Well well well. It's been a wild few weeks to be an Evertonian. We give a state of play on where Everton are at on and off the pitch, decide that Richard Masters is, to quote Ben, a smarmy git, and we also preview the Crystal Palace game.
Well well well. It's been a wild few weeks to be an Evertonian. We give a state of play on where Everton are at on and off the pitch, decide that Richard Masters is, to quote Ben, a smarmy git, and we also preview the Crystal Palace game.
Any time you think are these people stupid or are they orchestrating some grand conspiracy? It's always that they're stupid. Welcome to episode 69 Of the boys brothers. Ever some podcast. Adam said he's been waiting weeks for episode 69. I think that's what he said. Anyway, we're all here. Sorry, it's been a little bit of a gap. Everyone's life's busy. What can we say? Everyone's got shit to do. We have, you have let's. Let's just move on. So everyone's here. Andy's here. How you doing.
Speaker 2:Hi Austin, I'm good, thank you. Yeah, it's been a few weeks since we've all managed to get together, but you're absolutely right. You know life is busy. We've all got food to buy and mortgages to pay, and some of us have got babies to pay for, and fuck knows aren't they expensive. So yes, but I'm good, thank you, looking forward to a tour, to a tour Chewing the fat over current Everton stuff.
Speaker 1:Adam, how you doing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, very well, thank you. Yeah, I've just started a week off, say week off, week off in inverted commas. I spent five hours working yesterday, such as His life. But yeah, generally all right, thanks.
Speaker 1:You tell me teachers don't just have three months off a year. I don't believe it. I would say Ben, how you doing? But I think I've been has just been looking after his four month old son, jude, so it's sort of I don't know if juice gonna be able to contribute much contribute, more than I do, I would imagine.
Speaker 4:He might involuntarily contribute at some point. But yes, I am, hello everyone, I am you're. You've got a special little guess you can't hear who you might hear at some point In the background, as I am, I am looking after, which is a joy in on in and of itself, but also other reasons why we haven't had much time to podcast and To update a conversation that we were having before the pod, before the podcast started. It's now Mansfield nine, harrogate two. So, okay, that game is gone, thoroughly bonkers, but we'll we'll keep you updated, as there's still like 25 minutes to go and Man's does our hometown for anyone, which is why we're following more closely than just the fact it's nine to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean obviously, if some teams have scored, you know been.
Speaker 2:A couple of teams have scored eight in the Premier League this season and obviously Less to beat Sadampton nine nil a few seasons ago. I can't recall the last time a Premier League or any football league team Score double figures in a regular league. Fixed, it has happened, but you've got to go back a while.
Speaker 1:Man United, ipswich, my United put ten past Ipswich once, I think. I think that was nine. Now it was nine. I don't think there's ever been double figures in the Premier League.
Speaker 4:I think nine is the most important thing.
Speaker 2:No, nine is the highest. Yeah, ten happened in. Well, more ten, all greater, happened in the old first division and it definitely will have happened in the football league, but I can't recall the last time. So if Mansfield can get double figures, that'll be a little bit of history there, made, as we as we record, by our hometown club who actually remarked it?
Speaker 1:Now your club still the manager there, isn't he right?
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, quite well, I think you know I'm looking forward to the next season of this is rexum for some Mansfield content. All right, let's talk about Everton. What we thought we'd do we were joking about the last episode title was man City Preview, and we thought about Honning you, dear listener, and just acting like we haven't missed six weeks and a lot of shenanigans. But we're not going to do that. We're not going to go back over all the games that are played. What we thought we'd do is just do kind of a you know halfway through the season plus a little bit when we at what you know what, how we feeling, what do we think's working, what do we think could happen with the rest of the season? And we're going to split just for the reasons of everyone's sanity.
Speaker 1:We're gonna. We're gonna do the on the pitch stuff first. So we're gonna get to points, deductions of financial fair play and Nottingham Forest and all that shenanigans, because there's a lot to talk about there. But we're gonna, just just to keep ourselves sane. We're gonna talk about the, what's going on on the pitch and how we're playing. And, adam, I'll come to you first. How are you feeling about? You know, I guess, results, but also you know the performances, the way the teams are playing. Who's playing well, how Dice is doing. Give us your kind of overview of that and then we'll get into it.
Speaker 3:I think we've we had that purple patch in, you know, december, as a December, see, quite a long time ago now, doesn't it with them, where we won Four on the bounce following the United game, which was obviously the game brought straight after the points deduction came out, and we, you know we, we, we overturned the 10 point deduction. You know, very, very quickly, and you know, and, and, and since then you know we've had some really great, we've had tough games and some results have not been, you know, hope for what you'd hope for, but I think the performances have always been being there and and the like city at the weekend is a good example of that when you've got, you had a really clear game plan and for the first like 10, 15 minutes, we weren't sitting back and, you know, trying to frustrate them, we were actually on the front foot, which is very much something you've seen a lot of us doing this season and but then we had a really clear game, finally gained the city, which was just trying to try and frustrate, and then you know to hit on the counter attack and which we managed to do for, you know, 71 minutes, until, you know, harlan just swings his big leg and and break to the deadlock and, as I'm sure all the listeners know, I'm a I'm a massive fan of XG because I think it's such a good barometer for how teams are actually doing. You know, minus points, deductions, minus where you actually where you actually end up in the way you actually are in the league and you keep a moment. And because Everton's XG expect a number of goals sorry is 15 more than their actual number of number of goals, which is double. The next, the team with the second biggest difference, so Mars, is 15, and the next team I think it's someone in the bottom three, I can't remember exactly who it is is seven, and and obviously that correlates to our points with where we should have seven more points. So you're looking at what we are 19 at the minute. So you know, plus the 10.17 to look at 36 points. So obviously that's got to be caveated with the fact that everyone else has obviously got XG. That is different and expected points that is different from what they actually get. But you can safely say that Everton are not playing where their position in the table is at the minute, regardless of the 10 point deduction, because that has been something that has obviously maintained, has to happen to maintain that sort of level and it goes back to the end.
Speaker 3:The fact that we are, you know, we're holding teams out, we're grinding out results, we're getting good results. We're getting some good results where they come, like it spurs at home, a couple of, you know, last week, and so our play is what I'm trying to say in this very, very convoluted way our play does not sort of reflect how we are, how we are, how we are on the table, and I say this regardless of the 10 point deduction, because you know we're a good team, we've got a good game plan. I don't fear, I don't worry about us at all, and that's, you know, not even taking into account for us almost certain points deduction which will help us out massively. Yeah, I think we're doing well. I think Calvert Luhain is looking.
