Blues Brothers Everton Podcast
Blues Brothers Everton Podcast
Stadium Dreams and Season Ticket Prices
We start this one looking ahead to the new stadium, and reacting to the club's announcement of season ticket prices. Then, because we're forced to, we discuss Everton v Man United and the future of Sean Dyche.
Welcome to episode 78 of the Blues Brothers Everton podcast. It's been a minute. We did all those episodes. You guys must have missed them. It's been a minute. We did all those episodes. You guys must have missed them. It's been a while since we got to you. It's good to be back. Andy can't make it today. Unfortunately, Ben and Adam are here.
Speaker 2:Adam, how are you doing? I'm good, thanks, yeah, good to be back. It's been a long time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we should be more organised in life. Ben, how are you recovering from Thanksgiving dinner?
Speaker 3:No, but that is the point of Thanksgiving dinner. It takes a while to recover. We're recording this on Black Friday, as it is ecologically known, so the day after Thanksgiving. So, being a resident of America, I fully indulged in the cultural celebrations and ate too much food.
Speaker 1:It's definitely the nicest holiday that commemorates a massacre. I would say so yeah, have a look at the pilgrim voyages if you want to know the history of Thanksgiving. No one comes out of that well, but the turkey is great. All right, so we're going to chat a little bit.
Speaker 3:Let's be really clear the turkey doesn't come out of it well either.
Speaker 1:No, never so great, let's go off. Let's not even get to the first thing before we go down the rabbit hole. I saw a great quote from Tim Waltz who was I was going to say very nearly vice president of the United States, but he wasn't really that close in the end, but he tried to be vice president. Recently he's the governor of Minnesota and he was doing various Thanksgiving things and he's walking into a turkey farm somewhere with lots of turkeys. He said, oh my God tell this story quicker.
Speaker 3:No one's getting out of here alive which is funny.
Speaker 1:All right, let's talk about football. Well, actually let's not talk about football. What we thought we would do, dear listener, is actually because we're going to moan about the football later. Uh, we're going to talk about the stadium because we wanted to start one, because they just released everton released season ticket prices, like I think a few hours ago he was like pretty recently. So we're going to talk about that and we're going to talk about some of the. The club have put some stuff out showing around the ground and it's all looking real now and there's grass growing. So, ben, I'll start with you.
Speaker 1:So headlines, just in case anyone listens to this because might not have seen, there's a whole bunch of them. The Everton website has a very good and clear kind of breakdown. But the two numbers that I think are probably worth talking about is the base adult season ticket is 640, uh, pounds. Now, if you look at the seat map, there's like a couple of corner spots which has that pricing, and then it's like 670, 730.
Speaker 1:But you know, if you take 700, let's say, as a sort of more realistic kind of bottom line, you're looking at about 40 quid a game, 40 quid a home game, and then in all of the sections under 11s are £199, which is compared to a good friend of mine, andy Payne, who's a West Ham fan, who's chair of the West Ham Supporters Association, who have been going to war with that club over the last couple of years because they've basically effectively gotten rid of all concessionary pricing. The club West Ham would deny that, but that's the net. What they've effectively done is that. So you know, ben, what's your kind of reaction to seeing, like the Everton kind of coming out with those prices?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm really impressed, actually, because one of the things you worry about is when stadium is that it's an opportunity to uh, to price gouge and to take advantage and hey, it's shiny and new. So we're gonna, you know, jack up the prices and make up for all those years that, um, we've been keeping the prices down because, you know, good is rubbish and uh, as in terms of, you know, viewing and stuff like that. So I was really, I was really genuinely, um, genuinely impressed with the pricing. The other thing that um jumped out to me is that is the range of, like concessionary pricing that they've kept so current that they've basically mirrored what they currently have, which is, as well as just having like a standard adult and then a senior and then I was also instead of kids, they also have junior tickets, so between 11 and 17, and then they have young adult tickets who are 18 to 21. And then there is also a youth ticket which is 14 to 21, which is only for one of the sections in the South Stand. So I'm not entirely sure what the deal is with that, particularly that I noticed, or I should say was pointed out to me by the very good Royal Blue Mersey.
Speaker 3:Summary of this is that there are now 37 different price points for tickets compared to 10, which is what you have at Goodison Park.
Speaker 3:So there are now.
Speaker 3:Just the range of seating that you have available just means that you have loads of different options, because there's like rail seating prices, there's some stuff in like you halfway line where there's a, where there's a club section and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 3:So really impressed that they've kept the prices down, because would have been an opportunity, um, and also really impressed, as I said, that they've kept all of the you know, concessionary pricing sorts of categories that that they previously had, because it would have been an easy way to to get rid of them and just generally. I mean, I've not watched all of the videos that they put out, because they put out a lot, but there's some photos that we're doing around the other day of there's obviously someone who worked there and had snapped some pictures of it when they were, you know, going around and it looks incredible. And for all of the you know all of the mistakes that farhad moshiri has made and god love him, he's made an enormous number of them the stadium will be like the one thing he's able to point to and say you know that was, that was what I delivered for edmonton football club and, to be fair to him, it looks genuinely incredible.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and he's basically paid for it. We talked to somebody else I want to talk about with you later on. It's interesting you talk about that, that 14 to 21 uh, ticket ben, because I think that is the south stand lower, which is the south stand. Is that one which has got that wall? Is the wall, the wall, yeah, and and I think basically, if you look at the, the seat, if you look at the pricing for that section, so the lower part of that stand, they're not offering kids tickets, so I don't think they want kids in there. Basically.
Speaker 3:I think actually I'm now just rereading the book.
Speaker 1:That's where the rail seating is. That's where the rail seating is yeah, so they're not having under.
