Reasons to be cheerful. We look at why Everton are maybe not in such terrible shape, why the West Ham performance wasn't as bad as everyone seemed to think, and discuss whether six points is a fair punishment for Everton.
Reasons to be cheerful. We look at why Everton are maybe not in such terrible shape, why the West Ham performance wasn't as bad as everyone seemed to think, and discuss whether six points is a fair punishment for Everton.
Welcome to episode 70 of the Blues Brothers Everton podcast. I'm Austin, I come from. New York and the other three Bosses are all perhaps together in the Bwn Room in Mansfield, and we've got Adam, Ben and our dads here as well, so I'll go Ascending Age Adam, how are you doing?
Speaker 2:I'm fine, thank you. How are you?
Speaker 1:I'm good it's raining in New York. That's my main problem. You guys are all in the desert as we record this.
Speaker 2:So yeah, from a week you just heard a very loud ding of a food, of eatable, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Like professional outfit, is always around here. Three of us huddled around one laptop eating food.
Speaker 2:Whilst I've eaten a main, I've eaten pizza in the podcast, I've eaten a dessert that needs to do a starter. Yeah, we, just we need to come up on the next episode with soup.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Just slurp just slurp, and then we've completed the full course meal.
Speaker 1:And maybe in a moose. Bush, ben, how you doing?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm good. So we're in the UK at the minute with Jude, so it means that I get to see these guys but also do the podcast from this side of the Atlantic, which is always fun.
Speaker 1:So yeah all very good and, last but not least, dad, how you doing.
Speaker 4:Yeah, good for me. Yeah, great Great having an analogy here. Yeah, so actions at the moment.
Speaker 1:Great, awesome, all right. And he's not here. We don't know Is he is in Wales somewhere. He hasn't got phone signal. He's probably cost, god knows.
Speaker 3:Is he in?
Speaker 1:Yorkshire. Maybe he's in Yorkshire, is he?
Speaker 2:I mean he made it sound like he's in Mordor by France about his own signal, which I completely agree with, by the way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm doing was meant to be, but there's apparently camped out in a place with less phone signal than the Sahara, so yeah, he can't. When we got a spectacular Andrew rant about it, which listeners to this podcast will know is something you don't never want to get in the middle.
Speaker 1:No, but they are fun to watch. All right Sorry, Andy's not here we're going to talk. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to talk about all the kind of. We're going to talk about PSR on point stuff, because we all know a chance about that, and we're going to talk about the you know the West Ham game a little bit. We are going to talk about the West Ham game, probably more than a little bit, but in the context of however to do it and I think maybe we have a bit of don't want to speak to the other guys, but we'd be talking about this a lot, I think.
Speaker 1:Maybe we have a slightly contrarian position on that, I guess, but we'll get there. When we get there, let's start with the PSR. So you know, since we last were with you all, we've got four points back, which I think we had some gossip the day before it was going to be two, so we were all pretty pleased. Ben, I'll start with you. Here's my question. We've been analyzed to death and we've all been sort of upset and you know we now know more about regulatory frameworks and we talked a lot about the Premier League in the last part. So I'm going to ask you this If you accept let's say let's accept as a principle that Everton protocols by 20 million pounds, but for the sake of an argument I'm taking the Premier League's figure Do you think losing six points is a fair punishment for that?
Speaker 3:Yes, I think what I would say let me let me frame it this way, and I think I said this when they reduced the, we got the appeal through. I think if the initial sanction had been six points, I don't think you would have seen anywhere near the level of vitriol, protest, confusion, anger, frustration, you know, pick, pick, whatever adjective you like, because I think there is a recognition that a punishment needs to be doled out when you, when you, break the rules. Like that. I think, if you look in the context, which is what the Appeals Board did, if you look in the context of other sanctions that you get, for example administration, or if you look at examples from the EFL where there's been points deductions four to six always sort of felt the realm that you would end up in. So I think if the initial Appeals, if the initial commission, had said it's a six point deduction, I still think we would have appealed, because that's what you do, you always appeal these things. But I don't think you would have. Certainly myself I would have gone. Yeah, that's probably about right, and I think there's quite a lot of Evatonians. I don't know, but two guys sitting next to me were disagree vehemently, but I sort of feel like there'd be a lot of Evatonians who probably would have gone. Yeah, that seems fair enough.
Speaker 3:And then, and not had the whole sort of you know what followed in terms of the protests and also like, from the Premier League's point of view, they wouldn't have put themselves in such a dire position. And I know it's an independent blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever. But, like the Premier League, asked for 12 and got 10. So you know, you make your bed, you've got a lie in it. They created this problem for themselves and Richard Masters created the problem for himself because they were incredibly overzealous in the punishment. And then, without wanting to dive into the weeds of the appeals boards too much, the appeals board made clear that there were fundamental legal errors, and you know none of us on this call were lawyers, but I there are.
Speaker 3:It was easy enough to identify the fundamental legal areas that had obviously been made in the initial commission the appeal board highlighted. So long, long way of answering six feels about right in the context of what you would get for the sorts of punishments but I'll hand over to. I don't know, I don't know. Do you feel like differently to that or?
Speaker 2:No, I think. I think six points was was about, was about right. I was just having a little, just a quick chat. I was talking there because I remember reading something in Athletic Boiland and he quoted a. He quoted a sport sports lawyer who said that the appeals board interestingly basically you paraphrasing him slightly, but he, he used the, the, the, the appeals, the appeals board use the EFL guidelines and use Sheffield Wednesdays, past discresions, not discretion, sorry, misdemeanors or other about relating to, like financial fair playing and all that sort of stuff and their respective deduction as a sort of a guideline. And that's not one of the main. The main issue we talked about that podcast, about, you know, the bias that's involved with the Premier League stating, before the appeal, before the independent inverted commerce panel had made their, made their verdicts, and how they asked for 12 points. So that was unfair from the start and you know we were all surprised when we got as much as 10 and the Premier League as we've discussed in the last podcast, didn't have any guidelines, so it's and.
Speaker 4:Ben.
Speaker 2:Ray correctly raises the point about how they made for significant fundamental legal areas which you can sort of understand if they're being this new territory for them. But you know these people are paid to do that job. You sort of think these things are very black and white. You either have a, you have an interpretation of the law that the EFL managed to manage to navigate with literally dozens and dozens of examples of deductions that they've had to make on teams. And then the Premier League. You know they've got a 0% success rate.
Speaker 4:No.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I think I think six points was about right.
Speaker 2:I grew Ben, like I don't think many of the Tony's would necessarily complain about that.
Speaker 2:I think, and it's I think that would have. That would have set the precedent, as we've seen now in the January transfer window in particular, and talk about the summer spending being massively reduced as well for clubs, and I think that would have shown the Premier League that actually they've overriding, they've sort of overriding their pudding, which for American listeners means the most British English thing you'll probably hear on this podcast ever which basically means that they've, you know, they've gone too far, far the other way of what they've tried to prove themselves as being, you know, able to regulate themselves by going look how you know, a bit of chest beating of a 10 point deduction, and it's worth it's worth also reflecting as well that the two areas where we were successful in the appeal the first of which in the initial of the like commissions verdict that were they there was this accusation, which they found to be true, that we'd acted in bad faith, that we'd broken another different rule because we weren't, we didn't act in good faith in our representations Premier League.
