Welcome to the transcript of this week’s Talking the Blues Podcast

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 the Blues. Normally, I would have said hello to both Andy and George. 

I’m going to say hello, but this week, just going to say hello to Andy. Andy, how are you? 

Andy: I’m good, Paul. Thank you very much.

Paul: Good. George, sadly, is not with us, but he’s spending some time up in the mountains and having a good time with his family and hopefully finding some inner peace. 

I think that’s why he’s gone there. Something along those lines, anyway. Inner peace. I think we found some inner peace yesterday. I think we did. Briefly, anyway. 

Andy: Well, I mean, you know, before the game, you know, you’re thinking, you know, how’s Mr. Dyche going to set them up? And is he going to go there and play deep and maybe try to nick something on the break? And, you know, I guess over time, we’ve all become a little bit negative, not the right word, but pensive, shall we say, about games. 

But I thought yesterday, I thought the team played really well. I don’t think anybody had a poor game. I thought they cope with the limited threat that Ipswich offered really well. I mean, after that early miss from the lab, when the ball came in from the right wing and he ballooned it over the bar, I mean, I think he did take a bobble before he took the shot. 

If you like, that was the only serious threat in the first 80 minutes. I thought we grew into the game really well, and we took our goals superbly. I mean I watched it back again late on last night and I remember now thinking when I was watching it live when Undy scored the first I thought that’s a stonking finish you know he’s nicked the ball and just buried it but then you see Michael Keene’s goal and you think oh my god have you ever seen a centre half hit a better shot than that ever and I mean that I’m not just getting hyperbole because it you know because it was a good finish you know and he gets a lot of stick or whatnot that was a true strikers finish and you know the guy the guy gets an awful lot of stick from an awful lot of Evertonians so it was really pleasing to hear the traveling support singing his name within seconds of that ball it’s in the back of the net. 

Um because that’ll do him the world of good it really will it was an outstanding finish um the goalie must have wondered what was going on just just marvelous but but overall you know like I said I don’t think anybody anybody had a poor game at all Harrison worked his socks off you know I thought Mykolenko had a quiet solid game, looked to me as oh maybe he’s not yet 100 but he’s a defender and he did what he needed to do he defended he didn’t have a great deal to defend but what he had to do he did competently and well and that’s all you can expect of somebody I thought Ashley Young had another um solid performance at right back um and I never thought I’d say that three weeks on the trot um but you know credit where it’s due um he’s showing his experience um and and you know Tarkowski was Tarkowski that that clunching tackle he hit Hutchinson with early on.

 I think sent him a message he maybe could have he maybe could have put one on him on Dilap as well early on just to rattle him a bit but that was a good contest all afternoon Keene was solid and topped it with his goal the midfield was effective against an Ipswich midfield that clearly wasn’t up to the job um and you’ve got to say you like have you watched that yesterday you’ve got a fear for Ipswich this season um because they were um poor and I think I’m being generous in saying poor but um you know if there was if there was a couple of minor criticisms and our minor is is that we didn’t score more goals. 

I actually said to our kid at one point, I hope he doesn’t settle for 2-0 and just shut up shop and try and ride it out because we’ve been bitten in the ass a couple of times already this season doing that. 

But I don’t think he did. I think the team were looking for goals. They just couldn’t find a way to get a third or a fourth or a fifth and really, you know, on a better day, DCL would have had a hat trick, you know, on a better day. 

And there I suggest the DCL who played under Carlo Ancelotti would have had a hat trick. But I think the difference here is he’s not, I don’t think, I wonder who’s coaching, if you like, attacking defence at Finch Farm. 

They clearly coach defensive work, the defence was fine yesterday, but is it DCL has he lost confidence? Because his general play I thought was very good. He worked hard, he ran around a lot, he covered an awful lot of ground. 

The only deficient part of his game was his actual finishing, which is a shame, because his overall play merited a lot more. Addy had his shooting boots on, that could have become embarrassing for Ipswich, because we were much the better side. 

Paul: Yeah, very much so. I think I agree with most of the observations, and somewhat unusually, I was there, so I saw it firsthand. Where do you start? Just on the DCL point, I guess it depends which way you want to look at it. 

Two people seeing the same game and seeing the same performance could argue that he had an excellent performance, because he did lead the line really well. He kept the two Ipswich centre halves occupied throughout the game. 

He wasn’t quite as isolated as he can get. I suppose one of the criticisms, there are many, but one of the criticisms of DCL by those who wish to criticise him is that sometimes he comes too deep looking for the ball, because everything tends to play so deeply. 

