We're here to look back on three straight wins, three clean sheets and the genius of Sean Dyche.
We also look at what the rest of Everton's season is likely to look like, and talk a bit about ear canals.
We're here to look back on three straight wins, three clean sheets and the genius of Sean Dyche.
We also look at what the rest of Everton's season is likely to look like, and talk a bit about ear canals.
Welcome to episode 67 of the Blues Brothers Everton podcast. It's good to be back. I'm Austin in the host chair. Today I'm an hour and a half poster root canal. So if you hear me slurring any more than normal, it's not because I've started drinking. It's because the right hand side of my head is entirely numb, including. Most strangely, I'm very conscious that the inside of my ear canal has no sensation, which is very distracting. Anyway, enough of my problems. Ben and Adam are here. Ben, how are you doing?
Ben:I'm good. How often do you feel the inside of your own ear canal?
Austin:Well, I think this is the point, right Is that the reality is obviously it's skin right. So let's, let's we normally take half an hour to go down a rabbit hole, but let's go down and let's get. Start that way. Obviously, the inside of your ear canal is skin right, so it's sent. You can feel touch in there and heat and all the things can feel. I imagine you don't notice it most of the time. In the same way you don't notice almost every other sensation your body has, otherwise you'd be overwhelmed. The fact that it's numb is noticeable, right? So that's more. What I mean is I can feel that I can't feel anything, right, great. So all the two chat done, I did watch a whole. I go to a dentist which does that thing, where they have a TV in the ceiling. So I watched a whole episode of Planet Earth Also. It was having a brook canal. Very good, good name, adam. How are you?
Adam:doing I'm very well.
Austin:Thank you yeah.
Adam:I'm good.
Austin:Awesome, and he's, you know, a training course this week. I can't remember what he said he was being taught how to do, so let's assume it's something ridiculous involving health and safety, or important, or also ridiculous and important.
Austin:Yeah, it's probably. It's probably Andy's kind of a skeptic about a lot of health and safety stuff, so hopefully he's taking it in good grace, whatever it is. So we're recording it. On Wednesday, december 13th, we're on the back of winning three games. I mean, what can you say Like happy days? I was.
Austin:I was saying to explain to an American friend of mine the other day who was saying he'd noticed like you know, follow soccer a little bit I noticed Everton would do one. I said we got to bear in mind this character I don't know if it was a God, but in Greek mythology called Siphius, I think his name is who was condemned to roll a boulder up to a hill and watch it roll back down to the bottom forever. And I'm like you don't understand. That's Everton and we're just at the bottom of the hill. We're just at the top of the hill, we just. There's a moment, of course, when, between when the boulder, you finish pushing the boulder up and before the boulder starts rolling back down, there's a moment where the boulder is at the top of the hill and we're in that moment and it will fall back down again. But right now let's enjoy being in that moment.
Ben:He was a he was a king. I only know this because I've just been listening to the very excellent Stephen Thrybrook.
Austin:Right yes.
Adam:I really really good which teaches all about this.
Ben:So, sisyphus, it was a king who cheated death and his punishments for cheating which again sounds a bit like Everton, right Right, punishment for cheating death was they tricked him into essentially pushing this boulder up the hill, because I can't remember the precise detail they basically told him that if he pushed this boulder up the hill, he would be able to cheat death for a third time, I think.
Ben:Something that was that he never could do it. He could, yeah, he wanted, I think he wanted to become a guard. He wanted to become a guard and they said he could come and go. If you push that boulder to the top of the hill, so his punishment he is he forever will push that boulder to the top of the hill and then we're all back down again.
Austin:So I'll never get the thing you want to think, Ladies and gentlemen, we are three minutes into this Everton podcast and so far we've done ear canals and group mythology Don't say we are predictable so we've won three games. Obviously, that's fucking brilliant and it's been great to experience what I'm interested in. And as you guys go through this, feel free, you know, talking about specific things from the games that you wanted to to call out. Very welcome to do that. The question I want to start with and, Adam, I'll start with you for this one is you know, what do you think has made the difference? Because I think we all felt we played better than our results showed. You know, before the points deduction and then immediately afterwards, we lost three nil to man United, which is, you know, we've never I don't think anybody's ever seen a three nil be a less justified scoreline than that game. But what do you think is different now than before in terms of making the difference to turn those good performances into wins?
Adam:I think it's, in some of the case of us, we're converting the chances that we creating, because you could say that, looking at the wolves game and the full game rest at the start of the season, we are, the result did not merit our, did not match our performances and we only have ourselves to blame, particularly the full game with the number of chances that we missed, and we're finally hitting like that home form that we have, you know we should have had at the start of the season. You know, because we're, we're now on. I mean, actually, you know the people who listen to this podcast regularly know I love XG. I think it's a fantastic metric that gives you a lot of useful analysis and our XG on like, on average this season is one point five three, which is, you know, pretty good for a team that was as battle relegation the last two years shows you that the chances are being created. We never we've got a clear start. We've got a really clear style of play, which is to press high. We've got very well drilled players. We've got players that know exactly what to do and when, with, like you know, mcneil and the Coray being particularly, particularly good at that. But we're now converting that all into the chances.