Speaker 3:it's not legally required, but there's a recommendation. They're not selling those tickets you don't have kids in the rail station in the same standing area, so they're just not selling those tickets in that space.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so yeah, I agree. And then, yeah, looking at this, the most expensive I mean the South Stand, which is probably going to be the most desirable place, or maybe not, because actually it's not quite the cheapest the highest end ticket is £900. That's the most you can pay, which is for the lower. You know, halfway line on the lower. So, yeah, the range isn't even that much. Adam, what are you thinking about? How are you feeling about the new stadium, everything that comes with it?
Speaker 2:It's massively exciting, isn't it? We'll get on to the on-the-field stuff a bit later on, but it would be pretty miserable at the minute if you didn't have this to focus on. The pricing is taking me by surprise. I did expect not necessarily what you alluded to about West Ham's ticketing prices before, but I think I've been really impressed with how much they've kept a lot of those concessionary tickets down, particularly looking at those, um, like the junior I'm obviously talking about the kids being 199 across the board, but even just like the, the junior tickets, the highest, then the, the most expensive is, uh, 360 quid, um, which you know is that's pretty, you know that's pretty good. What's that? Like 20, what's that? Uh, I don't know about fifth, it's about 18.
Speaker 1:It's about 18 night, 18 or something, yeah pretty good, isn't it?
Speaker 2:um so, and they've obviously got there's obviously a vision there where you know they want to make, they want to be, they want to be building and blooding these fans for season after season. So when they do go into the 22-plus category because Evidence Enough, believe is one of the only I'm not aware of any other club doing any young adults of 18 to 21 concessions there's obviously a lot of forward thinking there. So, yeah, I think they've stuck and it's really good that they've stuck true to the sort of the roots of the club and thinking about the fans. And it shows that Everton and the community sort of feel that the club has always maintained, even the past few seasons when things haven't been great on the pitch, they've stayed true to that. So hopefully, you know that is something that will continue, but it's a fantastic start.
Speaker 1:It's interesting. You made that point, adam. I was thinking about that, about the kind of this is in the spirit of the club and being the people's club. But it's interesting to think about it because you know it says something, I guess, about kind of culture and history, because who's doing that right? It says something, I guess, about kind of culture and history because who's doing that right, like if you look at who's running it right now, I mean who the hell knows?
Speaker 1:But Colin Chong, who's the interim CEO, we don't really know much about except he's overseeing this project and has obviously done a good job of that. Moshiri obviously has some of it it's still his business, so I'm sure he's making decisions and then the freaking group I'm sure are signing off on all of this stuff as the people who are about to buy it. So it's interesting that even with those people none of whom I mean mishiri's got history with the club to a degree obviously, but it's not like, uh, you know, when bill kenwright was there, you would say there's someone in there who was a a fan, and I'm not that those people are would describe themselves as fans now, I guess. But it's good to see that that is being kind of maintained and it's not. This will be the moment where that maybe would fall apart and it's really great that it hasn't yeah, it's, it's, it's, look, it's, it's really positive, isn't it?
Speaker 2:um, so, um, the. Hopefully those things will carry. Those things will carry on. I'm not sure what Spurs' ticket price is. Obviously you've got the London factor and the fact they're a hell of a lot better than us. Just those two is one thing, yeah, but I don't know about. I mean, how long have they been in their stadium for now? It's been about what? Four years, four or five years. Now I don't know what sort of changes they they made, but obviously I think west ham's situation is relatively well well known and, uh, the battle between the fans and the club has been always been quite a high profile thing.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, west ham to me like an exact classic example of like be careful what you wish for, because that stadium's turned into a nightmare for them, because they can't really.
Speaker 1:They don't really do much with it. You can see there's decent chunks I mean a fully, I would say half looking at the map of the west stand and a chunk of the east stand is, um, reserved for like what the club call, and bars, restaurants and experiences, which is all the corporate stuff you know. So it's a huge chunk of seats. So you've got, you know, you've got all of the all the people who are season ticket holders at Everton and people who come regularly can pick seats and the extra capacity, basically the extra for like people like you, all of us who are just buying season tickets. The ground's basically the same size as it is now. It's just better. But they've added this extra bit, which is where people are going to pay hundreds of pounds per game because they're going to get a meal and drinks and all that stuff and that's where they're making their money. So obviously, the economics of it don't require them to, don't require them to to. You know, double what they're.
Speaker 2:You know what we're paying which is great to see, yeah, and also we would not get in, we wouldn't get the sort of interest that that the free green group and other groups have shown without this, without the prospect of the stadium as well. So that's been absolutely huge to secure our you know, secure our future, because mishiri, as as much, as as much money as he spent he's been had a on the pitch, a net, net benefit, a net loss, um, in terms of his uh contribution to, to things on the pitch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you can see with Mishiri like he's a useful idiot, sounds really unfair and I don't want to be unfair to him, but he obviously has no idea how to run a football club. I absolutely know he's terrible at it, but he's put. I mean, you know it was interesting. You saw the new Premier League rules around a shareholder loan. I don't think we should get into it because there's people who covered this stuff really really well.
Speaker 1:But Everson have 400 million pounds of shareholder loans from Asheri and he confirmed ahead of that vote that he's going to convert them into equity, which effectively, with how the deal with the frequent works, means writing it off. I mean, that's all it is because he's getting 50 million for all his equity in the club. So he's poured a huge amount. I've said this before, but we all think Everton have hurt us. They've hurt that man more because he was a billionaire before he got near us and just now he's rising to 400 million. I think that maybe history will judge him a bit differently once he's not in charge. I think maybe people will view him a little bit more kind than they do now.
