Welcome to the transcript of the Manchester United (a) Talking the Blues Podcast – a service for those Blues and others who have hearing difficulties. Enjoy!

Paul: Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, depending upon where in the world you are, and what time of the day you’re listening to this episode, an immediate post -match episode of Talking the Blues. 

Andy and George, your least favourite game of this season, and no doubt today’s performance and result won’t have changed any of that. Good day to you both. 

George: No, Paul. Au contraire, I would say. 

Paul: Oh, really? 

George: Yeah, and I was pretty bullish about that. I mean, the result was a drag. But I will say this, because this is what I feel after watching that match. I thought we bossed most of that much. We were the better team, and I’m going to put it on record here that Everton are looking for some luck. 

And if we can find some luck, we could walk up this league and away from the trouble that may come to bite us in the bum because of financial things. But in terms of points, I thought that was almost our best performance of the season. 

At times we were much too good for them. We had miles more shots than them, we had more possession than, we had more corners than then. We just didn’t have quite as many penalties as them and that’s probably a good thing since we cannot take them. But all in all, I was hugely encouraged by that performance and clearly the manager is listening to the correct podcast and is prepared to make the right changes. 

And, you know, there were all sorts of other little positives, like, it’s one of the great drags of his career that we do look a better team, a more threatening team when Gomez is on the pitch. But you can’t give him more than half an hour because if you put him on at the start of a match Somebody has fit as McTominay for instance could just close him out the game But coming on when he came on was good. 

I thought you know DCL was unlucky again It was great to see Dobbin do something and get a couple of shots away and And frankly, I was, you know, obviously pissed off to the eyeballs that the stuffy slutchers won, although they were both pens, there’s no argument about that. 

But we were the better team, and I’m hugely encouraged by that, so there you go. 

Andy: Okay, well, that’s genuinely surprised me, which proves that we don’t swap notes before we start the podcast. I’ve got to be honest, I’m not quite as bullish as our kid. 

Because I mean, we were for vast tracks of that game, the better side, were always looking to be on the front foot. Right from right from the off. We were, you know, We would, would we look into carrying the game to United. 

And I think in that respect, we performed well. I thought they were decidedly average apart from probably Fernandez, McTominay and Garnachio who irritated me enormously with both the penalties because he screamed like a stuck pig when he got caught by Tarkowski. 

and then he sat there and celebrated the second penalty as if he’d just scored it. And I don’t think, I mean, I’m old -fashioned here, but there’s no place in the game for that, for me, to sit there, and scream, enjoy having won a penalty. 

You know, he’s been fouled, you’ve got the penalty, he doesn’t have to behave like that. The disappointing thing for me was that, that is a poor, poor Manchester United side, in my opinion. Yeah. And we still couldn’t find a way. 

And that’s a serious worry in my book, you know, for 20-23 shots we had. I think I can’t remember how many we got on target, but we, you know, the only really two saves that O nana in the United goal had to make was from a couple of crosses when he came flying out and then the overhead kick late on from Onana, which flew perfectly for him. 

But I found it really, really concerning that despite the possession we had, despite the number of corners we have, despite the numbers of attempts we’ve had on target, we still couldn’t find a way to beat an abjectly average United side. 

George: And that’s a worry for me, it really is a worry. Well, that is true too, I agree with that. But nevertheless, I’ll stick by what I said that all the signs are there with some luck. We’re going to pound somebody in a minute and- Yeah, yeah, bro, I put it in my Grand Old Team match report that when are we going get a slice of luck? 

And you’re right, you know, we might just get again where we get all of the luck go away like we did at Brighton last year and we give someone a right good hiding. But the weeks are slipping by. 

George:  No, agree, Andy, and it’s not- 11 games without a win now, And only 10 to go? 

Well, yeah. I mean, I found myself looking at the players, trying to look at the player individually today, and the only one, maybe two, who played with any degree of confidence in themselves with Pickford and Branthwaite. 

Pickford’s an enigma isn’t he. He plays with a grin on his face all the time despite how things are. I think he’s trying to keep things loose at the back by being almost light -hearted about things. And I noticed in the lead up to the first penalty, he was shouting at Fernandez. 

 I don’t know what he was saying, but he definitely came over on the audio that he would shout into Bruno. And I’m thinking if he’s playing mind games with Fernandez, let’s hope it works, and it damn near did, because to be fair, it was a terrific penalty. 

He put it right in a corner and he needed to, because Pickford went the right way, but there still seemed to be hesitancy in too many of the players. McNeil was better than he’s been in recent weeks today, although he couldn’t hit the target very often with his shots. 

I was a bit disappointed, personally, with Gomez on because a) is a better shooter than Anadou Onana and I think he’s a better passer than Onana but the biggest disappointment for today unfortunately I hate to say it was Doucoure who I thought had an absolute mare personally. I’ll probably get criticized for saying that but I thought first off he was absolutely nowhere near the pace of the game nowhere, nowhere near the game. 

Paul: He was very, very poor, particularly in the first half, in my opinion. I just thought it was an appalling display, to be honest. And I thought United, that was probably possibly one of the worst performances by United team I’ve ever ever seen and I think they got extraordinarily lucky to come away with the result and then you have to examine why were they lucky because they gave us so much space in that area between the attacking centre circle and the 18 -yard box. 

I mean we just had space all the time there but we couldn’t use it. I think we talked about it last week, or if not last week and previous weeks. We don’t present any attacking threat down the wings and in the modern game you’re reliant not so much on the wingers, which obviously we have two other not very effective ones because they like to cut inside as against going past defenders on the outside, and that’s where in the modern game you have attacking fullbacks. 

