.
Andy:Get another pint of water in the bar. I'm just going for a slash. Thanks very much. It's ridiculous. So in the short term, if he's not done it already, howard Webb should be standardized in communication and above all else, because the one of them. There are many damn things about that audio, but the most obvious one for me is at no point was the on-field decision of offside actually mentioned anywhere. So the VAR, at no point. As far as I could tell, they clearly weren't aware of the on-field decision because they thought it was the opposite to what had actually happened. So they did show.
Andy:Sorry, go ahead.
Austin:Sorry.
Andy:So the goal goes in the assistance. Who's all going to this flag off should be saying I've given offside, you know, can that be checked? And then that's your starting point then. So at least the VAR then actually know the decision they're supposed to be checking which sounds basic, but they didn't even know that.
Austin:Now the guy did say if you basically move back to the transcript, the assistant who's given the offside says go and put going back for the offside mate. That's him communication. But you're right, it's that, that informality.
Andy:Yeah.
Austin:It's a, but they didn't hear it. I mean, they obviously had literally heard it but they didn't clock what it meant, which obviously they should have done. But you're right, there's like there should be absolute clarity of communications. The silly thing is a great reference and I've disappeared out of rabbit hole of that incident over the years Like I don't know. And there's two, there's two brilliant things. One I'll say the series one first and then a funny one underlines your point handy about clarity of communication protocol. Sully Sohlenberg and his co pilot, Mike, someone I can't remember, who are like talking and I just doing all this stuff in 90 seconds, they do things. They met that morning for the first time ever.
Austin:They never, flown before ever. So, but they're two people who were trained to do things in a certain way. So when they were in that situation it was absolute clockwork Because they and they didn't. They had no working relationship at all, but they went into it. The other thing is funny. I do you right, do you urge people to? There's two bits of that in retrospect, with everyone being okay.
Austin:There's two bits of the audio that are quite funny. Everyone is about 20 seconds before they hit the water. Sully turns to his copilot and goes. Got any ideas, which he does. The guy goes Nope, and then when they land they hit the water and the life and it stops. And then they almost, almost at the same time turned to each other and go. That wasn't as bad as I thought. So like it's like ice fucking cold Minds me as well. So I'm off on one now, but I promise I'll come back to football.
Austin:You listen to the. You probably all heard the near Armstrong. You know we all heard the sort of one small step, but you obviously all the stuff on with the descent near the eagle has landed and you hear me listen to these. Talking is very, very calm. His pulse when he was doing that descent was 186. He was absolutely shitting himself. He was in a state of hyperbolic panic, but his voice is cool, calm, he's in control, although he's having a panic attack effectively. But he's like control, he's not fighting that, he's just controlling it. So anyway, yes, they are not good. Adam, what would you do if you were held web?
Adam:It seems to me that you know he's I mean the dude's not got any hair anyway, but he is now he's proverbially tearing his, tearing his hair out.
Austin:Because he's tearing it over the people. Yes, yes.
Andy:Or or or other part of his body.
Adam:Yes, it's like how he does, he does. But a flagellation of like, yes.
Andy:Yeah, yeah, the man doesn't need any. Any man's great manscape razors.
Austin:He would wreck it all.
Adam:I wow Um because he's not objectively was a really top. It was a top official, howard Web, and you're right, he's apart from a couple of a couple of examples of you know, good, good, good referees, like you know, michael Oliver and Auntie Taylor, who are the really the only two, and the rest are do not do the the quality of that league justice. And that's the most sort of frustrating thing about all the the number of our cockups there's been. I mean, I don't think there's been a weekend where there hasn't been a significant error and I think I'm I mean, I'm just a mental count I can think of at least four occasions when they've made apologies now to teams, and I think what I would do is what? What?
Adam:So you guys have already suggested, which is, you know, they've got to radically improve the quality and the protocols behind the communication where they just, or all, like you know, robotic in the way that they communicate with each other, because you know this is that you're absolutely right. The pub analogy, andrew, it's like, it's spot on, because they're like they're the way they speak to each other, is so ridiculous and unprofessional. For what is such a serious thing? Where a serious thing, where you're talking about a multi billion pound, but a pound industry, tens of billions. If you take no word, world football a whole and great, best league in the world.
