Blues Brothers Everton Podcast
Blues Brothers Everton Podcast
Moshiri's Legacy and Chelsea Preview
How will Everton Fans remember Farhad Moshiri? The new stadium looks fantastic, but will the chaos he created on and off the field dominate his legacy?
Welcome to episode 79 of the Blues Brothers Everton podcast. It's Austin here. I'm from New York, I've got Andy and Adam with us. We sort of had Ben with us, but not really because his son is not complying with recording the podcast. It's just going to be the three of us. Andy, how are you doing?
Speaker 2:Hi Austin, I'm good. Thank you. Yeah, quite busy at the moment. It's always a busy time of year in the logistics industry, but today's been my second day off, so, yeah, chilled at home, met a friend for lunch, had a Wagyu cheeseburger, which was very nice, and looking forward to chatting Everton for a bit.
Speaker 1:Are you going to say something different when you say the first syllable of Wagyu cheeseburger? That's a dramatic overshare.
Speaker 3:I'm glad you're having a relaxing day. Uh, adam, how you doing? Yeah, I'm, uh, I'm good. Uh, yeah, I've broken up for, uh, broken up for um from work uh, from work. That sounds really weird. I've broken up from school, uh, which is work, and today, so, yeah, that's nice, nice, a couple of, uh, couple of weeks off now, doing amazing.
Speaker 1:Look forward to so well, you know, we're gathered on this happy occasion because we're recording this on friday the 20th. Uh and everton have new owners. We finally, uh, we're going to talk about mishiri a little bit and it'll be interesting what you guys think. But anyway, for better, worse, that era of Everton is over. The freaking group completed their takeover. Everton are in a, at least financially. I mean, you know there's a lot to come and we don't know what it's going to look like yet but at least financially, in a much, much better position than we were 48 hours ago, where most of our debt is now gone. Certainly, all of the, the nonsense around, some of the things like 777 have all gone, but now part of a, you know, owned by people who are definitely grown-ups. We can say that at the very least. So, andy, I'll start with you uh, thoughts, reflections, how you feeling everything around it, it's extremely positive.
Speaker 2:I mean, obviously, once mishiri became an absent owner, you know the best part of a couple of years ago now and all the shenanigans about him and the rest of the board not being able to attend matches and obviously having an interim board I mean, what's the world record for an interim board remaining in place in charge of a company? Because everton's interim board have been there for at least 18 months now, if not longer. So the club has just been in almost a form of stasis at executive level for such a long period of time and we've obviously been waiting for new owners to come in. And new owners were always going to come in because the new stadium is clearly a big attraction. Man City's owners bought them because they had the Etihad ready built for them. So new owners were always going to come in and obviously, with the financial complications around the previous sort of loans being given to the club by the 777 group, it's obviously taken a little bit of time to get this situation to the state where the freaking group can fully take over the club. But, like almost all Evertonians, I'm just relieved that two have finally got to this point because we can finally now start to actually hopefully move forward.
Speaker 2:I would like to mention, actually, I think, the members of that interim board, colin Chong and Kevin Thelwell, as a contractor in the season, I think they've done a very good job in steering Everton through choppy waters with, you know, psr breaches and points deductions and having no money to spend and all the rest of it. I'd just like to place on record that I think they've done a good job in very trying circumstances. So, yeah, I mean like all owners you know they've said I'm sure we've all read the letters that they've released to the media and they've said all the right things. We'll have to wait and see if they back up that with concrete actions and words. But I'm extremely happy that the takeover has finally happened because Everton it needed to happen and Everton deserves to have, you know, competent people in charge who can take us forward in the new stadium next season.
Speaker 1:Yeah, very much so, Adam. How?
Speaker 2:are you feeling?
Speaker 1:stadium next season. Yeah, very much so, Adam how are you feeling?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm really positive about it. It's been too long, you know, having Moshiri in, having too much control of the footballing side of things, and maybe you know obviously we'll go on to talk about Moshiri's reign specifically a bit later on. So it's really positive. And when you have people that obviously clearly see the vision and the impact that the stadium can have and obviously restructuring our debt and taking away all the debt or restructuring it, it puts us in a lot better financial position. Obviously, with the stadium as well, our revenue will increase an incredible amount. So financially, things are looking much better. But it must be caveated with the fact that you know, the freaking group are not well regarded at Roma at the minute and they've been there for four years.
Speaker 3:Roma, obviously a very traditional Italian club, had Daniele De Rossi in charge, who was a club legend, and then they sacked him quite early into the season because of a poor start. You may argue that it was, as far as I'm aware, it was his first managerial role. But having said that, it does unfortunately lend itself to the argument that they don't necessarily take into account the traditions of Roma and there's obviously certain parallels with Everton there. Um, they've made that clear in their statement, like they understand the traditions and the history of the club and the importance of the fans with the club um. But unfortunately the actions of them at Roma, where they've they're on their fourth manager of this calendar year, indicates that we should be wary of what they bring. But I suppose we're judging that against the baseline of Mishiri, whose footballing decisions overall have led us to playing very poor football and staying up only by the skin of our teeth in the two of the last three seasons.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you can sort of say with some certainty that four years from now everyone will think they can play complete assholes, because it's what football fans inevitably end up doing right, because to us it's a community, it's a club, it's a passion, it's all those things. To them it's a business. So there's going to be like tension there. I guess you can maybe try and separate that from the underlying performance, because we'll hate them for something right. There'll be something that they've done or not done that we're pissed off about, but overall we'll be in a better position than we are today. It would be tough to be in a worse position, I guess and just so good.
Speaker 2:Just one point about the stadium. I mean it's it's hard not to overstate the importance of just getting the club's finances in order, because I don't know how much we were spending on servicing the debt we had, but I mean it must have been tens of millions, just in interest never mind.