Adam:And I think the Newcastle game is such a is the perfect example to demonstrate that. Because we put pressure on, we put pressure on on that on their defence, as they're trying to pass it out from the back. And if you watch the first, the what's the first goal against, was the first, yes, the first goal against Newcastle, where Jack Harrison sprints to close down Kieran Trippier on our on their right wing and they're right back position and he forces Trippier into that, into that first mistake, and then does the same again for the second goal. And that's the kit. That is our game plan. If you ever want to see what Everton's game plan is like in a nutshell, that is it Like catch them off guard, intercept a pass, quick break, you know, get players in the box and score. And we're seeing the fruits of that plan because we're now putting the chances away whilst also maintaining ourselves being nice and solid at the back, because this is our, this is our third clean sheet on the bounce.
Adam:And what have we got? Nine points from, obviously, one of our last four, one last four. Have we won? Four out of five? Last four out of last five, I believe you know. So 12 from 15, that puts us second in the form table. If I'm correct, I think Bournemouth have got 13 from 50 from possible 15. So that's that, that's it. That's it for me, for in terms of why, Because you know it's looking really. It's looking really, really positive.
Adam:And I said when Dice was initially hired and we were going through the relegation you know woes and worries and stuff and I said the only saving grace at the time was the fact that we had Sean Dice in charge and the fact that he I really believe that he knew what he was doing and it's showing that that is. That is the case. He really does know what he's doing. He knows how to set a team up. He's got people playing in different ways. So, like Calvin Lewin will see score fewer goals now than we did on Ancelotti, because Ancelotti used him as a poacher, but but Dice has him running the channels and things like that, which is why you know, and you're seeing like the core a pop up with more goals because he's getting in the box more. Yeah, it's looking really. It's looking really, really positive and it's brilliant that you know we've almost completely eradicated our 10 point deduction.
Austin:Ben, what are you, how do you feel about that and what are your reflections on? You know how the what the difference has been in the last few games.
Ben:Yeah, the risk of sort of challenging the premise of the question a little bit, like I think the answer to what have we done differently in the last couple of games is not very much, because and I think let me explain what I mean by that is that, like football, like all the league level, premier League football, like all the league level sport, is a game of margins.
Ben:Right, because everybody's good to a greater or lesser extent. Right? You're dealing with, like, even the gap between, you know, luton and Manchester City, say, to pick, like you know, or Sheffield United and man City, is you're talking margins of a percentage, right? In terms of the grand scheme of football players on the planet, the difference between someone who's good enough to play in the Premier League for Sheffield United and someone who's good enough for man City is not, is infintech to be really small. So my point is we're doing exactly the same thing we were doing at the start of the season, but the infintech, some of these small things that you need to go your way in order to win the games that we lost at the start of the season against the full of Duels and or lose those games, which is what we did.
Ben:I almost don't think. I don't think he's like gone to the right lads this week. I want you to, you know, not miss from six yards out Like. I just think, like the and this is Dyson, said this to all belong to me, fair to him. He said, like, if you keep creating, if you keep playing the way we're playing, keep creating these chances, the law of averages, we can talk about regression to the mean or whatever reversion to the mean, regression to the mean, we've had fellows have done this before. Anyway, whichever one, it is like if you keep creating that number of chances, you keep putting yourself in that position.
Ben:The natural conclusion is that you score goals and you win games. And what was happening earlier in the season is that we were on, we were an outlier because we weren't winning games where, statistically, we should have done. And there's an argument now that, potentially, like we might be an outlier the other way. But these things are balanced out. So I don't actually think we've gone like right, what are we changing? What are we doing differently? What's the thing that's? I just, I just think those marginal things, those very marginal, just things that go away and you don't, you know, go back to the first game of the season, which was was full of that home night and I remember distinctly Decore, Mr One-on-one sitter, and Neil Mopay, Mr One-on-one sitter. Now, one of those things shouldn't surprise you. The other one, knowing Decore now work, because Decore is now scoring for fun, sticking away chances, really difficult chances, you know he scored the one against Newcastle on the county. I think that's a really underrated strike for the first goal against Chelsea because that's really like first time to hit it that precisely and that with that hard. It was a really good finish. He does that against Fulham. We win that game.
Ben:So I just think, like it's a real credit to Dij, because it's really easy when you have the right process but the outcome is bad, to go, while we must look at the process because we're doing something wrong. It takes a lot of strength of character and I think Dij has this in abundance. Actually, to be fair to him, has a lot of strength of character to go. No, I know our process is right. We just need to give it time and the results will look after themselves, because less are managers or weaker managers or weaker clubs and, to be fair, weaker fan bases and there weren't, you know, there were parts of our fan base who you know five, six, seven games ago.
Ben:We're going oh, Dij is a dyne. Like there's a guy you know paired seven on I don't know his actual name right, he did a whole thing, like after we'd lost a couple of games, about how we have a dinosaur as a manager and he was terrible and he wants him out of the club and like it's really easy to overreact like that when things aren't going well, but it takes real strength of character from club manager, fan base players to go no, hang on, we're playing well, we're doing good stuff, we're like we're playing good football, we're creating chances, and if you do that over the course of a season, you're going to be fine. And we're going to be fine because we're doing that. So, so yeah, it's great, but I don't think we're doing anything different.