Speaker 3:Interestingly, the appeals board also make the point that we were never actually told that we were going to be charged with that.
Speaker 3:So Everton found out that we'd been in, we were in breach of that when the original commission result came out, which meant that the original hearing.
Speaker 3:We have no ability or no opportunity to defend ourselves against that claim which just in it, doesn't make any common sense, let alone legal sense. Like you can't, you can't act If you imagine that in a, in a, in a jury trial or a criminal trial, that is like getting to sentencing and go oh yeah, by the way, we've also found it guilty for this thing that we didn't tell you we were charging you for and we're adding five years on to your sentence for that as well. But you could appeal. It just obviously made no sense for the, for the commission to say, oh, we're finding you guilty of acting in bad faith, when that was never part of it initially, and the appeals board quite rightly overturned that. And then the second area where they found us to be without our appeal was successful is Mrs Twaddon's point. In a legal sense you have to under the terms of sort of natural justice as much as I understand it as someone who you know nearly studied law at university but didn't is the sort of altercation you need on the public aspect.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly when sorts of precedent exists for similar offences. You have to be shown to take that into consideration. You can't just ignore precedent entirely. And, to Adam's point, with the Portsmouth administration and with the Sheffield Wednesday stuff, we were able to demonstrate that they just hadn't taken any sort of precedent or any sort of context of similar offences into account which breached essentially you know, natural justice right to a fair trial. I don't know what the correct legal sort of terminology would be, but essentially what they said was you made a decision, without taking in any external context, about what the punishment should be and you can't just do that, you can't like just make up a punishment. You have to in order to fulfill that sort of you know, basic legal principle. You have to demonstrate that you've considered this offense in the context of similar offences. And they obviously just hadn't.
Speaker 3:And it was obvious from day one when you get nine points for going into literally going into administration and having to sell off assets and fire people and make people redundant and all of the terrible implications come out, that gets you nine points and we get 10, just obviously made no sense from the beginning. So it just worked. For those who may not be slightly clear on what we actually got the points back for. It was the. You know. They overturned the fact, the accusation that we hadn't acted in good faith, and they we were able to successfully argue that the punishment was out of out of kilter with previous examples. But, dad, yeah.
Speaker 4:I was thinking I was going to say, and I will say, but I might, my my perhaps might be wrong, but my understanding was that the family actually said five points for. So six points for to start off, yeah, and then two points or one point, whatever you find, so that would make 10. Yeah, so I think we've got, I think, yeah, just been for this. So, having said this is what we recommend, and then the independent commission says nothing to do with you, we're independent, and then actually given exactly what they, I mean that's that made the whole thing. People say, well, what's going on here?
Speaker 4:The other thing I think about context was that you know, we've had two seasons of struggling against relegation. There we are, we're sort of doing much better up towards the heart, and then all of a sudden we get 10 points and where are we? Yeah, back in the relegation. So it's almost as if there's a conspiracy to keep us in that, that bottom three. So I very much agree with what you said. I think it was six points. That would have given us a comment what the question was. But it would have been four points more, so we'd have been X number of places higher. I don't think there would have been the reaction that we got. So, and I probably think six is fair and it does set a benchmark. So if it's six for 20, it'd be interesting to see what happens and say with forest, yes, which is we probably come on to that which is meant to be more than 20.
Speaker 2:Yeah, an additional, additional issue with them.
Speaker 2:That's our second appeal, and forests you know, but I saw our second breach and a ledge breach and forests. A ledge breach is that there's two. They're having two separate, independent panels, which you sort of under you can understand, because the implication of having one is that you can, you can't make a judgment against them both at the same time. You'd have to do one and then the other, and then that might need to some nap that some buyer. So I sort of understand that. But the problem is that they haven't got the parameters in place. I don't want more where the parameters in place, or they're going to have to write them pretty speedily because that's, you know, appointed out already. Is that the they said about the? You know the six points for the first, what? It was? It five, was it? Sorry? It was six points base, six points base and then a point. A point for every additional five million.
Speaker 2:Now, you know, they said that wasn't going to happen, that wasn't going to happen, and then it presto, it basically did, and as far as I'm aware, they still haven't, all the being very, very coy about any sort of guidelines that are going to be in place. So, one or two things that can happen even they don't have any guidelines still, or those guidelines have been written very, very, she, very, very, I think of the word like rashly or hastily, hastily, thank you, hastily. That's what I'm looking for, and they've been written very hastily. And you want, and then it would be. You think about, well, what examples are they use? What the context of the examples that they've used to guide them? Because that's they've, this is their own, they've only had us as a, as a judgment.
Speaker 3:Well, it does create another interesting possibility in the and I'll throw about to Austin because I'm conscious with the three of us being in the room, we can end up having a conversation between us, because there's two, because there are two appeals panels that aren't being done at the same time you can get totally different results.
Speaker 3:So the appeals panel forest is happening next week and ours is apparently happening towards the end of March. So they could look at the forest and go, oh, there's no point deduction. And then they could look at our at the second panel, could look at ours and go, oh, it's another six points or so.
Speaker 2:Well, that's what I mean about the parameters to make that judgment. Yeah, I'll read the not in place or they are being written.
Speaker 4:But but the new? I mean it's all. You know, all on cases, previous cases, and there's only one case, this is about the price, I mean. So some precedent has now been set. My view would be maximum will only be eight. Nobody will get more than eight. It was respective of it, I agree, and I think they're saying like 20, 20 million over, gets you get your six. So if you're more than 20, let's say 25, seven, 30, eight, if it's 30, you've overspent by 135. You've lost 135 million. Yeah, over the years. Yeah, I think that the plan is to now be set and we soon find out, a few weeks, whether or not. Yeah, that's good, but I don't think anybody can possibly now get more than eight.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think they will. You know, you're right. The point you make about the being separate panels is right. There is a reality one would hope, which is, I think, probably is what's going to happen. Is that Legal, that they should be more legalistic about this in the future, right, the point you made around us being effective he sanctioned for something we would never charge for, charged with, is a fundamental error of law. It's an error of process, right? So that tells me that the panel, the first panel, did not have sufficient legal guidance. You know it, because any competent lawyer would have pointed out that that was inappropriate.
Speaker 1:If the Premier may have any sanity at all, which is a question, and they make sure that the panels in the future do have proper guidance, what they will, legal people will follow precedent, right, even if the rules don't. Don't tell them that they have to, because the point that the appeals panel made wasn't so much that they had to follow precedent, because they don't commit to not a court, right, just not have to do that. The point they made was it was the only sensible way to come up with an answer. So not doing it didn't make any sense and they're foolish. So I think you probably.
