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

Andy and George, a couple of days after, well, I think it’s probably taken us a couple of days to sort of boil down and sort of, you know, sort of get all of the excitement of the weekend’s game.

Andy: I don’t know about boil down, more like calm down. 

Paul: Well, there’s so much to talk about. And I just thought, you know, a couple of days just so that we can get our ideas together and try and fit it into 45 minutes. Because, you know, it was a thrilling, engaging, wonderful example of professional sports. 

Andy: It was 10 minutes. Whatever you’re smoking, Paul, we want some of it. It was 10 minutes in the second half when they really played. And suddenly you could feel them collectively saying, oh, we can win this. 

We’re in. control of this game. This is, this is not going to, you know, just a bit of luck. Something will happen and we’ll be ahead of them. And they were really poor. And that was it. The 10 minutes was like, oh, and they couldn’t sustain it. 

And, you know, I think that was quite early in the second half. And to be honest, West Ham kind of took for the first time in the whole match control of anything and kind of bossed the rest of the second half. 

George: And I’ve suddenly realised, of course, that when Beto comes on for DCL, that’s a signal for 10 men behind the ball and lump it up to him and hope something happens. It was, but 10 minutes of actually playing. 

I think it was longer than that. Well, I thought, I thought we had much better the first half in which West Ham looked worse than us. Yes, I was going to be abusive there, but I thought, you know, let’s not be abusive about the opposition. 

But I thought West Ham were very, very poor and a decent team with ideas and with momentum would have buried West Ham. Absolutely buried. It would have been over and done by half time. White towels would have been thrown in from just about every West Ham fan in the stadium. 

How those guys stood there and watched that drivel, I don’t know. I mean, 3,000 Evertonians are beyond committed. But the 50 odd thousand West Ham fans who turned up there to watch that every week, but again, let’s not let’s let’s not major on West Ham. 

Let’s wait. Let’s major on the failings of Everton Football Club to put away a team that was there for the taking as were Southampton the week before. So we’ve played a team that hadn’t won all season and lost. 

Andy: We’ve played a team with no confidence and no self-belief whatsoever. And we were lucky in the end to come away with a point from a point from a potential six that was garbage. I mean, before everyone starts switching off and thinking we’ve just gone negative, I do want to throw in a few little positives from my perspective. 

One, obviously, is Ndiaye, who continues to look the real deal as a player that’s got skill, pace, intent and a willingness to go that extra mile. He does look to be an impressive signing. 

I thought Mangla, to be fair, I was not impressed with last season when he was at Forest, he’s beginning to grow on me as a footballer who can play a bit. I don’t think he’s never, he’s no great ball winner and he’s never going to break into a, if you like, a top six side. 

But I think he’s a nice footballer and he shows some good touches. I also think that Mykalenko and Ndiaye are actually forming a decent understanding down the left flank. They combined a number of times on Saturday, particularly the first half and I thought there were encouraging signs there of some interplay. 

I wouldn’t go so far as to put it. anywhere remotely close to the Baines-Pienaar partnership. But there were a few, there was embryonic signs of a partnership there, put it like that. And the other positive obviously is Jordan Pickford, who could have been forgiven for falling asleep for large chunks of that game, but he didn’t. 

He maintained his concentration, maintained his application throughout and showed exactly why he is the undisputed England number one with those two terrific saves, particularly the last one from Ings, that he put over the bar. 

So those for me were the positives. I thought, you know, Mangala and Ndiaye, you know, the embryonic partnership between Micalenko and Ndiaye in the absence of McNeil, obviously, and the ever-bossing in Pickford. 

Paul: 

But other than that, I was somewhat disappointed. And as I said, one point from six against Southampton and West Ham in their current state, or in the type of form that they were in when we took them on, is unacceptable for Everton Football Club. 

George: It’s unacceptable for me. I don’t know whether it’s acceptable for Everton Football Club, because they seem to have put up with it. I mean, I wouldn’t put up with it personally. But it’s not my call. 

But there’s evidently nobody within the club who’s got any gumption or balls to make a decision. And we’re all waiting on the Friedkins to make a decision. And they can’t do that until they’ve actually put pen to paper and signed off the deal with Mr. Moshiri, which may or may not be this side of Christmas or early in the new year. I don’t know. Something has to happen sooner rather than later, with regards to the direction that this team is being coached. 