Austin:It's a really interesting point and against something I've been thinking about a bunch in the context of man United, who are shit and we're shit and beat us three nil, except for that one goal, which is, you know, the best goal you've ever seen or was ever seen, and you know it reminds me of something that Roberto Martin has used to talk about, and I think Martin is is a really good coach. I think he's a terrible communicator and essentially he got fired by Everton because he is the first person in the history of football, certainly maybe the world, to lose his job through the overuse of the word phenomenal and you know, because if he just stopped saying that, it'd have been all right. And he used to talk about effectively the same point you're making, which is you got to look at more than the score, right, you got to look at what's actually happening in the games. Now, 10 hardwood manager of the month for November, because they were like top of the form league or something. I happened to watch them four times in that month and they were shit in every single game and they had what's his name? That midfield just like popping them, like just when does top so much? I'm going to score three goals in two minutes.
Austin:I can't rely on that Now and it underlines your point, ben, that like, actually, fundamentally, Everton, we're doing the right stuff all the way through. Yeah, we haven't had the confidence, the, the, the decisions decided the school goals, and we've been a bit unlucky like man United, and now it's kind of on average. It's all right, right, so maybe we are performing right. Did we batter Chelsea? No, not at all. We scored two goals and they didn't right. But like over the course of the season, that's kind of. That's kind of what matters.
Adam:If you look at our percentage, the XG versus up percentages, like the majority of games this season we have had the. I think we've had the higher XG, even in a lot of games that we've, even games that we've we've lost. You know the fun game, the wolves game, being clear example. You know clear examples and all that We've had. I'd be surprised if we've had more possession in any game this season, possibly against like Luton. But and that just shows you, like this sort of the, we're not a team that's going to pass it from back to front like when we get the ball in. When we get ball at the back. You know we are going to go for get it from back to front a bit quicker than other teams do, because we look for, like Calvert Lewin in the channels to hold it up, to core it, to hold it up and then we play and then we'll try and play some intricate football from there.
Adam:You know, a good example of that was the goal against Was it Palace, the first goal against Palace with Michael Anko, and then I think there was another goal as well against. I think it was. Come on, who was against now I can't remember, but I remember like it going from back to front quite quick and then there was some nice play in and around the box that created an opportunity. But, as I said before, we've got that sort of way of, when we have the ball, of getting the ball in the back of the net, but our main tactic is just winning the ball high, yeah, and we're taking those chances now. And Ben's right, like I said before about the chances that we missed, were now just literally not missing those chances.
Ben:Because, to underline this point, if you go back to Adam, you talked about the Luton game. I've just pulled up the stats for that Luton game, which we lost to one. We had 28 shots, five on target. Right, we had 67% possession, which, as Adam said, is not the norm for this season. But if you were to say, right, you're going to limit the opposition to have two shots on goal and 30% possession, you're going to have five shots on goal and 28 shots in total. What do you think the score is? You wouldn't pick. We lost to one, you just wouldn't right.
Ben:And this is where the other reason why I wanted to review the Martin's net is. I agree that he failed on communication. I think the other point is that he failed on his obsession with possession. I think is also a bit misplaced because, as Dice is proving and as XG and I agree with Adam XG is a really good stat. Xg is about what you do with possession that you have, which is why it's better than possession, because you can have loads of possession and create nothing and therefore you don't win a game based on possession, right, but if you have 30% possession but create 3xG, that's a really effective use of your possession, and I think Martin's problem was it felt like he was obsessed with having the ball, not necessarily.
Austin:Doing anything with it.
Ben:Because and maybe this is a philosophical belief, but like, well, if you have the ball more, you naturally will have the opportunity to create more chances, which is sort of like logically true, but that still relies on you having the, you know the passing formations and the movement and that all that sort of create the space and create the chances. So I disagree on the sort of the bastardistic. We should to be fair and I think we should all hold our hands up here. That back start of was in last season, season before, whenever we played Benitez, season before, I think, um, we all had a conversation about who we wanted the next manager to be right after on Chilotti, that, and I can't remember who you, who you went for, I went for Graham Potter, famously. I still believe that was right.
Ben:Austin went for Benitez and Andi, to be fair to him, and we all, we all laughed at the time and he did say Sean Dutch. So, in his absence, I think it is only fair to point out that, of us, andrew was definitely right, I was, you know, we don't know, because Potter was, you know, never, never on manager and Austin was, like, definitely wrong.
Adam:So as long as we know.
Ben:We know those two ends of the spectrum. That's, that's, that's just. I wanted to make sure that was noted, but we were all cynical. I was cynical about, like you know, dice being a, you know, basically a long ball merchant from Burnley. You know would make us functional but not that good to watch, and but you watch that third goal against new castle.
Austin:Oh, it's great, 29 passes, I mean they went off. Good to watch and it shows that at that point we just I love the fact we did that, because it's like Now we don't give a fuck, we just try to keep the ball. Oh, but we'll score a goal, yeah.