Speaker 1:I think that's right. You will find now that it will orientate around six is the rough benchmark for that size breach and it goes up and down from there. The net, net of which is forest of fucked completely because there's no way they're going to get I mean, their losses are bigger than ours Net loss. We understand it. I mean this is all based on media leaks and stuff but there's a good consensus that their financial situation is worse than ours was and therefore they're getting stuck to more points.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I met somebody who was worrying me today though. In the athletic. One is says if you look at the last two years of the previous sanction, we lost 67. Okay, you're now at 105. So that means that our loss is a minimum of 40 million. To take us over the 105. Yeah, so we must have lost a minimum of 22-23. If you remember, that year we sold Keen, we sold Cosley Gordon and then we sold for less money but still it added up. We sold Sim, we sold Cannon and there was somebody else we sold. Anyway, the totality of that is 90 million. Now we'd have thought if we'd have got 90 million in sales. How are we still losing 40 million?
Speaker 4:Because the stadium, the real estate 40 million plus, because there's got to be more than that, yeah, 40 million plus.
Speaker 3:The two things to consider with that, though, is that even if we lose 40 million in that one season which admittedly is bad the charge is over three, over a three-year period, so we're not going to be 40 million over the 105. We might be 5 million over the 105.
Speaker 4:Wouldn't you have thought that, with all the savings that they've made and that 90 million, the deficit would have been less than it was for?
Speaker 3:The problem is and this comes to the fundamental issue about Everton Football Cup is there's two things. One, we're trying to essentially sell finance at stadium, which is challenging in and of itself, but also we are poorly run from financial service. So the answer to the question is how are we losing so much money is essentially debt interest.
Speaker 4:The amount of money that we're spending on debt.
Speaker 3:now, if you look at the account we haven't seen the latest accounts, but the ex-covid the sort of person who followed us is that we're spending around three and a half million pounds a month on interest on our debt, and that's spiralling because as you accrue more debt, you're a riskier lender. Therefore you pay higher interest rates. So the answer to the question is we're just really badly run the debt for the stadium is excluded.
Speaker 4:I mean, that's where the bad faith came in, because initially we said that our interest payment was for the stadium and it transpired it wasn't. But the money for the stadium was being given by Meshiri and that was interest and we were paying interest on other loans and Everton, whether or not it was a mistake. They were suggesting that only interest was in fact related to stadium, which it wasn't. So we're low on the payment and off another money in interest payments. If the stadium interest payments are excluded, we must have off another money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's about 300 million or something. It's a lot of money and the other thing to bear in mind with this when you look at those numbers, the accounts reflect actual cash because they amortise the cost of players, but also over time. But also when we sell them, we don't get paid. Newcastle didn't write us a check for 50 million pounds, so the accounts will represent what we actually got paid as opposed to what the transfer fee was, if that makes sense, because that 50 million probably is over five years.
Speaker 4:It's different if you're buying or selling. For Gordon we'd have got all the 45,000. And I'm guessing for Keane, because he was at the end of his contract, we'd have got all his money. And if you look at Sims and Cannon, they were all home-produced products. So my understanding was done again as with Gordon that we'd have got all that money.
Speaker 3:It's the difference between You're in danger of agreeing with each other vociferously, but it's the difference between getting the money and being able to book the money on your accounts. You can book the money on your accounts. So the Anthony Gordon, for example. You can book 45 million on your accounts. You don't get 45 million in cash on that day. What you're able to do is say this deal is worth 45 million, so we're booking that on our accounts as 45 million.
Speaker 1:And is that 45 million and only the part of whatever the fee? That's guaranteed as well and we don't know. We see it as 45 million. What is that guaranteed 45 million? It's part of that based on, obviously, newcastle winning the Champions League or whatever. There are parts of it that we don't know. So that's the important thing. It's slightly opaque trying to take transfer fees that we hear about and back into the Cubs financial results, because the two don't connect in the way that we might assume.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but the answer to Dan's pertinent question is we're just really badly run and that is demonstrated by the fact that we are essentially having to take 20 million chunks of money at a time from 777, who appear to be the dodgiest people ever involved in owning a football club, and that's a dodgy list. And the important thing to remember is that money we're taking from 777 is working capital, that's, to keep shit running on a monthly. That's not like are we giving you 20 million to spend on players? Are we giving you 20 million to buy it? They're literally giving us money to keep the lights on and keep paying people and all that stuff. So that's a really bad situation to be in. It is essentially like if you were running your household budget. Rather than taking money to go on a nice holiday, you're being given money to pay the electricity bill.
Speaker 1:That's the classic rule of Sorry, go ahead Dan.
Speaker 4:That's my understanding. We'll go on that how much for soon.
Speaker 3:The ground was actually. This is where the complication comes, because a lot of the ground that we got alone from MSP who were the other people who were interested in buying goods decided not to were blocked from buying us because of some complicated arrangement I don't fully understand. But MSP still agreed to loan us, I think about £150 million for the ground. But as far as I understand it the 777 money is just working capital. That's just like hey, you need to keep the lights on until that's what they're saying, until the takeover happens. What?
Speaker 4:we're going to remember about. 777 is open on the talk now about some insurance company that's linked to them as well, as they're crediting. I mean there is an issue there, but they have 60 companies affiliated to them. It's easy to cherry pick any one of those 60 companies as having some maybe cash flow issues and then say that that presents an issue for all of the organisations. I think, there's a lot of jumping on, by the way, because we've been doing it for a long time.
Speaker 2:I don't think things have gone well. The footballing side of things, because I think they own 1860 Munich, er her to Berlin. I think they got relegated last year for the first time. God knows how long they're in standard liais, who I believe are knocking about the bottom of the Jupiter pro league now. So I think they're like teams that would do them well. From what I've read about a lot of their fans, they don't really like them.
Speaker 4:I'm sorry, adam. I just happened to have read the athletics today and I read something that surprised me that one of our financial issues standard days, for instance, the players not being paid for a couple of months. They've only taken control of all of these footballers fairly recently and there's still a sort of a hangover from the financial difficulties that they have. As a policy, they buy companies, organisations for the struggle because they reckon because of their input they can turn them over. So that's the situation.
Speaker 1:We should bear in mind as we consider the quality otherwise there are incoming owners that we're currently owned by a front man for a sanctioned Russian oligarch, so we're not owned by Save the Children right now.
Speaker 4:Finish my point about 7.7. Actually the athletics says if you look at the performance on the field, performance of all of the teams, they've actually improved in the last 12 months. They have improved. Some of them were alligators but now they've either been the promotion plan or are doing okay.
Speaker 2:I think I've seen what you're usually saying about cherry picking. I think I've sort of put those two out there. There's been examples because they stuck in my mind from when I read about them, but I guess time will come. It's certainly been the longest taker that I'm aware of that the Premier League would have to deal with. So there is that element.
Speaker 3:But there is also another sort of failing of the Premier League. In many ways, this stuff just shouldn't take that long. It wasn't being critical of 7.7.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, I was just saying it's taken a while, I agree but again, this is the Premier League failing.
Speaker 3:By this point. You should have been able to answer. If you haven't had satisfactory answers to your questions, then you say no to the takeover, the fact that we're in this weird limbo where, like, oh, we haven't had satisfactory answers, so we've gone back to them, and so it's just dragging on and on and on. There has to be a process and there has to be a timetable for the process. If you can't meet that timetable, then the answer has to be no.