Speaker 1:Apparently it was around, apparently it was around 100 million a year. Yeah, so which is you know? It tells you that it was um, who knows? I mean, there's a lot of um, there's a lot of figures knocking around, but the you know I there's a lot of figures knocking around, but I figure there's been knocked around at $100 million a year, which had increased a lot. I think that had doubled in the last 18 months.
Speaker 1:As we'd had to take on we were a high-risk organization. It's a lot of money too. So we were taking on more and more short-term debt. And it was interesting I was looking this morning on Everton's records on company and house and you have to record charges. So secure debt, basically the only one that's outstanding is from Metro Bank. All the others MSP 777, there's a couple of others, farhad Mashir obviously have all gone, all been cleared, and it doesn't say how much the debt is to Metro Bank, but word is the number that's been knocked around is it's less than 5 million. So the club is effectively debt-free. So if you take, if it was, even if it was half of 100 million right, even if it was 50 million that we were paying in debt interest that we're now not paying.
Speaker 2:That's obviously a huge amount of money yeah, yeah, the benefit of the club's finances and obviously, again, with the stadium because it's a, not the the matchday revenue is obviously going to increase dramatically. We were amongst the lowest in the Premier League. I don't know where the new stadium will put us, but it's clearly going to be much more. And obviously the stadium is going to be a nominated stadium for Euro 2028. And in the last few years, taylor Swift, bon Jovi and Elton John have all played up at Anfield. Well, in the future, those gigs are going to be at Bramley Moor because it's a more modern ground, it's easier to get to and it's not surrounded by houses. So the amount of revenue we're going to get, in conjunction with the fact that we're not spending loads of money on servicing high interest debts, it's completely trans. It's a lot of the sort of behind the scenes stuff that football fans often don't appreciate or, frankly, often don't care about.
Speaker 1:but again, I don't think you can underestimate the importance of the, the financial transformation that's happened in the last few days yeah, I mean, the club's estimate for the first year is that it will have a a top line, so gross increase in revenue of 60 million from the new stadium. That's what they're thinking in year one and that has quite big implications because now there's obviously the debt is there's some debt somewhere? And I think what's happened is the freaking group are themselves, they have taken on debt which they can do at a much more favorable rate than Everton can. So you're going to see that come out and I'll put this down now that Everton fans need to be aware in a year when they see 25 million quid leaving Everton to the freaking group, we need to not all lose our shit because that's what they're doing. That's why they're doing, that's why they're doing it. They're doing this so they can make money, right, so they are going to take money out of this football club, like that is what is going to happen for sure, and none of us had the money to buy it. So we need to be, you know, sensible about complaining about the people who did.
Speaker 1:But, um, yeah, the obviously 60 million quid great. The club will probably go from being financially a bucket with a hole in the bottom to being something that hopefully washes its own face. But of course from a PSR point of view that's top line money for the calculation around what you can spend. So that opens up because it's obviously the percentage. What's used is the loss, again on footballing activity. So if we put 60 million quid in more at the top, that's 60 million we can spend before we're incurring a PSR loss. So that's going to be a big, big, big deal. If you have owners who want to loosen the purse strings and put money in and they've sort of signaled that already that January we can't really do very much because we're still wrapped up in PSR for this season but after next season, different story, adam. How are you Farad Moshiri right? How do you think we're going to talk about him five years from now?
Speaker 3:I think we separated two different things. I think he was a businessman who wanted too much control over the football side of things and allowed too much outside influence, because I think we've got a very negative opinion of him at the minute, or a lot of fans do. But the stadium will, I think, be something that he is, will be almost his legacy, and without him the stadium would not be in place and all the hopeful success or the better, or certainly the potential chances of success that will come from having the new stadium is down to Fahad Bashiri. So it would be very unfair to say that his tenure has been a complete disaster, because it hasn't. However, the football inside of things and his control over certain things has been his downfall. So just a few sort of stats, just a few like stats. We've had seven permanent managers since Roberto Martinez, because he came in when Martinez was manager and sacked him 72 days into his. Into Moshiri's tenure. The managers have averaged 309 days in charge since then.
Speaker 3:Permanent managers Wild he was responsible for introducing Steve Walsh, who was a fantastic scout but not a footballing strategist. Obviously, steve Walshh if you forgot, if you forgot who he is he was the guy who was lester's um uh scout who identified angelo cante mares and jamie vardy. Um and his um. He was um instrumental to their uh, their premier League win in 2016. And then we took him.
Speaker 3:We made him the director of football, which is a completely, completely different role. His job at Leicester was to identify players and work them within a system. He did not design the footballing strategy that runs through all the facets of a club. He's never done that before. So Machiri was very, very naive at best when he made that, that decision to hire him. He then sort of rectified that by bringing in someone who actually had real nous in that, with marcel brands. But then we saw him have too much influence on things because Marcel Brandt basically walked out because he'd had enough, yeah. And then you've got like other minor things, like there was a winger from Villa that we loaned because we were doing an agent.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:El Ghazi, thank you. So that sort of thing where he just had too much influence on the footballing side of things and quite patently didn't know what the fuck he was doing from a football strategy side of things. So, to go back to what I said earlier, I think he should be judged in two ways a footballing side, an absolute disaster. From a business side of things, and helping us ensure, ensure the success of the club. Because I can't see any. I can't see how, unless we royally, royally fuck it up in the next five years, how we're not going to go on an upward trajectory from here. The footballing side I think he should be remembered. The business side of things he should be remembered more fondly because of the stadium.
Speaker 1:Andy thoughts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think in five years' time we'll look upon Moshiri as somebody whose heart was fundamentally in the right place and he did what he thought was best. Unfortunately, a lot of those decisions, time has just not looked upon them very kindly. I agree with Adam. The football side of things under his stewardship has lurched from one crisis to another. And the business side of things I don't think it's quite as. I think it's a bit more negative than what Adam's just described, because I've already said about you know we affect almost a financial basket case in many ways. So, yeah, he's delivered the stadium and when we're sat there and that will be his legacy and it's going to be a legacy obviously for a very long time.