And I just thought today that, you know, the fact that we haven’t got any attacking full backs at all, and we’ve got two very average wingers who tend to drift inside and play very narrow, when United presented us with all of the opportunities that we could ever want to stuff them 3, 4, 5 -0. 

Because the United didn’t earn their goals. United were given their goal by two dreadful errors in giving away the penalties. And yes, we had 23 shots and I think 11 on target or 13 on targets, something of that nature. 

In reality, that’s it, we never looked like scoring at all. And I just… There was no real quality in any of the shots, was there? But there’s just no confidence, is there. I mean, there is no belief, this is my chance to score a goal for myself and for my team. 

Nobody has that at this moment in time. And I don’t know where it’s going to come from, to be honest, because I think we’ve said this before, and I know other people have said it, and we’ll say it again before the end of the season, we play better away from home. 

But even today, you know,  I think we looked scared on the ball. I think nobody really wanted to drive at Manchester United at any particular point even though United were prepared to give us tons of space and I just thought it was a pretty shambolic display to be honest. 

George: think in somewhat similar fashion to the game at Goodison when Garnacho scored inside, what was it, inside three minutes. I mean we bossed that open in 10 minutes and then literally their first attack they get a penalty and we’re going behind and I think that, I think. 

Paul:  But that was game over wasn’t it? It was a game -over then. 

George: Well unfortunately yeah I think to some degree you know that mentality takes over and it’s a shame because they’re all professional footballers, they’ve all got, you know, more skill in their little finger than than the three of us have got combined in our feet. 

But for whatever reason, you, know, they concede and and just can’t pick it up again. I mean, they did pick you up in terms of they kept going, but there’s no quality. There’s so little quality and in in the play and particularly in that in the final third I mean it’s that’s why i said for me it is it a desperate worry now that they’re not scored they are not converting these chances you know 23 chances I mean 23 shots on goalie 11 on target. Ii mean you, surely you should be, you know, the opposition goalie should be getting his shirt dirty and he didn’t. And that’s, you know, the lack of quality is scary. 

Paul: It really is. Yeah. And, it makes you think about what do they do all week. I don’t know. It is repetitive and it has been said before and I know I’ve certainly said it. Um, I don’t know how you can go into, I don’t how how as a professional sports person, you could go into a game with the mindset that we go into games with. 

 I don’t understand the, the psychology of, uh, of all players at this moment in time.

George:  It just seems to me to be, I think that’s really unfair. I think Dyke said to them, Right. I’ve watched a video of City United, United are crap, just get in their faces. 

They’re not good enough to fight you off. And for 10 minutes, and I know it is just 10 minutes before, you know, that boy gets tripped up by Tarkowski. We didn’t give them a smell. The attitude, actually what you’re saying, Paul, I think is completely wrong. 

The altitude could not have been better. The killer, what we’re all saying the same thing. We’re seeing it week in week out now because we don’t score goals. that, you know, that ice thing that the likes of Lineker had, where they just do it. 

We don’t have that. And it’s not going to change. It can’t change because you can change the personnel, unless he really takes a big risk on Chimiti, who’s the only one he hasn’t really tried. But what little I remember of the couple of games that I saw him playing the League Cup. 

This is a very young talent, indeed, and certainly not up to, you know, picking a way through that defense today, even that defense, which was, you know, poor, but I think the attitude was good. Yes, they dropped off, especially after the second goal, but the substitutions, which for the first time in goodness knows when, came within an hour and were the first, he didn’t wait and he picked the right ones. 

I thought the substitutions were correct. And Doucoure, you know, I will say this about Doucoure. He’s one of those dudes who you must give him a good touch in the first few minutes and he didn’t get one. 

George: And as the game went on, and you’re absolutely right Andy, he drifted completely out of it. The only thing he did do, which stopped when he came off, was he led the press. And we did press them quite hard. 

And you have to press them hard because, you know, when we didn’t press them, hard, when they were two up and at the beginning of the second half for a few minutes, the game resembled a kind of United practice match as they just knocked it around. 

 Now they won’t get, they weren’t going to, they didn’t need to try any harder and they don’t really try very hard you could level the same criticism you just leveled at us, Paul. United, who didn’t, you know, make a whole pile of big chances, did they run as ragged or anything?  

Paul: I think I agree with you on that point, for sure. I think, if you’re a United supporter, you come away from that, like very, very worried, because you just see. Yeah, I think I see you have a point in terms of the first 10 minutes when we created particularly down our left, and you know a number of chances. 

Andy: But if you, if, for one second, looking at it from a United perspective, you know, that the pressing, I don’t think they’ll get there, they’re pressing for a Champions League place next season, and they play Liverpool, don’t they? 

Paul: In the Cup. But if you give a half decent side, the amount of time and space that United gave, everything, You’d be completely destroyed. Old Trafford would have been empty after 60 minutes. 

George: More than the pity that it wasn’t. 

Paul: No, but that’s why I’m saying, and you know, maybe I am, maybe my judgment is just colored by disappointment, frustration, feeling of having seen it all before, And not quite understanding how actually we get out of this mess and wondering where the, at what point will the anger and the frustration that I’m feeling and I think a lot of Evertonians are feeling. 

When does that translate to blood sweat and tears on the pitch? because I saw too many people sort of, frankly, not necessarily having a good time, but it didn’t seem to me like it was hurting them too much, the fact that they were so uncompetitive. 

And again, you know, if people think I’m being overly harsh, I am not going to apologise because it’s how I feel. But I can accept that other people will feel differently. I just think at this moment in time the club for a whole raft of reasons and maybe some of those other reasons are transferring my anger and frustration at other things onto the players. 