The way it’s being managed and I feel that as far as I’m concerned, time up on Sean Dyche. We’ve been through all this for weeks on end, you know, we thank him for what he did but that’s history now, that was last season, you know, we came into this season with a little bit of hope and all that hope has been dashed on the rocks of crap performances, home and away and enough’s enough. 

I’ll shut up now. Crack him under. I don’t see what he’s trying to achieve. I don’t see any serious game plan. Yes, we did play some nice football at times but did we ever really, really hurt West Ham? 

How stretched was Fabianski? You know, how stretched were the two centre backs? You know, we’ve called for service, you know, for DCL. There was plenty of service on Saturday. Whether there was any much quality there, it remains, you know, to be discussed. 

But I just, I’ve just lost the plot now with, or I’ve just lost the will to live with Sean Dyche’s now as manager. I really have. I’m sorry, Sean, but as far as I’m concerned, time’s up. And we said that last week after Southampton. 

So it’s time’s up, time’s two. I fear that you will be counting those weeks until the Friedkins come. I don’t see who can make a decision that would please you. I don’t trust who could make that decision to make the right decision because they don’t have to replace him. 

No, I mean, we said this last week that the probability or the possibility is that the Friedkins have got, nobody does anything because it’s going to be our club in two or three, four, five weeks time. 

So we’ll make all the important decisions as of when I just hope and pray, I just hope and pray that the Friedkin group has already made their plans. And they are just waiting for the ink to be signed on the piece of paper. 

And then they can press, they can press the go button and start to do things because this cannot carry on in this manner. This football club cannot continue to limp on in basically what has been survival mode now for far too many years. 

And it’s all about getting to Bramley-Moore Dock. And the notion that Bramley-Moore Dock is going to be the saving grace of Everton Football Club. It’s a building. And that’s all it is. It’s a building. 

It is not going to solve all our problems. the problems are on the field and in the executive, not in the bricks and mortar. For crying out loud sake, people need to, people need to wise up to the fact that Bramley Moore Dock is a building. 

It’s an inanimate object and until this, until it’s packed with 52,000 people screaming their heads off in support of a team that are actually playing attractive winning football, that’s all it is, bricks and mortar. 

Now I am going to shut up. Bracket Andy. Andy times two. 

Paul:  The great sadness of course is that there’s nothing that you’ve just said Andy there that is not true. Sorry, was that a double negative? There’s nothing there that you’ve just said. 

George: Yeah, that is not true. It is the case that we are limping along. and look at other clubs making positive moves you know making changes making positive moves you know I hate to say it but United have just they sacked a manager who won them two trophies in two years and now they’ve brought in a guy that’s just kicked the ass of Pep Guardiola who’s widely regarded as the best thing since sliced bread and he handed in his ass the other night in europe you’ve only got to look across the park you know that they had Jurgen Klopp who the Kopites were absolutely fawning over they’ve forgotten who he is now because they’ve got this new guy nobody’s talking about Jurgen Klopp now they’ve had to invent some story about some referee calling him the burke or whatever Cootes called him i’ve not listened to it i’ve no intention of listening to it but that’s the only way Klopp’s name’s getting mentioned at the moment because they’ve Liverpool have brought in this Arne Slot who’s slotted in perfectly they’ve lost one game all season and i don’t think they’re invincible but they’ve got belief and confidence and they’re not scared of going up against anybody home or away in europe or domestically we’re scared of our own shadow after time okay that’s me back to you Andy

Paul: I was thinking actually after after the game I’ve not had the the good fortune I suppose to see uh again football played at the Olympic stadium the last time I went to the Olympic stadium was both for the Olympics and for for the Paralympics and I was thinking about the performance of the individuals that I saw on the occasions that I went to the stadium to see both events, 

and how everybody, regardless of where they finished in the competition, which country they represented, what their expertise, levels of expertise were and everything else, put their absolute all into the performance. 

And for many of them, they spent most of their lives preparing for the day when they were going to be at the Olympics themselves. And I’m not saying for a second that they, however many professional footballers were on the pitch, call it 30, which substitutes having all worked hard to be professional footballers and to get to where they are. 

But it did make me wonder about We’re just seeing a pale shadow of football. This is like a milky coffee. You know, it’s not, it’s not, it’s not, it’s not fully flavored. And I don’t quite know how to describe it. 