Speaker 2:But yeah, the footballing side of things was yeah, because you had seven permanent managers. I mean, how long have you got, how long back have you got to go prior to Moshiri's tenure to have the previous seven managers? I mean, you know you've got to go back donkey's years, possibly to before I was born. You know you're going. You're going back years and years. So that just demonstrates that you know an average managerial tenure of less than a year is is is absolutely nonsensical.
Speaker 1:Um well, and you know some of them sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 3:Sorry, awesome, yeah, so we had two. So we had two managers in the 15 years, in the 14 years that preceded his tenure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you look at the stats. I'm just pulling up our final league placements under Moshiri and it makes some of the managerial stuff actually make even less sense. So, roberto Martinez, 15, 16. Uh, we finished 11th when we fired um. We thought we'd fired martinez just before the end of that season. We were 12th when we fired him. Now, think about that. We fired him because we were 12th and we weren't doing very well and, as you pointed out, adam, 72 days into his tenure. I mean a ludicrous decision in retrospect. Ronald Koeman next finished 7th. Ronald Koeman again, we finished 8th the next season, which was the start of Allardyce's season. We fired Allardyce when we finished eighth, which maybe we all agree with. But we've um, but we've been Adam. You're on mute. Sorry, dear listener, adam's on mute.
Speaker 3:I think he's trying to say something no, I'm not, I'm, I'm talking to um. I'll talk to uh El's dog, who has just started barking. So what's the dog's name?
Speaker 1:it's Teddy. What's the podcast? Talk about the dog, hey, teddy. Oh, you can't see this. Dear listener, one day we'll be on youtube and you can see the pets.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, so we fired kuman when we were uh, we were 18th. But then we then finished eighth. Okay, fair enough, marco silva's full season. We finished eighth. We then fired him. Uh, we were 18th. We then got Ancelotti finished 10th. He leaves Benitez. We fired when we were 16th. We finished 16th. Lampard kept us up. Lampard did effectively two half seasons. Dyche comes in, we finish 17th, then 15th last year. So there's this pattern here where people would have a good season, get us to a good place, start the next season poorly and get fired, and you think two of, I would say at least twice. And he was unlucky with Ancelotti because he had a guy who was going to be his guy. But with Martinez and with Silva, you think, god, we should have just kept the faith. Honestly, it would have been. I think most fans agreed with the decision to fire them at the time. But look what Marco Silva's doing at Fulham now and how he's got them playing.
Speaker 1:And you're like boy oh boy he knows how to coach a football team.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and even Koeman as well that season when he was sacked and we were 18th after however many games, but we'd had the hardest first set of fixtures, I think, in Premier League history. We played all the top teams who'd finished at the top of the league the season before, so it's hard to, so he was being judged very harshly in that set of fixtures. Now again, would Koeman have? We weren't going to get relegated that season. If Koeman had stayed that whole season, then we weren't going to have got relegated because we'd have got enough points against the other teams.
Speaker 2:I've got no doubt about that whatsoever. But yeah, moshiri, I agree and you can understand it to a point, I suppose. Where he's bought the club, it's his club, it's his money he's put into it, it's his play thing. He wants to have the final decision. But I mean, austin, you'll know better than me, given the industry you work in, one of the biggest facets of successful management is delegating decisions to people who have got more knowledge than you about about a particular subject and trusting their judgments when it comes to making decisions around it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because if you were these managers, then one of the things that is immediately apparent is every single one of them. We went from Martinez to Ronald Koeman entirely different style of football.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, and then Koeman to Allardyce.
Speaker 1:Yeah, allardyce, again, it may be Koeman to Allardyce more similar, but Allardyce is Allardyce. Marco Silva totally different to Ronald Koeman. Yeah, Carlo Ancelotti, okay, maybe, but then we go Rafael Benitez totally different, then we go Frank Lampard totally different, and then we go Sean Dyche totally different. So that's the thing that is like, if you look back, is most nuts is the lack of. The most important thing is having a strategy, because short-term things can happen, but long-term, if you head in the right direction, you'll end up where you want to end up. And clearly he never had any idea what his footballing strategy was Exactly.
Speaker 2:And the contrast between that approach and the one of Brighton down at Brighton example could not be more stark, because I've no doubt that when Herzl leaves Brighton which he surely will not only will Tony Bloom, brighton's chairman, know the next person he wants to appoint, he's probably got eyes on the guy after that as well. And the same with the players in the position, because Brighton are I mean Porto are famous for important players from South America and selling them on for huge amounts of money and making big profits. And that's the model that Brighton have gone for as well. I mean, they've signed some Brazilian kid on the 1st of January I forget his name and I've note out they've paid a few million pounds for it, and in a couple of years' time he'll probably be in the Champions League and they'll have sold him to Chelsea for 80 million. And so that's the sort of model where I completely agree.
Speaker 2:It's a consistent approach. Everybody's pulling in the same direction and they're always thinking three steps. Like a good snooker player, a good chess player, they're always thinking three moves ahead. So when Ancelotti walked, everton had to have an emergency board meeting about what to do next If Hertler resigns tomorrow. Tony Bloom gets on the phone and just contacts the guy that he's already earmarked.
Speaker 3:And that's the difference.
Speaker 3:You've also got David Weir there as technical director, which is effectively the same as a director of football in some regards, so you've got him running through as a permanent fixture as well. Who's in control of the footballing strategy? And you're absolutely right, andrew. We've sort of made this point about Brighton in the past, where they have a footballing strategy and then they choose coaches that will fit that strategy and whereas Everton has been much like their transfer policy over the last eight years, since Moshiri came in, it's been scattered.