Speaker 3:You know, I think once Calvert Luhain hits some form which I think, which I am convinced he will, and we start putting away those chances that we're obviously creating, I think things will look a lot better. So, yeah, you know we've got a thin squad, we've got a squad of players that are suitable to the way Dish wants us to play and it generally, it generally works, but you know we're not one of the best teams in the league, and we are where we are where we are through circumstances that are not completely in our control, and it will be a matter of time before we end up, you know, getting the goals and getting the results that match our play.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and look, there's two conclusions from the XG stat that I agree with you in terms of its importance. One is, as you say, we'd be further up the table, even separate to the 10 points, and the other reason we can't shoot for shit, right, I mean that basically, is the conclusion from that stat is you are getting yourself into positions and not scoring them more than anyone else in the league effectively, which at least gives you a clear idea what the problem is. And I agree, calvert Luhain hopefully does come back into form, but that's the challenge for us is can we convert the good play into finishing? And then what are you thinking?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I agree with Adam broadly. I think there's a little bit of an overreaction and then you know this is partly media driven as well. Like you know, after we played man City it was, you know, we haven't won a game in seven and you know, like only three points from the last week, like that was the talk in the media around the game. But actually if you look at A who we've played and B the results we have got, in that time, you know, went away to Fulham, which is not an easy place to go got a point probably should have won that game with the chances we created at the end. Got a point at home to Aston Villa, who you know are relatively high, flying at the minute Ditto with Spurs. Like this was always going to be the toughest run of our season and we've come out of it like having picked up nowhere near as many points as you would like, because you would like to win every game. But it's not like we've lost all of the games or we haven't been playing well and we look like a bad team. So if you look, if you take the performances from that run of games and apply them to the run of games that we now have coming up, which you know to remind listeners, includes Palace at home, burnley at home, sheffield United at home, brentford at home, luton at home, luton away. You are more than likely going to pick up points in those games if you, if the performances are similar to the game, the run of games that we've, we've just had. So I'm not, you know, I'm not worried about relegation because I think are we one point better than Luton over the course of the season? Yes, absolutely we are. Our goal difference is much better than them and and forest. So it's not. I just don't foresee a scenario, famous last words, where we're looking at the last couple of games of the season and worrying because I just think we'll pick up more points than them because Luton have had a good run and fair play to them, like everyone.
Speaker 4:Talk them, talk them up as being you know that will they break the Scabies record for the worst team ever, etc. Etc. And they found a game plan that works in a system that works, but it's very limited and I think you're now seeing they've had their purple pack. They had that good run of games where it looked like they were picking up points and then they lose to Sheffield United at home, which you would say was the easiest game of anybody's season. And you just now wonder, oh, they threw a two goal lead away against Newcastle. They then lost to Sheffield United. You sort of wonder, is okay? Are they now like reverting to the game of what, what their team actually is, which is a not very good Premier League team who probably will get relegated? And if they are, you will finish 10 points ahead of the bike come end of season, if that's, if they are, and to Adam's point, we start scoring the goals and getting to Calvary and converts those chances. But I mean, I'm happy.
Speaker 4:I would like to see us, you know, stick it in the Union bag a little bit more, because it's very frustrating watching us get into good positions and then and then and then sort of blow it. And I think this is partly a finishing thing, but I think also there's partly an approach play thing. I think man City are really tough to play against, but there was definitely moments in that game where, if our transitions have been better, if we made the right pass at the right time, we could have created chances. So it's not just about like, oh, we're not scoring the goals. I think there's actually we're playing. We're not playing great in the attacking third.
Speaker 4:Generally, I think we're working really hard, but I don't think that Neil Harrison are are doing enough in terms of creating chances of a minute. But I think that will turn itself around in the games where you are playing easier opponents and on the flip side, our defensive record has been superb. We are. This was true at the start of the man City game I don't know if it's true after we conceded at the end of these, one goal for open play, but we've conceded the fewest goals from open play of any Premier League team this season and which is quite the stat when you think about it, if it compared to how we used to be, and I think it's a testament to the work guys has done, but also to the work that you know the back four have done and the system that we've got in place and how well those players play. So, yeah, confident, not worried, I think will. If you were to ask me between now and the end of the season who gets more points out of us forest, and I'd say it was fairly confident.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it makes that. It makes that the losing thing has been funny because I've watched a couple of their games and They've gotten good at scoring goals but they've also gotten really good at conceding them. So you know, there's not. They haven't cracked the code, you know they, they, they stopped being, they stopped getting totally battered and they obviously won some games. But I agree, I think they're not. They haven't got that much going on. Andy, what are your thoughts?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd agree broadly with everything that Ben and Adam have just said. For me, even though we've not maybe picked up as many Points as we would have liked, over the last five or six weeks the general performance level has been really good. It's only wolves away right at the end of last last year where the performance level really wasn't there from the word go. But we had just played man city at home Three days prior to that, at the end of a very sort of congested festive Period, so you could possibly say that the players were running on empty a little bit for that game. But since then you know you look at the names of fallen away possibly could have won that Biller at home. You know all the performances. Even though we've, we've come out of them with withdrawals, the general performance level has been very good and, as Adam said a few moments ago, the glaring thing If you had to put your finger on one thing the glaring thing that we need to improve is Our finishing. If we could finish and take some of our chances, then we we'd be in so much of a better position. Even again, the Manchester City game On the weekend. They scored in the 71st minute with their first attempt on target. We could have been tuning up in that game easily if we could have created, finished off a couple of the chances that we, we, we created, or if a final ball had been a little bit better. So the general performance level is Extremely good and it's good to at least see a team going out onto a pitch with a plan and a framework and it knows what it's doing. Every player knows what they're doing.
Speaker 2:I went to a Everton legends thing of the Empire in Liverpool in early January and Peter Reed was one of the Sort of speakers and he sort of made he made the point that he didn't believe Anybody other than Sean Dice.
Speaker 2:Anybody would be doing a better job with the current squad than Sean Dice, which I agree with 100%, and the general consensus in the room was that was the the the viewpoint of the majority of of fellow Evertonians in there. So it's yet the last last half dozen games haven't been points. Total has not been great and it's not really to still be back in the relegation zone, but for several reasons the lead bottom of the league table is. It's not meaningless, but it's not really a question of whether we're going to be back in the league or not, we might get points back from the appeal. We really might get more taken off us For us might get some taken off them. We'll obviously talk about this issue shortly. So yeah, is it great to be in the relegation zone? Ostensibly no, but the performance level is far better than our league position suggests and I share Ben's view that we'll comfortably Now on the end of the season, regardless of what points deductions we might have thrown at us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one of the things I agree with that and you know one of the things been frustrating. I mean there's lots. Always our job as Evertonians is to suffer, right, so there's always things that are frustrating. But is you know, there's the general acknowledgement in the media that the 10 points was, that, was you know, a harsh penalty. Let's say that's not translated into people appreciating that our form is Not the form of a team with 19 points, it's the form of a team with 29 points. So, and it's like it just, you know, does this thing? Oh, I come with a guy's name, it's that gel gelman Hypothesis, maybe I'm misnaming.
Speaker 1:It was named after a physicist called Murray gelman and it basically said this guy once gave this speech where he talked about how you read a newspaper and if you know any, you could. If you come across a story in a newspaper that you know anything about, you'll realize that Newspapers, the way things are reported, is generally terrible. They get basic facts wrong, the reverse causality, like if you and then you turn the page and read About something you know nothing about and you go, oh, that's terrible, and you just accept it on face value. It's a reminder. Like I say, we love to like what's my friends who work in the media.
Speaker 1:Most people in the media aren't really that good, like they don't really have much expertise. They've done something for a long time but it's not very insightful. And you see that with this now, because it everyone should be saying well, you've got a very mind, every center, a mid table team on form, so their results should follow that, which more or less they do. You know, people is shocked when we give spurs a game. You shouldn't be shocked when you give we give spurs a game. You know we can actually have a long term. We shouldn't do that. So maybe that will change. I guess it's inevitable. Sorry, adam, go ahead.
