Welcome to the transcript of our most recent Podcast. The audio version can be found here.

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 of Talking in the Blues, Andy and George, hello to you both. 

Extraordinarily, after losing 6 -0 to Chelsea, which we’re going to talk about, and obviously Dyche, it probably wasn’t the worst thing that happened to Everton yesterday, but we’ll get on to that a bit later. 

I think what our manager Sean Dyche said after the game was quite revealing, so for those who didn’t hear it, his initial comments, or part of his comments were immediately post -matched. 

Sean Dyche:

a tough defeat here at Stamford Bridge tonight? Yeah, horrible, horrible defeat. Arguably up there, probably the worst of my career. 500 dog games in, 300 not in the Premier League as a manager. 

Paul: 

George and Andy, clearly they’re very disappointed and he points out that in over 600 games as a manager that was probably the worst result of his career. 

Andy: 

I think we could mirror that. We’ve probably got about 6 ,000 games between us and I think we were lucky we were playing half a half hour Chelsea side last night because a decent side would have run us up into double figures. 

Because take Cole Palmer aside who was excellent in what he did for Chelsea. I don’t think Chelsea were that good last night and had that been City or Liverpool or an inform Arsenal or dare even suggest Villa or Newcastle. 

That would have been even uglier than it was last night. I thought 6 -0 to some degree flattered us. I thought we were a disgrace to Everton Football Club last night. And at least James Tarkovsky after the game came out and said that that was the most embarrassing 90 minutes of his career. 

George: 

Did he really? 

Andy: 

Yeah he did. And it was. It was shocking. I failed to understand what on earth was going on last night. 

George: 

Well, yeah, I have no idea. It’ll be very interesting to see who we picks on Sunday against Forrest after that show yesterday, last night. 

Paul: 

Well, who will you have available? 

George: 

Well, presumably Branthwaite, Patterson, they’re not going to be there, are they? What is the situation with Branthwaite? 

Andy: 

I don’t know, he just came out of the game, didn’t he? I didn’t even see what happened. It looked like Patterson suffered a bit of a hamstring strain, which is probably due to a lack of match play, even though he’d been in the field 44 minutes when it happened. 

But I don’t know. I mean, there’s a doubt over Patterson then. There’ll be a doubt over Branthwaite. There’ll be a doubt over DCL still. 

George: 

Tarkovsky’s one yellow card away from and suspended now. 

Andy: 

Well, yeah, that’s four on the bounce, he’s had. Yeah, four yellows on the bounce. I mean, we’re going to we’re going to go up against Forrest on Sunday, who, thanks to Everton, conceded six last night, have now got exactly the same goal difference as us. 

So. The only thing they’ve got in the favour at the moment is they’ve got a game in hand still, but that game in hand just happens to come on Wednesday against Liverpool. Oh, deep joy. 

George: 

This Wednesday. 

Oh my God, really? 

Andy: 

Yeah Not tomorrow not not tomorrow a week tomorrow 

George: 

All right. Well, I have a couple of thoughts about last night. One is we should have won. Chelsea are so. Crap. That had had better not cleared the ball and stuck it in the back of the net when Seamus set him up, they would have collapsed because we saw what they were like when they’re 4 -0 up and they get a penalty. 

That’s Chelsea. 

Andy: 

Yeah. 

George: 

bunch of squabbling greedy egomaniacs. So if we’d scored and had he not been offside and put in Ashley Young’s lovely cross properly instead of being offside, they’d have disappeared. But, you know, we’re all in the lands of ifs and shoulds and woulds and might Dominic have got that goal, you know, la, la, la, la, la. 

And what you’re really saying is, as soon as Palmer’s first goal went in, you could feel at least 11 people in strangely coloured shirts, salmon, pink, whatever it’s called, going, Oh, no. Oh, no, not again. 

And, you know, we were terrible, appalling. And, you know, Pickford only showed that when a goalie makes a mistake, it’s fatal. Other people make mistakes and it’s fatal. But, you know, I’m lost as to what Doucoure is doing on the pitch now. 

And I don’t know why he picks Ashley Young. And if that is the best two picks he can make for those positions, we’re screwed. And so that leads me on to the other thought I had about this, which is, you know, we’re in the lack of the gods now. 

And, you know, we’ve got four home games, which I don’t think is a positive, because we’re playing so badly at home. And so my big question is, does the club not necessarily the team or the side or the pick, does the club deserve to stay up? 

Andy: 

That was a bloody good question. 

George: 

And I wish I had an answer, Andy. I know that the fans deserve that their team should stay up and they should continue to watch top flight football, but they’re the only part of Everton Football Club that I can see in front of me, that makes me think, yeah, you deserve, well, you know, I was very impressed with McNeil last night, who I thought had an amazing game in the middle of all that chaos. 

Just kept on going, kept on trying, kept on working. And so did Mykolenko. But the whole thing is so- 

Andy: 

So did Gomes as well, at least he tried to get them going forward. 

George: 

And I’ve been thinking about Gomes. I mean, I’ve been very, very fond of him. But if you’re going to play him, for goodness sake, play him, not in midfield. He’s not a midfielder. It’s just going to get booked because he’s so slow and he can’t tackle. 