Adam:Sorry, go ahead. I yeah, I was gonna say maybe the Guardian football weekly, or stop. You know, heart, like taking taking the piss, but not taking the piss. Because they have such deep-rooted beliefs about Sean Dice and Everton they are incapable of escaping their echo chamber.
Austin:Well, it's, we've got a really clear way of playing and you see it right, it's we, we try, and it's when you start, I guess, thinking about it. But you know, as you say, we try and our primary aim is to try and win the ball back quickly high up the pitch, because that's in a moment where a transition, where the opposition who have the ball, are going to be committing players forward, right. So you went there, you, and we saw that I mean just the new castle first two goals against new castle were just absolutely the perfect kind of demonstration of that great. Then we fall back. You know, if we can't do that, if we can't get an overload on a press, we pull back and that the team are learning how to do that very well. Make ourselves very, very difficult to To be and particularly defend you. This is Dice's whole thing. Defend the sort of bit between the posts effectively, because that's where most goals are. You'll see quite a lot it's worth noticing when you watch us how many times our full backs, particularly Michelenko, because then you just playing really well, we'll clear the ball from the six yard box from across and he's come all the way in.
Austin:Now the flip side of that is, you can see the first goal. You can see it against my United, because you leave that guy alone and you're like, well, he's not going to do anything there. And then, oh shity, you know, does a worldie. But you know, by trying to defend that you create a bigger vulnerability. So obviously it makes sense. And then when we get the ball, yeah, we try and get it into there. We try and get it into there, it's exactly as you said. But we try and get it into that. Their third, as quickly and directly as we can, and then starts to play football. It's exactly how Jürgen Klopp plays, right, it's a. It's exactly how Jürgen Klopp plays.
Austin:Now I think he's re-engineered Liverpool a little bit with the midfield this year, which is, you know, he's not, he's evolving, but that idea is exactly what Jürgen Klopp's Liverpool. And when he first started you know the first season where he had that Liverpool team playing it was like fuck, what do you do with these guys? They're unbelievable, right. And you start to see that from us now. Where it's incredibly difficult to to play against and I take the point about Martin is because the thing about the, the theory of the possession, is well, if I've got the ball, I can score. You can't Right which is is right on one level. You've got to have the quality of players to unlock a team slowly, right, and that's that's the limitation is you know, you know?
Austin:you, yes, he always. You say all these are simple passes. Yes, they are, they are. So if you look at man City, yeah, they're not doing anything technically complicated, but they'll have a player, they'll have two players who'll make a run that will pull a defensive part and create a gap. You know, that's, that's where we, for years, watched it being passed sideways, because no one knew what the fuck to do, you know?
Adam:I think, um, when benitez um was a few months into his, his tenure and um, it was sort of the things were starting, you know, were Towards the end of the unraveling part.
Adam:One of the things he said, which is, you know, in terms of communication, like you know, Play him around and stuff was absolutely catastrophic, was he said the players don't have the technical ability or skill to play intricate football. And there's not necessarily anything wrong with what he said there. I think he's. Actually he's right in the sense of like, are we going to play the sort of football that, uh, intricate football that you know, arsenal, spurs, man City play? No, we're not, because we don't have those sort of players. But what it did show was two things Benitez, in terms of his ability to work with a squad and get them to play a way that will work for them and will work the way that he likes to work, was ineffective and he was unable to do it because he's a shit manager. And it also showed, at the other end of that spectrum, sean Dice's ability to do that, because we don't play like no one's pretending that Everton play really nice into football. We play decent football when we get into the final third and we win, and we win the ball back high up and then we find space that's been created because players are out of position and stuff, but we're not a team that's going to be like. I mean 29 passes I think it's the second highest in the league so far. This season it might even be the highest. That is a complete anomaly for Everton. No one's pretending that otherwise. But I think what's really interesting about the way that we do win the ball high up is that it's a heck of a lot easier to train players to know what to do in an attacking sense when you win the ball back high, than it is to train defenders what to do when they lose it. Because I think in terms of the cognitive load of what to do, it's really difficult for Newcastle's defenders to and Dwight McNeill made this point in his post-match commentary where he said it's a great run from Dom to give me the space, because I think it's Fabian Scher, the Newcastle centre half.
Adam:He backs off and backs off and backs off of McNeill, which allows him the space to shoot, because Halbert Lewin makes a run that he's probably never going to get the ball actually, because it would have been detrimental to the attack to give it to him because the defender stuck close. But what he did do is he pulled the defender out of position and the defenders have to. Therefore, they have to make those decisions about what to do, and if you're an exceptional defender like Virgil van Dijk nine times out of ten. You make the right decision in those circumstances because you can anticipate what attackers do. But most defenders are not that good at that sort of thing and they will have other attributes that will make up for things where they can't do that. But when you're in such a small space it can be really difficult to do that. But Dwight McNeill's mind it's a heck of a lot easier to know what to do in that circumstance because he always got to do his thing right. If this defender keeps backing off and backing off, that's all I mean.
Austin:Yeah we're not in a golden shoot, yeah.