He didn’t do that which is part of the function of the way that Everton played and also a function of the way that Ipswich played. I’ll get onto Ipswich in a few minutes, but largely speaking even when we were out of possession, he occupied the halfway line which he tends not to do on different occasions or perhaps against better sides. 

He tends to drop deeper and he tends to drop sort of perhaps to the edge of the centre circle, so that’s 10 yards deeper than he would be otherwise. And that doesn’t sound like a huge amount, but it actually makes a huge difference because it does mean that the opposition have to maintain a defensive presence even when they’re in possession of the ball. 

And I thought he did all of that really well and as we’ve all said on this podcast at least. when DCL’s playing Everton have a much better shape anyway, generally. It’s a bit of a bugbear for me, the shape of a team, it’s something I always, possibly wrong word, it’s something I always look at, you know, from my very amateur perspective with viewing a football game, I always like to look at what shape is the team in, 

And can you readily identify what the formation is at any point in the game. And too often with Everton, I find it difficult to say what exactly we are playing, particularly in midfield and going forward. 

But yesterday, and for virtually all of the game, apart from perhaps later in the second half when we tired and there were no substitutions or limited substitutions, and we’ll get onto that in a few minutes, I thought we had a great shape about us. 

And part of that’s obviously led by DCL, but I think it was also, we actually looked, and again, this is something that we’ve all talked about, we actually, for change, we actually looked like a team that had been coached and a team that knew what it was doing when it went out on the pitch. 

Part of that may be a reflection of Ipswich, who, you know, were very limited, and I think against the better team, a faster, quicker team, a team that moves the ball around quicker than Ipswich did. 

Doucoure and Gueye in particular, gone again, may have been more exposed in midfield than they were, but the fact that Ipswich didn’t move the ball around quickly in midfield, in fact, their link up between what was a very solid, generally a very solid defence, and DCL in the centre, and of course, particularly Harrison on the right -hand side. 

So, with the sort of acknowledgement that it should probably be one of the poorer sides in the division. But then, you know, we’ve struggled sometimes against poorer sides. The setup was really good. 

There was nobody who had a bad game. The regular critics, or rather, the regular players that we criticized all had good games. Tarkowski looked more like his old self. Obviously, it came out during the week that he’d been playing for much of the season so far with an injury. 

But he looked much better, and he looked much more comfortable alongside Keane than he’s looked for, you know, for all the period that Branthwaite has been away. Again. It might be the opposition, but it didn’t look like we missed Brathwaite yesterday and it’s not often that we can say that. 

And I thought the two full backs had excellent games, you know. Mykolenko wasn’t really tested, but I thought Young had one of the best games I can recall him having for quite a long time. You know, he looked fit, he looked keen, he kept his intensity throughout the whole game. 

And really interestingly, from my perspective, being there, and I know lots of people who listen to us, obviously are at most games, so this may not be a stunning observation, but it was interesting to me at least that Young looked as if he was really enjoying the game yesterday. 

Andy: Yes, he did. The one thing that I noticed actually was when we scored, and Young was there very quickly to congratulate him and whatnot, and he seemed to have quite an in -depth conversation. 

You know, while they’re all shaking his hand and clapping him on the back and giving him a hug and what have you. And I just thought to myself, that’s experience there. He’s obviously saying something to Ndiaye about what I do not know, but there’s the elder statesman, if you like, on the side with one of the youngsters, and I just thought to myself, he’s mentoring in there. 

He’s saying something there that the boy needs to hear, and he needs to hear it from someone who’s been there and done it, and whether we like him or not, he has been there and done it. And right at this moment, I think that experience is beginning to prove a real asset to the side. 

You know, in the absence of Coleman and Patterson and played him ahead of Dixon right back, Young is beginning to show why Dyche has got faith in him. Absolutely. You know, he did have a good game. I mean, as you said, with Mykolenko, he never really got tested yesterday. 

And better sides will test him and better sides will test Mykolenko. But you can only beat what’s in front of you. And both of them did a solid job in their relative positions. And as I say, you know, at 39, he has been there, done it, got the t-shirt and everything. 

And I genuinely think he can be an on-field mentor. I don’t think he’s a captain as such, because… he does have his odd moment, but I think his experience and knowledge of the game right now is becoming a genuine asset for Sean Dyche. 