George: 

Put him, what we’re playing is 4 -4 -1 -1. And Doucoure has been the one. Well, Doucoure is knackered. He’s did nothing last night. And I’m a big fan of Doucoure. I like him very much. But once he got that knock after the Fulham match, he’s just simply not come back from there. 

George: 

So if we’re playing 4 -4 -1 -1, the one behind Beto and or DCL should be Gomes because he’s the only one with the clacks and the feet and he’s fast enough to think that fast and cause trouble. D ‘Cori does not think that fast, nor does he act that fast because his basic touch on the ball isn’t that good and nowhere near as good as Gomes is. 

But we continue to play Gomes in a position, you know, which gives him a little bit. I think it’s all the whole thing is all cacked up completely. And he should be if we’re playing, you know, 4 -4 -1 -1, he should be the one going, I’ll take the knockdowns because I’m good enough to control the ball immediately. 

Andy: 

Mmm. 

George: 

Nobody else is, not really, but so where we go from a defeat like that, does he dare to change, you know, what seems to be the only method of playing that he’s got? 

Paul: 

I thought last night that he actually, I mean, to be honest, he tried a little bit, something a little bit different, something that ended up being hopelessly naïve and, you know, came back to haunt us. 

But for the first 10 minutes, we played much higher up the pitch than we do normally. Yeah, that was correct. But that left us so exposed. And as soon as Chelsea scored, then heads went down, and there was no competitiveness, there was no desire to get back into the game, no belief that we could get back into the game, no idea of how we could address problems that Chelsea were causing us. 

And it was just a totally abject performance, devoid of passion, devoid of any idea, devoid, devoid of any leadership, you know, all the common themes that we’ve talked about for years. Not a single player on the pitch, you could grab the game or grab his, his teammates, get them in a huddle, and, you know, tell them what was what, they’re representing Everton Football Club, there’s 3000 fans that have made the journey. 

You won’t get home till sometime early the following morning. And not there was none of that at all. We were as well, we probably probably were representative of how Everton Football Club are at this moment in time. 

George: 

I thought it was a perfect representation, finally the boardroom was met the pitch, incompetent nil -six. 

Paul: 

Yeah. But so unrepresentative of what I want from a football club and what I want in particular from Everton Football Club. And I’m sure you both and everybody that listens to this podcast and every other Evertonian would say exactly the same. 

How a team can perform like that being a professional team with all of the resources, people, the training, the preparation must go into a game. The psychological preparation that goes into, okay, we’re at Chelsea, we need a point here, a point here will be great for our morale, be great for the fans. 

It’s something to take forward. It’s a continuation of, you know, demonstrating that we are going in the right direction, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. There’s none of that. It’s just like a bunch of guys who’ve turned up on a Saturday morning and are we getting a football on the park? 

Andy: 

Well, it takes me back to a discussion we had a couple of weeks ago is what on earth did they go to Portugal for? What on earth did they do in Portugal at the warm weather training or team bonding? They went. 

I mean, they played Chelsea last night. Chelsea have got Chelsea a mid table. They’ve got a Cup semi final coming at the weekend. Yeah, you know, you would have thought that their minds would have been potentially more on ensuring that they play at Wembley and have a chance to get to a Cup final and lift a trophy. 

But no, they I got the impression last night that we were just the warm up act. You know, let’s just let’s just dispose of this lot and then we’ll start to think about sitting when a lot of other teams in their position would have been thinking more about the Cup semi final and not wanting to get hurt and make sure they’re available to be selected to play in that game. 

Paul: 

It wasn’t a competitive game, we never even got close enough to enter into it. 

That’s what I’m saying, that they just brushed us aside as, you know, we literally were there just to make up the numbers and we did, we made up six of them. Yeah, well, like I said, you mentioned the word preparation, Paul, what on earth did you do in Portugal? 

Andy: 

You know, they had a three week break to get ready for the games that followed, and they might as well have just not bothered. More money wasted. All right, in the grand scheme of things, the trip to Portugal was just a drop in the ocean, but at the end of the day, 20 odd people went to Portugal for a week and achieved sod all. 

They could have done that on Ainsdale sands. 

Paul: 

Well, think of any, you know, it demonstrates that Sean Dyche has run out of ideas. 

George: 

It’s a huge moment. 

Paul: 

Sorry, George. 

George: 

Go ahead, mate, sorry. 

Paul: 

No, it’s okay. He’s run out of ideas tactically. He seems to have run out of ideas as to how to motivate the players on a match day. And it seems to me that as a result of what happened in Portugal, and I don’t think we’ve been told a full story as to what happened in Portugal, that he’s lost respect. 

He’s lost authority within the dressing room. 

George: 

Can you just fill me in on something that I don’t know about? What’s supposed to have happened in Portugal? Is this this business with him and Patterson? 

Paul: 

Yes. Right. Okay. And the fact that Tarkovsky had to intervene and Patterson left the room afterwards. You know, it’s all being brushed under the carpet, but I suspect there’s a bit more to it than what we’re all told. 

Even if there isn’t, I just get the feeling that there’s a change of attitude amongst the players and with him. I think if you’re a Sean Dyche type of person, self -belief, self -confidence, your authority comes from that. 