Speaker 3:Ours has been no strategy in terms of trying to marry up a director of football with a manager. It's either been a manager, then we hire a director of football who suits the manager, or you have the opposite. It's been a like. I've, maybe, but perhaps I I going back onto what you pointed about, um, but before about the business side of things, andrew, I think you're right to sort of, like you know, pull me up about the uh, some of the business side of it, and I think, um, I was more, I was more like saying how the fact that he's delivered the stadium will ensure positive, that positive side of things, business-wise, um, and because that has inevitably led to the, the number of interested parties that have wanted to take over as well no, no, that's a very good point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if we didn't have the new stadium, then would the freaking group have come in as potential owners? No, I think the answer to that is a fat no, and then we really would be up the creek without a paddle. So you're quite right. The new stadium has been the catalyst that sort of opened the door to new owners and given the ability of those new owners to drive the club forward. So, yeah, I agree with phrasing it like that.
Speaker 1:And you know best estimate, moshiri lost £750 million as Everton owner, which is apparently, according to the Athletic, he's quite sanguine about it, which is good for him, Because if I lost £750 million I would not be sanguine. So you know, yeah, complete. You can sort of summarize it as, like Andy's heart's in the right place, almost in complete incompetence on every front, basically, which proves something I learned a long time ago from you know just places I've been able to be, which is you assume these people who make a lot of money are sort of next-level geniuses or know things we don't know, whatever. Nah, absolutely not A lot of it. I mean, generally work hard, also, right place, right time a lot of the time. And you can have someone like Mishiri who clearly has been very successful, doesn't know what the fuck he's doing and never has.
Speaker 1:Where do we think this leaves Sean Dyche? Because we did our Dyche Out podcast two weeks ago, so don't want to re-record that. But what do you think Let me phrase it maybe slightly differently what do you think he needs to do to keep his job? Because his contract's over the end of the year, so by the default, he goes. So they've got to make a decision to keep him. Adam, what do you think Dyche needs to do to keep his job?
Speaker 3:He needs to win more football matches and play a better style of football, which he's not going to do. I think it's a very hypothetical question because I just can't see any any scenario where he gets an extension of his contract. Um, but let's entertain it. Let's entertain it for a bit, like if, if he, if he, if we go on a decent run and end up, we were 15 points above, uh, 14 points above the relegation zone last season and actually, you know, obviously including our, our um, if you've taken to dash's actual performance and the team's performance, we were 22 points above it and we ended up with 48 points. So you would like, you would, you would hope that we would get more than that um, and that might show that he's making progress with the team.
Speaker 3:But I think the style of play factor has started to tilt the balance of that argument, which means that, much like the Allardyce thing, where he got his eighth it was, you think it doesn't matter. Basically, yeah, football is a recreational activity. It's something people do in their free time. People want to be entertained is the bottom line. We are a team that plays the most long balls out of any other team. We have a high-pressing way, but we don't play through teams in any real way.
Speaker 1:It's not enjoyable to watch, so I really can't see any scenario where where he will keep his job beyond, beyond uh the um the expiration of his contract yeah, I mean you make a good point, that like, even if, even if he started winning a lot more games and we don't win enough games which I think is something that Dijsens acknowledge but doesn't necessarily have the acumen to do anything about Even then if we were winning games the way we win them, because I was at the Wolves, me and you and I were at the Wolves game and we won 4-0 and we were shit.
Speaker 1:I mean we didn't play well, we didn't play badly, but Wol, I were at the Wolves game and we won 4-0 and we were shit. I mean we didn't play well, we didn't play badly, but Wolves were horrendous and we got four free kicks. I mean we were joking that like we scored. We'd scored a goal from a Dwightonville cross and then have that one disallowed, which I still don't really understand why it was disallowed, and then the fourth goal. At the end I went to you and said we've scored every time that this ball's been in this position. We're going to do it again and we did, and we did.
Speaker 1:Yes, and it was that kind of game you know, where, everything which had four shots you know. So you can misread that and it's interesting. There was a thing. Ian Warne one of his said something that was quoted in an article a couple of weeks ago. I think it was by Paddy Boyland on the Athletic.
Speaker 1:Basically, this had obviously been briefed by Deitch this article and it's always an interesting question when you read anything in any newspaper anywhere and go who wanted this story to happen.
Speaker 1:And it was a story that was trying to say the coaching staff understand that they can't carry on playing the way they're playing, but that they haven't got the players to do it any differently and if given a chance, they would right. That was the story. But Ian Warne said something which was quoted as something I thought was pretty damning actually, where he said Ian Warne said at the start of the season he felt Everton were at their best when they played around 300 passes a game. Now, to put that in context, that's about half the average of a Premier League team-ish and a third of man City-Arsenal. So that is like we believe our best way of playing football is to play very differently to the rest of the league and be more direct. So it kind of reinforces your point, adam, that actually I don't think they want, they don't want. It's not even a case of do they have the capability.
Speaker 3:They don't want to do it any other way than the way they do it no, no, over the years I've become I've become more of a uh, an attacker of the point where you see football as a results business and in the sense of it's a business wins get you money. From that sense, yes, it's a results business, but fans will only care about their team winning to an extent and Everton's fans, I think, have reached it. Looks like West Ham fans know, rightly or wrongly, you can make a point of whether that decision was the right one to do, but West Ham fans got to that point when they just got a bit fed up of of the way that Moyes played football um and um. You know, contrary to what I I don't know I made the point a few podcasts ago that I would like to have Moyes back. I would because I'm comparing it from Dyche and I think Moyes plays better football than Dyche does. But West Ham fans got to a point when they didn't really want that and Everton fans are in that position now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2:Dyke has obviously demonstrated that he's a very limited manager in terms of adapting his style of play and far too obviously you start a game off with a point and far too often when we've came away from games having drawn them the Brentford game at home earlier this season when they played with 10 men for half the game is a good example he's far too satisfied with just getting a point, in my opinion. In terms of answering the question around what happens to him for the rest of the season, I don't think the Friedkin group are going to come in unless it goes really sideways in the next few games. If we lose to Chelsea, man City and Nottingham Forest, if we lose all those three, for example, they might make a change in January. But assuming Dyche continues picking up a point a game, which is obviously what he averages, I can see him remaining in post for the rest of the season.