Speaker 3:Sorry I was just to Sort of emphasize your point. I think it was a, you know, the Guardian Football Weekly, when they did our, when they did yesterday with the Del Review of City, they sort of described us as being I'm paraphrasing, but the sentiment is true. Basically they said that we were being plucky and we were plucky and held our own and all this sort of like generally condescending adjective, choice of like Ever. You know that we, we were scrappy and we gave them a game and all this sort of stuff. It's like we're not the team that's 18th in the Premier League with a team that's what should be about 13th, 12th, but on form of Of, by how many points we've actually, you know, actually picked up and just on that, on that point I mean.
Speaker 3:But you can go on the BBC, go on the BBC sport website. Now they still have not got an asterix caveat to to show that ever since got a 10 points deduction, which is just completely bizarre for me. They've got it on match of the day and Sky Sports zap has it, but but BBC sports still don't have it. And it's just like, it's just strange that and inevitably you would end up, you will end up talking like Everton, like they are the relegation candidates that they appear to be.
Speaker 1:I agree, the Guardian. I'm not either. I have you know. I listen to the Guardian Football Weekend. I generally enjoy it and I read the Guardian every day.
Speaker 1:But you got a very moment with the Guardian. Let me get my tinfoil hat out, but I'll evidence it. It is a pro Liverpool FC newspaper. Right, and the guys was Dave was the name. He was the secret footballer they're kitchen. Yeah, in one of his books he talks about when he first started writing, because the secret footballer is it. You know this column that ran in the Guardian for a long time and he was told this isn't that long ago, there's only 10 years ago. He was told when he stopped right for the Guardian. Right whenever you want, but just never annoy Liverpool fans, because when the after Hillsborough, when people in Liverpool stopped buying the Sun, the Guardian very smartly went in there and sucked it up. A lot of that. You know circulation for the football coverage and they were the they came to go to. So there is like an editorial policy at the Guardian football desk to be pro Liverpool. So it's that that you're gonna bear that in mind. I'll tell you what's in for half now and we'll get on with it.
Speaker 3:So I'll put mine on. I mean Barry Glendening, he hates everything. I mean he hates everything. I mean he could go.
Speaker 1:He's a funny guy but like you, listen to him and all the ever see just describes what happened. I said this, I said this, then they, then they got one back, but in the end they lost to you one. Thanks, barry, how much you getting paid for that gobshite?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I said I said that time, to think I said that a few weeks ago and Andrew said, and like, when I was speaking to him a few weeks later and said like Ever since you said that, it's all I can hear, because it might be part of his job is to is to like, summarize the game for people who didn't see it, but he doesn't actually offer anything else after that. The thing you have to remember about Barry Glendening is that he's a comedian, that's his like, that's his background.
Speaker 4:Like he's there, he's on that panel because he knows a bit about football and he's there to be funny. He's not there like a Philip Pochlear or Archie Rintel who are football, or Jonathan Wilson, who are there to like be experts of football. He's there to talk about football kind of and be funny. And so when you, when you sort of listen to the podcast, knowing that that's his role, it starts to make most. He's not there to offer tactical analysis or break down systems or talk about structure or like he's there to describe what happened and then add quality value.
Speaker 3:I would take my tin foil hat off and put it in the cupboard.
Speaker 4:Then no, that's not to say, it's not. That's not to say because he does hate Everton and he, but he hates everybody. But you've got to remember that he's not doing that because he's a tactical expert. He's doing that because it's sort of his persona, because his persona is, you know, a slightly grumpy old man, comedian, who watches football.
Speaker 1:For other things they probably shouldn't game summarize on that because I agree with you, like it makes sense, but they sort of do you go in the back of a bar. You watched Everton, spurs tell us what you think. Well, everson played in blue, max and Spurs I think they were in white and there was. It was a draw, fucking brilliant right anyway.
Speaker 1:And I'm wondering about the, the, the points stuff and financial fair play and that sort of stuff. So bunch of stuffs happen since we play the state of play is this now Richard Masters, the CEO of the Premier League, embarrassed himself and his family and his forefathers in front of the, in front of the black committee. I mean I felt a bit sorry for him actually, because he was a bit I don't. He obviously wasn't well prepared for the kind of environment and where he got caught sort of talking about small clubs and stuff. He fell into a beautifully laid trap via politician who led him to say that but you should know better than that but became clear that you know they are all over the place on this stuff.
Speaker 2:I mean just just just on the point of how we came across in that, in that, on that influence of that select committee in as well as is non-sensible comments about, you know, small clubs.
Speaker 2:I thought how we just and you guys will know a bit more about this than me because you've done more public speaking than I have he just came across really badly because his sentences were a bit well staccato and well a bit like this Now I'm talking, probably talk a bit like that on the podcast all the time, but I'm a fan in this environment. It's not acceptable for the head you know, a man in his position or person in his position, to be in that environment and speak in such a fashion. He just, regardless of what, what questions are thrown at him, he should be able to answer them in a clear and concise manner and he just didn't do that. He just came across as badly prepared and, frankly, didn't didn't understand the issues and didn't know what he was talking about. A few years ago there was, there was a big security issue around group four where I think they accidentally released some prisoners and you know.
Speaker 2:It was like three or four times that people just three or four times and I was remember that their chief executive was a guy called Nick Buckles I think that was his name and he was whole before MPs and he was asked to sort of explain why his company was sort of, you know, taking prisoners out on teddy bears and he was just trying to get the techniques and then letting them, you know, go scot-free across fields. And he came across in the same way and you know, he just basically just just just didn't came across as weak and uninformed and just didn't have a grasp of what his organization and masters came across the same way and I just thought it was not really commented on because the small clubs comment got all the attention but his general demeanor I thought was really, really poor and it just demonstrated the premise the thing is, andrew, he comes across as a smarmy git because he's a smarmy git.
Speaker 4:That's the thing. And the problem is and this is all coming home to Roost now they've never had to face the accountability that they're now facing. They've never had to. That was a contribution by Jute. I quite agree, jute. He's never had to face that sort of questioning before because he's been run like a private members club where he's got to do what he wants and he's not had to be accountable to anybody apart from his own members. So he's never had to explain himself in public before.
Speaker 4:And that comes to like and the ums and ars thing. I get that. But having trained enough public speakers and dealt with enough politicians who have ums and ars and as somebody who, having listened to this podcast, ums and ars were the best of them I think that stuff is like I don't think it's necessarily like the biggest deal in the world. I think what's more of a problem is that and you know Austin and I talked about this after the, after the um, the hearing he's in an environment where he needed to go into that and try and win friends and show willing to cooperate and show willing to. You know, play ball and, you know, operate in a way where he he recognized that he was the man under pressure and not be a smarmy git, and he walked away from that with a little bit of committee hating him and putting out a press release basically saying that they hated him and that he was terrible and that they had lots of questions that they didn't felt were very answered very well.
Speaker 4:So, like from a from a purely political point of view, it was a disaster because it didn't convince anybody that he was the right man to solve all the problems that they were raising. So yeah, he's just, but because he never had to do that before. So that's like that was the it was. It was a disaster for lots of reasons, but that, politically, the biggest problem they now create, he now has, is that he's demonstrated that he's not able to solve all the problems that they've, the politicians, have identified and, as I think you said, austin, he's about to find out what it's like to have no friends in Westminster in a time where you're about to be regulated right up the jackseed.