Your physical presence to a degree comes from and he is that type of dominant, but domineering character. And he uses his gruff voice and his physicality and the way he speaks, the language that he uses, he uses that to get across his messages. 

And I’ve listened to him on other podcasts, it’s not necessarily football related. And you think some people you think are genuinely interesting and genuinely good at what they do, good people, good management managers, have a degree of intellect and stuff. 

And I’m not saying he’s not a good person. I’m saying that his responsibility is that he’s taken because we’ve talked about it here, that he’s basically, is the football club at this moment in time. 

George: 

Wow. I think actually Paul, from what you’re saying and from what I see every week, I think actually the football club is Tarkovsky at the moment. 

Paul: 

Okay, that’s interesting, because I was feeling that actually Tarkovsky is demonstrating the same sort of behaviour that Dyche is, that he’s not, he’s still very willing, but he’s not performing at the highest levels because of the weight and responsibility. 

Yes. 

George: 

I think that’s right. You know, I was astonished he hooked Seamus, perhaps Seamus had a knock to see what Seamus had done wrong particularly. I don’t know. I mean, I just don’t follow any of the decisions at all. 

To leave Doucoure on for the whole match was ludicrous. To leave Ashley Young on for the whole match was ludicrous. You know, I think I texted you after a manly when the substitutes came out and just went, he’s mental. 

George: 

What you’re kind of saying Paul, sorry, is, he lost it. 

Paul: 

I think there’s a degree of confusion in his thinking that the clarity that he has when he is a manager is on top form, isn’t there at this moment in time. Whether he doesn’t trust himself enough anymore, because just events, whether he doesn’t trust the club or he doesn’t trust the players, whether he’s got concerns way further and beyond the concerns that he should have as a manager,. 

what’s happening within the club, the status of the club, etc, etc. The responsibility that he has to keep the club in the Premier League, which I think is a burden upon everybody at the club at this moment in time, including the players. 

Because I think even if the board, even if Farhad Moshiri doesn’t recognise it, most of the people within, most of the people who are employed by the club will recognise the fundamental issues with regards to ever since future status. 

And I just think all of these things are now demonstrably impacting us on the pitch. 

George: 

Yeah. And as you said, you know, as you quoted, as you played the thing of what he said, he’s got, you know, if we feel bad this morning, what does he feel like? He had to stand there and take it. And, you know, the worst defeat of his managerial career and absolute thrashing, no effort, no nothing, no visible Dyche-ness about the team that he was watching. 

He’s got some very, very, very hard thinking to do before Sunday. He’s doing it, but I, you know, I question whether Woan and Stone can offer him anything new. And he certainly doesn’t trust, you know, Chelsea brings on two children at the end. 

I thought, well, go on then throw on this Washington boy, give him a taste of something. Not a chance. 

Paul: 

No, absolutely not, and I think as you said a little bit earlier George, it’s just representative of the way the club is at this moment in time. 

George: 

It was perfect in a way, that’s where we are, adrift, lost, hopeless, bubbling around, easily beatable. 

Paul: 

In a sense, we’re fortunate that the state of this year’s Premier League is such that even a club in the desperate condition that Everton Football Club is in are probably still marginally favoured to stay up. 

But it won’t take many more performances in the small number of games that, the seven games we have got left. To put us down. And, you know, I think the fact that we’re playing, well, certainly in Forest, the teams immediately around us makes us… 

George: 

Yep. Couldn’t agree more. I wish there was something to disagree with and can’t talk about. 

Paul: 

No, and it must be awful for people listening to the podcast because they will all be, they don’t need us to tell them what we just said because they will all know this themselves. 

George: 

There’s that, you know, I’ve never thought about the function of a podcast before, but it’s, you know, you can not doctors. 

Paul: 

in the football club is sometimes to offer a different perspective from what exists elsewhere. But at this moment in time, especially with the stuff that’s on the pitch, it’s extremely difficult to offer a different perspective because the problems are so evident and yet the solutions given the resources we got available to us, the players that we got available to us, and the manager’s approach seems so limited. 

I mean, because he’s not going to just throw the kit on and say, rescue my season, rescue up this football. 

George: 

Of course he’s milling. 

Andy: 

None of them have. None of the previous managers have done that either. 

Paul: 

which is a reflection of them as individuals or is it a reflection of the resources that they have, you know, that come through the academy. 

George: 

It’s a bit of both, isn’t it? It’s got to be both, yeah. 

Andy: 

Yeah, it’s got to be both. I mean, you know, Moisey was always reluctant to play youngsters. He would play them and then rest them and play them. He was managing the youngsters, if you like. He didn’t want to overstretch them. 

He didn’t want to overburden them. He wanted to bring them on slowly so that they grew into the game, grew into the club, grew into their careers. Other managers are prepared to be bolder. Moisey was cautious. 

But after Moisey went, you know, we had Martinez who inherited a strong, organised side and he gave them the freedom to play a bit and then forgot to coach them and it all went perch -ate. And ever since then, you know, human Silva to a slightly lesser degree, he probably didn’t, he probably got the rawest deal of the lot, Marco Silva, with the benefit of hindsight. 