Austin:Adam, don't you ever forget it.
Andy:Exactly, that's that's them.
Austin:I mean, if there's a bigger pile of bullshit in the English language than the Premier League being the best league in the world, I've yet to meet it. Please continue.
Adam:Yeah, I agree, and long term, I mean it's. The problem is it's like we brought in via to improve, improve the decisions that were being made and what has been shown is that it was not the fact that these, these people, needed the needed help because the game was too quick, there was two, there were things that they were missing is the fact that they're actually just not good enough in the first place, and that's been shown in there. The way that they've interpreted, the way that they continually made mistakes and we've seen, you know, we've seen, like you know, bad, like this one shows really bad protocols in terms of the communication, which I'll get back on to in a second. But then you go back to, like the Wolves game. You just think, like the communication there was good, like in terms of how they communicate and, like you know, they were clear in there and what they're reasoning in terms of, like clarity, they didn't speak over each other, but what they said was absolute bullshit. Like they said that, oh, because, because the guy who headed it wasn't the guy, the guy who got taken out wasn't the one who headed it. So that was the logic behind them not giving the penalty. So you've got like that.
Adam:Pop that side of it where you've got people who are just literally thinking that assault is okay in a penalty box because they're not near the ball, completely misunderstanding the rules of the game. You know, see many, many handball decisions. Because they can't, they do clearly do not understand that law. I don't think anybody does. And then now you've got not only just completing competency with the Liverpool Spurs game, but you've got they don't know how to communicate and change things. And the cherry on top of this absolute like cake made of shite was the fact that the dude the dude who points out in that scenario that they've got the decision wrong, was the dude. Only job it is is to hold, is to put the camera, and put the camera on the right and put pause it on the right frame.
Austin:Yeah, and he's like a VCR operator from 1986. Yeah, hang on a minute.
Andy:I think you've just, you've, just, you've just disallowed a goal where you meant to give it and these three professional referees are like yeah, yeah it's like like, like that's seen in scary movie, where I think it's scary movie, where the sort of girls being chased through the house and she gets to a T junction one way safety and the other ways death, and she just like sort of panics and just runs towards death.
Austin:Yeah, and the funny is I mean what my personal highlight on that point and it's right, it's just, it's in back I mean say it's embarrassing as an understanding, there's a bit where this guy saying I'll eat some guy from VAR ops is calling. I mean, if they do calling in, I mean there's no way you had time to dial the phone. Yeah, I don't know why, why, what? Maybe he's like got two cups and some string and he's just in the next room.
Austin:I don't know, but I love that he was calling in his like phone that way, which obviously hasn't done, and they're saying, oh, and then Michael, over the fourth of artificial thinks they're talking to him. So he's like what? Hello, it's like you. Literally you don't even know who's talking to who when there is. It is the most embarrassing thing I have ever heard and I feel so validated by it.
Adam:Yeah, yeah, yeah. On to the communication thing. Like it's amazing that there just isn't a standard sort of way that these things are approached and like this is what we need, this is what you need to say. So you do it, andrew. You say, like the lines been called the, the, so the assistant referee calls the calls of decision. This is the decision that has been made, this is what you need to check. Just standard. Just get rid of that possibility where they don't know what they are necessarily checking. Like I mean, we also don't even cover the foot. Nobody's really covered the fact as well. What the fuck were they? What the fuck were they doing when they were? Like it's your job to watch the game, guys? You mean, you mean paid it's well, you know what it's like.
Austin:You know it's like you know that. That absolutely fucking brilliant Saturday Saturday clip with Chris Kamara where they like, have they? According to our sources, yes, oh yeah, I saw him going off. I thought they were making a sub. It's like your only job is to be like. How did they not notice? I mean, why are they not noticing that aligns was put his flag on?
Adam:Like you've ever seen, like you know police intercepts and all that sort of shows, and they have very clear ways of like when they're in a pursuit. They're going, like they go, they don't say he's turned right, they go right, right, right and they don't go round. They don't go third exit round the roundabout. It's one, two, three off. The third exit, rough, the roundabout, left, left, left. It's like these clear ways of communication where communication is absolutely crucial to to the way that these things are talked about and it's quite clear that those things don't exist. It's possible, and I mean what?