Speaker 1:One of the things, one of the jobs I work me and Ben do do similar things and I I one of the things I've done in my soul, the last bit of my career is advise companies on you know how to like navigate political environments, let's. Let's say, and one of the first pieces of work I got years ago was with the, basically the European like soft drink manufacturers association. I can't remember what they call, but and this was remember, this was early on in the sort of the coalition government back in Britain, so 2000,. Actually, it would have been just after that, after the Conservatives went in 2015,. They passed the thing was called the sugar tax, right, basically a tax on sugary drinks.
Speaker 1:And I went from England, brussels, with these people three or four weeks after this had happened and they couldn't believe. They were like, literally, this industry was like a Gog, like how the hell has this happened? Because you know it doesn't make any sense and they had all this evidence that it wasn't going to help. And I said, well, it was popular. And they looked at me like that, well, people like it, it pulls. Well, so politicians did it. And they looked at me like I was stupid, because that is how you know, and I think the idea of the Premier made themselves the bad guy they have, and that is like that's insurmountable. That's the whole game, like it doesn't matter what else is going on or what facts you've got, what you do in a particular context. If you're, you're either the popular, you're on the side of the popular thing, or the unpopular thing, and they've made themselves the unpopular thing. So the regulator now is a slam dunk. I mean it'll definitely happen. Anyway, back to Emma.
Speaker 3:Sorry, go ahead, sorry, yeah, a few days ago it became, it was released that Richard Bassers refused Parliament's request to release the minutes of Everton's hearing. I'm just wondering, like I imagine the Premier League's comms people have, you know, had a you know, all have had an influence in that. So just Austin and Andrew, austin and Ben, sorry, like was that is that? Is that surprising in the sense of like that that's something they should do because it's for them, or is it not surprising in the sense of that actually they're doing the right thing by not releasing it?
Speaker 4:It's not. I wasn't surprised when they did that. Because what they? Because and you can get a little bit conspiracy theorist about this, because people go they must be hiding something. And the answer is they're probably not, because if the minutes were that explosive, one of the clubs would have leaked them anyway. Like, plenty of people have access to those minutes. They're not like locked in a safe in Richard Masters office, right, they're circulated to dozens of people at all the clubs, what they? What in those situations? The they're a private company, so we're not releasing those.
Speaker 4:It creates an expectation that anyone can ask for them at any time. So they ask for those minutes. And then they might go back and say oh well, you've given us those minutes, so now we want these minutes. And it becomes really difficult to say no the second time if you said yes the first time. So actually it's probably if I was at the Premier League, I would have said hey, don't release the minutes, because the damage of not releasing the minutes is less significant than us releasing the minutes. And then if they ask for the minutes of this meeting or that meeting, which is actually far fucking worse than the one we've released, then that's a big problem.
Speaker 4:So like yeah it's one of those things where you just have to you just have to have to stonewall. It's like you know I worked for. You know I've talked about this before. I've worked. I worked for TikTok. I do comments for TikTok. One of the questions I get asked all the time is how many users does? Does TikTok have how many? What's the average age of the users? And we just don't release that information because every time we, if we answer that question, we have to then answer it every single time and it just gives a running commentary of where you are in terms of user base, so like, and that's not information we want to release for lots of reasons, many of which are commercial. But that's like, it's the same principle. You say no because you don't want to deal with it in the long term, not necessarily because, oh God, we can't let them see this one line in these minutes which is actually exposed that it's a big plot, because I don't actually think it is a big part. I just think they've been compensated.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was my thought process behind it as well. I'm sorry, austin, like I thought it was, because they would, they would open up a can of worms for you know other instances where they can release minutes and and they want to keep that sort of stuff, you know, confidential or in control as much as it can be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm sure that's right. I mean there is a general without, because Ben's right If you spend any time we all know this right the employers we work for, ben and I have had the misfortune to be in the middle of like government stuff at different times than our lives Any time. You think are these people stupid or are they orchestrating some grand conspiracy? It's always that they're stupid, always, always, always, always, without finding them stupid. So there is no grand conspiracy here, they are just a farce now. But I think there's just a nuance.
Speaker 1:For addition to what Ben was saying is I think they know that the more scrutiny there is around the process, the worse they look. So they do want to sort of discourage that Because they don't mentally, they haven't got a leg to stand on. The only I mean I just want to take the conversation is the only the only sort of legal ground the Premier League has is that they're a proper organization and are able, therefore, to sort of do whatever they want as a proper organization, like broadly going to see them through quite a lot of stuff. But the way that they have gone about this is like absurd. Did any of you guys read there's a thing by church court chambers law firm. Lawyer there wrote this law, legal and access of, like the date of everything and like it's what. It's a pain in the balls to read, because lawyers are paid by the minute and you can tell like it's impenetrable. But the headline is I mean, if I did a TLDR on it for you, it basically says the process the Premier League went through was like ludicrously, embarrassingly amateurish, doesn't stand up to any scrutiny as a, as any kind of quasi-visual process.
Speaker 1:And actually it does conclude with a suggestion that Everton could have a claim under the European Convention on Human Rights because, because it never had to effect trial. Now, they can't sue a delved into this and spoke to some people who are friends of mine or lawyers. You can't, they can't sue the Premier League under the ECHR. The ECHR doesn't buy to private organizations. Everton could sue the government for creating an environment where their rights have been breached. Because this, this, this inclusion is basically that the, the, the, the Premier League's process is so laughably egregious, Like they've got an independent, which is just one point in May. I think it sort of sums it up. They've got an independent commission where one of the members worked for West Ham for years and had an opponent of Everton, and another one is currently a Premier League employee, so is in no way remotely independent. So it's a. The whole thing is. So they've got. I think they've got themselves into a real mess with the process.
Speaker 4:The other amazing process thing that we sort of came out in which was in the Richard Masters letter actually, which was sort of unremarked upon because it was, you know, it was sort of buried by the news that they weren't going to share the minutes was that there was a. There was a in his explanation about why, like the process had been fair, he said he basically says what the Premier League on one side of this case, everton, are the other. Both sides have a right to submit, you know, their proposals and their and their view of what the, what the sanction should be, and make their case. And what he revealed was that Everton, that the Premier League had made clear two months before the hearing that they were recommending a 12 point deduction. But they made that clear to Everton and the independent commission. So, like the independent quote, unquote independent commission, two months ahead of them actually hearing any evidence from anybody, had already had a submission from the Premier League saying, hey, we think you should deduct them 12 points.
Speaker 4:So how can you possibly have a fair trial where one of the one of the sort of sides has pre-briefed you what they want the outcome to be like? The Premier League have every right to say we think there should be a 12 point deduction, but they get to do that at the hearing, not two months beforehand. That's like if you imagine being on trial for murder, right, that's like turning up a trial and discovering that the prosecution have already told the judge of the jury what they think the verdict should be. You don't get to do that like we do the process and you do that as part of that, but you can't do that two months before. That's just not how investigations work.
Speaker 3:And it's such a non-precedented thing as well. So you've got that, where you've got a bunch of people who are, you know, inverted commas independent, trying to make a judgment, and they're obviously inevitably biased by that. The fact that one side, who are objectively the more powerful side in this circumstance the Premier League making that recommendation, so they're already predisposed to make that judgment against Everton, and so the idea that it was a fair is nonsense.
Speaker 1:Well, it applies, absolutely. It applies. There's a psychological trick called anchoring. If you're ever doing any sort of training on negotiation, you'll be taught which is like and if I was buying your car, basically, anchoring is I actually want to name the first number, because then we're negotiating around my number and people have a natural, we have. It creates a sort of an acceptable range.