Speaker 3:So it's incredibly frustrating to sit here and then be in, like you know, in hoc to the Premier League and however fast they want to work, Because if the answer is no, then we need to know that, so that, mishiri, can you know, take whatever plan B might be, but there's interminable sort of oh, we might hear this week, we might hear this week there's more questions. They're having a meeting. It's been going on for 22 weeks now.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I haven't gone to that. It's been a few years. What did not the Newcastle did that not take 18 months?
Speaker 2:No, no, no, that got rejected, they got rejected, they rejected it and they came back Right.
Speaker 3:So again they came back and they did it in six weeks 777s has taken by far the longest out of anyone.
Speaker 2:Like I said, that wasn't. I'm not very critical of 777, I'm merely pointing out a fact that it has taken a long time.
Speaker 1:I mean the thing to bear in mind about as you think about ownership of Everton. It's really important to understand people's motivation, right? Because they're not. These people didn't wake up in the morning, you know. These people are Wall Street people, right? Let's assume that their only interest is making money, which is probably not far off. They didn't wake up in the morning and decide to run a bunch of football clubs into the ground. You know they'll do it. There are two ways to make money from Everton basically, assuming that they're not actually going to use us to commit crime, or the money on a massive scale or something. You can either make the club more successful by getting as horribly into your increased revenue, and then you can extract that revenue or the asset value increases, you can sell it or you can use the asset value to leverage and borrow against, right?
Speaker 1:So you know you do the glaze and man you're not. I think I would say it. If I was trying to find something to borrow money against, I wouldn't pick Everton because it's cost them so far $200 million in loans to get to the bottom of their amount of money, so it doesn't make any sense. So I think I'm not saying that these guys are doing anything other than Wall Street Hawks. So they spot an opportunity to devalue the asset. You know, I think it's as simple as that. And whether they're competent at running or not, if you guys say, time will tell, but they can't make money by making us worse at football, you know that's not going to be the plan. It wasn't a serious plan either. It was just terrible at running a football club. But I'm sure their intent is they can buy us cheaply and be able to increase the value of the asset and sell us in four or five years. I mean, that's what these people do. So you know it might not work out brilliantly, but you know, I think that's right.
Speaker 1:The way that the story has been told is just. You know it's very, very one-sided. And the other thing finally on this we'll move on is that this is the first time the Premier League have looked at and taken over properly, just as we were the first time they looked at PSR properly. You know they've not been bothering to do any of this stuff and they're now desperately trying to demonstrate they're doing it because they don't want an independent regulator. So that's partly what we're dealing with as well. Is then, they're probably inventing this process. They go as well, and I'm sure behind the scenes is an absolute shitshow, so it's probably easy to misread.
Speaker 1:You know what the signals to mean, something that you know they may, or may not mean Anything else on all this off the field stuff before we talk about football.
Speaker 4:We just to find the point. Do we all think that double jeopardy is going to come in and we'll get no more than two points deduction, further deduction and as far as we'll get six or eight?
Speaker 3:I think it.
Speaker 3:I wouldn't sort of take myself too closely to those specific point numbers, but I think yes, it has to be a consideration.
Speaker 3:You can't I don't think, coming back to the point about quote unquote natural justice or I don't think you can have a situation where you are double punished, where you are essentially two of the years are the same years we've already had a deduction for and therefore, and then it's not taken into account that we've already been punished for the behavior in those years.
Speaker 3:So I think you end up in a situation where you go, you know, and you can throw numbers in the air, but I think you end up in a situation you go, well, you haven't been punished for this one year, so you get a couple, a couple points for that, and then you get a couple of points for the trajectory, because this is your second defense, because the Evertonians talk about this in a weird way, because the double jeopardy is also partly balanced out by the fact that we're not getting better at this.
Speaker 3:Like, you can't continue. The Premier League won't want to have a situation where they demonstrate that you can continually breach PSR and get lower and lower and lower reductions because of quote double jeopardy. So I think there comes a middle ground where they go yes, you get some credit, but we still have to give you a significant of punishment to show that you can't just continue to do that. So I think, for us getting, I think you end up with somewhere between four and six points, and then, because those two things balance each other out, just an observation on that.
Speaker 4:It was considered that a sport in the fair, a sport in fine penalty, was appropriate because Everton were getting some benefits on the pitch from the spending passing. But that surely can't be the situation. We've already said that probably the reason that they're in a mess now, this season of 2022-23, is primarily interest payments. Nobody can be looking at what's happening on the pitch, the money we're getting, the players are selling and we're paying to replace them. We've seen the stats in the last three years. There's only two clubs with a net spend less than us. The trajectory has got, in my view, would be that it's moving away from issues around the pitch and what you spend on players, because we're moving away from that and more to these other issues. Now, if that is reality and we've all gone to receiving the biggest, but if that's more the reality, I think that that would be tending to take us the other way to reduce the stores in penalties as opposed to increasing it.
Speaker 3:But we'll have to see because we're moving up the challenge with that argument. I'm going to cite an example from another sport here. In F1, red Bull Racing were found to have breached a cost cap. So every F1 team has a cost cap which they're allowed to spend against, and Red Bull breached it. Now Red Bull said they breached it because they overspent on catering. It wasn't on car design or wind tunnel time or anything like that. They spent too much on catering and that put them over.
Speaker 3:And the FIA's point was like well, it doesn't matter why you've overspent or where you've overspent, you've overspent X amount and that breached the fact that you overspent in this bit rather than that bit.
Speaker 3:The net effect of that is an advantage. So the counter to your argument, which I totally understand, if I was on the other side I would say well, it doesn't matter that you've overspent on interest payments rather than player sales. The fact that you've spent so much on interest payments has allowed you to like, has had the impact of overspending overall, and that's given you an advantage because you've spent more money than you were meant to. It doesn't matter whether you've spent it in column A, b or C. You've overspent it and that's that. And that's what I suspect would be the counter to that, but I think it's an interesting. It's certainly like how do you demonstrate that it is a decreasing? It is a it is decreasingly evident that it is having a benefit to us on the pitch as a, as a sort of a, an argument for inmitigation, like we're really shit, so please don't take any more points off one side.
Speaker 2:Probably a good.
Speaker 3:That's probably a good segue to a is it having a benefit on the pitch?
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's move on to that. Adam, and I'll come to you on this one, because I was interested in we were texting about this, about kind of where you're at so the West Ham game, was it dad? Dad, did you go to that game, by the way? Just so we know before we congratulations, so you know we'll add on a story to you.
Speaker 1:The game was obviously profoundly frustrating and caused, I think, a meaningful increase in social media conversations the stupid ways to judge anything. But you know certainly my Twitter timeline a lot more people saying this is unacceptable. You know Dysha's responsible, I think you know. Tell us your thoughts on that. You know separately from you know I don't want us just to talk about how frustrating the game was because people know that. But what was your take on sort of the performance and where we're at and you know where there's sort of responsibility for that.