And, you know, I think it’s not an expression I particularly loke, but I think the fans have been gaslit by Sean Dyche, you know, reading his comments after the game. Entirely different. And of course, he’s going to present it entirely differently, but an entirely different representation of the game and of his mindset. 

You know, he’s talking about, you know, it’s not a bad run, one defeat in seven games. I don’t know any Evertonian that thinks we’ve performed well in the last seven games. Or is indeed satisfied with, you know, the position we find ourselves in the league. 

And it just struck me that the standards that ought to be applied in particular to Everton Football Club, because we’re Everton Football Club, but the standards that ought to be applied across professional sports, the idea that you actually, whatever the competition is, you go out to win. 

And I think you should go out and try and win every single game that you play. And even if you’re playing Manchester City away or Manchester City going through slightly difficult periods at the moment, but you know, you know, the point I’m making. 

I don’t. I don’t see that in so many football clubs and I certainly don’t see it in Everton Football Club. 

Andy:  What’s even worse is you’ve just suggested that Sean Dyche is to some extent gaslighting us. 

What’s even worse is it’s backed up by the media. I didn’t I didn’t watch Match of the Day on Saturday night. I’m roundly told by people that those idiots, Shearer and Richards were of the same opinion that one defeat in seven is okay. 

Where do these people get up with this nonsense? They would never ever, in the memory of man, suggest that about just about any other club. But it’s fine for Everton football club to go seven games with only one defeat. 

Paul: How many wins did we have? I think you’re right Andy and I often think about certain people in the media but I think particularly about former Everton players who haven’t been as critical to the club as I would like them to be and I think many other Evertonians would like them to be. 

I would love to ask them the question. Would you be satisfied to play in this team? Would you have been satisfied with that performance? Has that performance been the performance during your playing time? 

And to get a truthful answer to that question, because I can’t for the life of me believe that the genuine answer, the truthful answer to that would be yes. I’d be dismayed if it was. And until we face that, maybe we face that reality very near term when the Friedkins do come in. 

And a lot of that will depend, I think, initially on who the Friedkins bring in with them. There’s a lot of talk about what’s been going on at Roma, the fact that they’ve already gone through three managers so far this season. 

But if nothing else, it demonstrates that they’re prepared to commit to decisions and as those decisions appear to be wrong, they’re prepared to do something different about it. There’s a guy that sits on the Roma board. 

I think it would be very interesting once the Friedkin deal does go through to see if this guy appears on the Everton board and just remember his name type moment. The guy’s name is Eric Williamson. He’s basically the Friedkin’s fixer. 

So across all of their businesses, when they have a problem, they call for this guy and this guy comes in and he sorts it out. He’s the guy that’s been charged with sorting out the current problem at Roma. 

And he’s a change engineer for want of a better description. He is the guy that if we’re gonna make the massive wholesale changes that we need to make at Everton, I think he’s the guy that will come into the club. 

So when they do announce the takeover as completed, and they do say who’s gonna be on the new board, just look out for this guy, because I think he is the guy that’s gonna make the big changes. Okay. 

And those big changes are obviously the personnel who run the business, manage the business, possibly even including Colin Chong. And then from the footballing side, they have to obviously include Sean Dyche. 

And I think they have to now include, and we’ve talked about this previously, but the director of football. Because for me, There’s no direction in our football operations. 

George: We are. Hard to see. But playing as a team, it seems like the sole objective is to come away with a point in every game that we play. 

It’s survival mode, that’s it. There’s no ambition mode. I suppose you could say that surviving is the ambition, but that’s not the kind of ambition that we want to, you know, do we want to be associated with our level of ambition being surviving. 

Paul: But this, I mean, this is arguably a better squad than we had last year. That’s what I’m saying. 

George: That’s why I’m saying, Paul, that we went into this season with a little bit of hope and 10 games in, where is it? 

Dashed on the rocks. 

Paul: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, before you take off the points penalty, we gained 48 points from 38 games last season. Are we going to get to 48 points this season with a better team? And it’s difficult to say whether it’s a more competitive league or not, but are we going to get to 48 points? 

George: It doesn’t seem likely the way that we’re playing currently. And it doesn’t seem that, more importantly, it doesn’t seem that Dyche believes that we’re going to do that. Dyche has only one purpose for Everton Football Club, and that is to keep us in the Premier League. 