Speaker 1:So once the Premier League, you know, I say I think they're stupid, I don't think they're enough to do this deliberately. So I think this was accidental. But in in saying to the mission 12 points, you're immediately in the minds of those people having them operate around above or below 12 points, whereas if they'd have come to their own conclusion, they, because and this is the heart of the problem for the Premier League, and it is a problem like whether it's a problem it comes to home, to roost through Everton or forest or man city or Chelsea or someone else the fundamental sort of problem they have is there is no agreed framework for how you get punished under these rules. There are rules, fine. There's a process for determining whether you're guilty, fine, there is a well, whatever you think. And then you're going to end up acting inconsistently. And once you're acting inconsistently.
Speaker 1:One of the other things that has been discussed by you know lawyers looking at this is there's a provision under company law in the UK which is very clear on this that says you can't treat a member of a company which is equivalent to a shareholder in this context. You can't treat one member of a company differently to how you treat other members of a company. You can't say to one shareholder share people who are meant to be equal. Oh, I'm not counting your votes at the age at the annual general meeting, I'm just going to count his right. You can't say I'm just paying a dividend to you and not to you, right? You have to treat everyone equally.
Speaker 1:Everton can't claim that yet because they're the only one who've been, but the moment anyone else is punished immediately Everton will have a claim to say well, we're both shareholders in this thing under the same rules. You're treating us differently and the Premier League are bound to treat everyone differently because there's no guidelines. So every independent commission is going to cook up. I mean, forest could get deducted, no point. So they could get deducted 30. You know, it's completely random, sorry, ania, could you also?
Speaker 2:yeah, that's right, no problem. Well, I want. The point I wanted to raise is related to the sanction. Am I right in saying that the framework for Everton's first sanction ie you start off with six points and then go up a further point for every five million pounds you were found in breach wasn't in place when Everton were charged?
Speaker 4:So this one is sort of cocked up and I get why it has. But if you read the full report, what happened was that's the EFL framework. That's the framework they use in the EFL, the Football League, and what the Premier League said was in their submission, when they were saying like how they thought we should be punished or what they made a submission that they thought that that framework should apply to this case the Independent Commission said no, that's not the framework we're going to use because we're independent, so we're not using that. That is not a framework that has been agreed with the other Premier League clubs either. So that framework doesn't.
Speaker 4:It's not in place now, it was never in place. It's not a framework. What it was was the submission based on another framework, where the Premier League says, hey, you should do this, and the Independent Commission said no, and then conveniently ended up with a point deduction which broadly mirrors it anyway, which is a question that I'm sure our super lawyer has asked in the appeal. But that sort of framework is a bit like the quote unquote, no sporting advantage, with people keep fairing around. It's just not a part of what the decision was like. It wasn't ever. It's not the framework. Now, it was never the framework. The Premier League asked for it to be the framework and the Commission said no.
Speaker 1:But it does speak to that organisation though, because they said that we should use this framework, but only in this case. Now, that should have triggered something in someone's mind to say it doesn't make sense because you know you take exactly what happened. They've reached a certain point and gone. Oh shit, we actually have no way of determining a punishment here.
Speaker 2:Well, that's exactly the point I was going to make, because I've read enough cases in the news over the years where somebody's being convicted of a murder dating back to 1993 and they've been convicted in 2018, but they've been sentenced according to the sentencing regime that was in place when they committed to crime, because that's a basic legal principle. So if you apply that principle to this case, as far as I can tell, the Premier League of the Broad Profit and Sustainability rules in now. I know the clubs vote for them, so it's the clubs that ultimately vote for them. Everton themselves might not have voted for them, but the clubs themselves voted the rules in and they've agreed to be banned by them. But at no stage until very, very late in the process, whichever way round it was caught, it was arrived at.
Speaker 2:Has the sanctions regime actually been put in place? It's not written down, as far as I can tell, and it's not been discussed, as far as I can tell and I stand corrected on this, but it's not written down anywhere or communicated anywhere. If Club A does this, it will. If Club A breaches it by this much, it will attract this sort of sanction.
Speaker 1:No, it's not right.
Speaker 4:And the reason why that's happened is and this again evidence from the Premier League were a bunch of clowns is they never thought they would have to enforce this stuff.
Speaker 4:So they had a set of rules but never did the underlying work necessary to build a framework, get agreement with all the clubs, because they just never thought they'd have to enforce it. And it's like having a law on your books that you just are never going to prosecute and then all of a sudden everyone starts doing it. So you're like shit, we've got to prosecute this now If we got any censor guidelines on this. They're like no, no, we never bothered with any censor guidelines because we never thought we were going to have to prosecute this. So you just end up making them up. But it is exactly the problem, and it shows exactly through the incompetence of the Premier League, that the idea that they had a set of rules but never set a framework for how they would be enforced and fell back on this bizarre like you know. Oh well, it's an independent commission, so they get to decide what the what the rules are.
Speaker 4:Well, okay, but like Parliament sets laws and then has sentencing guidelines right, exactly so, like the idea that like oh well, everton breached it by 20 million and they might get a one million pound, fine, or we might put the, we might shut down the club and, you know, ban it from ever playing football again. They're both. They're both within the range of expectations. That's because the independent commission will decide. That's just bollocks Like. No sentencing anywhere in the world operates sort of like on that sort of wide scale of a. Well, you know, we'll just throw a fucking thing at the dartboard and see what your punishment is.
Speaker 4:Guys like who knows, you could get away with it. You could be totally fucked Like you pass. You have a. You have independent commissions, just like you have independent judges. You give them a framework to work within. That goes hey, if someone breaks this rule, this is the punishment framework that you are allowed to operate in. This gives you the latitude to use your judgment to make a decision.
Speaker 4:It might be a fine, it might be a transfer ban, it might be a point seduction, but here's the framework. You operate in the idea that you just could car blanched at three people who, to us this point earlier, have inherent biases because of their previous employers to give out any punishment they like and they do. And then Richard Masters sits in front of Parliament and goes oh well, you know, independent commission, no guidelines. What can I do? It's like, well, you can be more fucking competent at your job. Is what you can actually do and do the legwork to set up the system properly in the first place. But again, they didn't do that because they never thought they'd have to enforce this.
Speaker 3:And to your point about the anchoring effect of you read the simp, you read it from the same book that I've read it maybe you got for me, but that's absolutely what's happened.
Speaker 3:It's sort of interesting like listening to what you've said, because what they've probably done is they've obviously realized that they don't have any guidelines and their 12 point suggestion has become their sort of way of, I think, almost like accelerating that process of providing them with some sort of guidelines but also mixing up, mixing that with a sort of a bit of chest beating of the fact that Everton have been used as a pawn to show that they don't need regulating and to go like this is what's going to happen if you breach the profit and sustainability rules.
Speaker 3:And the anchoring thing is actually spot on because they did. I mean, in that section of the book he does like some work on judges and he gets them to roll like a dice of nine or three and he finds that the judges that rolled a dice of nine gave a higher sentence to a bunch of criminals and the criminals that he then the same bunch of criminals were then given a lighter sentence if the judge rolled a three. So you've got something as arbitrary, as like a dice being rolled influencing people's decisions. So the idea that the independent commission wasn't influenced by that thing like two weeks before, however many weeks before, two months before, whatever it was, is nonsense, because they absolutely were influenced by it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that sort of. And there's two things that I'd say about that as well. I don't think I'll ever forgive the Premier League for one of these things. One, everton aren't allowed to comment on the process, right, we're literally not allowed to say anything about it, which is why you don't see anything from Everton about this. But the Premier League has leaked and briefed and you know every stage of the way. You know, you've seen the fucking puff pieces about Richard Masters in the last couple of days. You've seen the 12 point thing. You know. You've seen the forest. The fact that us and forest were going to be charged was leaked to the athletic, you know, 24 hours before it was formally notified to anybody else, right? And the second thing and this is what I won't ever forgive the Premier League club, the Premier League, for is that they leaked that story about recommending 12 points the day after Bill Kenright died.