But Benitez and Lampard and even Ancelotti, you know, they didn’t, they didn’t, they weren’t prepared to give the youth a try. Now that’s, you know, as you’ve said, as we’ve said previously, that’s maybe indicative of the qualities that are lacking within the academy system, you know. 

Paul: 

different characters, they all have different skill sets. Some of them have demonstrated success either in their playing careers or in their management careers, obviously in terms of Angelotti. There is something about this football club that makes the job impossibly difficult. 

That might be the football club and we can define a football club however we want to. It might be unfair on Moshirii, but it has to be beyond coincidence. Not all these people can get a tune out of this format. 

Andy: 

It’s very easy to blame Farhad, obviously for the 6th time he’s been here, it goes without saying. But before then we were a mess. Even under Moyse, things were far from perfect. It was Moyse’s strength of character that kept things on an even keel. 

The fact that he was in charge and he let everybody know that he was in charge and the book stopped with him and he only answered to one person. 

Paul: 

Yeah, well, whilst I’m not in any way defending Bill Kenwright or negating, you know, the impact that he had on the football club, of course, he was here for a large part of the period that Moshiri has been owner of the football club. 

The fact is, is that Moshiri has been here at the club for over eight years, which represents more than half of the average professional footballers career. 

Andy: 

Mm hmm. 

Paul: 

And in that context, which players who have come through the club have either achieved anything at the club or have gone on to achieve something else work? A very small number. 

Andy: 

I’m sorry, I’m lost. Me too, me too. I can’t find anything positive to say. 

Paul: 

I mean, I suppose the only thing you can say is what do we do differently between now and the end of the season to guarantee the fact that we’re still in the Premier League next season? 

George: 

part of us. If you said to the squad now, or if you said to us three, would you take a clean sheet on Sunday, you’d go, oh yeah. 

Andy: 

Yeah. 

George: 

That’s where we’re at. So, you know, frick the fans, frick the entertainment value, partner bus. Absolutely. You know, I mean, it’s hideous, but there’s no aesthetics left in this anymore. There’s simply survival. 

Paul: 

I certainly agree with that, George. The question is if we decide to park the bus. 

George: 

Well, I very much doubt it, but it depends, you know. 

Paul: 

So if we set up, I know we can’t really answer these questions, but if you set up the team to park the bus, and as quite often happens, you can see the nearly goal, and if you look at the goal scoring resources that we’ve got available to us. 

Andy: 

We haven’t got the ability to change. 

Paul: 

the game? How do we change the game and the psychology of the players and the psychology of the fan base that could assume that this particular moment in time, and that’s not a criticism of them, is such that the mood, I think, would turn very sour. 

George: 

Yeah, of course it would. Yeah. And the alternative is, you know, the alternative is fine. OK, go out, play, gung -ho, press them hard, they score a goal like Palmer scored, keep pressing them hard. They’ll fold. 

George: 

I just. Yeah. 

Paul: 

In a sense, that’s what stage did last night, wasn’t it? 

George: 

Yeah, but you know, I’m afraid I’m absolutely with my brother here. I just don’t know what to say, Paul. And in fact, you know, the only thing I can think of to say is that you started this podcast by saying… 

George: 

I thought you were going to say you started it. No, you started the podcast by going, you know, 6 -0 isn’t the worst thing that happened this week. So I must have missed something. What’s the worst thing that’s happened this week? 

Paul: 

Well, of course, everybody now knows that there was a deadline, which, as we’ve spoken about previously, was April the 15th, and that deadline was a deadline for MSP to receive the repayment of the loan that it made last year. 

And supposedly there would be consequences in the event of them not receiving the money. Now, they didn’t receive the money. First of all, why did they not receive the money? Well, they didn’t receive the money because 777 don’t have the money to give them. 

Paul: 

Despite having had seven months since 15th of September when they agreed the deal with Michiri to find the money. Yeah, 777. So what happened? Well, 777 asked both the Premier League, five Michiri and MSP to give a stay of execution. 

Paul: 

So has it been given? And it’s been given. So we’re now in a situation whereby effectively they’ve got to the end of the season to come up with the money. 

George: 

Oh for God’s sake, I didn’t realise that. 

Paul: 

Yeah, I, I, you know. 

George: 

This is worse than amortization. 

Paul: 

Yeah. 

George: 

Oh, no, but it’s. 

Paul: 

It says, and I wrote a really lengthy article this morning, over 2 ,000 words, but to me it spells out so much about the club and about Michiri’s decisions and particularly about 777. And it’s not me just having a rant against 777, it’s me saying that if somebody asks to buy the club, and at the end of the day, 777 asked Fard and Michiri could they buy the club from him? 

Paul: 

Nobody went to 777 and said, would you like to buy this football club? They went to the club and said to Fard, we’d like to buy your football club, and they agreed a set of terms, but that was seven months ago, and in those seven months, first of all we were told it would take eight to twelve weeks to get regulatory approval, which took us up to like mid, early mid -December. 