Speaker 3:I think so, especially when you get inside the ground and people are going to see that experience, I think, because it just does look incredible. You know, you look at some of that and they are only like old mock-ups, but you know, you remember the infamous, you know, Kirby debacle.
Speaker 1:The Tesco Stadium the.
Speaker 3:Tesco Stadium and you look at that and then you compare it to this and I want to go back and thank every one of those. Keep Everton in our city.
Speaker 1:I know, and I was so rude about those people, I know right.
Speaker 3:I know, because they were a barrier on progress and they didn't want us to go and they wanted to stay at Goodson forever and we were dying as a club Turns out they were right.
Speaker 1:They were totally right. They were totally right.
Speaker 3:It was a bad deal and we should have waited around for a better one. We did, and that's good yeah, was Bramley Moor.
Speaker 2:Not Bramley Moor was, or the oh god King's Dock.
Speaker 3:King's Dock was first. That's where the Echo Arena is now. Then Kirby was the Tesco Stadium.
Speaker 1:The King's Dock one. I look back and I think it's bollocks because I can't see how you'd fit it there, because there's an arena there now obviously, but it's like. I mean I'm sure lots of people listen to it. I've been to the Echo Arena. It's a good indoor arena, but it's not a sports stadium. I mean it's tiny compared to a sports stadium. So you know, a sports stadium it's tiny compared to a sports stadium. I don't know how you would have actually put it there. But yeah, the Kirby one was like we thought that's the best we could do and it turned out as you say, ben, those people were totally right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think they were sort of right. But I think they were right, but not for the reasons. Yeah, yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, maybe it would have never come off anyway, but you know, yeah, this is going to be great. Do you guys see the video of them putting the pitch down? No, if you haven't watched it, it's really worth watching. It's so, it's fascinating because the pitch is a. It's a hybrid. So they planted they, you know, puts seed grass, seeds down a couple months ago, I think now, and I've been obviously starts that grow, but then they sew in. They have this machine that sews the fibers of the plastic into it and it's incredible, this contraption they have, which is like a small combine harvester or the size of like a rubbish. I don't know how you put what do you call a trash lorry back in England? Shit A bin lorry.
Speaker 1:A bin lorry.
Speaker 3:How long have you?
Speaker 1:been away Seven years. It's a bin lorry. I don't know if you said rubbish wagon. It's basically the size of a bin lorry and it sews these threads into the turf and knits them together into this really dense you know astroturf obviously but then the natural grass grows in between it. It's really anyway, look it up. It's on the club's youtube. It's fascinating and I'm gonna I love those.
Speaker 3:I love those stadium videos. Like there's a great couple, not about every stadium, but there's a spurs one which shows how they roll on and off the pitch that they use for the nfl um, so which is great. And then the really incredible one is the um, the uh, rather stadium, where it shows because they like grow, they grow the grass like underground, yeah, and they wheel it off in like sections to put it under these heat lamps or under the bottom it still sits on top of each other.
Speaker 3:It sits on top of it. It's incredible, like, yeah, and then all the lights are there and and it all rolls in. It's incredible. Go watch it. I can't. I'm not doing justice to it's ridiculous.
Speaker 1:We're all, um, we're all guilty, aren't we, when we do this stuff? Like everton stadium is going to cost a billion pounds and you, you treat it like it's like building a house or something. It's just like a big house. It's not at all. It's a it's like what? Like the engineering is wild. I mean everton stadium. There's a very pretty early video about the engineering which I don't think was done by the club. It's all definitely on youtube and essentially it floats like it's not that you know, because obviously they filled it in, but it's still. The river's still there, the water table's still there, so essentially the stadium's built like it sort of floats and then and they've got all this stuff to stabilize it, because it's going to move over time.
Speaker 3:You know it's like incredible yeah it's well remember the first when we first started doing it. So like first started construction years and years ago now, like the first thing they had to do was basically like stick a giant hose into the middle of the mersey and pump a load of sand in to fill it, and that was how they were doing it. They were filling it from sand in the Mersey, so the engineering of it, as you say, is incredible.
Speaker 1:Before that they had to catch all the fish. They're scuba divers with nets catching all the fish.
Speaker 2:They had a couple of protected species that they had to move. There's like three protected fish.
Speaker 1:That means we're delayed, took months so, yeah, no, it's going to be great. I'm looking forward. I'm going to my, I'm going to be at the derby with Adam and that'll be my last game at Goodison, which will be sad, but I'm really looking forward to seeing the new one in a few months. Anything else on the stadium before we move on and talk about the shit stuff?
Speaker 2:Yeah, what about the brick, the floor tile that has been purchased?
Speaker 1:So there are two. There's one for our dad, which he knows about, which is a serious thanks. I don't know if we owe him thanks for introducing us to Everton. Before you tell the second one, which he knows about, which is a serious thanks. I don't know if we owe him thanks for introducing us to Everton, but before you tell the second one, I'm just going to put this out there.
Speaker 3:What's the likelihood that someone from the club listens to this? Oh nil.
Speaker 1:Okay, fine, it's not true. Some people listen to this.
Speaker 2:We haven't done the podcast in about three months.
Speaker 1:We always going to be honest with you, dear listener, there's a few hundred people listen to this and we're delighted we started doing it so we could talk to each other during covid. So if you listen, we appreciate it. But, being completely honest, it's not for you, it's for us. So, uh, you know we're going to do what we want to do. I don't think so. Look, if they haven't spotted it, they've got to have QA checks so people can't just call their or something. I've got to bleep that now. I need to write that down.
Speaker 2:Well, to be fair, no, they didn't spot Anne Frank in the memorial of the year. No, they didn't. They didn't.
Speaker 3:I forgot about that. They ran a whole.