Speaker 4:And I just like I just will never forgive whoever the organization for thinking that was. It's not appropriate to do that from a process point of view, from a fairness point of view, to look at that week where that happened and go, oh, do you know what? Yeah, we're still going to leak that story, we're still going to put it out there. When their chairmen just died, like I just think it was a disgraceful way of acting and I think it sort of sums up how disgracefully they've acted at every stage of this process. And that's why I have a, you know, degree of confidence that we're going to get some points back, if not all of them, because I just think they've created a scenario where they have to save face. Now and this is what makes the mockery of the independent process is because the independent quote, unquote independent process is going to give us some points back because the Premier League, who definitely don't have any say on the independent process, need to save face. So it's like, okay, so it's not independent at all, is it Because you're going to give us some points back? Because Richard Masters needs to look less like a dickhead, like, and it's just. The whole thing is. So. I've gone quite quickly from being in a position of like oh you know it is like incompetence to a position of like.
Speaker 4:Yes, it's incompetence, but inherently it's actually incompetence built around the system that's quite corrupt and a system that does look after the bigger teams and a system that does look after, you know, the big, the big six. Because it because the FFP proposal that they're putting forward as the alternate you know the updated PSR rules is a turnover to wages, like player spending to turnover ratio. Right, so you would have to limit your spending on players, so transfer fees, wages, agents fees, etc. To. I think it's their proposal is great. Like is gradated to come in. It's starting at 90% and then eventually going to 70%. So you're saying that like oh, okay, your solution is to say if you're a massive club who has a massive turnover, you can spend loads of money on your playing staff. If you're lute or Burnley, tough, tough titties like you, just can't you. You, you're a small, you're a small fish in a big pond and you have to get. You're fucked by that and like not just the fact that their solution is to embed unfairness into the system.
Speaker 2:It's like it's a show. It's just based into the process. Yeah.
Speaker 4:And this is why, like you know, I, don't want to become one of these people who, like you know, evangelizes American sport because, god, I've watched enough three and a half hour baseball games to know that there's plenty wrong with how Americans do sports.
Speaker 4:But the one thing American sports have really nailed is the meritocracy of it in terms of, like, salary caps and, you know, limits in terms of the number of overseas players you can have.
Speaker 4:In terms of, if you look at the MLS and the NFL draft, which the worst team picks first, right gets the best player. Like American sports, they actually do a really good job of trying to create a level, a level playing field in the way that they write their rules, in a way that football is just increasingly going totally the other way and becomes less and less interesting because of it. Because, like, if you're Everton or like Aston Villa are having a spectacular season, amazing season, and the pinnacle of that will be like they'll win a trip, they might win the conference league and they might get in, might sneak into fourth place in the league, like, and that for them, will be like, probably the pinnacle of their achievements. You know that they will be able to achieve in this world until they get bought by a petrochemical state, but football is dying on its ass because these people are just transforming the game into something which is, quite literally, the haves and the have nots.
Speaker 4:Yeah stand off my soapbox now.
Speaker 2:Oh no, I completely, oh sorry, go ahead. Yeah, I completely agree with that. I mean, I thought increasingly over the last few months that top level football is across Europe is very much in danger of eating itself. You've only got to look at the expansion of the Champions League where there's going to be six extra group games, I think from next season. Now I don't watch the group stage now. I occasionally tune into the some of the knockout stages, but if you're a casual football fan, you're not going to watch six more games of a group stage Champions League where it's the same teams playing each other season after season. It's the same teams playing each other season after season now and the competition at a lower level is completely bought, is boring. And if you have, you know, and Ben's absolutely right the new profit sustainability rules will bake in inherent bias favoring the current, the current big clubs and you know people who are more casual fans and they haven't got as much of an interest in the game will start to turn off. And it's very, you know it's very. You know the game, football as in general. I'm just talking about the Premier League, talking about UEFA, and you know how FIFA are expanding the World Cup and having a you know, 32 team club World Cup and where that's going to fit into the calendar.
Speaker 2:Whoever knows the people who run the game at a domestic and a European and a world level in the next few years have got to be very, very careful. Because, in my opinion because they could easily, you know, be the goose that kills the golden egg, because more one of the issues around sort of getting people involved in football at the moment, as I understand it is, is people who are sort of in the teens and twenties aren't sitting down to watch full 90 minute football matches. They're watching more clips on their phones. So the solution to that is to have more 90 minute football matches. That makes absolutely no sense. So, yeah, they football is got. I mean that this is possibly a discussion for another time because you could go really in depth on it. But football in general has got to be very, very careful the next few years. How it, how it sort of moves itself forward, it's going to be very careful it doesn't yet just just financially eat itself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and destroy the essence of the competition. All right, so let's move this on a little bit to Adam. I'll come to you first on this. What do we think is going to happen? There are two things at play that are really relevant for Everton now. When is our appeal? The appeal concluded last week, Apparently. We'll know any day what the answer is. Anything could happen, as discussed as no framework. They could decide to take more points off us. They could decide to give us all the more back. God knows. Forest have also been charged as of week Separate question about. I don't want to get into all the complexity of that because it's conversation for another day. So, on, forest situation obviously affects us profoundly because you know we, they, you know they're down near the bottom and haven't had 10 points deducted yet. So if they lose 10 points, I mean that'll make a big, big, big difference there, which obviously affects us in terms of relegation. If you were betting, Adam, which will be a terrible idea on this, but if you were, what would your?
Speaker 1:sense of what is going to happen now. What would your sense of it be?
Speaker 3:I think it's it's almost predicated on the discussion that we've sort of had already, because the the as we've discussed, it's really difficult to say, because the process has been such a farce, it's really difficult to sort of make what I would consider a rational sort of judgment, because the rationality behind it is difficult to sort of nail to the wall. I think if I could take a sort of a stab at what I think is going to happen, I think we're going to get something like anything between a 30 and 50% reduction in our current reduction, our current deduction, and then we will get another deduction of broadly the same value, which will take us to our current state, and then forest will probably get something, you know, a 50% of what we got originally. So I think Everton will end up at the end with like a 10 point, you know, a 10 point deduction over the course of the two charges, including the appeals process, and then forest will get something like, you know, anything between like four and six, because I think the Premier League are still going to try and show themselves as being capable of self-regulation but also, as you know, the lack of spending in the January transfer window has been testament to is that they also want to be clear on what will happen if you use rules, and clubs have quite obviously reacted to that. You know what was it? I think there was. I think the spending in the January 2024 window was something like only you know 20% of what it was the year before.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think if I was a forest fan, I'd be much more worried than being Everton fan because, like you know, forest are where they are through. You know the fact that they've won that number of games and drawn that number of games, but Everton are. You know where we are where we are because of those 10 points deduction. So I think it would be good, it's good for us, but you know, I mean, who knows, who knows what's going to happen? That's what I think. That's what I think anyway.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let me offer you, Andy, I'll come to you with this. Let me offer you a logical thought I guess you can react to. And as Adam I say, the prime logic to this is probably a fool's error. But forest, we hear. I don't think we know this to be the case because we haven't got the details of you know they're hearing it.