Speaker 2:You know, since yeah, I mean it's it. Blaming Dysha for for, like, the West Ham game is absolutely nonsense. And I went to the. I went to the Alice game and that was frustrating, as you know, because for various reasons, and you can sort of say that Dysha is responsible for small elements of why we're not doing as well as we we should be. I know you use the word should, you know, literally, because we should be doing better. And you know you can talk about, like you know, substitutions and being a bit rigid in his approach to games and gets that wrong.
Speaker 2:But all managers, managers get things wrong. It's like, and we've got to always remember that we're not a team that's on the current number of points that we are on. We're a team that is playing with six more points than than we actually have on the board. You know we're a comfortable team that's knocking about the upper lower half of the Premier League. So the idea that anyone would do a better job than Dysha's, laugh, frankly laughable. Because the West Ham game and I'm probably going to, you know I'll probably steal other people, you know people's stats, but when dad and I dad obviously went to the game, we'll talk about it in far more detail than I will and I'll give him opportunity to do that in a second. But, like you know, you look at the. We were looking at the XG when we were watching Match of the Day and dad made the point of like I want to really see what the XG was, because West Ham had three highlights in that game and all three of them were their goals and our XG was 2.7, west Ham's was 1.7, we had more attempts, we had more attempts on target and Everton still have by far the biggest difference in XG versus actual goals and last time we did a podcast it was literally double the team that was second in that list. I can't imagine it's changed up that much. So like we're just not, we're working below our mean in terms of our ability to put the ball in the back of the net, like better misses, a penalty, which is a pretty much XG. It's like 1.9, I think it works out as I mean that's huge and you've got other chances that we you know that we miss. And then you know West Ham tape over, there's all they score from it. They score from it from a corner and it goes in the only possible place. And then I mean I'll let someone else talk about the goalkeeper thing. If you know about the, ben posted it. I will say actually, because Ben's just obviously popped out, but Ben posted it really interesting thing on by a data website called WhoScored, which is where they rank goalkeepers out of 10.
Speaker 2:And the top three goalkeepers performances this season have all been at a way to Everton. Burn Leno on the first day of the season. Well, we should have lost 1-0, should have won, and I was at that game. I was very frustrating. And the other two are obviously you've got Ariola at the weekend of West Ham and then I can't remember who the third, who is second, but it was someone against against us. So goalkeepers are the world. He's just. We just leave, you can't score and the idea that, like you know, guidance is responsible for that is just nonsense.
Speaker 2:And it's like you know. It's the worst time to make a judgment. Make a judgment about someone's competency, because you're dealing with emotion, aren't you? It's like doing a course of the law. You don't make a judgment on the emotion of something that is created. You have to make a judgment based on you know other factors and using your head and come into a calm, rational conclusion about things. And yeah, it's really frustrating and it's frustrating to continually draw and lose games that you shouldn't. And we're on the you know a way, united. If we don't win, we're on our worst winless run ever, I think. So, yeah, it's frustrating, but the stats don't lie.
Speaker 4:Yeah, If we'd been talking about Dice's future aspect of the Crystal Palace game.
Speaker 4:I was on the tally and I thought the tactics were wrong, the selection was wrong, the performance was awful. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. West Ham was different. West Ham were much better against West Ham. Everybody's saying they should have won.
Speaker 4:When you're sitting there and you look at it, you're thinking we're doing okay here, we're creating chances, we're bound to get something from this. Now we know it didn't happen. If you look at Arsenal versus Sheffield United, arsenal had 23 shots, 11 on target, six goals. We had 22 shots, 11 on target, one goal. That's where the issue is. You can't blame Dice if we weren't creating the chances because we got the wrong team, wrong tactics, but we were creating our chances. We were, and we've done that so often this season.
Speaker 4:When you look at other games, always a turn of points, somebody does a misplace pass, somebody gets deflection. It's not happening for us. It's just something. Our luck must change. I think it must. Our luck will change in that We'll start scoring goals and getting points, because it's all bad and I do think there's an awful lot of bad luck I think things will change If we continue to play as we did against Westam. I'm sure we'll be okay and, as we've alluded anyway, it might all be a good point if the followers get the sort of sanction that, well, I said, we all hope that they get. It will be a different scenario, I think, in relation to relegation, but everything is playing okay. We just need a bit of luck and maybe time to go back and score some goals.
Speaker 3:I think the thing as well to remember is it feels a little bit ground-hog day to be having this conversation, because it's exactly the same conversation we were having after six or eight games of this season where we batted Fulham and batted Wolves and lost both of those and we're all going oh, we just need our luck to turn. And then and people forget this because it got overshadowed by the points deduction but we then went on a really good run, we won four in a row.
Speaker 3:Four in a row and we were playing great and everyone was like, oh, this is great football and really good, and this is what we were expecting to happen, and this is what we're doing in Converter and Transits, and all this happened. And this is what happens when you're a team who is not you know the reason why I?
Speaker 3:mean sounds dumb to say the reason why Manchester City and Liverpool and Arsenal are the best teams in the league just because they have better players and they play better football is because they deliver more consistently. Right, they because they. Yeah, it is because of those reasons. My point is that they don't have this up and down in their form that other teams in the league do. They are consistently delivering at a high level.
Speaker 3:And that's why the Premier League, broadly, sheffield United aside, apparently. That's why, broadly, on a day a Premier League team can beat another Premier League team, but over the course of a season the top teams will just perform at that high level much more consistently than the teams at the bottom. So what's happening now is we're in a bad form, and we're in a bad form because we're an inconsistent team. And we're an inconsistent team because we've got a mishmash of players under 12, 15 different managers that have been collected over, you know, 10 seasons and like there is an it's sort of there has to be some level of expectation that you're going to have these peaks and troughs, and Dij has been fairly honest himself that like he wants to have the more consistent level of performance. But we're not there yet.
Speaker 3:So I'm relaxed about where we are, not least because I think Forrester in trouble financially with the PSR stuff, and I don't think Luton about. Luton aren't a good football team Like they're trying really hard.
Speaker 3:They're in their purple patch, yeah they, they had that good run of games when everyone thought and actually then you look at them and you remember they played 28 games and got 28 and they've got 20 points, like that's the team that they are and like, so we'll, everyone's worrying about relegation. Where about this? We'll? We'll spank somebody three nil at some point because those chances are just going to go in and everyone will. Everyone will chill the fuck out and relax and it'll be like, oh fine, we're actually not going to get relegated, because even if you work on the assumption we're going to get another six points off, say like which I think is what we most would consider worst case scenario that we still only need to pick up what 12, 14 points for the rest of the season, like in the games we've got the way we're playing, as you were saying about how we played against West Ham.
Speaker 3:We'll pick up those points and win those games, because you just don't have games like that for a consistent over a whole season. You just don't eat. Evens itself out. Yeah.
Speaker 4:I mean at home, we've got Grenford Forest, burnley and Sheffield United and Luton away. Now, with those games, if we don't get, let's say I'm going to say we lose two points, that puts us on 25. So in 2023, I think we're 25. So they reckon maybe another 11 at 12 points, 34-35. I can't get 11-12. Put us from where we are now. We're playing no five teams. Yeah, then you deserve it.
Speaker 3:But I just think how you play against West Ham everyone forgets another bit but not in the greatest run of form at the minute.