Speaker 1:They ran a video.
Speaker 3:She was on the big screen the most famous teenager in the world so for those of you who don't know what Adam's referencing, a couple of years ago there was an in memoriam where people got to submit their family or friends, evertonians who died that year, and they were all laughing this is terrible and being scouted. Someone some genius sicko comedian submitted a photo of Anne Frank with a caption that basically said you know, greatest Evertonian ever, love you, anne, and Everton ran it in the stadium Just put up a picture of Anne Frank with this message, as if she'd died that year. So there is absolutely a very serious chance that the stone that Austen has had made absolutely makes it through and is placed outside it was a black and white photo Of Anne Frank.
Speaker 1:And the irony being, of course, hitler was a Nefertonian. You can bet she wouldn't have been if she'd known Anyway. So we have a lovely one for our dad.
Speaker 3:This has really gone off the rails. We've got to Hitler after like 25 minutes.
Speaker 1:It's perfect, no notes. But I also have another one which says it's I think it's funny if you read it, but this has been a. I've got the certificate from the club. They're going to put it in. It basically says save yourself, turn around now and uh, and hopefully by, obviously, if that gets, if the club put that in the in the ground on the way to the stadium, then I can retire from my job complete. So yeah, it'll be the best £60 I ever spent or whatever it was. I got a cheap one for the joke, the one we got Dad's, one of the big ones, yeah. So yeah, it's going to be really looking forward to it. In all kinds of ways it's going to be brilliant.
Speaker 1:And some of the videos, if you haven't watched, the club have put out one video now which has they did these stand tours and julia bull did one. A couple of the other everton kind of fan sites didn't were in them. It was really good that the um just like kind of just showing around each stand, but they put them out as one video and one of them I think it's from the uh, it must be from the south stand. The view from that bar area is brilliant because it's like looking out. It sticks out onto the river, so it's just this view of the city from the river. It's absolutely spectacular, looking forward to it.
Speaker 1:The other thing actually, you can walk around. All the corporate stuff is in one spot and you can't walk through there. But from one end of excuse there, but from one end of excuse me, for one end of that. If you imagine the, you know the sort of the, the, the stadium is a kind of a big, you know, rectangle. Obviously from one end, from the north bit, it'd be weird if it was a pentagon. Yeah, this is that would be. Yeah, it's a bit more worried about. Is it a bowl? No, it's not a. It's got eight sides this time. So you can walk around from, basically, where the sort of normal seats start, about a third of the way on the west stand, you can walk all the way around to the other side of the corporate bit. So you'll be able to like meet up with people who are sitting in different places at halftime, or before or after, or whatever. Each stand is a separate thing which is a very.
Speaker 3:It's a, that's a very american sports stadium thing. Yeah, like, and obviously dan mice, who designed it is, you know, designed some, uh, a lot of american sports stadiums. But if you go to nfl stadiums and baseball stadiums in fact it's a very big thing at baseball stadiums that you watch a bit of baseball from one bit and then you walk around and you go watch it from another bit and then you go sit in the bleachers or you go sit up in the top bit or you go. So it's, it's the the sort of concept of making it all like inclusive in terms of being able to walk all around. Yeah, and the other thing that that, um, I don't know if they're going to do this, but brighton do a really great thing where after the game, they open the bars up after them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, where they and it's actually brighton do it because the trains, um, in the southeast of england are shit, so they just don't want a fat like 20 000 people angry queuing at a station while they wait for an inevitably delayed train. So what they do is they open the bars up after the game and they're open access around the ground, so, like, if you're, in a way fat. If you've got a mate sat in the home section, you can walk out the ground, walk to the home section, walk in and go and have a pint with them at the bar, which I've done on once. So yeah, they, they open the bars up after the, after the game. I'm not sure they're going to do that at bramley more, but like that's the sort of thing that this gives you the scope for, because you've got the space to do it, which obviously Goodison doesn't have. If you open the bars of Goodison afterwards you'd have a crutch like yeah, yeah, I'd be surprised if they don't do something.
Speaker 1:It might not work exactly at Brighton's, I guess, but because there's not many pubs around that area and I'm sure a bunch will open. But it, you know, and people like the, you know, the people will, entrepreneurs will take advantage of the stadium. I'm sure that's all going to happen. But if you're Everton, you would want to say, well, yeah, I want people to. I mean, they want to clear the stadium out at some point, but yeah, they'll want people hanging around and certainly beforehand, I think they'll want people meeting up inside for drinks and stuff beforehand.
Speaker 1:So I think it's going to change the whole kind of, uh, the whole kind of experience. Um, because it's a bit of a say, I'm sure this will change. But, yeah, like, the streets around there are a bit of a wasteland really, because there's only that one kind of main road and there's a couple of pubs on there. We were going to do very well, but, um, I think a lot of that is going to happen inside the ground now, which will be fun, yeah, um, all right, we've got to talk about football. I'm sorry to do this to everybody. Ben, tell us why you were right three months ago about sacking Sean Dyche.
Speaker 3:Because I said we should have sacked him, probably after the Bournemouth game that we lost at home after being 2-0 up in the 87th minute, and definitely after the Aston Villa game, the next game where we did precisely the same thing, slightly earlier minute-wise. But, like there, because he is not, he's not a winner. He's not a winner of football games, he is, he is, he operates on the on the basis that a point is okay and you have seen, and that just leads you into bad positions, like it leads you to sitting back, it leads you to costing your goals and, as we've seen in the last couple of games, it leads you to playing torrid, horrible, turgid football in games that you should absolutely be winning. West Ham were rubbish when we played them away from home and we were happy with no nil. Brentford went down to 10 men just before halftime and we were happy with with. We weren't collectively and I'm glad I'm never glad, honestly glad that Goodison booed them, because you don't want. You know, I think there's a negativity that can creep in, but like, I'm glad that they got the reaction rather than like, hey, great point everyone, which was absolutely what Sean Dyche was probably telling to the dressing room because he is a negative, unsophisticated, boring, slightly arrogant manager who has no business at all managing Everton Football Club. And like we're all very grateful that he kept us up and he'll probably keep us up this season if he stays in the job long enough. But like our ambitions should be so astronomically higher than sean fucking dyche and you are just seeing what he is turning us into. We are astonishingly boring to watch.