Speaker 2:We've already touched on the fact that we probably won't be able to make many new signings in January, but we'll be in a position to in the summer. So I think between now and the end of the season it'll be a case of muddling through to an extent on the pitch with what we've got, unless things look like they're really going south, which I don't think they will. And then Dice doesn't get his contract renewed at the end of the season and then a new appointment is made to take us into the new stadium next season.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they can think about. You know they've got time to think that through. Then you know, between now and then, and I guess I would hope alongside that, I don't know, I'm not, I'm not qualified to judge whether Kevin Stelwell has done a good job or not. I mean, I think financially we're the only team in the league over the last three years to have a net positive transfer spend.
Speaker 3:So in that sense, it's a significant one as well that £18 million.
Speaker 2:Yeah, In that sense you've got to go well it is difficult because, as I've said already, he hasn't had any money to spend. So if you did give a director of football even a transfer budget, a modest transfer budget, he might be able to do far more with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and his mandate has been following and they mandate has been following, and they obviously never intended to get dot points, but we were the first people to full file the rules. But certainly since then it's been to under no circumstances do anything that results in another points deduction. I guess he's done that very well, I think. If you look at the way we've sold particularly, I think it's been good. So I guess I hope that he stays on or, if they don't, that they bring in someone who's going to be, because you're right, adam, we need a director of football a la David Weir who is going to be there for a decade. Managers, coaches, will come and go, but the idea of the philosophy is the same and we desperately, desperately need that. All right, so Moshiri doesn't know what he's doing. Dyche is cooked. Can we talk about how awesome that stadium looks for a minute, and particularly imagine how we would feel if Liverpool were getting a new stadium that looked like that.
Speaker 3:Oh, it'd be sickening. Yeah, that's how they feel right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it really does look fantastic. I mean I went and had a before I went to the Wolves game a couple of weeks ago. I went and just had a look at it for 15, 20 minutes and I was by no means the only other, not the only Everton fan doing that and it really does look fantastic. I mean it looks like a UFO's landed when you're close to it on that road it's fucking enormous, isn't it?
Speaker 1:It's huge, it's huge and you're like fuck me. That's the thing that really struck me Because it looks beautiful. If any of you are in Liverpool, anytime, the ferry currently maybe this will carry on goes up the river a little bit to kind of divert to go past it and you get a great view. But being up close to it, or as close as you can get it, is enormous. You know it's on an entirely different scale to you know anything we've experienced before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the location as well I mean the area surrounding it at the moment is obviously it's an old dockland so it's quite run down and there's not a huge amount around it at the moment. I mean it similarly reminds me of when um pride park in derby opened.
Speaker 1:I went there a couple of years after that had opened and it was just surrounded by a bunch of car dealerships, wasn't?
Speaker 2:it. Yeah, there's nothing surrounded, but you go there now when it's surrounded by the shops and restaurants and it's it's still the centerpiece of quite a vibrant area and I've no doubt in time that will happen at bramley moore dock as well. Um, and it's actually correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it? It's uh closer to the city center than Goodison Park is.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, much closer, it's much closer, it's way closer. Yeah, way, way closer it's. I mean the walk, I've done the walk from Goodison back to Lime Street loads, it's like 45 minutes. You know Bramley Moor is 20 minutes. I mean it's way closer. So it would be way easier, particularly for, you know, a wave bands I guess more so but get the tree, get the train into lime street, you just be able to walk. You know it'd be easy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so yeah the ground it does.
Speaker 2:Look at that I can't wait for. Uh yeah, I just can't wait to go and watch my first match there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's going to be loads of fun and you're right, that area, it's going to revive that whole area. So I'll take this opportunity to say fuck UNESCO, who removed Liverpool's World Heritage site, world Heritage designation, because we were going to build a bit close to a wall. That's really old, the wall's still there, they kept it. It's just we were going to alter a bit close to a wall. That's really old, the wall's still there, they kept it. It's just we were going to alter the surrounding area so much that the UN decided that we were no longer worthy, the entire city was no longer worthy of World Heritage status. Well, fuck off, that's your perspective, because I think we'd rather have the jobs. And we've still got the wall, the wall's there, it's fine.
Speaker 1:They haven't done a great job. I mean they. You know there's all kinds of stuff. The old pump room's still there. You know they've relayed they took out but then relayed the old rail from the dockline railway, you know which is part, and they've just done a spectacular job and I think it's gonna enhance everything, enhance everything around it. And we've seen I mean, andy, you and I are probably old enough to remember, but when we were kids the Albert Dock was not what it is today, to say the least.
Speaker 2:Oh well, the decline of the docks. I mean it happened in such a short period of time. Liverpool went from being one of the largest ports in the world in the 1960s to within 10 years. It was still a port, but the amount of tourneys just declined dramatically and obviously there were members of our family who worked there, who lost their jobs and the entire city suffered terrible economic hardship. In such a short period of time and you know, up to the the late 80s, the albert dock was I mean, it was just a dump.
Speaker 2:You know, the river mersey was one of the most polluted waterways in the whole country. Um, the whole area was just derelict with fallen down warehouses and all that sort of thing, and you know, you know to see how it's been rejuvenated over the last sort of 30 or so years with the Liverpool One Shopping Complex and all the redevelopments around the docks and the arena and the Beatles story and all that, the whole host of things. And the Bramley Moor Dock Stadium is just the latest development of that. Because I mean, just on the point about rejuvenating the area, the area between the sort of city centre and the stadium you imagine will be the next area to sort of, because once you, once you get the footfall of the staging people, as we said, walk in that distance, other businesses will come in and fill yeah, totally fill that gap.