Adam:Yeah, and like Jack Harrison, for our second against Newcastle, same thing. You know, we win the ball back, the Newcastle defence don't know what to do, understandably, and we have like two or three players ready in the box to score.
Austin:You can just tell you something, because Tobi go ahead then.
Ben:No, I was just going to say in the spirit of the slightly Sean Dijk's love in it we're having, it's worth it.
Austin:Let's have Sean Dijk's love in it. We've won three games, yeah, totally.
Ben:Adam mentioned one of the players that I wanted to talk about, but it is also worth reflecting, because you see these coach, you see players right and teams and coaches and you can see the teams who have good tactical managers, who have set the players upright and, like you know, buy all the players in and stuff the rest of you can't see this. Adam is sort of having a coughing fit as well. I think we're not new.
Austin:We've watched him eat a pizza, which obviously is fine All the best people eat pizzas during this podcast but now we're watching him die of some respiratory disease.
Adam:I'm okay, I'm run down. My body is telling me I'm run down, but I did manage to meet the microphone one millisecond before my cough is really fat.
Ben:So you see teams where they're like well drilled and if they get the right players, they buy the right players and they can play the system right. And this has always been like the pep question right. It's like how can you run that system with lesser players? Right, and I don't doubt that like he's made players better.
Ben:Whereas, if you look at, someone like Manchester United and all Merino is the classic of this. Like find me a player who Eric Tenhard has made better at that football club, right, whether it's somebody bought or somebody inherited. Find me a player who is better because of the coaching of Eric Tenhard and I think you really, really, really struggle.
Adam:I think you probably would have said Rashford last season. Yeah, it looks all possibly, but there's. Yeah, you're right, it's probably.
Ben:Luke Shawty's. It's a struggle. If you look at Everton, right, the Coray's a better player. Mike Lenko looks like a transformed player, you know.
Adam:Brant.
Ben:Weig looks like an incredible player. James Garner runs the game in the centre of midfield right. You can look all the way across the team and you can go. Not only is he setting us up properly from a team perspective to win football matches, he's actually also making the players better themselves, and not every coach can do that. This is like one. This is like Lop is one of the best coaches in the world because he has a system that works. But also you can identify.
Ben:You look at players and you go yes, he made that player better than he was when he started with him, and I think Dice has done that with a lot of players. So, like, mike Lenko and James Garner are the two that I would sort of highlight. I think Mike Lenko is up there with the best left-backs in the league and that sounds like when you say that, it's like ridiculous. It sounds, but if you think about how he's playing and his chance creation, the goals he's scoring and the defensive contribution he's making, like you wouldn't like. There are a few teams that would, you know, swap their left-back oh sorry, we would swap our left-backs for their left-backs and the other one is James Garner, who I'm a massive, massive, massive fan of. I think he's a sensational footballer because I just think he does all of that like metronomic dirty work in the middle of the park. It's not flashy, it's never going to.
Ben:You know he's never going to appear on like high-light reels because he's doing what Garnaccio did, or he's, like you know, dribbled past five players and, you know, stuck it in the back of the net or set up two goals in a game. But I just think he's being so solid, dependable and in that middle of the park I think, I think he's been one of our players of the season so far.
Austin:Yeah, and it's interesting as you list those players, ben. One thing I was just reflecting on is they're young. You know, we've got, you know, branthweight Garner and Michelangelo's what? 23, I want to say Like he's some 25. So you know, mcneil's young, dwayne McNeil looks like he's 31, but he's not, you know, right.
Ben:So Michelangelo's 24. Yeah, and Dwight McNeil is.
Austin:It's full time by the man Googles which is.
Ben:you know like 90% of what this podcast is my instinct to pick this moment to die. Mcneil was also 24.
Austin:So yeah, so you know, Calvate living young, there's a look, we're going to keep some of these players, we're going to sell some of these players. But one of the things and I think, you know, one of the things that I saw when people were talking shit about Dij, as you rightly sort of flag bet a few weeks ago was about he doesn't give the chance to youngsters, which is like absurd when Jarrod Brantwight was already in the first team by then completely established. And he brings Lewis Dobbin on. You know won them up against Chelsea at that point. That's not a oh the game, but I'll give you a run out. You know that's, you know you've. You're there to do a job and he's better fucking do it right. And he obviously trusts him.
Austin:And then, you know, great moment, scores a goal. And can we talk for a second, adam, what you're viewing this, the technique for Dobbin's goal at the end of the check, is like unbelievable. That all the I mean. I want him to spend a week with a dresser going again showing him here's your head, a dresser, here's the ball. Make one be over the top of the other when you kick it, because it's absolutely beautiful His body position when he hits that ball. It's bouncing up and he hits it and it goes in a straight line down into the goal. Because you know his point of contact is perfect, His body shape is perfect. It's absolutely sensational.
Adam:Yeah, it's not. I mean, the goal is what it is 21,. It's 21 feet, isn't it? And, like Dobbin is not aiming for the part of the, the goal that it goes, and he's generally aiming for the left and left it just helps it.