Speaker 1:But it has been reported that the breach, their breach, is somewhere between 20 and 13 million, which, for context, everton's, in the Premier League's view, was 19.5. In Everton's view was 7.5. So let's take the Premier League number. So if that reporting is accurate which to Ben's point of view it probably is, because the Premier League are briefing all over the place on this stuff and that numbers come from somewhere Forest have breached either half a million more than Everton or 10 million more. Let's take the lower of those and say, essentially the breaches are the same, right, there is no way, logically, they can end up net with a smaller points deduction than we do from the second breach, if that makes sense. So there's a scenario where we don't get any points back. Let's take our worst case scenario. Let's say we don't get any points back in our appeal they say you know, fuck you, there's the rules you're on. And then they dock us another 10, right, for the second breach, which we see because it covers some of the same period of time. Anyway, forest then logically would get deducted at least 10 points, right. It would be like, and obviously we're in bizarre land here, but Forest would then. So we would end up in the same position relative to Forest that we are now.
Speaker 1:Almost every other scenario works for us, though, where if we get, say, five points back and then get deducted under the five points which I consider roughly it will be a good shout. They'll take some points, we'll get some points back on appeal and then get docked some more for the second breach Forest then get that same amount of points. So we end up, you know, net up on them, or at least in the same place. What's your sense of that? And can you see a situation where I mean I guess maybe a silly question to ask but can you see a situation where, like Forest, end up in a better position for us, or do you think that you know they're going to like? Logic is going to apply and you know we'll end up seeing some you know effective, but get punished the same. So we'll end up relatively either better off or where we are now compared to them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that that scenario that you've just outlined there and the one that Adam said as well is broadly has got the greatest chance of playing out, For reasons that we've discussed over the last 30 or 40 minutes. The Premier League do need to save face and they do need to try and get some some coherence into this shit show that they've created. So I completely agree, I can easily see a situation where we get some points back on the appeal for the first breach, get Doc some more for the second breach, end up with an overall points total of you know, somewhere between eight and 10, but then Forest, assuming that they are found guilty and I think they pretty let's assume they are they would get then get, if their breaches, around 20 million pounds. They will end up with the same points deduction for the for that breach that we end up with for our first breach. That is probably a situation that would suit everybody because Everton will feel a bit of a win that they got the 10 points reduced. The Premier League will have saved a bit of face because they will have not hammered one of their founder member clubs be seen to be hammering them unduly harshly, Because just on that point.
Speaker 2:I've had conversations with with fans of lots of clubs, including some Liverpool fans, and the general narrative has been 10 points is nonsense. There's been some people who've said Everton have cheated. You know, they broke the rules, they should be punished. That's far too simplistic a view of things, as we've discussed. But the general narrative is is 10 points is utter nonsense. And that feeds into what?
Speaker 2:Again, what we discussed about the Premier League being on the wrong side of you know, in terms of a good side of the line and the bad side of the line, the Premier League have managed to find themselves on the, on the, on the bad side of the line. So, yeah, I can easily see a situation where we we, we get some, get some points back and Forrest ended up being docked the same number of points Cause, I mean, I also did have to do that, of course, because if they weren't to do that and Forrest breach was equal to all, greater than Everton's Everton would turn around and say well, hang on a minute. What's going on here? That's, that's patently unfair. And again, in terms of you know, punishment for the same offenses. Again, we, we spoke about that already. Yeah, one way or another, I will be amazed if Everton do not get at least four points back, if not five or six, in this appeal.
Speaker 1:Ben thoughts on that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think, and without sort of I'm sorry I'm going to be slightly clandestine here, without wanting to reveal too much about like you know where I got this. I know for a fact that the approach Everton's lawyers are sort of the landing zone, shall we put it for where they think they could not, where they're aiming for, because you always aim for a better position than you are, than you end up in. Well, I think the realistic where they can see it landing is this 10 points gets knocked down to six points, and then we get an additional six points for the second, for the second breach. So it becomes six and six. So we end up with minus 12.
Speaker 4:So we're two worse off than we are now, but to the point we've discussed Forrest then by definition have to get six for their breach. So they end up six works off than we are now, than they are now. So next we, we gain on Forrest by four points over the two breaches, and that's where I sort of see it. I know there's been some talk about, like you know, in the Twitter, twitter sphere, about, like you know, it might be a fine or they might give us all of our points back. I just can't see that, and I can't see that for a really big reason and I don't think it's a good situation they've created with, like the January transfer window to Adam's point earlier but credit to them if their goal was to limit people spending money they don't have.
Speaker 1:They've really done that, like no one wants to spend fucking anything Right and they've gone too far the other way.
Speaker 4:But if you, if they, if they said, okay, the, the punishment for a breach of PSR is a fine, every couple will just go, all right, then we'll just pay the fine. Like, well, okay, great, like jobs are good and we'll pay the fine Like this happens at, like that we're revealing too much about like work life. This is the approach that a lot of companies end up taking when they find they might be breaching sorts of laws and things. If they go, oh well, we'll just, oh, we'll get fined if we do that, how much is the fine? Oh, it's five million pounds. Okay, we'll pay the five million pound fine, like, because the thing we're going to do is going to net us more than the five million pounds we're going to have to pay out. So like, yeah, okay, we'll live with the bad PR of paying a fine and we'll just pay the fine Like, speaking about no specific companies that you know that may or may not have taken that break, but if you go to the corporate world, that's something that definitely 100% happens. They go well, we'll live with the punishment because it's no bad thing.
Speaker 4:So to the Premier League's point is like you have to. There has to be some significant punishment in order to actually make the sanctioning worthwhile, which is why I don't think we're going to get 10 points back. I think what we'll end up with is we get, we get four back and then we get the second six knocked off for the second charge. And just on forest charge, by the way, like ours is contested in quite a strong way in terms of the level of the breach because there was there's lots of different factors that go into whether we should, what should be counted. You know the discussion about player X and how. You know stuff around stadium interest should be counted and how the war on Ukraine and the sponsorship deals we lost because that should be counted. Ours is a relatively complex case. Forest is like is a dead simple, open and shut, because for those of you who aren't sort of aware what forest are alleged to have done or basically sort of it's well known what they did.
Speaker 4:They did do. Yeah, yeah, they did do. So one of the things that we did, if people remember, is that we had a very hard deadline to sell Richardlison because we wanted that sale to be on our books by the end of the accounting period, right? So we had to sell him by I think it was like the 30th of June. We knew we had to sell him by that date because if you sell him on the first of July he's then in next year's accounting so you don't get to count him as a, you don't get to book the profit, basically against the accounts that you want to book them against. So we and we put this as mitigation in our case we took, quote unquote, a cut price deal for Richardlison because we probably could have got 15, 20 million pounds more if we'd waited out and negotiated more. But we took it cut price deal because we knew we had to sell by the 30th of June.
Speaker 4:Forest sold Brennan Johnson and they admit that they did this. Forest sold Brennan Johnson two weeks after that same accounting deadline, or three weeks after the accounting deadline, and their mitigation is oh well, we that money should still be counted because if we'd sold him before the deadline we would have got less money for him. So, in order to balance up, in order to get the value and operating a quote unquote sustainable way, we sold him after the deadline, but you'd still count that money, which is like oh well, I know my homework's late, but you know, I wanted to make sure that I did it properly. So that's why it's like no, your homework's late, fuck off.