Austin:obviously about no training, no snuck. Like you know, these guys should have had gone through hundreds and hundreds of scenarios where they have to do it, and do it, and do it, and do it until they get it the process right. Every time, clearly, they sat down. They've been to hear some screens, just say what you see.
Austin:You know it is. I mean, everyone at the top to bottom of English football should be like ashamed that they've left. I mean, yeah, bunch of cowboys being charged of refereeing. This is a private company, by the way. This is a private company that does this, that has a contract and, like I can't think of you know another. I mean it's like you know, hiring someone to redo your kitchen. They accidentally demolish your house and then they say, oh well, you know, we're going to get better. Say, no, you blew the fucking house up ticket. It's. It's embarrassing. And I think that the response was like I was angry and amused watching it happen. I was actually angry at the response which is, oh, we're going to put these, we're going to tweak these two or three little things. It's like, no, you've got a bunch of fucking idiots working for you. You need to get rid of some people.
Andy:And bring the one. Yeah, the one simply I would have with Howard Webb is that he's been handed a little bit of a poison challenge.
Andy:I agree, he's created such a micro-reilly, because there's not been anywhere near enough development in terms of top class match officials in England for a good few years.
Andy:It's relied on the same, the same bunch of 20 22 individuals doing the same games and the same teams week in, week out and, to be totally fair to them, they are overworked.
Andy:Because if you look at the appointments each week, as I'm, you know, sad enough to do, some might say it's amazing how some people are refereeing one one on a Saturday, they might be there on a Sunday and then they might be on the fielding on the Saturday.
Andy:And when you add in the number of international games that they're often appointed to although I've got another point about that which I'll come to in a moment as well as other games that they go abroad to do, because Darren England, michael Oliver and Daniel Cook officiated in a league game in the United Arab Emirates on the Thursday, less than 48 hours prior to this debacle happening on the Saturday, so you know, when you add in all and all and they obviously got to go to Ayrson George's Park for, you know, training as well with the other members of the select group match officials, it's been perfectly honest they are being asked to do. I think too much, and it's, it's, it's, it's, it's. You know, mike Riley, you know I don't know idea what he's doing now, but he's got a lot to answer for something else.
Andy:Well, probably is, but he's got a lot to answer for in this, because for years there simply weren't enough officials promoted from, you know, the championship and leagues one and two. And the answer to that question might be, well, maybe they aren't good enough, but there's like 60 people down there. Surely some of them must be good enough to be promoted. And if they're not good enough, well, we've got much bigger problems and and, and you know, we need to find some others. And just on the it's just on the point about I alluded to this in the last pod and we've all mentioned it in this about saying you know that we need better officials.
Andy:Obviously, this is a matchday two of the group stage of the Champions League, europa League and Europa Conference League happening in Europe this week. Out of those dozens of matches, one English crew was appointed. Anthony Taylor was in charge of Porto against Barcelona on Wednesday evening. Now you've got multiple crews from Spain, germany, portugal, france, italy being appointed. You've got officials from Azerbaijan, lithuania, you know. There's two crews from Armenia. There's two Ukrainian crews across all those match appointments, serbia, iceland, you know, I could go on. So the fact that out of all those dozens of dozens of matches, only one English crew was appointed speaks volumes about the standard officials, because as well as Michael Oliver and Anthony Taylor, there are eight other English referees on the FIFA's internationalist. One of them is Darren England, ironically enough. So if he's one of the best ten, well goodness me.
Adam:I think yeah, I tried to. I was going to come draw you back to what you said. So you're saying I mean the greatest respect to Armenia as a country, but are you telling me that that there are? There were more Armenian officials that were chosen for this round of European games than there were English ones in the best team in the world.
Andy:I didn't actually have time to go through and jot down the number of different refereeing groups from each country, but just from looking through the list of appointments on UEFA's website, there were multiple crew, multiple crews from many other countries and there were multiple crews from much smaller and less high profile leagues than England that were appointed.