But that’s how I saw it and it was a desperately poor game, desperately poor Manchester United, who wouldn’t have scored if they hadn’t got the two penalties and we wouldn’t have scored it if we were still playing now. 

George: I’m not going to disagree with that. I’ve got nothing to say except what I already said which was we’re due some luck. I thought most of that team worked hard enough for a bit of luck today and didn’t get any of it. 

They will win at Bournemouth and they will at Newcastle as well. 

Paul: In the light of your comments I’m going to go later today and re -watch the game and see if I’m not completely wrong with my assessment. 

George: Maybe I just came into the game feeling that way, because I think our kid’s writing that there was no lack of effort and certainly early doors, the application was very, very good. It’s just the net result. 

To carve out chances and not be able to hit the target and worry the keeper, make the keeper work is a huge problem. I mean, United did have some chances. I had the free kick from Fernandez that Pickford did really well to get to. 

Paul: Yeah, that was a very good save. 

George: That was a very good save. The annoying thing for me is that the United defence has got more. We couldn’t find a way to put one in the back of the net. I think that was the thing that really annoyed me. 

Andy: On the BT commentary, they were praising Jonny Evans, what a great game he’d had. And then I’d think back to that pass on about 75 minutes, where he’s out on the wing, and he played it back to Onana without telling him. 

We got a corner from it and I’m thinking this is a seasoned professional who’s just made one of the worst passes you’ve ever seen in a game of professional football and yet they’re making him out like he’s a world beater. 

George: I went downstairs half time and Jules said I understand you’re not doing very well and I went how do you know?  She said it’s on the news that United are winning. Yeah. You know, that’s another issue, isn’t it? 

Andy: Yeah, but nobody’s sympathetic and it’s a totally different level to talk with, you know. We could have been following the opening, it wouldn’t have made the news. No, no. No. Now we’re going to get into the sour grapes and bitter blue regime if we are not careful. 

George: No, we’ll rise above that. But just so frustrating that, I mean, we knew before the game that United are not a great side. They’ve got some very talented players. They’ve got some very talented individuals. 

But as you said, Our Kid, there can’t be very many United fans who think that’s a good team. And yet they still managed to get a result on more penalties in one half than we’ve had in 12 months. It says something to the state of the League, I thought, you know, I would give anything for us to be in the position that they’re in, in that position. 

And that’s how bad they are. And there are 18 points adrift of their neighbours and quite right too, you know, Fernandez is a class act. I mean, he’s a nasty little bugger, but he seems to be controlling that at the moment. 

But he is really good than, you have to be brutally honest because there’s no point being a football supporter anymore if you’re not. The difference between him and Garner, who came from United and is doing his best, is abrupt. 

George: Because the speed at which Fernandez thinks and the positivity with which he thinks is a good deal different from Garner, who is, you know, I was just I was glad he got taken off today because he didn’t do enough. 

And as I think I said to you at one point, Paul, he’s just passing responsibility with the ball. He’s not actually looking to find somebody and hurt somebody. So it was good when Gomez came on, because although he lost the ball a couple of times, at least they were big forward passes looking for somebody, if you don’t risk anything, you can’t get anything, then you really are hoping for luck. 

And I thought we did risk, but as you both said, without real guile and without real craft, we really lack what used to be called a schemer. 

Paul: Yeah. There were times today when the game reminded me of, did you recall that Monty Python sketch when the Greek philosophers played the Germans? 

I think the Germans won quite typically, but it’s sort of most, I mean, it is like a two or three minute Monty Python sketch. And of course, all the Greek philosophers walk around in their robes with a book in front of them, sort of mumbling about whatever philosophy it was, you know, that they played whilst completely ignoring the ball. 

And I mean, it’s a bit of a silly analogy, really. But the German philosophers did exactly the same. If people are listening, got this far into the podcast, and still listening. Go on, go look it up on YouTube. 

George: It’s gonna say YouTube’s going to be busy later. 

Paul: Yeah. I’m trying to put a link in the podcasts later so people can look at it. Because I felt like that’s how both teams were with the ball. 

Both teams who were not that interested in having the ball because we seem to give it, both gave it to each other, with such frequency or, or misplaced passes out of play and everything else. I just thought it was a desperately poor game. 

And then, you know, I sort of, just before we started the podcast, to prove that we do do a little bit of research, and I’ve just looked at what Sean Dyche said and I think there’s a lot of people at the moment that are living in a bit of a fantasy land. I just think I, I don’t recognize the game from how Dyche just described it and actually to be fair to you George,  Dyche described the game in very much the same, similar style to how you saw the game and it may be that I’m the one that’s out here, but he’s, yeah, I mean, he’s talking about, you know, quality and I’m so frustrated. 

“I am trying to speak calmly about the situations, it is incredibly frustrating coming here to Old Trafford and delivering a performance like that. And yet we don’t win, we had 45 entries into the box of quality where, when the players Again, he goes on, the players are doing a lot right and these stats usually bring more than we got today.” 

I can accept that bit, that we should have scored and we created enough chances to score. But I’m never naive enough to ignore what is the most important thing and the bit that we have to get right, which is the score line. 

Right, you know, for all the 45 entries into the penalty area, we didn’t really freak them out. But he says it’s very difficult when I’m watching the team with so much quality, getting into those areas and not taking their chances.  

I just don’t see where the quality is. 

George: The quality was, he must have been thrilled with McNeil’s performance today. He seemed like a man completely rejuvenated, giving a ball. I want the ball, I’m going to run hard at people here. 

And, you know, he caused them problems most of the day, but the support dribbled away from him. And as Andy started by saying, you Know, Doucoure had a non-event of a match. 

Paul: When McNeil got on the ball, he was completely isolated. 

George: McNeill? Yeah. 