Speaker 4:Like there's a very concrete end date for the accounts. That money came in after that end date. You don't get to count that. Whatever your reason for that is, it doesn't matter. Like you don't get to count that money because their argument is well, if you count that money in the previous accounting period, then we'd be in compliance. It's like well, if my auntie had balls, she'd be my uncle, but she doesn't, so she's not right. Like it's just so. There's such an open and shut case that I just can't foresee a way that you give them less of a punishment than us because they're basically admitting yes, we breached, but please don't count it against us. Because we did this account, we want you to take it into it.
Speaker 4:It's just nonsense. It's a nonsense argument and I admire any lawyer who's gonna. You know, and there will be some lawyer. Because you compare a lawyer to argue anything. You know, as Donald Trump is finding out as he cycles through them like used underwear the. You compare a lawyer to say anything, but it credits hats off to the lawyer who's going to stand in front of that commission and argue that money process after the deadline should still be counted, because it would be inconvenient if it wasn't. Like it's just a nonsense argument.
Speaker 3:Another thing that's going to be worth considering is obviously that you know, whatever they get, forests will have a right to an appeal, as will Everton for this second, but Everton the second breach and Forests first breach respectively. So so the there can be a situation where I think Andrew and I were discussing this a few weeks ago like the window for the window for taking in the appeal for the for each breach Everton second and Forests only breach is after the Premier, after the league finishes. So you can be in the situation and again it goes back to that sort of bias where the people making that decision about the, about the, about the, put any, any points, deductions after appeals process and will know the effect that they're going to have. I mean, currently, with Everton's, everton's, you know, premier League survival is still regardless of the outcome is in our own hands, but that will be taken away. So you've got that element to it as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's going to be a set. And then you've got we've talked about this a little bit as well You've got potential. If there's a sense, that, which I think is inevitable Everton and Forrest are going to probably I almost can't see a situation where they don't end up suing each other unless neither of us go down, in which maybe Luton would sue someone, like because how do you now avoid a situation where either Everton or Forrest go down and the one who got relegated isn't able to claim well, we were treated differently to the others? You just can't see it how that is avoidable. I can't. And if Luton get relegated and Everton got some points back, let's say, which mean we would have gotten relegated if we hadn't got those points back, if you're Luton, you're going to say well, that's, you've cost me this much because of that decision and that's where they. I don't see how this doesn't end up in a. We think this is a mess now. I think the mess it's going to be over the summer is going to be our next level worse.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd agree with that, and it's entirely. And you can lay all of that blame firmly at the door of the Premier League. Through having a process which is discussed already, we're basically repeating ourselves, having processes in place without a proper sanction and a sanctions regime. That's just basic, that's just you know. I mean, we've all got contracts of employment. That's all got T's and C's in there where it says if you do this, you will face these consequences, ranging from, you know, written warning through to instant dismissal. And it appears that the Premier League just did the first bit and didn't bother with the second. What's the rest?
Speaker 1:Can we prove you a football match before we wrap up?
Speaker 2:Probably be moved up to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we should. Let's talk about Palace a couple of days. Well, actually it's nearly a week, but we're not going to. Took us six weeks to have this conversation, so that's fine, and you know you'll go into this game, I think right, so I'll start with Adam. I'll start with you. How do you think we're going to do against Palace who are just reading, actually, before we start at the pod that like the stories come out to do with that and trying to hire it, which is manager, and I was like, did I miss Roy Hodgson being sacked? I was like nope, they haven't just sacked him yet, so that's going to be great for morale, isn't it? So I think we're going to do against Adam. How do you think we're going to do against Palace?
Speaker 3:Well, I think if Roy Hodgson stays in charge, we've got a hell of a chance, a hell of a bit of a chance, of winning. I think if they get sacked they'll have that, you know, resurgence that we often see with teams, where they set managers where you can put a chimp in charge and they'll put out a decent performance in the first game. I don't think they're going to sack him because I think they would have done it today. So I can't see how they're going to sack him now, between the last, between now and Monday, and Steve Parris is traditionally quite a patient sort of bloke.
Speaker 3:So I think if with Hodgson, with Hodgson in place, I think we're going to comfortably win, because Alistair are a poor side. They generally don't do a lot without any of Eze, either of Eze or Elise, and they haven't got either of those. They're also missing Mark Gehee as well, centre back. So I watched them get to Chelsea last night. I mean they basically did nothing apart from Jessam and Lermas spanking one in from 25 yards, which you obviously can't rely on on a game-to-game basis. So yeah, I think it'd be comfortable, comfortable win for Everton, 3-0.
Speaker 2:Andy, yeah, I broadly agree with that. I think Palace are a shadow of the team. Once you take Eze and Elise out, and also the whole sort of noise around Palace as well, just looks really negative. You've got the fans unveiling banners against the owner at various games. Hodgson is unpopular with the fan base. The management of bringing Elise off the bench when he'd injured his hamstring less than a week before then he pulls up within 10 minutes and is now out for a longer period of time the whole management around that injury is just very, very strange. So it's just a club that is not in a happy place at the moment, whereas, as we've discussed at the start, the Port Everton's performances broadly are very good. So I've got every confidence that we can go into this game finally create some chances and or score some chances that we create. I'm not going to be quite as optimistic as Adam. I'm going to say we're going to win 2-0.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 4:Ben. Yeah, I mean, palace are shit. I watched the game against Chelsea yesterday, but they just have nothing. There's nothing going forward, there's no creativity without Elise and Eze. They had one good shot from Lerner, which was one of those shots that goes in once every 50 times. You try it.
Speaker 4:The other thing as well, though, is that and you know, you talk to I've got a couple of Palace fans and you talk to them, and what their view is is it's not about necessarily just the quality of the players. The thing they talk about is there's no fight, and we've all watched Everton teams who have no fight, who have no like. You know, and that's the thing that you kind of ever accuse Dyshaw or Dysha's Everstop is that we're always fight and always work hard, and when you're a team who isn't like up for it and they really look like a team who aren't up for it that's really dangerous, and that's why the new manager bounce thing happens, because teams that aren't up for it don't, you know, don't perform well. Then a new manager comes in, and all the players have to, like you know, they feel re-energised because it's fresh, it's new, and therefore they try harder. So that's why managers go on these tailspins, and I think that I think Crystal Palace are in one.
Speaker 4:I have a I think we'll get. I think we'll get some points back on appeal this week. I think we'll get four points back which we'll put as one point behind Palace and then I think we'll beat Palace to one and we'll go above Palace in the table after Monday Because yeah, I think they're a bad team and I think we're playing well and yeah, I think it's. And then I think everyone will sort of then panic again when we get six points taken off us for the second one. But as we will rack up points throughout the course of the season, I think we'll be absolutely fine.
Speaker 4:But, yeah, two, one, two, one win.
Speaker 1:Awesome. I think we'll win two now. I agree with Andy, all right. That was an epic episode 69 of the podcast. Thanks for joining. Stay well, we'll be back next week, we promise. And yeah, come on, you blue. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts on Spotify, apple podcasts, overcasts, amazon music, everywhere tell an Everton supporting friend and we'll see you next time. Stay well, we'll see you next time.