Speaker 1:And there'll be demand for, you know, hotels, people, yeah, want to stay closer to there. There'll be restaurants, the stadium is going to be busy, there'll be a tour business, you know, there'll be concerts there. There'll be all stuff, all kinds of stuff happening yeah you know, I've read like they estimate.
Speaker 3:it's estimated that it'll, over the next few years it'll pretty it'll lead to about a 1.3 billion boost for the local economy and it thinks that there'll be well over a million extra visitors as a direct result of things that either the stadium going to everything, games going to see it, or just gigs and things like that that'll be held there's on um, I mean, the stadium is on the on the shortlist for the 2026 champions league final as well, which, yeah, it might be a bit small for that because it's 52 and a half thousand, but I mean that would.
Speaker 2:That's the kind of thing if, if that kind of thing starts happening, even infrequently, it just puts it literally on a map in a different way yeah, because I think, because I believe uefa rates stadiums, give them up to five stars, one to five stars, and for a ground to be awarded champions league final status, it needs needs to have the top five star rating, and I think the minimum capacity might be 50 000.
Speaker 2:So right, it's only, it's only just over that. But, yeah, your five-star rating it's all to do with your dressing rooms, for the teams need to be of equal size and a minimum size and have minimum facilities, and match officials need to have a decent change of facilities. There's a whole host of, and you need a certain number of corporate boxes. There's a massive list of, and you need a certain number of corporate boxes. There's a massive list of things that you need to satisfy to get a Chavis League final, which obviously a new ground is going to have, I mean conversely. I mean Anfield and Old Trafford wouldn't meet that criteria. For example, yeah, they've got more seats seats, but that's not the sole criteria. There's a whole host of other things you need and they don't, um, they don't currently meet it.
Speaker 3:Well I mean yeah sorry go ahead oh well, yeah, I was gonna make the point about, you know, liverpool, because I I mean evertonians, jovially named uh, have named anfield standfield because that was the other response to everton stadium. Like they're just gonna build their the giant main stand, um, and take anfield's capacity up to about things like 60 000 now. And you know the thing is, liverpool are fantastic on the pitch, they don't need to really worry about that. But, but from a but that will their. Their revenue is sort of limp. Their revenue is limited. It's almost completely down to their footballing success with Liverpool. Obviously, they've got such a huge global hull. Their stadium doesn't necessarily matter as much, but they did have the opportunity to groundshare because Everton were quite strong advocates for a ground chair and Liverpool have always poo-pooed it. So I think a lot of them will be looking over and looking at that stadium and going I wish that we were in that and not Everton. Oh yeah, the football differences between us.
Speaker 1:Have either of you guys been in the away dressing room at Goodison Park?
Speaker 3:No, yes, I've never done a tour of Goodison, you know, oh you go do it.
Speaker 1:Find a time. Yeah, do it, it's really good yeah.
Speaker 2:I've done the tour twice and both times I've been in the away dressing room.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's really make sure you get up there before they knock it down and do the talks. The tour's really good, but the away dressing room is fucking hilarious, I guarantee, like our secondary school. The changing rooms there are nicer. I'm not joking Because the home dressing room is like they're both small, but it's like, you know, one square, the home one, one square. There's like a separate shower facility with like 12 showers. There's a treatment room and each player has a locker and a seat which is like leather and padded and a cubby underneath and their names on it and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1:The away dressing room. I love this. I would want them to transport this brick for brick and put it in bramley more dock, because they may as well put a big sign on the on the wall that says by the way, fuck you too, everton fc. Because, first of all, it's it's, it's an l shape, right, so the team can't be addressed in one group by the manager. It's impossible. There are seats for 18 people, right. There's no lockers. It's like a bench, it's like a fucking council gym and I don't mean that in a derogatory way to council gyms.
Speaker 1:It's a wooden bench with hooks and there are a count of them. There are 18 hooks right, so that's all you can fit in there. There's a shower wall which has five showers, but it's just a wall. There's no treatment room. There's a TV that doesn't have a power cable and the people at Everton were like, oh yeah, they have to ask if they want the power cable and the heating. There's one hot water pipe that runs through along the ceiling that provides heating in the winter, so it's fucking freezing and it's not soundproofed and it's right below the main stand, so apparently you can't hear yourself thinking there half time because you just people are like getting the bovrils and stuff like three inches it's, it's such they've, obviously they. They have not spent a pound on that ever and I love the fact that fucking Cristiano Ronaldo has walked into that place.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, you're thinking of players that have been in there over the years.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, yeah, incredible yeah, no, it's so funny, so I'm sure the one at Bramley Moor is going to be beautiful, but I like the fuck you of that one yeah, well, the one at Bramley Moor will be will be much better, because if it wasn't, if it wasn't the same standard as the home dressing room, then Everton's Bramley Moor doc wouldn't be on the shortlist for the Champions League final or being one of the host stadiums for the euros in 2028. So unfortunately, we will have to be. We will have be treating away teams slightly, uh, in a more nicer fashion in the new ground yeah, one of the downsides of the move.
Speaker 1:When I was in there I was thinking about the time during covid where they had to like have the away team like in. They set up those altar cabins because they couldn't have that many people at the tunnel. I was like fuck, that must have been such an upgrade for everybody to be in those portacabins we rented.
Speaker 3:I learned GCSE maths in those portacabins. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I learned loads of games.