Paul: Yes, he was, you know, and again, that comes back to the point, doesn’t it, about having attacking  full backs. We just don’t have them. McNeil needed somebody that could overlap on the outside. 

George: The trouble is, I think they were really wary of pushing Mykolenko forward, particularly if Garnachio was on his side of the pitch, because that Garnachio is quick. 

Paul: Well, I’m not having, well I am having a go at Mykolenko. 

He looked as if he’d had a rubber band tied to him that was tied to his goal line because every time he got over the half -way line and he started to retreat. 

George: This is all confidence, isn’t it? I watched City again in midweek and this is kind of interesting because they were boring, as Andy said, ages ago, you can watch it if you want, but they’re boring.  

But I watched them just to remind myself that it isn’t actually that difficult to pass the ball a great deal. But what City do is they support the man with the board. You’ve just said McNeil is isolated. 

Nobody’s isolated at City, got two or three options. He clearly looked up with the ball, and it’s got options galore. That’s not rocket science. It was possible 45 yards, which we do from time to time. 

It looks marvelous, but the chances of you losing it are far greater than if you pass the ball 10 yards. Yeah, yeah. And we just, you know, don’t know. and that comes with confidence that, you know, there were times today when we did string together a few passes. 

Andy: A few, but not 20. I think there was one move in the first half where we did string about 15 passes together and then it ended up with Harrison putting a crossing that there wasn’t anybody who was anywhere near. 

And so it looked an absolutely dreadful ball because there wasn’t a blue shirt in sight and you think I found myself thinking you know they’ve just spent you, know 30, 40, 50 seconds working the ball around in order to get to a position for somebody to put a cross in and the cross is either dreadful or nobody had taken the chance to say right I’m gonna get on the end of that no matter where it goes I am going to be there to on the end of it. 

Nobody was either brave enough or confident enough to get in the box. 

Paul: Well, there’s that Andy, but also you can look at what position on the pitch are those crosses coming in from? Those crosses consistently come in from the area like two or three yards in front of the 18 -yard line. 

So they’re coming in, like, you know, 20, 21, 22 yards out from goal, that we never ever get defenders, the opposition’s defenders defending facing their own goal. We make it so easy for other clubs’ defence because every defence that plays against Everton, they only have to look forward, they never have to look behind them because we’ve never, ever got behind a defence. 

George: And Garnachio got behind our defence two or three times, and so did Rashford. But that’s just pace. We haven’t got any. No, exactly. And how long have we been saying that? How many years have been we saying we’ve no pace in the team? 

Andy: And yet successive managers and successive directors of football have done, have either done nothing about it or have been unable to do anything about it because of the lack of funds and the financial state of the club. 

The squad, you know, I mean, we’ve said this till the cows come home as well, that squad needs almost a complete rebuild. There’s three or four players that are worth a shot every game, but the rest, I hate to use the word, are journeymen, they’re squad players. 

We haven’t got a first team, we’ve got our squad, and we need a first team. When was the last time we had a goal scorer? Lukaku? Dom and Beto, for all their effort and not natural strikers. You said it before Our Kid about you know, you need a Lineker who didn’t even think about it he just did it you needed a striker who doesn’t think about it, just does it. 

Jimmy Greaves who didn’t think about, he did. Our guys are thinking about it and in that time when they’re thinking about what they’re going to do, they’ve been closed down tackled and dispossessed. The squad needs a massive rebuild. We need to find a first team. We need to find a fixed six, seven or eight players who are going to be there week in, week out and they are going to perform week -in, weeks -out. 

George: The truth of it is, Andy, that we have got that. But what you’re saying, and I don’t disagree, is that some of that fixture of six and seven would be instantly replaced off City’s bench. Exactly. They’re squad players. 

We’ve got a squad of squad -players rather than a squad with a first team that’s there and that is supported by the squad. We talked about it last week about the lack of players coming through from the academy. 

Andy: What was it we learnt about Phil Foden at City? He’s been there since he was seven, so he’s being, for want of a better word, groomed as to how he is going to play football for Man City. Look at the reward they are getting from him. 

George: But we will have people there on our books from those kind of age groups, Andy. All clubs do. Yeah, I’m not. Where are they? Well, yeah. When are we going to see some evidence that we’ve got any genuine, you know, genuine quality coming through the ranks? 

Have we got another Wayne Rooney? Have we gotten another Ross Barkley? You see, this is the real problem, Andy. You’re right about Barkley and Rooney, but they’re classic examples of what’s wrong with everything’s thinking. 

And I’m gonna go back to a podcast from two or three weeks ago when you were on a rant and you were 100% correct. There’s no plan. The plan is Rooney will arrive and we’ll sell him. Barkley will arrive and will make some money out of it. 

A mate, a United fan, texted me in the middle of the match to go, Branthwaite’s auditions going well, I was so angry. 

Andy: I can imagine. I would spit in biscuits. But what you were saying was, there’s no philosophy there. 

There used to be an evident way of playing. When I first went to watch it, they would call the School of Science because they’d already played football. And you knew that that’s what was happening on the lower bits of the club. 

They were being trained to be good enough to get in that team. There’s no evidence that is happening or if it is, it’s not working. And, you have to go across the park, every time they bring some kids in, they seem to have potential quality. 

I remember Wenger saying ages ago that his scouts were ordered to find people who could come into the Arsenal team immediately. That was the level he was looking for. Everton clearly don’t have those standards. 

Paul: But there are so many reasons for that, aren’t there? First of all, we don’t present ourselves as the most attractive option to the best talent. So, you know, the article I wrote during the week was about, one of the things was about the competition. 

And we talked about it in last week’s podcast, didn’t we? About the competition that exists in the North West of England, you know, the four big clubs of which were the fourth by some considerable distance. 