Paul: 

Then it was going to be before the end of the year, Christmas came and went and it wasn’t, and then it was going to be like mid -January, and then it was going to be the end of January, and then it was going to be sometime in February, then sometime in March, etc, etc, etc. 

Paul: 

And here we are, now in the middle of April, and they’re saying, well, yeah, we still want to do it, but we haven’t, we just need to raise a bit more money in order to do it. And the Premier League turned around and said, well, OK, if Fard and Michiri’s OK with that, and if MSP are OK with that, then we’re OK with it. 

George: 

And why are MSP okay with that? 

Andy: 

Yeah, that’s the question I wanted to ask. 

Paul: 

Let’s be blunt about it. I know a lot of people think I’ve got some form of allegiance, association, some form of financial interest in MSP. Just to absolutely clarify, none of the above. I happen to know some of the individuals, but that’s as far as the relationship goes. 

Paul: 

Anybody who acquired the Football Club at this moment in time and MSP have got the option to acquire a majority stake in Everton Football Club as of today because the loan wasn’t repaid, would then have to take on the role that 777 have found themselves in, which is providing all the money that Everton don’t have to meet the monthly bills. 

Paul: 

So they would have to put more money in. 

George: 

So MSP, we’re kind of going, oh, we can’t deal with all that. We’ll go with the fudge as well. 

Paul: 

Yeah, we don’t want to put more money in. It’s clear. Well, in terms of the things that were clarified yesterday, 777 don’t have the money and are still looking to raise the money after seven months. 

Paul: 

MSP have no desire to control Everton Football Club because they had the right to do so as of yesterday. They want their money back so that they can give that money back to the people who invested via them. 

Paul: 

MSP at the end of the day are investment managers. They take people’s money, they pool it and they invest it in a particular project, this project being. 

George: 

And would it be fair to say if one were an investor with them, they’ve dropped a gigantic bollock here? 

Paul: 

It hasn’t gone the way that they would have sold it, in the first instance, and ultimately the people who put the money in, who are going to be wealthy individuals anyway, they will get their money back because there’s sufficient security within the arrangements either taking the estate and everything or end up owning the stadium in order to at some point pay them back. 

Paul: 

That’s not the issue and frankly, it’s hardly our concern. Nobody likes to see people lose money but that’s not really our concern. Our concern is, who is it that actually wants to take control of Everton Football Club in the current circumstances. 

Paul: 

Absolutely, George, absolutely correct. The answer is nobody. Fardman Shirey doesn’t want to take control of Everton Football Club even though it is his responsibility. 777 might want to but can’t because they can’t meet the qualifications required to do so. 

Paul: 

MSP who have the option to do so don’t want to do so because they have to put more money in. Rights and media funding have the ability to refuse other people coming in if they want to do so but whether they do that or not depends on who’s coming in I guess but they’ve got no interest. 

Paul: 

It’s not there within their business model. They don’t have the people to run a football club. So we are completely rudderless and there is no obvious solution to this going forward because other than Fard Mshirey allowing other people who may have an interest to come in and consistently refuse to do that. 

Paul: 

The problem that we have now 

George: 

Paul. Paul, can we cut to the chase? And why? What is he fannying about at? Why is he hanging on to, you know, and he sat there and watched it last night, a dreadful loss making fast. Why is he not opening the door and going, what’s going on? 

George: 

It is because… 

Paul: 

Because, as it stands, MSP are the only entity that would offer him any money for his shares. So one of the conditions, and Moshiri has gone from being a wealthy man on paper to being still wealthy by most people’s standards, but not particularly wealthy by high net worth standards, he has a lack of liquidity, meaning he doesn’t have access to huge amounts of cash anymore like he did previously. 

Paul: 

And this deal, if it was to happen with 777, would pay him something like £64 million, which is around about 8% of what he’s put into the football club. But nevertheless, it’s £64 million that he doesn’t currently have. 

Paul: 

So he would take that and he would take it willingly because there’s nobody else that has made an offer anywhere near approaching that. 

George: 

Right. Okay, I get it. So that’s it. 

Paul: 

motivation in choosing 777. 

Andy: 

But is that that’s that’s acting in his own best interest, isn’t it? Well, absolutely. 

Paul: 

and that’s a doubt 

Andy: 

correct with the club, hasn’t he got? Isn’t the honour bound to do something in the best interests of the club? 

Paul: 

But here is the copy to the 94% shareholder. 

Andy: 

Well, okay. 

George: 

Absolutely Andy, I think he thinks he is doing things for the good of the club. He’s getting out. 

Paul: 

It’s difficult to distinguish between his interests and the club’s interests. 

George: 

Absolutely, especially for him. 

Paul: 

for him, because he is the club, he owns 94% of the club, it is misjudgment that is causing the problems, and it always has been since the day he arrived. 

George: 

Can we survive, Paul, in your opinion? 

Paul: 

Well, this is the this is really interesting, because I think, sorry, lots of things are interesting, and, you know, for several months, I’ve said that administration is, is possible. I actually think today administration is less likely today than it was just a few days ago. 

Paul: 

Go on. And the reason for that is that we are on we are the 16th of April today, we’re about six weeks away from the end of the season. I think as a condition of allowing 777 more time, both machinery and MS people say will have said to 777, you have to meet our running costs for the next six weeks. 