Nobody expects him to play football anymore. Nobody expects him to win anything. Nobody expects him to put together a team so tough and so balanced that you can’t score against them. So we’ve got a real champion and a cup tournament, that’s not the game. The game is keep the job, keep us 15th, 15th, 16th, thank you, get nil-nil, bore everyone to death, that’s fine. And then we can only, as Andy said, hope and pray that something much, much, much more positive is on the cards once this wretched owner has gone. 

Andy: I can’t see anything else, I can’t see anything else to expect really. He’s got, you know, there’s no, there’s no footballing ambition in Dyche and his team. Now maybe he’d say, you can’t have a footballing ambition with the squad that I’ve got. 

And so then… If he were to put that argument forward, that doesn’t stack up. Didn’t we say last week that the side that faced Southampton had 10 internationals in it? And it was McNeil. McNeil, that was the same side. 

So the argument that the squad, he hasn’t got the squad to play decent football is false. He’s got international in just about every position. Now you could say, yeah, they’re not top class internationals. 

It doesn’t matter. They’re playing it internationally. They play regularly in international football. They’re not limited to just playing in the Premier League. And okay, the last two weeks we’ve played an average Southampton and a rather woeful looking West Ham. 

But in a few weeks’ time, we’re going to be playing the top sides. And you said it, our kid. Hopefully the players will look forward to those games as a chance to really test themselves. If not got anything to lose, everyone’s expecting them. 

Nobody will expect Everton to take anything from Liverpool, United City, Arsenal, Chelsea, and whoever else you’ve got coming up in this side of Christmas. So hopefully the players can get it into their heads. 

Andy: Hang on, we’ve nothing to lose here. Let’s go out and have a go. If they go out and have a go, a good, honest go for it, and we get stuff, then we get stuff. Nobody’s expecting us to win anyway. So go and give it a go. 

Never mind what that idiot on the touch line says. once he wipes his nose all game long, just get a grip of him, you know Tarkowski or Pickford or somebody, get a grip of him before they actually kick off and say, ignore him, we’re going to play this game. 

He can put up substitute boards all he wants, we’re just not going to leave the field. He can only make five anyway, he can’t change all bloody eleven of us.

George:  Oh gosh, that was true Andy. The players need to revolt, if you like. 

You know, come on boys, you professional footballers, show some heart, some spirit. Don’t listen to this dinosaur. They must know in their own hearts that they are better players than they are currently. 

Paul: Showing every one of them. But then I mean isn’t it a feature of modern football that players don’t express individuality in any sense and they basically adhere to the tactics and formations that the manager places upon them. 

I’m not giving the players a free pass here by any stretch of the imagination because I am with you totally on this Andy. But it doesn’t seem to be the case that modern day footballers either have the desire or the ability or want to express themselves individually and play in a manner that actually presents them in the best possible light. 

Andy: They do seem to be dominated by the managers. What a sad indictment of the modern game then. What a sad indictment of the modern game that managers not you know and not just Sean Dyche but plenty of other managers are willing to dare I say stifle talent for some cock-eyed vision of how they think the game should be played and you know. 

Paul: It’s all driven Andy isn’t it from the starting point and the starting point is effectively where do we want to finish the end of the season? What are our objectives here? If you’re one of the top four, five, six clubs the objective is to be in the Champions League. 

If you’re in the next sort of set of groups of clubs the objective is possibly to get into the Champions League but more. than likely just qualify for European football. And then you get the rest of the division which is the bottom half of the division including the promoted clubs whose sole objective is just to make sure that they’re not in the bottom three at the end of the season. 

George: And that makes for completely pragmatic football from those teams. They don’t feel as though they’ve got, you know, I think that’s gone from the majority of modern football. I mean, I don’t watch football in France and I don’t watch football in Germany either, but I would bet you that it’s probably pretty similar to what we’re watching in the lower reaches of the Premier League, Great Britain. 

Oh, guess what, boys? Well, I’ve remembered my quiz question. I’m getting depressed with this conversation. So here you are. Across Europe, which countries has the largest percentage of its population going to watch professional football every week? 

Andy: It’s a percentage. Yeah. No. That was somewhat prestigious. Yes, it was. Faroe Islands. Faroe Islands. 

George: Any ideas, boys? 