Speaker 1:Whatever, it's all fine, alright, so the ground's great Dyche is fucked. Moshiri never knew what he was doing. Should we talk about the Chelsea game, which I don't? Really I mean I don't want to, but we have to. Let's do predictions and then any other thoughts, Adam. I'll come to you first. Well, Ben, Chelsea, they're quite good. They've spent a billion pounds.
Speaker 3:What's going to happen? I mean, well, you just explained what's going to happen. They're going to absolutely dick us because they have several amazing players, cole Palmer chiefly amongst them. So, yeah, I'm not holding up any hope for this game, unfortunately. I think we need to look at beating, looking at easier games, such as man City.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they really have shit in the bed man City, haven't they? It's amazing.
Speaker 2:We can have a fun five minutes of them in a minute.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, all right, andy, tell us your Chelsea thing, then we'll laugh at man City.
Speaker 2:Chelsea. Yeah, I mean at the start of the season when they were just buying everybody who'd ever kicked a football and we wondered what on earth was doing, what was going on there. But fair play to Enzo Marescu, who's come in, identified the sort of 25 players he wants to work with, worked with Deb and basically said told the others you're not in my plans, you can play away in Kazakhstan in the Europa League and that's your lot. And he's managing to do a much better job at getting the team to play in a coherent fashion than I think most people, including a lot of Chelsea fans, probably thought was going to happen. It's obviously going to be a very, very difficult game for us to get anything out of.
Speaker 2:We've already commented on the fact that our style of play is so limited. You know the chances of us keeping Chelsea at bay for 90 minutes and maybe getting a draw are slim at best, and I can't see any set of circumstances where we can go win the game. I just can't see it because we're just not going forward enough and creating enough chances of scoring enough goals. And we had a good defensive performance to get a point away at Arsenal last week. Can we do essentially the same again at home against Chelsea, who are arguably having a better season. Well, I don't think they've got a better season than Arsenal. I don't think we can, so I think we're going to lose 2-0. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's tough, isn't it? Because I think we'll lose? I agree it's tough because I think it's one thing I watched the Arsenal game and I was as impressed as anybody with the hard work, but also found it a bit demoralizing sort of make a good case that we should go and try and do anything else because it would be silly. But I don't think there's I think the sort of tank is empty on the fans tolerance for us doing that at home. Yeah, and I think even if we do it really well, I think people are going to be pretty pissed off that we literally don't. I mean, we got, I think I remember in the arsenal game. We had one corner, maybe two, nothing happened and we had that one Decorah shot.
Speaker 2:We basically bothered their 18-yard box three times in 90 minutes or 96 minutes and it's like wow you know, yeah, I mean, if your style of play is soaking up pressure and then hitting teams on the break and you're good at doing that, then people will go well, okay, that's a style of play. You can see what you're trying to do. But yeah, when you're doing the first bit and you've just got no, you're very limited going forward. I completely agree. Yeah, fans are going to get cheesed off with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's going to be tough over the break because we've got a lot of games you know I'm thinking about. We've got this game in two days and then in you know seven days, we've got three games in seven days. I think it could be a bit of a tricky period. Can we laugh at man City for a minute?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I mean it's quite extraordinary just how their form has just fallen off a cliff. I mean it was a new story if they lost one game in over over the last seven or eight years. They might have lost a couple of games in succession um once or twice in that period, but to lose eight of the last 11 and draw two of the other three is genuinely extraordinary. And it can't all be All right. They've lost Rodri, who was clearly an important player, but how good was he.
Speaker 2:It's far more than just taking one dude out of a team. Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:You know it's so funny, I think every time he says, oh well, well, they are missing, rodri, what the fuck he's one guy he's got eight legs, can he run at 400 miles an hour, like it's like yeah, he was a very, very good player, but Christ alive, there's more going on. Most football pundits don't know what the fuck they're talking about, but this is what I've been doing my head in the last couple of weeks. Everyone wants to get Rodri back. No, they're broken.
Speaker 3:Something has happened.
Speaker 1:We might not find out what it is. Maybe they know what the result of the FA inquiry is going to be and they know it's all pointless. But something has happened there, because they're broken.
Speaker 3:Yeah, totally. The Rodri thing really annoys me. It's like if there's one team on the planet that can afford to get bringing a player who is, who is 80 percent of the player that rodry is who will play, if he doesn't, then then it's man city. It's absolutely nonsensical. It's a bad, bad strategy. Brought in matthias who's who's not been good. Kovacic was seen as that.
Speaker 2:Gundogan's come back as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and neither of whom have managed to step up. It was either a bad transfer strategy or you just can't have one guy who is supposedly having as much influence he clearly doesn't. You've got incredible players like Bernardo Silva, um making and Kevin De Bruyne making completely rudimentary errors and absolutely cacking their pants on the pitch, and it's like you're really the impact that confidence has um confidence has on a team yeah because, structurally as well, even with my relatively untrained heart, I'm looking at them and just seeing spaces that the opposition are exploiting that just weren't there.
Speaker 2:I mean Ten Hag. As far as you know, his tenure went at Manchester United. He seemed, you know, he seemed to set his team up in such a way where the opposition could just drive a coach through the midfield because there were that many gaps in it. And you're looking at Manchester City's midfield when they're out of possession and the players, even to me looking, they just look all in the wrong place and the amount of holes and the amount of space that opposition players are getting is genuinely extraordinary. And it's going to be I mean, as well as it being hilarious for everybody to watch.
Speaker 2:Who's not a man City fan it's going to be fascinating to see how they get out of it, because Guardiola's never been in this position before as a manager. None of the man City players, or the majority of them, will have been in this position before as a manager. None of the man City players, or the majority of them, will have been in this position either. You know they've just been winning everything for the last six or seven years. So the club, the entire football inside of the club has not been in a situation like this, which I think is unique, because any other club you look at has been.