Adam:Yeah, and it's like hitting. Hitting a ball cleanly on like the half-volley, like half-volley or that it's a bouncing ball, it's really not rocket science, it just requires some, some key things to remember, like, first thing, you know, keeping your head over the ball, yeah, just getting a clean connection hitting the ball with the centre of your laces, it's really not rocket science. I remember, I remember Dinyar Billy letting me know of random thought and when he scored an absolute beltery he was going to get to Portsmouth in the final game of the season and he was. He was. He was asked after the game like were you aiming for that? And he said no, I'd never.
Adam:He said I never aimed for, I never aimed for like a pin point, a part of the goal. I just aim for generally. Like that aim. Because he said I imagine what he's implying is like if you aim for a very niche, tiny part of the part of the goal, it makes it much harder to score. As if you aim for a general area, because that general area is so big, because the goal is, like you know, 21 by eight feet it's, it becomes a lot. That psychologically becomes a lot easier to score. And I remember thinking about that and I started doing that when I was playing football being less precise with how you're actually going to shoot. And it really is true.
Austin:It does work Because you've got the connection right, whereas if you're trying to do something so specific, you're going to hold back, you're going to try and be too precise and you're not going to commit. And really, you know, and the decor is well, I thought he sighed right. What's that? What a first story. You know, he wellied it Absolutely. They felt it, you know, and it's great. It's not. You're right, I agree with you, adam. It's not that it's hard, necessarily, but it's also not very common that there's football. I mean, you see, I just went on a game and he's played at the Champions League comfortably can't do it, you know. You just know every time the ball falls to him, he's going to sky it, because he's what he does every single time.
Ben:So the point to like what we were talking about earlier is if you look at, you know, you look at those ones, the Dobbin and Decorah against Chelsea, and then you remember. Do you remember the Nathan Paterson one against Fulham? Was it Fulham or Wolves? Early in the season?
Adam:It was Fulham, because I was at that game, yeah.
Ben:Yeah, where he just it comes to him quickly at the back post and he just gets it slightly wrong and he puts it over the bar when he should score right, and that's like. That's the very minor things that are just going for us now. I think the point about you actually is a very it's a good one because Everton, as a fan, everton fans have it's become one of their pet hates at the minute, which I get for reasons I'll come on to. But the youth thing is all about how we won't play Nathan Paterson over Ashley Young, because, you're right, he plays youth all over the pitch, like McNeil Harrison, you know, anana Garner, branthwaite, michael Enko, like he's probably happy playing quote unquote young players like he's bought Dobbin on, he's bought Chimichia.
Ben:Everton fans have just become obsessed with why won't you play Paterson over Young?
Ben:He must have a problem with youth and I think actually he doesn't have a problem with youth. What he has a problem with is is ill discipline and I think what his issue is is I don't think he's at the point where he can trust Nathan Paterson in the system to be where he needs to be and therefore he's going like look great, he's younger, he's fit and you can get up and down more, he can match up better with these great wingers. No one I don't think Sean Dyce would argue in private to you that from a physical point of view, nathan Paterson is a better choice for right back to the 38 year old Ashley Young or a 34 year old James Coleman. But he will also say but it doesn't matter how quick you are, how sharp you are or how hard you can run or how fast you can run, how far you can run, if you're in the wrong place to start with. And that is obviously something Dyce values that we can get into like young shouldn't be playing, for a variety of reasons.
Ben:And I think because that would be fine if he wasn't making so many mistakes or letting or, you know, causing there's so many problems.
Ben:Because I think, if you're going to have problems created rather than be created by someone who's also going to offer you a bit more attacking prowess, right, so I think you should play Paterson, but the age thing is entirely down to that and it's like it's just one of those things where Everton fans have become blinkered that Dyce Dyce hate young players because he won't play this one young player over this one old player, when actually there's probably really like genuinely realistic reasons for it, and I think it's got a lot to do with like defensive solidity and shape.
Austin:Yeah, totally, and yeah and the. There is a very large degree to my, in my view, to which you've got to say well, one, the guy clearly knows what he's doing. And two, he spends every week with these guys and sees it like the. You know there is a, you're right, there is a reason. He's not, he's evident, because you know, brant Wake comes in, does well and he stuck like glue to that. He's, you know, the first name on the team sheet, maybe second after Pickford. You know it's. There's no evidence at all that Dyce has any, you know, view of negative view of young players at all. He, right, he has a view. He considers it tremendously important that players are able to follow instructions, which I think I agree with. You know that's because we watch Roberto Martinez's teams. So we've got about 15 minutes left. I want to just talk a little bit about the future. We've got a couple of things coming up. Excuse me, my turn to my turn to die.
Ben:And the catch something via this zoom call.
Austin:If you tweet that, a lot of people will from the MAGA right will will fall, start a following. So we got we're playing Burnley on Saturday, which I think is a game. Weirdly, we sort of now go and, okay, we expect to win and I want to talk a chat about that. We've got the quarter final against Fulham a few days after that. Maybe. More broadly, ben, I'll start with you what are your expectations for the rest of the season? You know, like what's the? Because I think you know I don't want to get away with it, but especially after the post 10 points, but we'd have all gone and gone as long as we're safe. You really, this may be stupid things, but on average you can't see us getting dragged into relegation battle. So what, where do you know? Where do we end up? What? What should we sort of be setting our expectations for?