Paul: 

So 

George: 

He will have said to 777 and to MSP. 

Paul: 

No, MSP and Machirby will have set a triple setting. If you want an extension of not paying the loan back, one of the conditions is that you continue to meet our running costs. 

George: 

And you think they’ve agreed to that? 

Paul: 

Well, I think if they had not agreed to that they wouldn’t have got the extension. 

Andy: 

But then they’re struggling to raise more money, aren’t they? 

Paul: 

Yes, but they’ll find 25 million somewhere. 

George: 

Can I ask another question, then? Try and put me in 777 shoes and tell me why you’re continuing when this club is clearly a disaster, a disaster area at the moment. Why are you continuing to try and buy it? 

George: 

Why don’t you go, right, I think we’ve had enough of this now. 

Paul: 

Because they’re the type of organization that supposedly specializes in buying distressed assets and recovering them. 

George: 

So the worse we get, the better they look, I see. 

Paul: 

Yeah, that they’re the type of people who go to a car or car action and buy a buy an old wreck and do it up in the garage in the back and sell it for a profit at some point in the future, you know, just trying to use a simple analogy. 

Paul: 

Although, although that I don’t think they do that very successfully. And that was the attraction in in in looking at Everton, Everton performing badly, still likely stay in a Premier League. Somebody’s paid for the bulk of the stadium. 

Paul: 

You know, if they could acquire Everton very cheaply, which is what they think they’re doing, there’s a chance here to make some money. That’s their motivation. There’s a second motivation. Yep, which is they want to create this multi club, they want to expand their multi club model because, you know, they are already own 

George: 

who was cold and hard talking could say to them, do you know your multi -club model is full of failures? 

Speaker 3 

Mm. 

Paul: 

Yeah. And they would turn around and say, well, that’s because we buy third years, but then we turn them around and they point to Genoa as being probably the one example and maybe Red Star, the tiny little club in Paris that they own. 

Paul: 

But for them, they’ve been looking to raise money on the back of their multi -club operation for nearly 12 months. Without having Everton in the portfolio, they couldn’t raise any more money against the football clubs. 

Paul: 

And I can do the calculations and they’ve done the calculations. What they assumed was that they could raise more money by having Everton inside their stable of football clubs than it would cost them initially to buy Everton. 

Paul: 

So they could generate some cash for themselves to use either in the football group or use elsewhere because there are other businesses elsewhere lost making. And that was the attraction. And then if you bundled up Everton with six or seven other clubs, you might be able to, and you did an okay job with them for a couple of years, you might be able to flog it to somebody else far wealthier than you. 

Paul: 

So that was the motivation. Buying a Premier League football club is a big deal, not because of the sums involved because actually they’re not really that big a business around the scheme of things. But it’s a massive business in terms of profile. 

Paul: 

There are only ever 20 Premier League clubs at any one time and the Premier League is the dominant global sporting competition. It’s watched all around the world by countless billions of people. So buying Everton for virtually no money on a global sense and having all of that exposure is extremely attractive. 

George: 

Yes, I understood that at the time, but in the time that they’ve been fannying around, you would think that somebody, that Penny might have dropped, that Everton is not that good an investment. I just, I’m sorry, I’m just waffling because this is way outside my pay scale. 

George: 

I don’t understand how these people think at all. 

Paul: 

They would have thought that it was a good investment. They would have thought that they’d finish off the stadium and they get all the uplift in revenue from a new stadium, new sponsorship opportunities. 

Paul: 

Maybe we do a bit better on the pitch. That would give us the opportunity to raise some more money. The problem is that they’ve then gone out and spoken to investors and said, this is who we are. My name is Josh Wanda. 

Paul: 

I represent 777. We own these football clubs. You want to buy Eversin and this is what we want to do with Eversin. Investors have looked at their track record and said, sorry, it might make sense to buy Eversin Football Club, but it doesn’t make sense for us to allow you to manage your money in doing so. 

Paul: 

And that’s the problem. They’ve failed to convince Bonafide, credible professional investors, to invest in them buying Eversin Football Club. And they’ve failed to do that now for seven months. And they keep promising that they will be able to do it. 

Paul: 

And one of the companies that they have mentioned most recently is a New York based company called Blue Owl, which is nearly 15 times larger than 777ers itself. And they say, yeah, they’re interested in lending us 400 million pounds so that we can complete the purchase, the stadium, et cetera, et cetera. 

Paul: 

That’s what they’re saying. And my own sources from within Blue Owl deny that. 

Andy: 

Cheers. 

Paul: 

To not deny that there’s been discussions. 

George: 

Right. 

Paul: 

No, no, no. You just deny the fact that it’s going to happen. 

Andy: 

So on the back of years of the club not using mainstream funders themselves, we’ve now got a potential buyer who struggles to raise money because they’ve got such a god -awful record of running the businesses that they currently own and run. 

Speaker 3 

Yeah. 

Andy: 

We’re out of time. 

Paul: 

But that’s been the issue from day one, from the first day that 777 appeared on the scene. It took, it hardly took a week’s worth of research to discover what this company was all about. 

Andy: 

Yeah. 