The other three clubs are going to get the pick. So we end up with the kid that would be one of last picked on in a playground. They’re still going to be very good footballers, but they’re not going to quite at the, certainly not at the Rooney level or the Foden level. 

And then once we’ve got those players, do we have, as you say, George, do you have a philosophy to develop those players in the Everton way to play football, the Everton Way as quite clearly Wenger did at Arsenal? 

That’s quite clear Pep Guardiola has, and at Manchester United. the elite and even as is evident now a crop at Liverpool. They first of all  find the players but then they mold the players into the types of players that they want them to be because they want to fit a system and they want them, to be  able to come into the system when they’re replacing a player and make no changes to the system. The system is is the same because the players they create, they find the raw talent and then they mold those players into the types of players that they want. 

When was the last time that happened at Everton, if indeed it ever has? You know it just doesn’t happen and it’s not going to happen at Everton probably for a decade because I think you have to say we need to sort of start at the ages of seven and eight and have a plan that says, if we’re going to bring in, I don’t know, I don’t how many kids they bring in at that age. If you’re gonna bring 40 kids, for argument’s sake, at this age by the time they’re 16, so let’s say they come in eight, so about 10 to 16 in 8 years time, eight of those, so one fifth of the 40 players, stand a chance of playing professional football, And of those eight, maybe four standard chance of playing Premier League football, assuming that Everton are in the Premier league in eight years’ time. 

And that’s the type of thing that we’ve got to do, isn’t it? But it is now going to take, because we’re starting from base, we are starting from scratch, it’s now going to take that period of time, which is funny because I thought a lot about what we said last week, during the week. 

And you know, we talk about, well, if we get new owners and not talking about 777, particularly, or indeed, anybody else, but if we get you owners, indeed any club gets new owner’s the expectation is, is that they pour a load of money into into the first team, in order to start generating results quite quickly. 

And actually, I was just thinking during the week well if we get an owner, and again, I’m not saying it should be 777, certainly not saying, it should be 777. I am just saying if we got a new owner when Moshiri eventually sells to somebody that’s suitable to the Premier League and suitable for us. 

Notwithstanding, the fact that we need to stay in the Premier league and we need to be competitive. How much more useful would it be for those owners coming in to say, rather than spend 30 million on a player we’re going to invest that £30 million into the academy. And we know in five years, six years, seven, eight years time, the result of that will be two players, four players, six players depending upon how successful we are. 

George: But you’ve got to do both, haven’t you?

Paul:  Well, if you got the resources to it, yes

George:. Yeah, I mean, I kind of agree with your focus, and now this is just going to depress me, but I’ll say it anyway, the most exciting thing that happened to Everton in the last, since Moshiri arrived, was Marcel Brands.  

And look what happened. I believe that man knew exactly what you’re talking about, knew it exactly because it’s so ingrained in Dutch football that you make a style for a team, him, and that you pick the people who will fit that style. 

And what happens to him? He’s f ‘ed off in two years. And I don’t know anything about that. Well, I respect the fact that he’s kept a very low profile. So I didn’t understand about him. I wish him nothing but the best, but I don’t see any evidence at the moment of anything at all. 

Paul: And nor do I see enthusiasm from Dyche about what he’s got, if you like, beneath him, I don t mean lower level, I mean younger. I wasn’t particularly planning on raising it this week. I was sort of thinking, well, I might keep this for the three weeks where we’ve got no football.  

But I think it’s fairly widely known in football that Kevin Thelwell is looking to move on from Everton. 

George: Oh really? 

And if I’m wrong, and I am doing a great disservice, I apologize to him, but I don’t think I am. 

George: Well, you know, all that brings into, into you, know my first thought is go find Marcel Brands again. But Everton is in such chaos that you go who, who’s supposed to go and find Marcel Brands, who? Who’s running the bloody club? 

If Thelwell goes, how does anybody make any kind of decision about that kind of thing? 

Andy: Before we get to the point where they make a decision, what do they say when they get there? Oh yeah, to who. 

It’s not a choice, is it? It is not choice Andy, yeah. As I said in an article I wrote about us being a senior club bit in the city, which I make no apologies for, you know, we’re a hollowed out shell, which actually, for the right people coming in, is a fantastic opportunity, because there’s not much that they have to clear out because it’s, pretty much gone already. 

So it said, it was a blank canvas for one wants have a better description. 

Andy: Yeah, but the problem is Paul, we don’t know who the right people are and if a certain person who’s looking to sell is going to be willing to talk to the right people. 

Paul: Well, I think that decision is probably going to be taken out of his hands. He wouldn’t know the right people if they stood in front of him. This is the man who said that 777 were the best organization to come in for Everton. 

Yeah, the best option. Well, given the, you know, investments in multi club operations, I mean, you know the man knows, well, diddly squat, who knows what he knows. There’s no, no great evidence that he knows much about football. 

Right now I’d settle for someone who does how to run one club, never mind a multi-club operation. Well, yeah. And, frankly, any sensible multi club operation would look at everything and say, you know what, we run a multi-club operation, but this club just needs so much doing to it. 

Yeah, that we couldn’t, we could give the resources that we give to our other clubs in our operation. Because Everton needs so much more. And this is, this has been before we get into like all of the, you know, the legal stuff and the financial stuff with regards to 777. 

It seemed to me and you’ll remember I spoke to Don Dransfield very early on in the process, which I was grateful for him to speak to me. But it was clear to me that they couldn’t bring the amount of management resources into Everton, that Everton need, if ever,  Everton are ever going to lift themselves from the position that we’re in now. 