Speaker 2:Even clubs that are successful in Manchester City have all been in a rut. Jurgen Klopp, when he was Liverpool manager, once lost five home games in succession and he dragged them. I think he lost to Burnley on one of them. So they were in a rut and they got out of it. You know Alex Ferguson at Manchester United had rebuilt the side three times. He had his sticky patches. You know Guardiola and man City are in what is for them uncharted territory, so it's going to be fascinating to see how they get out of it, because we all thought when they beat Forest 3-0 the other week oh, they've turned the corner.
Speaker 3:Well, they've turned the corner and just gone down another blind alley. It's not just the way that they've, it's not just the way that they are losing, but they are. It's the manner in which they've lost or even drawn the games like the finals. Anyone watch the final game at home Saw the highlights.
Speaker 2:It was hilarious, it was.
Speaker 3:It was like it was like you'd basically unbox, subutu, uh, subutio, and just like tipped it onto the table and like that's how the players, that's how the players have like come into the positions that they are. Because, like I've said this about man City, man City's success is built on the fact that they keep the ball incredibly well, and you remember the Guardiola's Barcelona teams, the tic-tac-a-football where they just pass you to death because they are so technically gifted and their passing and moving is so good you literally can't get the ball off them. City aren't don't really play like that. They play like a more of a, you know, high press, win it back really quickly, but they do like to keep the ball in around the 18 yard box in the final third and so, defensively, they've always been actually quite vulnerable on the counter-attack because their defenders are often like playing like your inverted wing backs, where you've got kyle walker taking up positions like um in the opposition's half, you know, not on the wing. So it means if they do lose the ball, they are quite vulnerable and the problem they've got is that they're not playing the football up in the final third. So but they still have these defensive problems and missing eight out of 11 games and drawing the other two, and in really poor circumstances, particularly that final game.
Speaker 3:Um demonstrates that Guardiola actually the evidence shows that he doesn't actually know how to get his team to defend. It's like it's a completely you're right. It's Andrew to say like it's uncharted territory. I don't think it occurs to him to make. I don't think he actually knows how do I make my team defensively sound? Because that's what they need. They mean you look at that goal.
Speaker 1:If you look at that second goal, mania knight has scored it's, it's. It's so basic. I mean there's a player you know left back ish martine, you know left-back-ish Martinez. You know he's sort of playing left of three centre-backs but he's in the left-back kind of position, no pressure on him. The right winger runs in between two centre-backs, no one tracks him. Are these goals? Yeah, it could not be. It's the kind of goal we would concede. You know it's like it could not be. It's the kind of goal we would concede. You know it's like it could not be simpler. You know they could have. You know Martinez could have held up, got his whiteboard out and said here's what I'm going to do, and drawn a diagram for the man to make it more obvious what he was going to do. It's like the most you wouldn't. If you were man United, you wouldn't believe how easy it was to score that goal.
Speaker 2:And the first goal in that game as well, obviously, the penalty that man City conceded.
Speaker 1:So funny, the most penalty penalty I've ever seen.
Speaker 2:Well player you know, obviously Nunes. Nunes, thank you. Obviously, you know, plays an ill-judged pass in his defensive third. Fine, that happens and Diallo picks up the ball. But for Nunes, just to absolutely clear him out Makes no sense, because he got back.
Speaker 1:The keeper had stood him up really well. Yeah, and he actually didn't have an obvious way to score, and all he needs to do is run in front of them. Yeah, and he actually didn't have an obvious way to score, and all he needs to do is run in front of them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he just picks up the last, he clears him out and, as you said, it's the most obvious penalty you're going to see in your life.
Speaker 1:And then he's taking his hands out. I can't believe that just happened. You just did it. Yeah, he'd gotten there.
Speaker 2:Like, why did he not just stand up and go? Stand between them and go, okay, you've got to do something now. Yeah, he'd done the hard bit by making the recovery run. So fair play to you, you've done that. And then that's one of the other aspects of it. You know, so, mentally, he just had a massive brain farce and just cleaned the guy out and again and that's related to what I said a moment ago about how the players are going to deal with it, because if they're in these uncharted waters and their brains are being scrambled where they're making such bad decisions I mean even Kevin De Bruyne in that game. He's hitting free kicks out of play, he's overhitting. I mean all the players are just doing weird things that we've just never. I mean there was one game as well it might have been the man U game as well, it might have been the previous one where Haaland was back in his own box defending All right, fine, he's helping the team out, that's fine. And he cleared it to the halfway line.
Speaker 2:And there was no man City player within 40 yards of where the ball ended up. So the opposition just picked it up and started another attack. And you just look at that and you're thinking how is that team structurally, how, how is that allowed to happen?
Speaker 2:you know, you leave one because there were three opponents on the halfway line. So how is one not one man city player gone? Do you know what? I'm just going to go and stand on the halfway line. So if the ball does come this way, at least the opposition have got something to think about. It's genuinely quite extraordinary and hilarious, obviously, what's happening to the moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you wonder when it will change. I mean, the stats are wild. I mean you talk about the games. Going into the man United game, they'd lost seven of previous 10. Now Ace of 11. Before that 10, they'd lost seven of 103. So it's like the wheels have properly come off.
Speaker 2:I'm just looking at yeah, just looking at me. They've got Aston Villa away tomorrow. I mean there is, you could easily see a situation. You know John Duran, the former Easing, and John Duran, the former Easing, and Watkins as well, who's gone off the ball a little bit, but you can easily see a situation where Villa win that yeah, yeah, alright anything else for anything else not from me not from me.
Speaker 1:No great well, we'll see you on the other side of God knows when, because there's so many games coming up for anything else. Not from me, all right, not from me, no, great. Well, we'll see you on the other side of God knows when, because there's so many games coming up, but we'll be back over Christmas sometime. Keep listening, telling everything to the boy and mate. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, follow us on Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. That's where we are. Thanks for listening and stay well and have an amazing time over Christmas.