Speaker 3:And apparently West Ham fans are the most diluted fans of the Premier League because they all want to sack David Moyes. But West Ham are a team who won a European trophy last season and are eighth in the Premier League. They're not some push-overs that we should have played off the park and by all means we did play them off the park. We just couldn't score, and that's the frustrating thing. But you turn in that performance against Sheffield United, a Luton, a Burnley. You're going to win those games, you just are.
Speaker 2:The stat doesn't lie, it can't lie, it's not even you can go like, because people say XG includes penalties. That was our first penalty. So our XG is extremely pure in its judgment, because we've got such a huge difference between how many goals we should score and we are obviously you know that show that we're creating chances and we just can't put them away.
Speaker 3:Speaking on that, maybe, alston, you might want to answer this one. Do you continue to start Beto or do you go back to Calvert-Lewan? I would play.
Speaker 1:Calvert-Lewan. It's a good question, beto. I don't know if he scored he was head or his shoulder. I like him. He's a better version of Dennis Strakolersi. You know he's Strakolersi but can play, and I do like him. But I think we're better team with Calvert-Lewan in.
Speaker 1:What I would say about Calvert-Lewan is I really want him to stop doing stuff. He's spending too much time in the channels. I think his best period of time when Everton was in Durantulaughty, where he would basically add a shot collar on him, where if he went outside the lines of the 18 yard box, you know Carlo would press a button and he'd go back in. And he's spending too. I don't mind coming deep, he's great at receiving the ball under pressure, he holds it up very well, but he's spent too much time. He's a wide player and he's looking to pass it off and saying, no, you've got to be in the box, mate, I would play him and play him back into form. I think he's the absolute key to us. You know, achieving what you guys say we should achieve. Beto's a good backup, what he is a backup, and I was disappointed that he was the only thing. And, dad, I agree with you.
Speaker 1:I think you judge a manager on what they were trying to do, because, whether the players actually do it or not, but we missed a penalty. We scored that penalty. We were in the game, you know, because you're not chasing it. We lost 3-1 because we were chasing it at 1-1. And you judge a manager by what they tried to do. Krista Pasi got it all wrong. He was too stuck on something that had worked against better teams and didn't properly shift his focus to how do we win, and he basically could always say it in those terms, but he basically acknowledged that in what he said after the game and how he picked the team against West Ham. And then he puts the team out there. His team selection was, I think, what most of us would have wanted.
Speaker 1:And then it's like, well, god, I mean, if they won't score a penalty, what the hell can you do as a manager? You know I'm really lucky because I don't think it was a bad penalty. Actually, I think it's a strange. You know Evertonians have got to have their head checked and I keep, you know, say this a lot, but you know we fired Roberto Martinez when we were 10th or 12th or something. You know like everyone wanted him. God it's. You know, it's become a sort of well I can, creativity and not being able to think of a second reason, a second thing to do other than just act. The manager, and it's just absolute insanity. Shall we talk about Ben? Do you want to have a rant about referees for a minute, and then we'll talk about the? Sorry, ben.
Speaker 4:I'm going to go on that and Calvert-Lewin, I expect the goals is 12 less than it should be on XG, which is the lowest in the Premier League, and then you've got the likes of Watkins and Bowen from West Ham. On what 12, 14 goals you've got.
Speaker 4:I think it's around that If he was and he's good enough to be scored as many goals as they are, if he was actually producing at that rate, he would have made the difference. I think, yeah, and we would have been up there. So you know, a fit Calvert-Lewin coming back and scoring goals. That's really the answer for the rest of the season.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you make a point about. You know, I was going to mention only Watkins, because him and Calvert-Lewin have actually done a bit of a flip. Because only Watkins. When he was assigned by Villa, he was running the channels and wasn't getting many. He wasn't getting many, many goals and Calvert-Lewin at the time was because, as you correctly say, he was playing within the parameters of the 18-yard box and I think he had something in a daff like I think he had, so many of his goals in a row were like all one touch because of the crosses and stuff. And only Watkins is now doing that because, since I'm comfortable with him, he has some of the managers name.
Speaker 3:Unai Emery.
Speaker 2:Unai Emery, thank you. Since Unai Emery came in, he basically said, yeah, I'm not doing that, you know, you're just going to play within the width of the 18-yard box and not move out of there. And he is I mean, he is comfortably Harry Kane's deputy now, yeah, and he looks absolutely fantastic and he's been a huge reason why Villa have done so well this season.
Speaker 3:Which is, I know, then I will go on around to about referees, but that does raise an interesting point. And to all sorts of suggestion option that you quote, one to seek Alva-Lewin stop doing these things, because players are playing within a system with instructions from a manager. So, in the same way that he scored loads of goals because Andrew Autie told him to do a thing that suited how he wants to play, I don't think we should rule out the possibility that he's constantly running the channels and not being in the positions to score goals Because Dice is setting up the system and requiring him to do it that way. So, in the same way that you can't sort of Andrew Autie gets credit for identifying what Calvin was good at and playing to it, you can't then criticize Calvin-Lewin, as opposed to Dice, when a manager tells him to do something different that doesn't suit his game, but he is.
Speaker 2:I mean, in terms of the number of chances that he's had, I'm not really sure, but what is fair to say is that Calvin-Lewin is comfortably one of the worst finishers statistically in the league, and you know who? Actually the ninth? You never guess this, and this is thanks to Jonathan Wolfson on the Codding Football Weekly for this time, which is incredible. Do you know who the ninth worst finisher in the Premier League is?
Speaker 3:In the Premier League. It's going to be Irving Harle.
Speaker 2:Because he actually gets so many chances. But he gets so many but the ones that he does miss because they're not calculated. You can have a shot from 25 yards or you can miss against United, like he did, and it goes to our judge very, very differently according to their XG, but he misses quite a lot of misses, quite a lot of sitters, but scores ones that he's not meant to score, whereas Calvin-Lewin actually is missing generally good chances or half chances and things like that. He'll get to Palace, for example. You know we had those two headers. So I agree. I agree with Ben's point. It's like you know, for the good of the team. You know you want, the judge wants him to play a certain that, certain way, but it's also, at the same time, when he does get the chances, the stats don't lie he has one of the worst finishes in the league.
Speaker 4:I can't believe that. I don't agree with you on tactics. We've got you out now at Wingers and they're there to cut the ball. Yeah, to get the ball on the penalty with Calvin-Lewin there and convince them to do the tactics. But the ball is coming over and he's not putting it away.
Speaker 1:It was interesting to add on that point that you know, when we played I'm inclined to agree with you when we played which comment game it was where you played Beto and Calvin-Lewin up front together. And you know, dice basically said after the game in his press conference he said, look, the players were going too long. So you watch this stuff and you go, oh, they must be doing that because they've been told to do it. And Dice, I'm sure, drew a good chunk of the time. But he basically said look, I put two big lads up front and they these are my words, not his, but I'm representing what he said accurately I put two big lads up front and the players assumed I wanted them to lump it long, but I didn't, you know, so we had to change that at half time. So I think, look, maybe he's been told, I suspect he wants, he's pushing to be involved in the game, you know, and and is sort of making runs that you know it's a good outlet, but it's too often you know you saw a bunch even when he came over in his West Ham he gets the ball at his feet effectively near the corner and it's like, well, you've got to pass it to Simone. You've got to run in the middle. It's terrible. You know he's. He should be disciplined enough. I mean, you know, I'm a big fan of the you know this all.