Ben:Yeah, it's a fair question, Because the 10 points to sort of you your perception a little bit, because if you'd asked us all that question the day we got it, we'd have gone well as long as we finish 17th and don't go down, whereas now, actually, I think, if you've finished 17th and just didn't go down, you'd you'd argue we disappointed from where we're starting from. Right, I think, putting aside what might, may or may not happen with any potential reduction in the punishment, but for the sake of argument, assume that we've. We've got minus. It stays at minus 10 and we're minus 10.
Ben:I think, given how we've played and given the situation we're in, and let's be clear and like, can, like and and you know realistic about this we're not going to win every game for the season. We could. We could very easily go to Burnley and lose or draw a right. I don't think we will, but it won't be a disaster if we do. It's not like, oh God, we're now in trouble because we've proven that we can. We can, we're in good for voting For me.
Ben:I think if you ended up, if you were, say, targeting the end of the season, where do you want to finish, based on minus 10, I think you'd say hey, if we finished 10th to 14th, like I think that's a reasonable sort of area to sort of end up in, like we are currently he says, pulling the table we're currently 17th on 13 points.
Ben:If you look at 10th, that's 21 points, which is full Over the course of the season. Do you would you expect, reasonably, us to make up somewhere between six to eight points on that group of teams above us? I think so. So I would say like, hey, if we're finishing somewhere between 10th and 15th, not in the relegation battle, one of those sorts of teams that ends up on 45 points, never in danger with relegation come the end of the season. I think that would be considered a success. And then if we get some points back from the commission, then great, that's fine. Because I think if you'd asked ever to fans of the start of the season three points, no matter what the priority was they probably have said a nice, safe, solid, mid-table finish, no drama. They just stopped your hand off for that and I think in our predictions we all sort of ended up in that place as well. So if we got that with a minus 10 points, I think that would be a tremendously successful season.
Austin:Adam, what are your thoughts on that?
Adam:I agree. Yeah, I agree with Ben. I think it's worth remembering the fact that we're in a purple patch at the minute, so it's easy to apply the feelings of positivity and think that that is going to continue, which is obviously not. We will regress to our mean, but what our mean is is to be determined and I think, looking at it what it is and the evidence and the reasons that we've given so far, the mean that we have now under Dish and the systems now we've had time is a lot higher than what it has been under the last previous managers. And I think if we were to end up with the minus 10 in still in place, anything between like 42, 46 points around that figure, which I don't think is by any means unachievable at all because we're on 13 points from 15 games- 13 from 16.
Ben:So we've got 22 games left.
Adam:Yeah, so if you think about that, from roughly by three minus a few, so like if we were to carry on like that sort of odd form over the course of the season, you're looking at 38, 39, about 38 points roughly. But we are a better team than that because we're going to, we are going to win more games than we have done over the so far, this so far this season, and then hopefully we'll get a few points back from the, from the appeal. Yeah, I think so. I agree with Ben. Like you know, I don't think we're in any danger of being relegators, even with the 10 point deduction in place, and we should be looking at a you know anything between, like you know, 15th to 15th to 12th or 11th, in terms of where we finish.
Austin:Yeah.
Ben:Here's what, here's what, what, what, what for you? Do you think we will be closer to the European places, points wise, from the end of the season? Do you think we'll be close to the European places in the relegate or the relegation though?
Adam:Well, if you take into account I mean, I might be pre apologies if I steal your thunder here then but if you take away the 10 points and we're on 23, we are, like you know, comfortably closer to the European places. I like you finish the point, because you've probably got the exact numbers.
Ben:No, I it wasn't. No, I don't have the exact numbers. I was just genuinely interested in posing a question because I think there's definitely a universe. I think there's absolutely, definitely a universe where, if we're still on minus 10 at the end of the season, we don't get any back. I think it's definitely a universe where we would have qualified for your yeah we've not had that 10 points taken off us.
Ben:I think statistically more likely being in that situation than us being in a danger of relegation situation. Because, to add to your point, if we'd be on 23 points, which we put as 10, what would put us four points behind man United and their shit, yeah, you know. So I genuinely, genuinely think from the end of the season we will be looking at a table, going God, if we have those 10 points, we might be sneaking it for European places.
Austin:And that would be, and that would be, the Everton answer. Right? If you're not going to have a last minute shit, Abdelay D'Aquari, better do something to avoid relegation. The perfect Everton experience is for us to be so good, we qualify for Europe, but we don't. You're right, Like, because we are living in a simulation. The simulation has rules, and one of the rules is that we're an experiment in the limits of the experiment, where the subjects of or I guess the guinea pigs for is to what extent will people persist with something that is painful and entirely voluntary? That's the question that the AIs who run the simulation are trying to answer from us, because obviously we could all just not do any of this shit and there would be literally no. It's not like oh, I hate my job, but I've got more than a few more years to pay. There would literally be no downside at all in any practical way.
Adam:Yeah, we don't think. I mean not. A lot of couples say like they are the most unlucky team in that sort of sense.
Austin:We were the reigning champions when both World Wars started.