Speaker 3:We have absolutely no idea how to score a goal, and I don't mean that like, oh, we're kind of unlucky. Like we literally tell me what our plan is to score a goal. That's not work really hard, or score a goal from a set piece or across, that's it. You look at all the best teams in the league and I'm not saying like, oh, we should be like man city, like blah blah, blah with you know, you know passages of play and patterns of play and all that. But like because they're the best in the world, they have the best players. You look at any team right, they all have a plan. The good ones have a plan to score a goal. It doesn't always work, but you know what their plan is. You can watch them and go okay, they're trying to play like this in the final third, our final third play.
Speaker 3:I watch League One teams who have more of an idea what to do in the final third than we do. It's honestly, it's like we don't practice it. Our transition play is awful. We don't attack it in any sort of coordination, we are basically hoping that it lands at someone's feet and they stick it in the net. And the xg thing, I don't know. We've all talked about this and xg is, you know, it is a good measure of lots of things. Our xg is generated by it basically landing up at someone's feet and then we sometimes get lucky because they finish it and we sometimes don't. We never. When was the last time you actually look at a goal we scored or a chance we created and you go oh, that was a really intricate, organized passing move where everyone knew where everyone was going to be. There's basically been two that I can think of all season.
Speaker 1:One is in die's goal against uh lester, which was what I was thinking of with the young player which was an actually young pass.
Speaker 3:Actually young who is, you know, old but technically a much better footballer than lots of the players in our squad was the Ashley Young pass, which was one pass, one individual moment of sort of breath. And then, in the Villa game, just before we conceded, I think the first one, or maybe the second one Calvert-Lewin was played through, cleaned through and fluffed it up, because that's what Dominic Calvert-Lewin does with one-on-one opportunities and there was a sequence of passing there which was like pretty good, but like what?
Speaker 3:can all the other goals we score. The two against Ipswich were like oh, it bobbles around in the box and it lands in someone's feet and they stick it in. We didn't score against Brentford, we couldn't create anything. We didn't score against. Against West Ham, we didn't create anything like it. I'll pass over to someone else now because I feel like I've made the point. But it is terrible football. It is depressing to watch, there's no plan, and I don't think he has any ability to make it any better, because this is who he is and who he has been for all time, and it's just taken us a while to get to the point where it's actually unacceptable.
Speaker 1:Adam thoughts.
Speaker 2:I mean, yeah, I'm not quite as vociferous as Ben about it. I mean, I've found, over the last, like games I do broadly agree with, like the football and the purely aesthetic side of things, and at the end of the day, you know, this is a recreational activity that we all partake in, so you do want to be entertained. You know, I've never I've changed my mind a lot over the idea of, like you know, football's about winning games. Um, yes, to a degree, you want to do it in a decent way. We came eighth with sam allardyce and still sacked him because the football we're playing was shite. Um, so, um, yeah, I mean I disagree with Ben, like the, the bluntness of Ben's point around, uh, like it falling at someone's feet. I mean, just take the example that you used about, um, yeah, the Iptwich goal, michael Keane's goal was actually quite well worked. Dwight McNeill is one of our few creative players and he really showed his creativity to do a nice pass through to Michael Keane who then, as he is one of our best finishers at the club, puts it away really nicely.
Speaker 2:And we do have a plan. We do have a plan to score a goal. Yes, it is around set pieces and it's not working as well, um, but I mean, I've seen it, I've seen in the games that we've played already and on you know it obviously. I mean I'll reference the brighton game, which obviously we lost three nil and that shows the issue around dice, that the way our team is set up is that we are very vulnerable to counterattacks, but there is still a clear strategy to score goals, which is to press high, win the ball back. We just don't have the players that can finish enough chances. You know Calvert-Lewin, I have zero confidence in him scoring any meaningful chance, really. And just to go back onto XG, because obviously that was something that I referenced a number of times last season in defence of Dyche, and we were by far. Our difference between our XG and actual goals was like more than more than yeah, more than double the. It was around this time last season and in the subsequent months it was around double the team that had the second biggest difference between actual and expected goals. Um, but now I think it's like I, we've scored what? 10 goals and our expected goals is about 14 or 13 or something like that. So there's not an awful lot of difference. Uh, an awful lot of difference there, um, and yes, we've become more solid at the back and we're conceding, um, we're conceding like fewer chances, but even, but we have rode our luck. Let's be honest. Like if there was a game against um you know West Ham, for example, you know they could have you could easily see a situation where West Ham win that and same with with with Brentford. You know they had a good number of chances.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I think one of my main gripes just add to Ben's general point about the footballing. It's his and Ben is right to describe him as arrogant. We said this at the time around substitutions, particularly the Villa game, the Villa game and the Bournemouth game before that, I think. At the time of the Bournemouth game I was like very much anti-player and the players shouldn't do that and I still maintain that position. Like that just shouldn't happen. You know you concede three goals to in in final four minutes of of normal time, plus extra, plus plus injury time to to lose. That shouldn't happen, you know. But it was.