Speaker 1:But you know the, the, the overlap, you know podcast, the Gary Neville one, which is a Jamie Carrey and Jill Scott and Roy Keane, and, like they, it's interesting because they talk very honestly about being a footballer. Much more of it than we might assume is actually the players need to figure the stuff out themselves, you know, and be smart and do the thing that is going to be most effective. And I do worry about Calvary's ability to do that, because he's probably bored if he just sticks in the middle of the pitch. But and as less time on the ball. But that really is what we needed to do, because he needs four or five chances to score a goal and then, once it starts, it'll start and he'll be good. Yeah, shall we talk about Ben? You wanted to rant about Paul Tieny and we haven't had refs corner for a while, so I figured it was time. So do you want to do that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I just like it was just such a frustratingly dumb thing to happen, because there are a few things in football that are more straightforward than if you stop play while the ball is in play. The drop ball is given to the team you have possession. Like we all, like I could. There are some things in football where you could pull the entirety of the Goodison Park and the number of people who would know the correct answer you could count on one hand.
Speaker 3:Like for example if you take a free kick and it goes into your own goal, the restart is a corner kick.
Speaker 4:Well done, it's a corner kick, it's not a goal.
Speaker 3:You can't score an own goal directly from your own free kick, right? I don't expect people to know that. I expect people, especially a Premier League referee who is somehow, for reasons I will never understand, on the FIFA list to know that the restart when Nottingham Forest had the ball when he starts play, is you drop the ball for Nottingham Forest and it makes such a and now so, and I think I know how this happened?
Speaker 3:right, it's happened because, collectively, the team of officials weren't paying enough attention, and that's criminal for all of them, because what the wall states is possession of the ball. Beside the area, you get the drop ball If the last touch of the ball was inside the penalty area and then you stop play before another player has touched it. Then the possession goes to the goalkeeper, because the last touch of the ball was inside the penalty area and you can't give a drop ball to the penalty area, so by default, it goes to the opposition goalkeeper, right? So what's happened is they've all just switched off and they've not noticed that Callum Hudson-Odoi has actually touched the ball. He's touched it several times. He's touched it several times. So what they've gone is oh, the last touch of the ball was in the area. Therefore it has to be dropped to the Liverpool goalkeeper, which is criminal, that they weren't paying enough attention.
Speaker 3:Because we talk about this like when you're a referee even the level I was at when you stop play, you will always direct one of your assistants to note what the restart should be, so that you don't hear any wrong. So in your pre-match briefing I would say to my two assistants right, here's your instructions for the game blah blah blah. You know my junior assistant. If it's in your area, make a note of the restart and make sure I don't cock it up. Help me out there.
Speaker 4:So what they?
Speaker 3:have a fourth official, two assistants and some people on VAR. It is criminal that nobody as he was walking the ball towards the Liverpool goalkeeper and all of the forest players were going crackers. It's criminal that nobody in that situation went hey, paul forest had the ball, so you need to drop it. For forest it was and it's such. They can go on about. You can go on about VAR and the time it takes and the delays and how it's confusing and what the handball is.
Speaker 3:But when you have professional referees who do this for a living at a notionally high level, who are making such absolutely basic errors in law, that is what the problem with referees is. In this country we have bad officials who are not as good as they think they are, and let me tell you, paul Tierney thinks he's amazing and he's not. This is what you end up with and that's why everything that flows from this is bad. Var has implemented badly the game of referees badly. Referees aren't respected because the quality of the officials is terrible, because they make basic, basic, basic mistakes which if I made at the level I was refereeing at, I wouldn't get promoted. If I made that basic an error on the game I was being assessed on. I would not have got a mark that allowed me to get promoted, because they would have gone. You indirectly restarted with a dropped ball. That's like refereeing 101.
Speaker 2:Round over I mean it's a 10 out of 10 round, and one of the main criticisms that involved the same team but they obviously benefited from this time was the Liverpool Spurs game.
Speaker 2:Because one of the errors there was A was basically because the VAR were not paying enough attention to the offside that was ruled against Diaz and the goal was ruled offside. So again you've got officials that aren't basically fundamentally not paying attention. And I could put you, I could put you with a googly, but I think it's the standard. It's the standard of refereeing and I think the VAR has been designed to assist referees. And this has just gone off anecdotally, but I was speaking to one of my friends was watching the game of the championship. I think it was Craig Paulson was refereeing it or he was refereeing in games.
Speaker 2:It was an FA Cup game but it involved two championship teams. Obviously, because of the championship, they didn't have the VAR and in his opinion and again this is purely anecdotally, it could be biased because he's maybe looking for this information but in his opinion and I've seen this in a similar game it's like I think there's a risk that the VAR has become a fallback and in the back of their minds, that they know that they can leave stuff. They're not sure that their colleagues will come to their rescue and give them the right and that's. And in this point, in this case, at the weekend against Forrest.
Speaker 3:That didn't happen Because they weren't paying attention, and it's happened in other instances as well, and Postacoglu makes a really good point about this. Actually, what he said about his issue with VAR is that they are they're making fewer big mistakes, but they're making more small mistakes because they're not, because they're not making decisions in real time as they would if they didn't have VAR with them. So what happens with like a handball or like a foul is they don't make a decision in real time and therefore it goes to VAR who go oh, there's nothing, there's not enough to overturn the decision, it's not clear and obvious error. So you end up with a back because the rest is not going to make a decision, or I am going to make a decision because I know I've got VAR to back me up and therefore what you're actually getting is more small mistakes that are compounded by VAR, by that approach, fewer big mistakes. Quote unquote.
Speaker 2:I remember when, sorry Doug go on.
Speaker 4:I was just going to say come back to the Forrest Liverpool game. Now, the media loves controversy. If you see the hype, when you listen to the hype, you'd think that once Liverpool were given the ball, it went straight down the other end and scored. That's not what happened. Actually, forrest got them all back and then lost possession and then Liverpool was scored. But obviously to the media would love the idea of saying if the referee hadn't done that, this wouldn't have happened and you don't know, he might have given them the ball, they might have lost it and then the ball could have stood on this pitch.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't understand that and it's not like you're right, they didn't go up the other end of the ball. But if you sort of and the Forrest players said this themselves and as football fans we know this momentum is a big thing in games Like Forrest were on the attack, they would remember it was nil-nil. Forrest could have won that game at that point. So Forrest are on the attack, they've got the ball, they're potentially going to go across back into the box which they might score from.
Speaker 3:And you go from that situation where you're on the attack, you're in the ascendancy, you're the one pushing to score the winner and immediately an incorrect decision by the referee totally reverses not just gives Liverpool the ball, totally reverses the momentum, because now you're not pressing them on their 18-yard box and have the ball in their corner, you're not going to face a long ball of on kick from their goal. Yeah, and you're under pressure. So, yes, they didn't wake the ball up and immediately score. The whole shift of momentum, the momentum of the game, is shifted by the fact that Liverpool are giving the ball.