Paul: Yeah, I think so. The guy I was sitting next to, he’s a friend of mine, I know you know him as well, and Dave Lane watched Everton for as long as he and I have. He made a really good point at one point. 

He said against lesser opposition, so let’s say against the teams that occupy the bottom half of the division, Young can still perform at a level that is better than they can perform at. It’s only rarely against the top teams that he really struggles, and that’s when all the criticisms come about Young. 

Yeah, when he gets caught for pace and caught on the turn and ends up picking up a soft yellow card or what have you. Yeah, when the ball’s being moved around much quicker when we’re out of possession, and he does something rather desperate like he lunges into a tackle or whatever, because the pace is just that little bit more than he himself can manage. 

Whereas yesterday, frankly in possession, Ipswich didn’t have that pace. They looked like, to me, and as I said this to a couple of my mates, they looked like a poor Everton side. You know when we play poorly, a lot of the times it’s because we’re so slow in possession, because we don’t possess any pace, you know, that’s a criticism that many people attribute to everything. 

Boy, can you really attribute that to Ipswich? And after the game, the railway station, just talking to a couple of Ipswich fans, you know, they sort of are listening to them. They’re all making the same point that, you know, their team is just not quick enough for the Premier League. 

And I think the big difference between Championship football and the Premier League is pace at the end of the day. And, you know, Young can operate at that pace. So it’s a great credit to him at his age that he can still do that, but he, you know, he still looked fresh towards the end of the game when, particularly in midfield, you know, we started to look a bit laggy in midfield as the game went on. 

And obviously, Ipswich made, you know, maximum use of substitutions whilst, you know, Dyche did his favourite sort of trick of waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and although we were never really in any great danger, they had far more possession in the middle of the pitch at least, in the second half and as the game wore on and you could see like we were dropping further back and just got the feeling that had they not been or rather had they been better up front and had they scored one, 

it might have been a very very different game and obviously football is all about your possible to may bes but I still got a set. If there was one thing that you’d want to talk about after the game that maybe you’d want to change is I’m not sure that and okay you didn’t have the greatest bench, I get that, and Dyche is still not progressive enough as the game goes on and we sort of yeah okay we sort out the game at the end of the day and it’s a great result but could it be in very different? 

Andy: That’s what I was referring to before when there was a minor criticism that we should have had more goals and I said to our kid at one point while we were watching it you know is he told them right 2 -0 we can defend this, we don’t have to stretch ourselves, we don’t have to chase the game any longer, we’ve got control of the game, just go out and enjoy the result whereas a more progressive manager would have you know without being without being cruel to it which would have said get out there and bury him, 

get out there get out there and you know you’re 2-0 up, you could have been 4-5-0 up So, let’s finish this game 5-0, go out and put these to the sword. And I don’t think, I mean, I know we did it at Brighton a couple of years ago in that memorable game, but I don’t think Dyche is the kind of manager who either wants to or knows how to go for the jugular. 

And there’s plenty of other managers out there who do. And, you know, I mean, I suppose it’s a bit churlish after a 2-0 win. You know, if someone had said to us before the game, you’ll win 2 -0 and there’ll be no injuries and you’ll score two cracking goals. 

We’d have all have took that every day of the week and twice on a Sunday. But that was a game that we could and perhaps should have won by a much bigger margin, which would have given everybody an even bigger meat injection of confidence. 

The other thing that me and our kid discussed before the game, when the team was announced, and our kid was bemoaning the fact that Iroegbunam hadn’t been selected again, and obviously Branthwaite was missing, and he’d put Gana Gueye in above Mangala to start the game, and Seamus was on the bench, Dixon was on the bench, and it suddenly dawned on me that, well, I mean, we’ve moaned about the lack of strength and depth in the squad for a long time, 

but actually, we’ve now got a squad that has got a few options. I mean, just took right back alone with Dixon Coleman and Young and Patterson, when he’s fit, there’s four there. Left back is the glaring area where there’s no cover, there’s only Mykolenko, and if he gets hurt, then Ashley Young has to switch flanks 

But, you know, at centre back, we’ve got Keane and Tarkowski, you obviously know each other’s game inside out, we’ve got Branthwaite, and then there’s O ‘Brien waiting in the wings, you know, Tim, with Gueye, and Harrison, and Garner, James Garner, and Doucoure, you know, we’re beginning to, I mean, obviously, it is a squad, but it’s beginning to feel a bit more like a squad, and I haven’t felt that way for a long time. 