Paul: I would say, yeah, either Belgium or Holland. 

George: Scotland.

Andy: Really? 

George: Second, Portugal. 

Interesting, isn’t it? Yeah. I don’t know what to extrapolate out from here, but it’s a good, quick question, won’t it? Very, very good question. And I was watching YorkRI, York Railway Institute, under sixes, with my grandson, Dylan, in brilliant form, in goal, on Sunday. 

And below me, there was an Evertonian on the touchline who said that the rumour he’d heard was that Ancelotti’s time is up at rail. They’re not going to win the league this year. And he reckoned that that series of Friedkins were bringing back what they would go for, to bring him back to Goodison. 

At which point, my eldest son, Dylan’s dad, who is a RS supporter, goes, oh, I wonder who’s going to take over at the Bernabeau. Me and this bloke both went, DYCHE! Obviously. What could be more? 

It just swaps, a straight swap. I would love to see the back pages of the Madrid press if that happened. That’d be a laugh, wouldn’t it? John, do you shape these? It’s not going to happen. Angelotti comes back, is it? 

Andy: I’d be surprised. I mean, Angelotti would want some serious guarantees if he did. But, you know, Everton are standing on the brink of a brand new broom. And, you know, one hopes that they’re very bold. 

George: Andy was saying about, you know, the thing about… and how stagnant so much football has become because you’re right. I think both of you are absolutely right. I think the players are afraid to express themselves because they will get dropped. 

They won’t play 13 football. They have to follow the patterns that they rehearsed all week in and out of possession. So, you know, when was the last time you had you? Who was the last dribbler you saw in British football? 

Somebody who the team went, oh, let him lose the ball, because, you know, occasionally, because the damage he does when he’s got the ball is worth it. And, you know, to answer my own question, I would say it’s probably Arsenal, actually, because Saka and Martinelli, but particularly Saka, does have the license to have a run at people. 

But it’s really rare. And that expression of of the joy of footballers. There was a lad who was there was the lad who was at Palace, isn’t he? Now, is he now at Real? Was it Elise? 

Andy: Oh, really? Has he gone to Real? 

George: I think he’s at Real. He’s somewhere in Spain, I think. Wow. Oh, yeah, he was tasty. Michael Elisa. Yeah. 

Yeah. But I know I know what you’re saying. I mean, it’s funny, actually, because a gang of lads I used to work with years ago were all United fans. 

One of them posted a YouTube film of Bestie on the WhatsApp group we’re in today. And this WhatsApp film was like 25 minutes long of Bestie just ripping the backside out of full backs here, there and everywhere and making people look stupid. 

And I was watching it while I was on the train this morning. I actually thought God, you know, football could just do with someone like Bestie again. Just to excite us all. He might have been the opposition, but God, he excited people. 

 George: Well, I think what Paul said, what Paul said is right as well. The top six clubs in Britain can afford to play a bit of that. You know, I watched Chelsea and Arsenal, I watched half of Chelsea and Arsenal on Sunday. 

And there was some, you know, there was some right bitchy football going on. They were snapping and all they were all getting their knickers in a twist, it was camp. But there was some decent, some nice football players, some really, you know, really flowing, gentle stuff. 

But I am absolutely certain Paul and you are both right to say, not only doesn’t really believe in that as a, as a way of playing football, but doesn’t believe if you dare play that kind of football, because it doesn’t know how to coach it, does it? 

Andy: I don’t think, there’s no evidence to suggest that he does that, do you know? and he wasn’t brought here to do that. He’s done the job that he was brought here to do. So we’ve just got to shut our gobs and stop moaning and wait for the Friedkins. 

And if they appoint Alerdychii, then we can all go off and watch Tranmere Rovers quietly. 

PAul: I’m hoping that they’re a bit more adventurous than that. Yeah. You see, while the logical side of my brain agrees, you just said there, George, the more aggressive side, the Evertonian in me says, we can’t afford to wait. 

And every game that we play under this manager is a lost opportunity, a lost opportunity to gain points in games where we should be gaining points. And it’s a lost opportunity in terms of demonstrating to everybody else who’s in football. 

That Everton is a team that’s worth considering for future employment. And so it’s just our recruitment. It’s just our recruitment at first team level, but then filtering down into the scouting and the finding of new players to come through the academy, et cetera. 