Adam:Yeah, I know, that's literally. That was the exact thing I was going to talk about Look. Yeah, exactly.
Austin:I mean what's?
Adam:that in like what's it be? Like the champions in 1939, like being a fan, Not again Like 25 years ago, thinking like, for fuck's sake.
Ben:Yeah, because the important thing there is that like there will be people that are like not alive now but, there will be people at the time where that would have been the second time. That's what I mean. That's what I mean.
Austin:Yeah, it's okay, there's some people who would have been. If you were really the wrong age, you've had to go and fight the fuckers twice as well. That's probably a very narrow window, but I like to think it happened. Yeah, like, yeah.
Ben:If you were someone who enlisted, I mean, we're going to play through the maths badly here now, right. But if you were someone who enlisted at six, who enlisted young for the first World War, say 16, right, yeah, you could be 39. Yeah, totally 39.
Austin:Like when you could have Everton fuck though it's white and have to survive two massive land wars in York. That's a lucky. I feel better about the root canal now.
Ben:But yeah, I mean, we're having a great, so we're having a you know points and finances and stuff and we haven't got time to get into like the whole 777 stuff but they all feel. Stuff aside, I think it's a fun time to be an Everton fan, but it's been quite rare that we've been able to say that in the in the sort of last couple years. Interestingly, just because I've got the table in front of me, I've noticed something really interesting, because I have a friend who's a Wolfs fan, who we I mean text quite a lot of when the games are on, and he said to me something interesting the other day, which was when I was looking at the table and going God, it's a bit depressing to be back down there. He said pay attention to the goal difference, not the points, because actually that's probably that, given the point of instruction, is a much better measure of well if now our goal difference currently is zero.
Ben:Right, because we've scored 20, conceded 20. Yeah, conceding 20, the is one fewer goal than man United and Newcastle. The only teams who have conceded fewer goals than us in the entire Premier League are man City, with 18, and then Liverpool and Arsenal are both on 15, right, so like. And then 20 goals scored puts us a bit closer to the middle of the pack, right? But and this is the to the point of man United being shit man United have scored fewer goals than us. Man United has got 18 goals this season. They've got a minus three goal difference and are in sick.
Adam:Yeah, yeah, I said earlier about one of the I mean with the, you know, the high press being a really like dice, dice thing, is that? And I mean I said earlier, like it's the defensive solidity as well that's really been been, been been fantastic because you know, we've, we've, we've scored well in the last three, we've scored, we've scored six and kept three and kept three clean sheets. And Pickford is the I would say Everton, because Pickford is our permanent goalkeeper. We have the most clean sheets as well this season, with five.
Austin:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I've seen we're going to wrap up surely is just reflecting on what you were talking about, dice and sort of beautiful football. I think the other thing about it is long ball football, and he doesn't play long ball football, he plays direct football, which and there is a difference, that but it sucks when it doesn't work Like we. We watched it, for you know a guy I've watched ever since under Walter Smith, where it was like just battering it up to Duncan Ferguson. It was literally hitting the hope stuff and and we're not doing that. There is a plan, you know, there is a and and it's exactly like it's the way he's got these teams. The team set up is good. It's entertaining. Football can be entertaining in multiple ways. I'm watching a swarm. There was one point against Chelsea where there were four, I'm sorry, against Newcastle. There were four Everton players closing down one Newcastle defender, you know, and it's that wonderful. It's like watching those David Attenborough documentaries. You know where they're like the television and you're always fucked.
Austin:You know, like the Buffalo is definitely going to die because you know it's, it's actually, it's really it's great fun to watch and that, if you want, you know, because you've got that. And then you've got Jose Mourinho or Benitez, who I say right by, I supported and was a disaster, which is it's direct football and it's shit and boring, you know, whereas what Dice does is great fun to watch, you know it's. It's just fun to watch players run around like absolute mad bastards for 90 minutes.
Adam:And, at the end of the day, go back to your point about this being completely voluntary, like it is a recreational thing. Yeah, it's meant to be entertaining. Right, it should be entertaining. It should be entertaining and, like you know, the idea of like result, it's a results business. I mean, it's one of my, one of my pets is that sort of that sort of thing. It's like it's not entertainment.
Austin:It's meant to bring joy to people who watch it. Exactly that is the only fucking reason. And the whole results business thing is driven by the people who are in it to make money. That's fine, but you know, it's not not the origin of it. No, and we got to wrap up because Ben's got to go and be a grown up in a meeting or something. So good to see you both. Thank you for being here. Sorry, andy, wasn't here, but will we be, I'm sure we'll be in time.
Ben:We do round robin Burnley predictions. All right, let's do it Super crazy. What's your burn?
Austin:the predictions that we have left. Yeah, are we?
Ben:going to win 2-1?.
Adam:Adam 2-0,. Tarkovsky, gwark McNeil.
Austin:All right, I think it's 2-0 too. Actually, I'm going to go with that. I think I don't think Boneley going to score past us because I don't think they can get the ball over the halfway line right now. All right, Good to see you both. Stay well. Thank you for listening. Subscribe on Spotify, apple podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts, tell an Everton supporting mate about us. We'd appreciate that. We'll see you on the other side.