I felt like we’ve had 11 players and a bench, and I just thought yesterday before the game started, when me and our kid were children about, you know, about the team selection. and it just dawned on me that he has actually now got a few options and if he can get everybody fit, you know, and desperately wanting to play, then that’s, you know, that can only go well for the rest of the season, you know, 

if everybody’s, if everybody’s fit and want, you know, ready to go at them at the drop of a hat, you know, whether it’s a tactical change or whether it’s an enforced change through injury or whatever. 

I mean, I looked at this, I watched the Spurs game against West Ham and the Spurs manager, at 1-1 at half time, as the teams left the pitch, he pointed to the lad they brought on Son and told him straight away, get ready, you’re starting the second half and he went in the dressing room and told James Madison, who everybody’s got a pretty high regard for, that he was coming off. 

And when the second half started, to everybody’s mind, this was an absolutely insane decision to take Maddison out of the game, and 10 minutes later, Spurs were 4 -1 up. And you thought, actually, no, he’s made a really, really smart tactical change. 

And I think, you know, like I said, I’m reflecting on the players we’ve got now in the squad, it is beginning to feel a little bit more like a squad, rather than just a bunch of players, which is what it’s been for the last two or three years. 

Well, maybe a bit excitable, but that was what went through my mind before the game started. You know, he rested Mangala and put Gueye back in. You know, why? Did he think it would cause Mangala problems? 

Or was it rotation? Or does he just think that Gueye is a better midfielder? I mean, we’ve said it before, he’s more of a ball winner than Mangala is. Mangala’s got good feet and everything, and I don’t think he’s a dumb footballer, I think he’s quite an intelligent footballer, but he’s not a ball winner. 

And maybe he decides to say, well, I do need a bit more steel in the midfield. As it happened, he probably didn’t need a bit more steel in the midfield, because the Ipswich midfield was poor, in particular, Calvin Phillips. 

Oh, dear me, has that boy gone falling off a cliff? 

Paul: Yeah, I mean, totally anonymous yesterday. I think we always try and say it as we see it. I think against a much better team, the central midfield  pairing yesterday for Everton would have struggled, you know, Garnigay and Doucoure would have struggled. They had lots of space yesterday, and they had lots of time to turn. The funny thing about Evertonians, they always shout turn when a midfielder gets the ball, when he was facing his own penalty area. 

He lost back to his legacy. Yeah, yeah, the number of shouts, when Doucoure got the ball yesterday, the number of shouts, turn, turn, turn. It was like, it was a real throwback, you know. But he could do so because he had that space against the better team. 

I’m not sure we would have had that space. But look, as you just said earlier, you can only play the opposition on the day. we did, we did enough. Yeah, it could have been four, five, no, but equally, you know, had had the penalty decision that was over, as it turned out, rightly overturned. 

Andy: Yeah. Had that been overturned, it would have been a different game. It’s funny that because when Michael Oliver points to the spot for the penalty, and you don’t, you know, you think, Oh, my God. 

And then when you see in slo-mo, and you realize that it isn’t a pen, I immediately sent the text saying, if this gets if this doesn’t get overturned, and he gives a penalty, you know, because this is exactly the same as what happened with DCL against Newcastle. 

Yeah. If this is given the club need to go absolutely berserk the Premier League, but thankfully, whoever it was on VAR, and I’ve forgotten who it was on the AR, had the common sense to call Michael Oliver over and say, think you need to have a look at this again, Paul, because it’s, this is, this is a slip to be he caught they caught McNeil, rather than the other way around. 

Paul: Yeah, save from like, probably about 70, maybe 80 yards away. And you know, my sort of middle aged, elderly eyes, as good as they used to be. And it did look like a penalty in real time. In real time, it did. 

It was because of the one that the DCL penalty looked like a real penalty in real time. You know, it’s true. Yeah. To be fair, to be fair to the switch player, the skill he showed in getting into where he got before he went down was very, very sweet. 