Because this is such a colossal task ahead of anybody coming in. You know, it’s not  just the top four clubs, not just the top six clubs. There’s a at least a dozen clubs in the Premier a league who are better resourced.

Andy: Even if they’re not better resourced they certainly appear to be better managed 

Paul: But when I say resource, they have more of the Building Blocks that’s required. You know a structure, a thought process, a plan, a strategy in terms of where they are going to be in three years, four years, five years etc, etc. 

All of which is completely absent from Everton. Yes. And completely absent, may I say, from the people that Moshiri proposes to come into the club. 

Andy: Well, you know, we’ve got three weeks and we’re to hope that that issue is resolved by the sound we go and paste Bournemouth. 

Well, yeah, because it has to. It has to be because, you know, we are into overtime in terms of the existential crisis that Moshiri talked about 14 months ago now. Here we are, still, somehow surviving. 

But actually, nobody’s providing the solution. And at the end of the season, we do stay in the Premier League because Forest are going to be in a difficult position, assuming that they get a points deduction. 

It’s clear that the bottom two are going to go down regardless. 

Andy: Just to let you know, Sheffield United were 2 -0 up at Bournemouth and in five minutes  added on time and it’s 2-2. Luton losing, aren’t they? 

George: Luton losing to Palace, as we speak, Bournemouth have come from two down against Sheffield United to tie it, so I suppose that does us a favour, keeps Sheffield United down there. 

Yeah, so we’re lucky that there are two, if not three teams that are more likely to go down than we are, even if we get a points penalty. 

I remember you saying that on the first podcast of the season. Yeah. 

Paul: So let’s say that, you know, our performance doesn’t necessarily deserve it but we end up staying in the Premier League. What does Dyche do in the summer? 

Now, some people will say, frankly, I’m not bothered by what Dyche does. I’d like to see him go. For all the reasons that we’ve talked about, and you could extrapolate from today’s conversation. But then, who do we bring in? 

What are we bringing them into? Who are the owners? what’s the plan from the owners was the, you know, the three year plan, the five year planet, et cetera, and if we don’t have new owners, if you still have Moshiri for some for bizarre reason, which actually, you’re assuming that 777 don’t get the gig, and I don’t think they will for all the reasons I talked about previously. 

And we’re likely to go into the summer still with Farhad Moshiri as the owner of the football club, albeit there are other people who want to buy the club.

 And you know, I’ll repeat that there, are the people that want to buy  the club but the likelihood of it not happening before the end of season, given that, you know we’re in the second week of March now, it grows. We’ve only been 10 weeks away from end of the season and clearly the 777 thing isn’t resolved yet one way or the other. 

It can only be resolved one way and that’s them not getting it but still that is not. 

Andy: While you mentioned that Paul, you know there’s been postings on social media that the alleged meeting that 777 went were having with the Premier League has actually taken place. 

Paul: It did. 

Andy: Are we aware of any outcome yet? Or has there been any leaking? 

Paul: No, no, not to my knowledge. And I know the meeting took place. It has taken place, it took place on Thursday. 

 I have no doubt for sure, because it was also rumoured that other people were present at the meeting. And I checked to see if those other representatives of MSP were at the meeting, and they were not. 

Andy: They confirmed that the meetings had taken place. So who were the other people? 

Paul: There were no others. There was a suggestion put out on social media that 777 took along at MSP. MSP obviously being one of the club’s creditors, to support the 777 case and that turns out to be a falsehood. 

Andy: Now that didn’t happen but the meeting itself did happen. So given the fact that this is now dragged on way, way longer than it should have done from the initial time period it was envisaged. 

Paul: Yes, 25 weeks. 

Andy Yeah. How much longer can it drag on? 

Paul: This is the, again, you know, it sort of comes back to the whole thing about the Premier League, because the rules aren’t very clear, or they’re not well written, or not explicit enough to explain, in particular circumstances. 

George: Hot off the press, Luton got a draw at Crystal Palace, they scored in the six minutes they had in added time. I finished 1 -1. Okay. 

Paul: Sorry, thank you. Does that put them four points behind us? Yeah. Yeah, sorry, I forgot what I was saying. 

. The rules, it’s not clear from the rules that the Premier League can turn around and say no. It’s only clear from the rules that the Premier League can be satisfied that they are fit and proper owners. 

Andy: Right. 

Paul: So in that set of circumstances, it comes back to either Farhad Moshiri saying to 777 look guys, you’ve had enough time to prove yourselves, you haven’t been able to do so. I’ve really got to go somewhere else. 

Or indeed, 777 to say, we spent 200 million pounds in backing you this far. It’s not going to happen. We’ve done everything that we can do. We provided all the information, but we’re not getting the responses that you want. 

Therefore, what we are withdrawing,

It has to be one of those two sets of circumstances. Right.

George:  And in withdrawing, they would expect guarantees that they get all that money back. 

Paul: Well, they will have an agreement that says the money that we’ve put into the club is a loan. 

And if, if we (777) get ownership, the loan will be treated in the following way, whatever that agreement says. And If we don’t get ownership, then, you know, we expect our money should be paid back, but, yeah, and I’ve repeated this on a number of occasions and it is now I’m glad it’s reported in the media. 

777 wouldn’t get their money back before the other creditors. So MSP, rights and media funding Metro bank would all get their money  back before 777 did. Right. So actually, the chances of 777 getting their money back and I say their money in a loose as possible sense because you know, it’s that they’ve borrowed from other sources. 

They won’t get that back very readily. Right. And all the while, the club, the club stumbles from one day to the next. Whilst along, and I know we’re going to remember the why, why is it the club has needed 777’s money in the first instance? 

George: It’s because Moshiri couldn’t organise a  piss up in a brewery could he?