Speaker 2:That situation was exacerbated by Dyche's insistence on playing players that had ran themselves into the ground and it's like he doesn't have that ability, seemingly, to change things and make wholesale substitutions. I was just watching the Brighton-Southampton game before and they made like Southampton made like two substitutions where they bring off. They brought off their defensive mind of fullback and brought on Ryan Fraser who's, like you know, played left wing back but very much, like you know, was attacking very much, put in about four or five crosses in the 20 minutes he was on and brought on Joe Arriba who was like an attacking midfielder. So Southampton won one away at Brighton. Yes, they could look at that and go. We'll take a draw. Or they can go the Roberto Martinez way of going if we win one game out of three, or we get three points out of those three, or we can draw two of them and lose one, we've got a net loss of one point.
Speaker 2:So it's that sort of attitude that Russell Martin seems to have and credit to him and other teams seem to have that Dyche seemingly doesn't, and I can't imagine any situation where his contract gets renewed at the end of the season because obviously it's due to expire at the end of this season. So if you're sitting there wanting him gone and Ben obviously makes his point extremely clear that he does then at least you've only got until May to suffer it, and then there'll be a fresh start in a new stadium. Do we think he lasts that long? Then at least you've only got until May to sort of suffer it, and then there'll be a fresh start in a new stadium. Do we think he lasts that long? No, I'm just saying no. I'm not saying that he does, I'm just saying no, no but I'm asking it as genuinely.
Speaker 2:Do we think he lasts?
Speaker 3:If the Friedkin group come in mid-December, which is basically when they're meant to do the takeover, and then the results continue like do we do? We think he makes it through january I think they'll fire him before christmas, I think honestly.
Speaker 1:I agree, I don't think he makes it in the season.
Speaker 1:No, what I'm, I'm just yeah, I'm saying like he won't get his contract renewed yeah, yeah, no, I, I agree, we understand, I think, because it depends on the timing of their approval. I think they obviously, because it's got to be tied, a manager coming in in january's the transfer window is going to be on their mind and there'll be questions there and psr and yeah. So still tied up in that and it's true. But I think if they're in a position to get the coach they want and I'm going to ask you guys in a second who you would like that to be so start thinking about answers to get the coach.
Speaker 3:I can tell you right.
Speaker 1:I can tell you right now it's the same person I wanted when we hired last time all right, great, let's come back around to it, let's do it, let's do this in some sort of order. Uh, then I think they'll. I think they'll make a move, because why would you not right, especially if the person hypothetically the person you're thinking of is out of work, and maybe they are ben. Um, I was just following a couple of things. Basically, I agree with both of you. I've come round to this and I don't watch our football and think it's necessarily that bad. But I think there are a couple of those stats tells us we're the most direct team in the league. I mean, that's undeniable. I wouldn't necessarily say that anecdotally watching us, but that is stats wise. That is, we play more long passes than any other team. We have the lowest average percentage of any team in the league in terms of possession.
Speaker 1:And there are a couple of things with dice that I've come around to thinking are a real, just fundamental flaws. The first is related to something you said about substitutions. I'll come out slightly differently. He does have a philosophy. He said before you very publicly transitions are what the Premier League games won and lost in transitions. So he's terrified about negative transitions and he sees the opportunity in them. So there is a legitimate strategy and that's where I disagree with you, ben, a little bit that there isn't a plan to score a goal.
Speaker 1:I think, as Adam said, there is a plan, it's just not a very good one. The plan to score goals is to press high hard, win the ball back, win the opposition, because all these possession teams, they all move around, so when they're on the ball they're out of position. It's how Martinez, we got fucked under Martinez all the time was because no one was in the right place when we turned the ball over. So now the problem I think we've been very good at that and you can see that the problem is you then get tired because you're, and it's not even about being fitter, right. It's not even about because people say, oh, you should be fit enough. It's about whether you're working harder than the other team on that day, right? So not about like, are you fit enough to be a Premier League team To do that? You're going to work harder than your opposition, right? So come 80 minutes, 75 minutes, they are going to have more energy than you. And this is where you see, time and again, we get caught late on because he won't make the changes or he's not capable of it.
Speaker 1:And I think, actually, if you're going to, I think you could be a really successful manager coach with this strategy. But you would have to have really great game management to know who to replace and when, to make sure you didn't just get leggy, and he doesn't do that. So he'd only got half, he'd only doing half the job, basically. And then the other one which had been I was talking about the other day, which I think you said it is this winning thing, I think in the players' minds you hear him afterwards we haven't lost in eight games. Ashley Young said the same thing. That's the criteria for success Don't lose, and that's fine.
Speaker 1:If you want to not get relegated, it's fine. If you want to get out of the championship even, it's not fine if you want to be, as you said, ben, the manager of Everton. I think that's. I think he wants to win every game. I think he coaches the team with a plan to win every game. But it's like there's a major and a minor. The major is don't lose. The minor is try and win. And I am a complete believer not necessarily in Roberto Martinez's actual coaching of football teams, which I think is a little bit hit and miss, but the philosophy which is, you know, martinez's philosophy, adam, you said basically is if you go shit or bust, you're drawing. And you go shit or bust and you say it's a coin toss, half the time you win, half the time you lose, you net up. You'll end up with more points than just holding on to the draw, and I think that's basically right and I think that's where Dyche has always been a 1.17 points per game manager. Anyway, ben, who should Everton's next manager be? Stun us with your.