Yeah, his footwork, his footwork was brilliant. It’s just that, you know, the in the in the active in the active tape. in his shot he slipped and that caused him to catch McNeil so I mean you know from a footballing point of view you felt a bit sorry for the lad um from an Evertonian’s point of view always I thought it was hilarious when he got turned overturned but my heart was in my mouth for a couple of minutes although it took a long time I was I was drafting the email to the Premier League

Paul: Mr. Angry from Warrington exactly yeah it took an awful long time though to overturn it was five minutes this is the problem with VAR isn’t it if they do it quickly and get it wrong we’re not happy you know if it it probably did take longer than it should have done but at the end of the day as long as it’s the right decision that’s the important thing is that they get the decision right

Andy: Because I’m thinking there was there was another game yesterday where there was a oh I think it was the the Southampton Leicester game where Leicester got a penalty second half for a shirt pull on Vardy and yet they’ve been an even more blatant shirt pull in the first half at the other end and and the excuse where the no penalty was given to Southampton early on was that the exact wording escaped me but it was as though it was well he wouldn’t have got to the ball anyway well he wouldn’t have certainly wasn’t getting to the ball with his only shirt pulled off his back but that was that was two shirt pulls in the same game one was given one wasn’t and that’s the problem with VAR is the inconsistency if they get the decision right then there’s not a problem but when they get it wrong and then and then they compound it by taking four or five minutes to get it wrong that’s when it really gets up your nose. 

Paul: Yeah I agree with that just a couple of other observations about the game at the end of the game DCL disappeared down the down the tunnel very very quickly I don’t know what that was about I don’t know if he’s you know maybe feeling an injury or whatever but he didn’t he didn’t stay on the pitch and celebrate with the rest of the team and the rest of the team celebrated for quite a long time including Seamus and that that was that was great to see I mean he really enjoyed the post match celebrations but I thought that was interesting the other interesting thing was, 

and again it probably wouldn’t be picked up on the cameras and you know this is me speaking as somebody who doesn’t go to the game that often so perhaps I’m just a bit more sensitive to these types of things, was at times, and it was interesting because it’s, you know, this is Dyche we’re talking about, in the second half he was trying to get the team to get further up the pitch all the time. 

And I think he recognised that we perhaps okay we were tiring and obviously they’d made, was it by the 78th minute, they made all five substitutions, but he was trying to get the Everton team higher up the pitch. 

You could see there were a couple occasions when he was doing the old windmill, you know, with his arms. And again, you know we’ve talked about this previously, he didn’t quite look as if he was in control of the situation. 

Andy: Well, let me just throw that back to what I was saying before about does he actually encourage him to go? Do you think his windmilling on the touchline was just to get them to play higher up the field to keep it switch at bay or was it to send them forward to for a third goal? 

Paul: No, it was definitely not to get a third goal. Right. It was more perhaps that we just see it out. Yeah, we were probably 5-10 yards deeper in the second half than we were in the first half, certainly. 

And perhaps it was that. Just again, I don’t know, it was just an observation. What else to say about yesterday? I’m not sure where that came from. Obviously a long time since we’ve been to Portman Road. 

Andy: It was a really nice, friendly place to go to. It was really well policed. I saw a comment on the internet last night from an Ipswich fan saying that the traveling fans to Portman Road were the best that visited Portman Road this year. 

Paul: Right. Yeah, well, I’m not surprised because it shouldn’t be a surprise, should it? At the end of the day, it’s Evertonians. And yeah, no, I mean, from the moment that you come out of the station, it’s only a short walk from the station across the bridge to the ground. 

The policing was excellent, very, very friendly, very warm, very smiling, etc. And that makes a big difference because I know I wasn’t at the Villa game. But, you know, just WhatsApp talking to mates and stuff. 

At Villa, everybody was treated as if they were a criminal. as was put to me. Whereas yesterday, there was none of that. The stewarding wasn’t great inside the ground, I have to say, because I got relocated three times, having been told by stewards in the right seat, but they moved me, as I say, on three occasions, but then that’s possibly down to me as much as it is down to them. 

But yeah, yeah, a good, great result. Can’t believe there’s a single Evertonian that went there, they didn’t enjoy themselves. And that’s what football is about, I think, which sort of leads me on to something which I think perhaps might be quite controversial. 

But I sent you an audio clip before you of something that  think I am going to include in the podcast so obviously you’re not going to hear it now and I’m not going to hear it now but I will include it later. 

Because it fits in with a couple of things, it certainly fits in with I think with the the Sharp situation and it also fits in with that article that I wrote last week if people haven’t read it and I suspect most people have but this idea about looking forward to the future as against looking to the past and I know people could argue well isn’t that what the Sharp thing is about but I don’t think it is and the audio clip that you’ll hear now. 

Paul: One of the greatest con tricks that football has ever managed to pull off is that professional football, football clubs, managers, referees, players, anybody associated with the professional game has tried to con us and in fact has conned us into believing that the game is all about them. 