Speaker 3:Because, yeah, they might give the ball back, but you're starting from a position of like oh, we're in the ascendancy, we're on the front here, Forrest.
Speaker 4:It's too simple to say I'm not suggesting you're saying that, but it's too simplistic to say if the follow-up started being given the ball.
Speaker 2:it would be. I think, in the isolation Ben's point about it's the competency, that's the move.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I agree with that, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think, remember you've been making this point a couple of years ago on the podcast about you know I think you were defending referees at the time.
Speaker 2:What a shift you had.
Speaker 2:I know I think you were saying you know and this is true because you know the big decisions are getting made wrong.
Speaker 2:Obviously they carry more weight, but they carry more weight in the minds of fans and the minds of the media.
Speaker 2:But I think you know, I think you've said something like you know, 97% of all decisions at the time were correct. So it would be interesting to see, on your point of, like, those smaller decisions being more but being made more incorrectly now because of, possibly, the influence they are. So you know, if you're interested in seeing anyone's analysis of taking a selection of games from pre-VAR, objectively making the judgment against the laws of the game, saying you know 97%, 98% of those calls were correct, and then taking the same number of games you know now and last season when we've had VAR, and looking at the difference between those, because then that would be a good way of measuring whether the VAR has had an impact. I think what it's worth remembering is, like you know, I said this you know we're watching a match, we watch the data together on and I said what a good advantage a referee played and it's probably, you know it goes against that point now, because I can't remember what game it was not a referee was and I should have and I should remember that.
Speaker 2:But I said like Paul T, and the Ob is understandably I'm quite rightly so, you know, getting, you know the criticism because it's such a fundamental error.
Speaker 2:But referees make really good decisions as well that lead to goals, and I think the media need to take more responsibility, because they won't, fans won't take a responsibility until the media takes a responsibility.
Speaker 2:And there was a game at the weekend I can't remember, I can't tell if you remember it was, but there was a clear foul.
Speaker 2:Referee plays a good advantage and it was like in the middle it was about 40 yards out in a bit of a nothing area, but the referee lets it play on because it's a, the balls put out wide and then the team gets it, crosses it in and they get and they score.
Speaker 2:And it's like if the, if the, if the referee could have, could have sorry, blue is whistle and the players would have got a bit annoyed as we had a promising attack but like the chances of scoring from the position that he could have blown his whistle were very, very small, but the fact that he didn't absolutely led to that goal going in. So I think it's just important that when we do the referee take criticism, I think and there's something I'm trying to make a point of doing as well is making is recognizing when referees do do things well, because that things won't get better until it's a bit of a two way street where help is put in place to make them better, with better training and however that looks, and and but, at the same time, you know it's just like a kid who you want to change their behavior.
Speaker 2:It's no good giving them pelters all the time. You've got to show them what you want them to do well and publicly recognize that.
Speaker 1:And what a beautifully finely balanced point. To end that little bit on, adam. Thank you very much. I completely agree, and thank you for bringing us back to referee's corner. We need to get that back on the agenda more regularly. So we've got a game coming up, playing football again on Saturday, playing man United away. Interesting one. This because they have, to say the least, not been playing very well. But of course, when you're not playing very well, what you want to do is play ever. So it's yeah, it's interesting one, dad. I'll start with you Prediction for us two questions what you think the result will be and also how you think Everton will set up. Are we going to you think Deiju is going to feel the need to kind of go for it at a centre? Is he going to? Are we going to see Ashley Young on the right wing again? What do you think the vibe is going to be?
Speaker 4:If you think, two years ago we went to Leicester on one unexpectedly. Last year we went to Brighton on one unexpectedly, and probably those two victories got us, say, just from litigation, I think this is going to be that game, I think we're going to win two-one and I think we'll play the same team, possibly with Calvin Lewin up front. That's what I'd play.
Speaker 3:Well, the optimist corner over here this is. I am surprisingly going to take the opposite view, because I'm the natural pessimist in here, I think.
Speaker 3:I think what's much more likely is that Deiju sets up to not lose this game Because I think that is, you know, leopards and spots, that is his natural inclination in tough away games. He wants to set up to play on the counter, to keep it tied to the back and try and try and, you know, sneak it. So I think I don't necessarily think that translates to actually young on the right wing, to use your example, Austin, but I definitely think the setup will be sit deep, try and hit them on the counter. Don't give away too much. I don't think it will work. I think we'll lose. I think we'll lose two-nil, yeah there you go.
Speaker 2:I'm with dad. I think this will be the game that will turn the corner and our form will improve. I think United as well. You know, I don't think they're going to have Hoi Lin for this game, who's obviously missed the game at the weekend and has obviously scored, and they're finally been hitting some scoring points. My centre-backs are made of our awful because he got Johnny Evans and you know it's like an absolute mishmash of about four. So I think, and I think I really think that that will set ourselves up well and I think those chances that we'll find that we'll finally try and we talk about putting away for so long. I think we will. I think we can see a five-one away at Brighton, but I think we'll set up to counter-attack and I think it will work. I agree, I think we'll win. I think we'll sneak it one-nil. That's great. I think we're incapable of winning one-nil.
Speaker 1:I think we're more likely to win two-nil than one-nil. So that's what I'm going to go for. I agree, I think we're going to. I think actually playing weirdly playing United away. They're under pressure, they've got to go for it. I mean they have to. So I think they're going to go for it. I think that suits us, because I don't think United are any good. I think we're going to go for it. I think we're going to go for it. I think they're going to go for it.
Speaker 3:I think United are any good. When we played man United at home, we all said they weren't any good, and then they beat us three-one, which was a weird game it was a weird game. Best goal of the world ever. We do have this conversation about man United being not very good quite a lot and they do still tend to beat us If they had this thought five minutes it would have been a totally different game.
Speaker 1:I agree with that I agree with that. I'm just being slightly concisious Angle. We've got to blind ourselves. Our optimism is a bit of a lie. We don't give up. I mean, why would you do this otherwise? You've accepted the reality of the situation. You can stop doing it. I mean, we don't just support it, we just spend our time talking about it.
Speaker 3:It's not true.
Speaker 4:I'm not going to argue with you Otherwise you're consistent.
Speaker 3:My definition of being consistent is we have to win eventually.
Speaker 2:We're also. You talk about how many viewers we get, or the viewers, how many listeners we get. Rather, on the podcast, when we win, we tend to get more, and imagine there's going to be us four listening to this and Drew and probably about three other people. Honestly, I'm going to skip it In our history if we lose against, if we don't be united.
Speaker 1:We'll just disband the whole thing All right. Anything else? Anything else before we wrap up no, adam speaks for everybody. All right, thanks for joining. Thanks for being here. Guys Really appreciate it. Good to be back. Follow us on Apple Podcasts, spotify, wherever you get your podcasts, that's where we are. Tell your friends. Yeah, come on, you boos. Here's for a stunning victory over man United. See you next time. Thanks for watching.