Paul: 

and its business ethics, its business standards, its ability to finance the businesses that it had, all of the things that any potential buyer or even seller would look at when they’re determining whether they’re going to lend money to this entity. 

Paul: 

But the problem for the Everton Football Club is that, as far as far as maturity is concerned, these guys represent his best interests and, you know, he claims publicly when he’s spoken about it, Everton’s best interests, and that is patiently not the case. 

Andy: 

Can he not… can he not be legally challenged on that, then? Well… 

Paul: 

Who’s going to challenge him at the end? 

Andy: 

Well, I don’t know, Paul, I was posing a possibly a rhetorical question, a pathetic question, but I know he’s 94 .1% shareholder, so he can do what the hell he wants. And he can make whatever decisions he wants. 

Andy: 

But he’s, he’s acting on behalf of how many hundred employees and how many hundred, or maybe thousands of shareholders. I don’t know, I don’t know. 

Paul: 

No one’s here to know. 

Andy: 

guy so he can continue to do what the hell he wants even though it’s likely to drive the club into oblivion. 

Paul: 

You can run the club into the ground. 

Andy: 

no consequences. That’s about the only thing he’s doing successfully. 

George: 

Mm -hmm. This is a man who wants to wash his hands at his football club, isn’t it? Yeah. 

Paul: 

Yeah, he inherited something that probably didn’t realise what he was inheriting, which may be down to what he was told about the club beforehand. And the club itself didn’t have the management resources to resolve the problems that the club had. 

George: 

No, absolutely. This is what’s so galling about all this, isn’t it? 

Paul: 

Yeah. 

George: 

Because hindsight works, you can see now that this was inevitable. And here it is. We’re now facing the shame. That’s what did me last night, and the 3 ,000 fans that went down there, and there are Evertonians all over the world, and we’re ashamed now. 

George: 

Shame to put the shirt on. Are you an Everton supporter? My God, why? I mean, it’s not only that you get battered 6 -0 by a bunch of, I mean, you said a very naughty word then, Chelsea players, but that the organisation itself is clearly incompetent, probably been, if not, is corrupt, and is run by an incompetent trying to sell it on to crooks. 

George: 

I mean, there’s just nothing for an Evertonian to feel good about. I’ve never known this situation. 

Paul: 

trucks, they may be incompetent. 

George: 

Oh, did I say Crooks? I’m awfully sorry. No, no, no, that’s fine. 

Paul: 

I think nobody is accusing them of that but all your other points and the incompetence point in particular is absolutely spot on. 

George: 

Well, that’s what the points deduction is all about, isn’t it? If it’s not crooked, it’s incompetent in the extreme. 

Andy: 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, with perfected incompetence. 

George: 

Well, I mean, we’re in the wrong league, aren’t we? You should be in the incompetent league, the northern incompetent league. 

Paul: 

I mean, people who know me well sometimes say I’m delusional in the sense of, to me, the very idea that Everton are in front of a commission because they’ve broken the rules is so against what I believe the football coalition should be in the first instance. 

Paul: 

And I’m sure most Evertonians feel a deep sense of shame, as much shame as they felt last night when the game had finished at Stamford Bridge, for us to be found twice and possibly next year to be found a third time. 

Paul: 

But that’s a reflection of the individuals that have run the football club for the Donkeys, yes. 

George: 

And, you know, you can easily get into what about and, you know, Chelsea are as bent as anybody city, you know, forest, la, la, la, la, and then you pick out Brighton and Brentford and go, look, it’s possible to run the club cleanly. 

George: 

It’s possible to have an organization that the fans can be proud of because it’s straight or something. I’m sorry, I’m heading off into lawyer trouble again. 

Paul: 

No, George, there’s no problem with what you just said. The fact is, is that, you know, in the last eight years, Efton have had more resources than they’ve had at any point in their history. Yeah, yeah, yeah, free the world. 

Paul: 

As much as we disliked what Bill Kennerite represented and the way Everton Football Club has run under his stewardship, Everton Football Club were in a much stronger position competitively when fired machinery arrived than where they are today. 

Paul: 

Yeah, albeit not where we wanted them to be. They were they were in a better position. And and that’s just a reflection of the, you know, appalling atrocious. So any adjective that you want, leadership and direction of fired machinery. 

George: 

how many people he trusted. 

Andy: 

Yeah, yeah, the lead the leeches who followed him and made, they’ve made very good living out of that football club. 

Paul: 

Yeah, the point I’m making in the article that I wrote today is such as the leadership vacuum that exists around Everton, that anybody else that had an interest in Everton, you know, for example, as a lender, they just occupied that space and they have allowed their interests to develop and they’ve benefited from association with Everton by getting extraordinarily generous returns in lending the club the money that they’ve lent. 

Paul: 

Had the club been run properly, that money would never have had to be lent, but it was. And this is where you get this misalignment of interests. Everton is like a loose cabal of people who’ve got an association with the club. 

Paul: 

There’s no single entity that is Everton, a football club in terms of groups of people coming together to drive the club forward. All it is is people, and Machiri is one of these people, who are now trying to defend their own position and make a bad position better. 