Paul: Yeah it’s because we don’t generate enough cash to pay for it. I think you’re right George, to pay for a stadium and to and pay a football team at the same time. 

Andy: I mean given the number of times where we were told that the club was attracting investment and it was going to be imminently announced and every single deadline went by the wayside. It’s been an, unfortunately the construction of the new stadium and the finance of it has been a nightmare from day one. 

Well, not the constitutional bit, but the financial bit has been a nightmare from Day One. I mean, how many times were we told, You know, did the former CEO suggest in messages via the website or statements that whatever that, you know we’re very close to concluding a financing deal for Bramley-Moore and none of it ever happened. 

Yeah. I mean, I don’t like saying it, but it sucks me that we were lied to just to keep just to keep the fan base on side, you know, with this facade that everything’s hunky -dory and everything is going to plan. 

And it clearly wasn’t all the time. Moshiri was having to dip into his pocket to the point where he’s decided enough is enough. All circumstances have dictated enough, enough is enough yeah. 

Silence

Paul: So we’ve reached that point in the podcast where there’s silence because we reach the point of where do we go from here? 

Andy: What does the club, where does it just continue to limp on, day by day? We don’t know who’s making any decisions if any of the decisions are being made, we don’t know what power they’ve got to make any decisions. 

We don’t know who they’re answerable to. That there are I mean, look, there aren’t answers. 

Paul: There are solutions to this, you know, we’re not, we’re not so far up the creek without a paddle that we can’t be saved. 

But it needs positive affirmative action by somebody. and that somebody has to be another investor that comes in and says we can look after the short -term requirements of the club and actually we’ve got a longer term plan that says, we’re going to finance the stadium properly, we are going finance that the squad properly, we have got a long- term strategy for the academy, and we were going recruit the right people to look at the commercial side of business etc etc. We’re going to run it professionally from here on in and we’ve got a load of experience because we did it. 

We’ve done it in the US or we’ve done it in Europe. That’s what it needs. And those people exist, you know, I’ll keep saying it and people will say, well, tell us who they are. 

Well, I know of at least one, but I can’t say who that organization is because they don’t want it to be known because it doesn’t serve their interest at this moment in time for it to be known

 But that’s what it takes, and it takes Moshiri to recognise that and to do what he has to do in order to bring 777’s interest to a close and allow the appropriate new owner, new investor to come in. 

George: Who has a handy £1 billion? Well, he surely got to open himself up to alternative solutions, because the solution that he selected would appear to be going completely pear -shaped.

Paul: Well I asked the question on Thursday in the article that I wrote, and for me it was quite an emotional article.   

It wasn’t driven so much by numbers. But I think the really key question that I asked was, if 777’s case for becoming owners of Everton Football Club is so strong, as strong as they suggest it is, why have they been unable to satisfy the Premier League? 

If they have the money that they say that they had, If they can demonstrate that money is coming from an appropriate source, if they can demonstrate that they have a viable plan to fund what still needs to be done to turn everything around. 

And as they suggest that, they have claimed that they have. Why? Either why hasn’t that been presented to the Premier League? Or why after it has been presented to the Premier League, or the Premier League not satisfied with it. 

Because they’re the only two logical outcomes of that. And for me, it is because they haven’t been able to prove the source of funds from the perspective of a satisfactory source of funds. They probably haven’t been able to prove the quantum of the funds, actually how much funds they’ve got and how much funds are needed. 

And of course, all the background noise and the longer that this goes on, the more interest that there is from the media and more than the media starts to examine 777’s dealings elsewhere. The greater the body of evidence that minimally, at least, suggests that these people aren’t the right people. 

I mean, I’ve already made my mind up that these people aren’t the right people. But you know, the evidence is building and the support for that case is widening. And as a result, that then makes it the case of the Premier League actually approving these people harder and harder as time goes on. 

Yeah. So actually, the Premier league aren’t doing themselves any favours. Not misunderstanding what I said, but them not being able to disapprove of them. But they should be actually saying, look, to Moshiri, this isn’t going to happen. 

They should be saying that to  777. And maybe that’s what the meeting was about on Thursday. Who knows? I’m sorry, this is not going to happen on our watch. Well, do we know if Moshiri was present in that meeting? 

Paul: I don’t know. If I was the Premier League and I wanted to speak to 777, I’d probably want to speak to them alone. Right, right. And if I want to speak to Farhad Moshiri,  I’d probably to speak to separately as well. 

Andy: Fair enough, fair enough. Well, whichever way it is, somebody needs to get off the pot and pay, don’t they? They do because this is not only all the financial implications and whether we can keep the lights on and whether administration looms or whatever, it is clearly just to go back to where we started, it’s clearly having an effect. 

George: I was just going to say this, go on. On the manager, on the players and on a fan base. Certainly on fans. Well, they must, no shadow of doubt. They must affect the play as Andy. Yeah, yeah. and the manager who has behaved as well as he could possibly hope to behave, but we’re not scoring goals and we are not confident, and nowhere in the club is anybody confident of anything, and those things permeate. 

Paul: They have to. I thought Dyche said a really interesting thing towards the end of the week, when he was talking about players not coming through from the academy, And he actually said, like, you know, I’m not really speaking from a point of authority here because I haven’t had I, and I think the word that he uses is understandably, have not had the time to really look at what the Academy is doing and where it’s up to. 

And he said that, you know, he’d spoken to the academy staff on a couple of occasions and he’s seen a number of U- 21 or U-23 games, whatever the classification is, but he said, understandably, I’ve not had the time to look at this in detail, which tells me that he has got such an awful lot on his plate. 