Austin:Yeah, all you need to know, isn't it?
Adam:You tell us everything you need to know, doesn't it? And yeah, it's back in the day when, before VL came in, a couple of seasons when myself included were sort of pushing for it to be brought in, and you know, I still maintain that I was right for it to be brought in. It's just been brought in badly, but it's it. It's not not remove the talking points that it was meant to have done and, yeah, protect referees and get decisions better and right that the number of that it has, I mean, there's been. You know the negative ones are obviously gonna get a lot more attention than the good ones and you know it's important that. You know everton obviously benefit albeit we lost whatever to benefited from you know VAR Against them against lutein, and yeah, so it is.
Adam:It does work. It does work a lot at the time and the majority of the time that the right decisions are are made, but it's just not enough and the mistakes that are that are made are so Frequent but just so bad as well that it's unfortunately it's undermined. It undermines the fans confidence, players confidence and Everyone's confidence in the system, where it means that, you know, no one really talks about Calvary and being correctly judged on side against lutein because yeah, it's, it's quite, it's invalidated by, you know, by an absolute farce of a decision and Another, another positive decisions will get in that will be completely ignored In the coming weeks because of the in the fallout of this one.
Austin:That kind of room was obvious anyway, because the goalkeeper this wasn't talked about. The goalkeeper pushed it across to him. But yeah, anyway, and I thought I was watching that on I was watching on TV, but in real time. I was at the offside the goalkeepers gone to Ducourie's feet and pass the ball, push the ball to Calvary, and so it can't be offside. Anyway, still took them three minutes, or whatever it was, to work that out. These guys did one. You let you know, dear listener, these guys didn't weren't sure about talking about that topic and then managed to fill 40 minutes on it. So, just, I only mentioned it. All, right, I think we're gonna wrap up anything else for anything else, guys, before we say goodbye.
Andy:I I just like to have a quick 30 seconds laughing at Manchester United, because they've had.
Andy:Their worst start of the season in a very long time, lost their last league game Home 1-0 to Crystal Palace, and then lost in the Champions League 3-2-2 Galatasaray. The first goal was scored by Wilfred Sahar, who is off. It's often forgotten Once played from Manchester United, one of Ferguson's last ever signings, I believe for about three days. Yeah, so yeah, in the, in the interest of, you know, laughing at big teams that are struggling. We laughed at Chelsea Last week or the week before, so I just wanted to laugh at Manchester United because I think it's bloody hilarious.
Adam:Yeah, absolutely they can. You know in in light of the Greenwood, they're handling the grid of the Greenwood affair and you know they Serve everything that, every negative that they're getting at the minute and more. And if you saw, like any of that game, but their defending was Stupendously hilarious. Well, the, the third.
Andy:Galatasaray goal because the yeah, the right back of the two centre-als push up and the left back, who I think was Ambrick back. I think was Ambrick back which, to be fair to me, it's not a, it's a hexagonal peg in a round hole. Never been, never nine to square. He drops off ten yards, plays a card. He you know onside by a mile. He won't then has a relatively straightforward finish. But yeah, just to see like three-quarters of the back four going one way and the other one.
Andy:The way is in itself a thing of beauty.
Adam:You could get a bus length ways and the different in this, the gap between Linda Lough and Varan. It was like a car. He was like a car. He accelerated like a man was like who's like the shot there's gonna be. There's another defender coming up here. Fuck, there's not like.
Austin:They got 11 players.
Andy:Yeah, well, to be fair, at this point Casemira had been sent off.
Austin:Yeah, there you go.
Andy:So they did. They were down to ten but nevertheless he was obviously midfield and was, you know, directly affecting the position of the back four.
Austin:All right with successfully having left at man United, which we should make a standing Standing segment until they get good again. So presumably against us, we'll wrap it up. Good to see you both. Thank you for your contributions. Appreciate it. We'll see you on the other side of the See, on the other side of the Bournemouth game, with three more points in the bag. What can possibly go wrong? Follow on.
Andy:Spotify.
Austin:I'm podcast wherever you podcast, andy, stop laughing. And yeah, we'll see you all next week.