Paul: 

Nobody’s interested actually in the advancements of the club anymore. 

George: 

No, she survives, isn’t it? 

Andy: 

And that has probably got to the players, and possibly has got to the manager as well to the point where it doesn’t matter what they try, they can’t turn it round. 

George: 

Who are you working for? You know, we live in a hierarchical structure. That’s what capitalism is. It’s a hierarchical structure, whether you like it or not. And you always want the people above you to be decent so that you can feel some pride in yourself. 

George: 

And I think you’re probably dead right, Andy. I think at some point, Deutsch has looked around and gone, Jesus Christ almighty, who am I working for? And that’s a hard, hard thing for, you know, 55 -year -old man to face. 

George: 

Yeah. And he’s a proud man, as well, and he’s a proud man. So he should be. Got plenty of things to have been proud of. And he’s got massive responsibilities. He’s, you know, a group of 25 young men he has to… 

George: 

And, you know, yeah, go on. Sorry, interrupt me, for God’s sake. 

Andy: 

No, he’s got more on his plate now than he’s ever had on his plate previously. I mean, he was Burnley Football Club, but no disrespect to Burnley Football Club. You know, there’s a huge difference between Burnley and Everton. 

Andy: 

Maybe not quite so much now, but you know what I’m saying. 

George: 

I wonder how long you’ll be saying that for, Fanchambi. 

Andy: 

I know, but you know what, you know what I’m referring to? I do, yeah, of course I do. In terms of everything we like to bang on about from time to time about history and achievements and trophies and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. 

Andy: 

Burnley are a much smaller club than Everton, but for all, you know, the job he’s trying to do at Everton is way bigger than the job he’s trying to do with Everton and the Everton of today is way bigger than he could ever have imagined it to have been when he first signed on a dotted line to become. 

George: 

Absolutely. 100% correct. 

Andy: 

Yeah. 

George: 

And everything he’s found out since signing on that dotted line has made things more difficult and worse. He hasn’t found out anything good. And he’s, you know, he’s been very stoic and very witty at times about it and very, you know, very experienced and practical in the way he says, well, you know, player, player transfer and player movement will be important. 

George: 

Of course he is. Of course it was. You know, Bram Thwaite’s on six games to go in his Everton career. So is Anana probably. And they must sell them. They’ve got no choice. 

Andy: 

Well, exactly, yeah. The thing is, after last night, would you blame any of the players for immediately picking up the phone this morning to their agents and saying, get me the hell out? 

Paul: 

Well, those players are not going to have a say in it anyway, because the decisions that were made off the pitch yesterday, as much as what happened on the pitch, just says we get to the end of the season, and then in order to get through the summer, the transfer window opens on the 1st of June. 

The fire sales, does the fire sales start because that’s the only way in the absence of 777 who are not going to come up with the money in the absence of anybody else. That’s the only way that we’re going to generate the cash that gets us through the summer. 

Andy: 

And nobody’s going to come and pay top dollar because they know that we’re all. 

George: 

Yeah. 

Andy: 

We’re up the creek without the paddle. 

George: 

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That’s exactly where we’re going. 

Andy: 

The dreams of ridiculous fees for the likes of Branthwaite  or ONana or Pickford or anyone else for that matter, forget it. They’re going to bid us in the goollies. And we won’t be able to resist because we need that cash just as we did when we sold Richarlison 

Andy: 

We needed to sell him and we let him go for a for a cut price and it’s going to happen all over again. 

Paul: 

Yeah, several times over. Yeah. 

George: 

I need to go and cook some Toulouse sausage. 

Paul: 

Well, I don’t think there’s anything more we can say, you just… 

George: 

I don’t feel as though there is Paul now, Sunday night. 

Andy: 

What’s more, we could say, but it’s the x -certificate. 

George: 

Yeah. 

Andy: 

Yeah, there’d be an awful lot of F’ing and J’effing. 

George: 

I hope they have a good week. I hope they find a plan somewhere that they do some radical thinking of some sort and that they come up with something that binds those people who were nowhere near bound together last night and give Forrest a game. 

George: 

And 37, 38, 39,000 will turn up. 

George: 

Okay, see you Sunday, Paul. 

Paul: 

to everybody that’s listening to us or reading, because increasingly lots of people just read the transcript as well as listening to us. And thanks for tuning in. Not an easy topic to listen to, of course. 

Paul: 

But that’s where we’re at. It’s not, it’s no surprise any longer to anybody. I don’t think there’s any contention about where we’re at, as George has just said. We’re just trying to throw some light at it and throw about, throw around some ideas and hopefully, actually, somebody said to me today, well, at least if we have a little bit more understanding of why these things are happening, we can rationalise what’s happening. 

So even if this is deeply unpleasant and possibly upsetting for some people to listen to, my only hope is that it gives you an understanding of what’s going on, which perhaps you wouldn’t get elsewhere. 

Yeah, that’d be good. And if it doesn’t, you know, let us let us know and we’ll try and explain where we’re at in a better way. But I think that’s all we can say. Yep. OK, enjoy the rest of your week and we’ll read to you after the forest match after the forest match indeed. 

Thank you very much, guys. Bye. Cheers. Cheers,