Speaker 3:Everton's next manager should be the person we hired when we hired Roberto Martinez, which is Graham Potter. And Graham Potter is available. He's not working at the minute. There is talk that there has been discussion between him and the Friedkin group about this. He's apparently on their shortlist. He understands the Premier League, did a tremendous job at Brighton, plays good, attractive football. I think is the right sort of psychological profile to deal with all the inevitable drama that comes with being Everton football manager. We should have hired him the last two times and I'm hopeful that we will rectify that mistake this time. I think there are plenty of others on any prospective shortlist, but yeah, graham Potter is absolutely top of mind because I think the freaking group could come in fire. Dyche, hire Potter immediately, before January, and then actually I think you're off to a good start.
Speaker 3:The thing is we all say loosely oh, dyche is going to keep us up, but we aren't like it's not going to be. When you operate on the basis that you're on the margins, right, it's only one or two things that could go against you. That totally changes that. Like. People seem to forget. We stayed up on the last day a couple of seasons ago because of one goal, one goal that I just already scored, and if we'd conceded or Leicester had scored, we'd have gone down. So like we were razor close to going down. And now Dice had obviously only been there for half the season. But when you're off, when you're happy and comfortable of playing football and managing games and managing the season in a way that goes, oh, oh, it'll be tight, but we'll be okay, you are like one bounce of the ball from it really not being okay and I just think, like why do we, why do we need, why do we accept that? Like yeah, dyche probably does keep us up, but I'm pretty sure a better manager than Sean Dyche keeps us up more comfortably.
Speaker 3:We've resorted this to like we've sort of accepted this whole narrative that Dice has spun us, that like we're lucky to have him because he'll keep us in the Premier League. It's like, well, there's plenty of managers who would keep us in the Premier League, actually, because our squad is our start at 11 isn't actually that bad, and there's plenty of other factors around around the club that make us better, a better team than than some of the others. But like you look at the table now like we are one, we are one set of results from being 19th. Like we're on 11 points and crystal palace, who were in in 19th, are on eight points. Like you are one set of results from being smack in the relegation zone. So this idea that like, oh, it'll be fine is built on like yeah, it probably will be, but why? Why would you take the risk on the margins?
Speaker 1:Yeah, when it's easy to make a change. Adam, who would your pick be if you were? You know, excluding the unrealistic ones, maybe, but who would you choose if you were making a call right now?
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean Graham Potter would be my, my preference, I think for the style of play element to it as well, but there's another man who's obviously available and I would have to.
Speaker 3:I knew I was hoping someone was going to bring him up.
Speaker 2:I wasn't. No, I was not thinking of Jose Mourinho. I was thinking of, I was thinking of David, I was thinking of Moyes.
Speaker 1:Oh, jesus Christ, they weren't at Moyes.
Speaker 2:No, no, no. I'm not saying like I'm talking about preference, not realism Like I would love to have David Moyes back because I think you know he gets a bad rap for the sort of style of play that he does. And he showed what a fantastic manager he was at West Ham and there, you know, albeit their good result away at Newcastle, it showed you that you know, the grass isn't necessarily always greener. And I think he's still a really good coach, a really good man, manager. So I'd be more than happy to see him back. But, yeah, graham Part Potter would be my preference and I wouldn't touch Jose Mourinho with a barge pole.
Speaker 1:I think Graham Potter is the most likely outcome. It depends what happens on the timing of what they do with Dash when the takeover's complete, because I think if you're making a change December, I think it's Potter or Moyes really, unless they did something weird like David Ancelotti or something like that which is possible. I think there's a world where Carlo Ancelotti comes back as our manager actually when the timing's right, but I don't think that happens now. Yeah, I just think he's. I think he would. Obviously Carlo is a close personal friend, so I speak with great authority on this. I think he thinks he feels maybe a bit unfinished business and that there's something he could do with the right platform.
Speaker 1:Then the other one, who's? I think won't be this time, but if the timing were different and I think maybe if this were happening next summer could happen actually with Eddie Howe who you know grew up as an Evertonian and I think he's not going to be Newcastle's manager. You know, I don't think beyond this season. I'd be very surprised if he was. So I think there's more possibilities, but I think if it was December I don't see you'd have to make a strong argument not to hire Graham Potter. I think you say he's available. You haven't got to pay anyone any compensation for him. You know he's going to, he's got just because the Freakins love a bit of star power. You know they're Hollywood people a little bit. So I think Graham Potter would be on the bottom end of that scale but probably just qualifies. I think Moyes doesn't, and that's why I think something like Mourinho, I think, is a non-zero possibility, seriously, because they've worked with him before and they fired him, of course but they know him.
Speaker 2:He's Fenerbahce's manager, so I mean there's that element, isn't there. He's noterdinand Bacce's manager, so I mean there's that element, isn't there.
Speaker 1:He's not yeah, but I mean I think Everton are a bunch bigger. I think he'd rather Him being Jose Mourinho.
Speaker 1:Is basically Donald Trump, right Like he just wants the biggest stage possible to fuck with as many people as possible and, I think, coming back to the Premier League to fuck with everyone for another tumultuous 12. I wouldn't hire him to be current because I think he's a disaster, but I would not rule it out. I think the freekins would have the ability to have the pulling power. And when he joined Roma, you hear Roma fans talking about him. That was like they couldn't believe this superstar manager had joined them. It's not like you know, roma were pulling up trees and they were mid-table Serie A side hadn't done anything for years and years. So, and obviously it was a disaster, because Mourinho is always a disaster, but I wouldn't.
Speaker 1:I think the weakness I've listened to a bunch of Roma fans talking on various things about their kind of managerial shenanigans, which has been wild this year. I mean, they hired De Rossi and fired him and the fans went nuts and the CEO resigned. They've had a real shit show over there with managers and their weakness is they want a bit of rock star. So I think that's going to be more of a factor than we might like.
Speaker 3:The other names I would throw out there for the purposes of not just making this a Graham Potter love it, I think, and these are partly ones we've been linked with and partly ones that I would like to see. I'm a big fan of Carlos Corberon, who is the I'm probably pronouncing his surname wrong, but who's the West Brom manager.