All of the stuff that we’re showing on the pitch currently must drive people away from our football club.

George:  Right. I don’t disagree with you, but just practically, I’m going to appoint you chairman of Everton Football Club as of this Tuesday night. 

It was an international break. The next match is Brentford who’s leading the team out. Who are you going to appoint? 

Paul: Yeah, well, it certainly wouldn’t be Sean Dyche. I suppose if you had to If you had to pick a young manager, maybe Carsley, maybe. 

I’m just saying maybe. I’m not suggesting for a second it’s easy. As you said last week or as I said last week, I don’t have enough knowledge of the game in terms of who the young managers are. I know there are good young managers across the European game who would drop everything to have a chance to manage a Premier League club. 

But the fact is that other clubs do that and other clubs have done it successfully in the Premier League.

George:  Why are we any different? Now you’re making me think about this properly. Ferguson took over for four games and the difference was amazing. 

Well, it actually is four games until the Friedkins arrive. And I know that Ferguson is somewhere else now, but this is actually what United just did. They sacked the bloke who they didn’t want, i.e. 

Sean Dyche in our case, maybe. And they brought in an interim guy while they waited for the for the Friedkins to arrive, i.e. Ammar Riddle or whatever his name is. And it worked for them. It gave them a boost and somebody who came in who knew that you say to players, go out and play. 

And players will go, oh, thank God for that. And that’s what United looked like, a team that was in a way released. They’re not very good, they’re not very organized, but they were better than they were three weeks ago. 

And maybe, you know, we don’t have a Duncan Ferguson on the staff, do we, anymore? Or if you were to go with that plan, who would you who would you give it to? When you know and you ought to know that the Friedkins are going to go, that’s only for a few weeks. 

I mean, that’s what I assume is going to happen. I think we’ve all assumed that, and we certainly most of us hope it’s going to happen. But is there anybody? I mean, Baines? You know, do you take a mad risk? 

Because what you were talking about before, Andy, the answer to that is Seamus Coleman. He’s got his buddies. Do you actually go right? Sure. Thanks, mate. Seamus, you’ve got four games. Have a go at this. 

Because he’s the one who talks like you were saying to the team, according to Ashley Young. And, you know, he feels it all better than most of us have. well. I mean, I know we have got everything to lose, but what could we lose by doing that? 

Andy: As you say, at this minute in time, Coleman might be the one person who could go into the dressing room and rev them up in a positive nature, as well as the teapot throwing nature. I mean, sorry to be negative, but how can he do that when he’s been, if we accept that the Everton first team… 

George: According to form, he did it the other week, didn’t he? He went in and ripped him a new backside during half time and they came out a different team in the second half. 

Paul: He can only do that so many times, can’t he? 

Andy: Well, exactly, which is the problem that Duncan Ferguson had, it was brilliantly the first game. it nearly worked in the second game at Old Trafford. It didn’t work in the third and we got knocked out on penalties in the League Cup. 

Paul: So it was one win, one draw, one loss and an exit from the Cup. Now I’m not belittling what Ferguson did, but if we’ve got potentially four games between now and the three kids coming in, then can we afford not to take a bit of a gamble? 

George: I don’t know Paul, I don’t know if we were going to make that gamble and we were going to do it from in-house, then potentially Coleman might be worth that gamble. 

Paul: Just think about it for a second. If you look at the next five games which take us up to the 14th of December, just a month away, next five games and we set up the way that we know Dyche will set up 

So just playing a sole striker, not playing Ndiaye through the middle, and all of the problems that we know about in a very slow, turgid way, giving up possession, etc. Brentford at home, what’s that likely to be? 

A draw? The best. 

George: The way Brentford played, a draw might be considered a very positive result because they do play with gay abandon, don’t they? They just go for it.

Paul:  So he’s going to set up reasonably defensively and give Brentford the majority of the ball one thing, even though we’re at home. 

Right so but let’s say that we get one point out of this i know this is a bit sort of fantasy football type stuff but it’s worth going through then we’re away united now anything can happen there but generally it’s not good for us and i can’t see I can’t see us holding out no matter how poor united are for 90 minutes against the United team I thought we’ll traffic no probably i tend to agree with that so i’m saying yeah i’m actually against ashley young yeah 

Go on then Wednesday the 4th of December, Wolves at home i mean you could flip a coin i suppose and choose any result there because if if wolves play well they might win if we play well we might win that let’s let’s let’s take a win from that let’s take a win from that okay And then we’ve got Liverpool at home on Saturday. 