Yeah. Not only because of where the team is and everything else, but because where the club is. Yeah, for the Academy to, for him not to be able to commit some of his time to the academy in the knowledge that the squad is threadbare and in the, in a knowledge, that he can’t do anything about going out and buying solutions that he can only create solutions from what he’s got. 

And yet he still hasn’t got the time. I’m not criticizing him and just saying, he has still hasn’t got time to look at the Academy suggests an awful lot about the pressure that He’s under to do other things. 

George: I thought that was really, a really telling statement that he made. and I suspect he probably  didn’t intend making it, but he made it nevertheless. He’s just very straightforward, but He is so honest, isn’t he? 

I get an impression with that man that it wouldn’t occur to him not to say that, because it’s the truth. And it is not exactly a surprise, is it? No, I guess what I’m saying is that only afterwards might you think, people may be able to read into that more than possibly he intended. 

Paul: I’m being analytical to the nth degree here in suggesting that the reason why he doesn’t have time at the academy is not because he’s spending all of his time on the first team squad, it’s because he is having to do other things as well. 

And those other things can only relate to, one would imagine the ownership and the future funding of the club because he will be writing his plans for the summer and he’ll actually be writing two sets of plans, for the Summer at the moment, won’t he? 

One is we stay in the Premier League and the other one is, we don’t stay in the Premier League and actually both of those plans may have two versions. One, is that we stay under the current ownership. 

We drop out of the Premier League under the current ownership, or we stay in the Premier league with new ownership or we drop out with new ownership. So there’s probably four plans. 

Andy: Yeah. Or administration. 

Paul: Okay, so there are now five plans? 

George: And it’s all and a lot of that planning is going to be hinging around. I mean, we’ve got to say, the very strong likelihood of departures from the current squad. 

Paul: Yeah. And bearing in mind what I said before about Kevin Thelwell, if indeed that is true, it’s also from a point of view that the head man of the football operations may not be considered to be the guy that’s going to be around after the summer. 

It might well be what Dyche is doing a lot of time thinking about as well. Yeah, I stress the source that I have for that is good, but at this stage it’s conjecture. And I don’t want to, in any way, undermine what Kevin Thelwell is, because I also know that a lot of people think he’s doing the job well. 

Andy: Well, he probably is trying to do the best job he can under the circumstances which, to say the least, they’re trying.

Paul:  Yeah, no, I am saying that. People in football think he’s doing as good a job as anybody could do in a circumstance, you know, with the hand that he has been dealt. 

George: Yeah and as a professional, he has to that, doesn’t he? Because he won’t get the next job and most people look at what he does and go, fair play. He’s a good man in the crisis

George:  Excuse me. Yeah, absolutely. 

Paul: Okay, guys, should we draw a line under today’s events? 

George: That’s another one. A red one, bastards. Anybody built them? Every year, Andy. Don’t let’s go there.

Paul: Can I just finish on a slightly positive note? 

and it’s a little bit of self -promotion for the three of us, but I just had some really really great feedback about the idea of creating a transcript of the podcast and how many people it’s really helped. 

Great. Not massive numbers, but it doesn’t need to be massive numbers. If it is five or six people, and it may be six, people that contacted me just to say thank you, that they can now access a medium that wasn’t available to them beforehand, it was absolutely worth doing. 

George: That’s absolutely right. 

Paul: Yeah, because there’s got to have been blues out there for whatever reason, are unable to listen to us. So if they’re able to read a transcript, great. Yeah. Yeah, and in fact, I’ve reached out, but I haven’t heard back from them. I suspect they are busy as well, to the Everton Disabled Supporters Association, because I think it’s something that they could promote to their members. Not from the point of view, there’s no, well there is no financial benefit in this for us anyway, because we don’t charge anything and we do not have any advertising. 

Just from the point of view of providing a service to Evertonians, and indeed anybody else who has hearing difficulties, who wants to listen to or hear or read, sorry, about Everton Football Club.

George: There might be a legion of Man United fans who would have listened to us slagging them off. 

Laughter

Paul: Although I have to say just I’m going to finish on this point. The transcript software did have a bit of difficulty with both of your accents. 

George: Say again. What is that? Scouse AI.

Paul:  I said it had difficulty with the transcription of your accent Andy. 

Andy: Oh, well, it kept on asking me what I get some elocution lessons

Paul: It kept him asking what a bro is. 

George; You’re lucky we missed out on the ducks.

Paul:  Right, enough. Thank you so much. So always good fun even if the subject matters. 

Andy: It’ll improve. This team is luck away from beginning to believe in itself. It’s on you, George. I’m very pleased that you stood up for the team. 

George: Well, they’re my team, what can I do? No, indeed. Okay, speak to, well, we’ve now got three weeks to talk about anything other than football. 

We could talk about rugby England, who will beat Ireland. 

Paul: Oh, yeah, you guys, we wanted to finish in 45 minutes, so you could go and watch it. I do apologise. 

George: No worries, Paul. I’ve been watching it! Just missed a penalty as well, never mind. 

We know your stream’s ahead of mine, Let’s just stop this conversation. Alright, stop there. This is the big problem with illegal streaming, you sent me a, Fernandez is lining up a free kick on my laptop and I get a text from Paul going, great save. 

And I go, all right. Which it was, a great safe. It’s fantastic. 

Paul: Occasionally, if I watch a legal stream on my laptop. It’s like, a little bit behind, real lifetime. And if I don’t put my phone on silent, I get like all of these notifications. 

Yeah. Shit, either we scored or that or they scored. So I always always try to p, put the phone on silent. when I’m watching the football, there you go. 

Alright, thanks very much and thanks to everybody for listening and while we can now say thank you to everybody, for reading as well. 

George and Andy: Yeah, good one. Cheers guys, take care.