Speaker 1:I don't think that's the right pronunciation.
Speaker 3:He is, he's done. You talk to West Brom fans, they love him, they love the style of football he's got them, you know, back into the playoff places in the championship. The other two that we've been linked with, which are, you know, was Maurizio Sarri, who is again the sort of star power kind of thing that the Freakens like, and the other one is Edin Terzic, who was the Borussia Dortmund manager again star power element. He left Borussia Dortmund. Did he leave Borussia Dortmund? Oh yeah, he left after they lost in the Champions League final against Real Madrid. So he is also available and probably fits the same sort of style of star power Friedkin group thing that they would like. So I mean no idea if he would be interested in coming to do the Everton job, but we got Carlo Ancelotti on, so you know you can't dream.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't underestimate. We've got newer American owners, bigger pulling power. There'll be money, not inside PSR, but we've mostly fixed our PSR. The stadium is going to make a huge difference to that because it's going to increase our revenue. I think we may be thinking about we're in danger of thinking about this the wrong way around. What I think we really need to focus on is I pushed for Rafa Benitez and that was a fucking disaster.
Speaker 1:Andy pushed for Sean Dyson. That was a fucking disaster. So now we need Graham Potter to come in be a fucking disaster, and then we can have Moisey again, and then we'll have a everyone will have the full well, we're the full complement.
Speaker 3:It would be genuinely quite impressive if the three Everton managers consecutively were three people that we predicted on this podcast. Yeah, of all the football managers in the world, although maybe it would actually give an insight into the lack of creative thinking. I know the four brothers on our podcast came up with the same list of names.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying any of us would be good at actually managing a football team. Football fans know more about football than professional football people give them credit for. I think there's a lot of arrogance around that. There's a lot in actually doing the job that I would be shit at. But we've all watched thousands of games of football, thousands that gives you you know what's good and what's not good. And this is part of the thing, I think, with Dyche a little bit, and it's a shame because he was refreshing in this sense. Martinez basically got fired because he kept telling us we saw things we didn't see and that's unforgivable. You can't get away with that. Basically, you know the phenomenal stuff.
Speaker 3:The other thing that Dice does, though and I think this is sort of your point is he really gets wound up by fan criticism in a way that's not helpful. Like dude, just ignore it, just ignore it.
Speaker 3:Because you see him in the press. When the fans were leaving he made a Like dude, just ignore it. Just ignore it. Because you see him in the press, like when the fans were leaving, you made a jibe about. You know well, that's just what they like here if you're not winning. And then, out of nowhere the other day during the international break, because you know there's been a discussion about McNeil playing in the middle, which is something that we advocated been some talk about, and I actually think it would work better if he played than jai there, because he can go both ways, use both feet. He's creative. He's better on the ball. Mcneil has been good in the middle and he's created lots of opportunities, but he is very. He doesn't limit you because he can only turn one way, because he only has a left foot, so like he's not in the sense yeah, almost we don't have you ever seen dwight Miller's right foot?
Speaker 1:There's a boot there.
Speaker 3:Is there a foot in it? I have no idea. There's no evidence.
Speaker 1:He's never used it for anything.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, well, he did. Actually, he did use it against Bournemouth and he spooned Brentford and he spooned a shot that he should. Yeah, he had a shot on his right foot and you could see the panic in his eyes as realised he was going to have to shoot on his right foot and he spooned it about eight yards wide Because the bootie just stuck to the bottom of a limb.
Speaker 3:There's no foot in there so like but the point is, Ndai in the middle is a sort of something that's been in the ether, and in the international break Shondyce came in. I can't remember I don't know what the interview was or what particularly. He was like talking, why he was talking about it, but he was like really went out of his way to say like I've got loads of people telling me that, um, ilham and jai should play as the 10 and I've just there's no evidence for that, there's no basis. I'm like why are you like? Why are you getting wound?
Speaker 1:up by, like you've got to be able to tune that out. I mean, yeah, you know. Like, yeah, why do you care, mate? Like it's a shame really, because I think, when I am like for long time with Dyche, the fact that when we were shit he sounded like he'd watched the same game I had, and now he doesn't, he's lost that. Now I think it's he does this sort of oh, I'm disappointed thing, but it's like really, and you're right, I think he is a bit kind of, he is a bit sensitive to it. Alright, alright, we need to wrap up. Let's do predictions, because Everton are playing Manchester United in two days, which we've not talked about at all, and we're not going to because I don't even want to think about it. Except we are going to do score predictions. Man United new manager still not a very good group of players. Adam, what's your prediction?
Speaker 2:tough one. It is tough. I just think the first game at Old Trafford in the Premier League for Amarim will be too much, I think, and their players have an awful lot to prove. So, as tempting as it is to do the Mark Lawrenson, we will never lose a game ever. I will predict us to lose 2-1.
Speaker 1:Why do you think we're going to score a goal, Ben? What's your prediction?
Speaker 3:I'm going to predict it's 2-0, because the belief that we're going to score is hilariously misplaced. Yeah, I would. It's 2-0. It's a loss. I just can't see anything else coming out of it.
Speaker 1:I agree with that. I think 2-0. I think you're right. The man Utd are going to overwhelm us. We're going to try and keep them out and we'll fail. Maybe, maybe 1-0, something like that. All right, thank you for listening. Subscribe, follow us on Spotify, apple Podcasts wherever the hell you how you find podcasts. We are there. Tell your mates, uh, and then, yeah, stay well, we'll be back. I think we will actually be back next week, so let's make that commitment. Um, thanks for listening. See you soon.