Actually the game is not about them, the game is about football supporters and we have to reverse that and we have to support our clubs obviously but we have to support our clubs through the lens that actually they are there to provide us with what we want, with what we need and what we pay for as against us providing what they want, what they need beyond what they are paid. 

It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while, an awful lot of people currently in the game but also an awful lot of people who previously played the game and certainly an awful lot of people who are associated with Everton seem to have got the relationship between the club and the fans the wrong way around, that we’re not here to benefit them per se, we will do everything that we can do to support the team, to make the team play better on the pitch, to achieve the result that we want, which is ultimately everything winning every game that you play. 

But we’re not here for their benefit. At the end of the day, surely a football team, a football manager, everybody associated with the football club is here for not only their own benefit, but particularly for the benefits of the supporters. 

I’d be interested in your view in that.

Andy:  No, I couldn’t agree more. All the focus has been turned completely on its head and all the emphasis is on players and managers and got the big boardrooms when the whole essence of football is an entertainment package for the people. 

The people being the 30, 40, 50, 60, 70,000 people who turn up week in week out in stadiums all over the country to watch 90 minutes of football. We’ve said it until the cows come up, it’s their release from the week that’s gone by and hopefully it puts them in a good frame of mind for the week ahead. 

We’ve all been to football over the years where we’ve had a terrible performance and got beat and you go to work on Monday and obviously you get stick from fans of the opposition and what have you and you get ribbed and whatnot but it’s not a good start to the week. 

The polar opposite is when you have a good win like we had yesterday, 2-0 Ipswich, everyone’s, as you said, every blue that’s traveled down there, wherever they’ve traveled from has gone home happy and in a great frame of mind and they’re looking forward to going to work on Monday so that they can give a bit of stick out or they can have a sensible discussion with their peers who are fans of other clubs etc etc and the game is about the fans, obviously it’s about the players, we know that, we all want the best players, we all want players that we can look at as role models and heroes and ultimately legends etc etc but it’s about the fans and if you take it down to its base level, take it back to school boys, your school days, when you played for the school and your mum and dad were on the touch line. 

You wanted to do well to please your mum and dad. You wanted to do well to please your classmates who turned up on a Saturday morning to watch you play for the school or whatever. You wanted to please them. 

You wanted to get the result for your school, for your youth club, for your scout troop, whatever. And that seems to now play second fiddle to the tails wagging the dog, if you like. I don’t like bringing it down to money, but when you’ve got players earning more in one week than many of us earning five years, and then you find out that they want more money. 

and they start doing anything, get a grip. Get a grip on reality with you. You’re playing football. You know, this doesn’t matter whether, you know, whether this 70,000 at Old Trafford, 40,000 at Goodison or 25 people in the park watching the pub side play, we’d all give our heart to swap places with them and play football. 

You know, I literally would give my eye teeth to play one game of professional football or to have played one game of professional football and had 20,000 people watching me. You know, it’s a dream. It’s a dream come true for footballers and sports people of all ilks, not just footballers, rugby players, cricketers, whatever. 

But when so much of the emphasis is on them rather than the people that they are playing to entertain and please and encourage, it’s all a bit out of whack. You know, and unfortunately, the Premier League is the worst edifice of it for me, you know, because it’s, well, it’s warped the game. 

It’s warped the game in favour of the few rather than the many. And that’s the same for the fan base. You’ve got three or four fan bases, you were deliciously happy with the Premier League and the rest of us have got issues with it. 

And that’s how I feel about it. The game isn’t, and it’s not hankering back for, you know, the days of the 60s and 70s, the game isn’t what it was. It’s not the, I can’t think of the right words to put, but it’s not It’s not the common man’s game any longer, you know, it’s not the work, maybe it’s a good thing that it’s not the working class game that it used to be, but holy smoke, when you see those pictures from Pathe News or whatnot of massive crowds at Burnham Park and Goodison and Old Trafford and Maine Road or whatever, and there’s hundreds and hundreds of guys all in the flat caps. They’ve come from work, they’ve come from the pit, they’ve come from the engineering works, they’ve come from their lathe to be entertained as a release from their nine to five, five days a week job to be entertained by players who don’t put anything like that kind of physical effort in, I don’t think. 

I’m probably being unkind to the players there because they do train. of what I’ve been getting ourselves to a level of fitness that I could only dream of, but I think you know what I’m saying, Paul, I hope I’m making sense of this. 

Paul: You are. I think it’s more structural than just the players, to be honest. And this fits in with the article I wrote about, which I call Time to Say Goodbye. But let me just be very clear about the Sharp situation, because I think this all ties in together. 

The fan base is not there to be subservient or to be there for the benefits of the players. Those that go to the game on a regular basis, those who it’s in their blood and they will always go to the game home and away and have done so for generations, do so because they enjoy it. 

They do so because they want to be entertained. And specifically, they do so because they believe that they have something to contribute to the club’s success going forward and currently. And that’s particularly true, I think, at Everton. 

And there’s always been more so than many, many clubs. There are other clubs, I think, but more so than many clubs, Everton, that relationship between the club and the fan base. And I think it’s been the case for many, many years. 

But in recent years, and that article I wrote about Time to Say Goodbye talked about the gradual decline of Everton, not over 10, 15, 20, 30 years, but actual decline since the 1970s. And I think if you did like two graphs, one that showed our decline, which would start from a high point in the early 70s or under the Moores, to a much lower point where we are now under Moshiri. 

And you can throw in all sorts of different measures as to why we’re at a lower point, you know, financial performance, all sorts of different things. But actually, I think the reverse of that is that we’ve gone from a position where John Moores, in particular, in that famous quote of John Moores, and it’s, you know, used time and time again, particularly on social media, where John Moores talks about……  

You know, these are people who pay their money, they turn up, and they expect to be entertained, and they expect success. If they don’t get success, then it’s our responsibility to do things that we have to do in order to provide that success. 

That’s where we started from. In the 60s and into the 70s, early 70s at least, when we won the championship in 69/70 and it’s probably indicative of where we were before that. But the relationship between club and fans, and I’d be fascinated to hear other people’s opinions on this, seems to have changed. 

It rather than being a sense of privilege, as you described, we would give our hearts to play one professional game of football in front of 20, 30, 40, 50,000 people, whoever it may be, let alone the incredible financial rewards they get and the recognition they get for doing so, that somehow everything that the fanbase does has to be at the bequest or has to be somehow beneficial to everybody that’s involved in professional football and that we can’t be critical of those people who run our club and we can’t be critical of those who perform week in week out for our club. 

That to me is palpable nonsense. There’s no other industry in the world whereby the customers are responsible for the performance of the people who provide the product or the service that the customers buy. 

Tesla isn’t one of the best car companies in the world because of how the buyers of a Tesla car or the drivers of a Tesla car drive or what they think of the vehicles. They’re one of the best car companies in the world because of the product that they’ve produced and the service that they produce is as you and I were talking about before we started the podcast in terms of servicing the car, customer service and everything else. 

Why is it with football that we are just expected to totally take on board any nonsense that the club or the directors of a club or that the previous players of a club put out there and we as fans have to accept exactly what they say because by not doing so we might somehow damage the the performance of the club. 

In what world does that actually does that make any sense and in what world does currently and you know I hate saying this because I love Graeme Sharp as a player but there is no excuse there’s no justification and without putting too far no point on it there’s no way back for somebody who behaved in the manner in which he the other directors of our football club behaved a few years ago against those fans who were brave enough and prepared enough to argue as to how the club was being managed and to ask and demand as is their right that things change so that the club could become competitive once more. 

How dare somebody today say that as a result of their behavior I’m no longer allowed into the ground when there’s no evidence of and there never was any evidence of any danger or threat to any of those people. 

Andy: That for me was the most disappointing thing in the article in the Scotsman where he claimed that we have no idea what went on and what they were going through. It is a complete and utter nonsense and it’s a complete and utter application of first of all his responsibility as a director but also as somebody he must know the standards that are required to be a successful football player in a successful football club that wins trophies because he was part of that 80s team that you know frankly was the best. 

Paul:I talked about it in the article we weren’t the best club in Europe, but we were the best football team in Europe for a very brief period of time and obviously had Hysel not happened we would have probably continued to be that for quite a period thereafter and that’s not ever since responsibility and it’s neither is it necessarily a you know a slight on Liverpool football club but nonetheless He, Graeme Sharp, 

and any of that Everton team knew the standards that were required in order to be the best football team of their generation, which they were. And to say today that those fans that demanded or demand the standards that allow our football club to be competitive at the top of the league, it wasn’t even as if anybody was saying we need to be Champions League winners next season.  

Nobody was saying that. It was just that we wanted to be competitive then, and we want to be competitive now, and we want to be competitive in the future to allow us the opportunity to at least have a prospect of being at the top end of the League, in European football, winning silverware at some point in the future.  

particular point can’t be recognized by somebody who experienced it for himself and benefited for himself and we all enjoyed him benefiting it and we all appreciated his contribution to that. If that can’t be recognized on the other side, i.e. 

…..the club side or the individual player side, former player side, then there’s something dramatically wrong with the game and it needs calling out and it needs all fans to say this can’t continue and going forward for everything, perhaps we’re getting through the financial nightmare that we’ve been through, perhaps we’re going to get through the ownership nightmare that we’ve been through, perhaps we’re going to get through the leadership nightmare that we’ve been through and we might become a competitive team in the future and we will all want to do what we have to do in order to assist that competitive element in the future. 

We have to draw a line under the existing relationship between fans and club and we have to give the new owners and the new people are going to manage the club the space to do what they have to do but at the same time we can’t afford to go back and look at past incidents and we can’t afford to go back and say well these people have a right to attend Goodison, these people have a right for their record not to be questioned. 

That level of privilege disappeared with all that they did at that time and I think that’s all we need to say about that but we need to move on. The point being though is that the relationship between the fans and the club, the fans and football has to change. 

Football, clubs, managers, players and I think it’s to a degree evidenced yesterday by the player’s response at the end of the game to the fans, have to recognize that ultimately this whole game is for the benefits of the fans. 

And why is it for the benefits of the fans? Because ultimately it’s the fans that provide the revenue and therefore the capital that allows this game to exist. It’s us that, well not necessarily me because I don’t go to that many games, but those that pay to go to every single game, and those that pay the TV subscriptions that enable these enormous amounts of money to flow through the game. 

They’re the people that should be at the top of the chain. They’re the people who football should serve, not the other way around. We as football fans, whether you go to the game or not, we’re not here to serve football clubs. 

Football clubs are here to serve us. They’re the people who provide the product and the service, the enjoyment. the excitement and ultimately the success that encourages fans to be fans in the first place. 

That was a bit of a rant but I don’t know, the football club might build the stadium but it’s the fans that provide the atmosphere and the community. I agree totally with that but I think the point I’m making is beyond that Andy. 

Andy: No, I was just taking it down to a base level. I don’t disagree with what you’ve said at all.

Paul: They wouldn’t build the stadium if the fans didn’t create the revenue that the stadium requires in order to make it a successful financial investment. 

If that was the case, every sport in the UK would have a stadium. Sorry, if that wasn’t the case, every sport in the UK would have a 50,000 seat stadium. You can only have a 50,000 seat stadium if you’ve got 50,000 fans who are prepared to pay 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, maybe 300, whatever the top figure is, and pounds per match to go and watch it. 

Football has got to realise that football collectively has to service the needs of the fans, not us as fans, be it match -going fans or otherwise, servicing their needs. The balance between football collectively and fans has been turned on its head and it needs, particularly at Everton, but I think across football generally, it needs to be turned the other way. 

Andy: Hopefully we’ll have a golden opportunity within the next three to four months, as and when the ownership takeover iis completed and hopefully the Friedkin Group can wipe the slate clean and start all over again. 

Paul: Well, I hope so. I mean, you know, generally, obviously at a club level from a support perspective, yeah, definitely we want that. But I think more generally, and you know, I say that because I know that there are people other than Evertonians that listen to this podcast. 

I think it’s a discussion that needs to be had across football more generally. Yeah. That we have to recognise that, you know, football is a product, a service and entertainment  that needs to serve the needs of its customers as against the other way, which is, as I said in that clip earlier, maybe con is too strong a word, but, you know, the relationship is out of kilter. 

We’re not here to serve football. Football is here to serve our needs, and we pay for that as a result. I don’t know anything else in the world where one has to pay to be the provider as against pay to be the receiver. 

We’ll see what reaction we get. That’s my particular rant. It’s a shame George wasn’t here to give his contribution. Maybe you can do so next week, but on a weekend where Everton won away, first time in, is it 12 months? 

Andy: It’s maybe 12 months, if it’s not 12 months exactly. Play well. Everybody enjoyed themselves, and it’s a shame, George, to bring it up on this occasion. I just felt like I didn’t need to talk about it. 

Paul: No worries. All right, let’s leave it there. Andy, thanks for your time as ever. No problem. Thank you to everybody listening. I’m not exactly sure how long this podcast has been, but possibly a bit longer than normal. 

Thanks for listening, and look forward to speaking to you soon. Cheers. Cheers, bye. Thanks all