As much as it pains me to say this, I don’t think this Dyche team and the way Dyche sets up, unless we see, again, more, more brilliance from Pickford. And we see a bit more stability in defence because let’s hope that Branthwaite is back in the 45th. 

Andy: Well, let’s prove like this. Common sense in the form book would say that that’s a nailed on away win to them. Yeah. But we all know that in a derby, you know, I mean, it’s the cliche in it, the form book goes out the window. 

: 

You just can never quite tell. It is quite happen in a derby. I mean, I think I mean, realistically, we’d all be ecstatic if we got a point from that. We’d be positively orgasmic if we won it. And then we beat them last year. 

George: Yeah. Yeah. We beat them at Everton. We beat them at Goodison. I watch them on Sunday. They’re boring. They’re really that what that guy’s changed about that team is it’s completely pragmatic with really good players. 

They want to put off time against Villa and they just keep the ball for 20 minutes in the second hour. And there’s nothing to watch. They’re awful. I think we should stuff them. So I hope you’re right. You said the football fantasy. 

Paul: Yeah. And, you know, we should be going into I know it’s a it’s a 1230 kick off, which is not great. But we should be going into this is likely to be the last ever home derby played at Goodison. 

And, you know, we should be sending Liverpool absolutely packing and that should be the, you know, the philosophy and the thought process goes into the lead up beforehand. And, but whether it will or not, I don’t know that the point being, and then the Arsenal way on the 14th, which is probably went in and around when the frequency takeover, you know, do we pick up four points, perhaps five points, 

Possibly, but that’s one, two, three, four, that’s five games, five points. So that means that we’re still averaging just less than a point a game. And we’re, you know, more than a third of the way through the season at that stage, nearly halfway through the season. 

At what point, at what point does somebody have to say, well, this is not what we’re doing currently, isn’t it? It is not acceptable and may well not get us to where we need to be, which is survival. 

I think we need to be much further on than just survival for many reasons.

George:  Can I ask a different question then? If you were Dan Friedkin looking at the state of things and knowing that you can’t make a decision until December the 14th, what do you hope Everton will do between here and there? 

Paul: Well, if it was me and this is admittedly a high risk strategy, I would fire Dyche. I’d bring in an interim manager, whoever that might be. Again, my knowledge of football is not good enough to say who it would be, but I would bring in an interim manager. 

And I would be using my recruitment team to decide on who I want to be the permanent manager, who I would appoint at either the end of December or the very beginning of January. 

Andy: Right. I’m kind of hoping they’ve already done that bit. 

Paul: Yeah. That they’ve already identified who they want to bring in at the quickest possible juncture. Yeah. And you know, I say this, including a new director of football as well. Well, I think I can’t bear the idea of thinking that they’re not doing that Andy. 

Andy: I’ve got to believe they’ve got that. That’s surely fundamental. Because, you know, sorting out the mess of the marketing and the uselessness of, you know, I was talking, all the drivers on this job I’m on are all RS scousers, and they’re all going, this is your last season, and nobody’s saying anything about it. 

George: All that side of Everton is not actually the issue. The issue is on the pitch. I think if I was taking over the club tomorrow, the bit you would go, I don’t care about all that for the minute, I want to focus on this team, and I would agree with Paul, I would replace those coaches as fast as I could, and try and find some way to free the team up to play better football. 

Especially with this fixture list that’s coming up, because as you both said, and you’re dead right, what do you expect from it?

Paul: The best way of creating a great atmosphere around Goodison is by playing attractive football winning games. 

And the question has to be, can that be achieved under Sean Dyche? The answer to that is almost certainly not, because if it was the case, he would have done so previously and he hasn’t and he won’t. 

And I don’t believe he’s got the ability to do so. So what exactly are we waiting for? Well, now you’re coming down to, you know, that’s a really good question. And the answer is, who is making those decisions at Goodison? 

Andy: Well, currently nobody is, are they? Quite. So, you know, the frustration just grows week in, week out, because, you know, the team are more or less inert on the pitch. And look at me if everything else isn’t inert as well. 

George: The sad thing is, there’s no simple answers to any of this, is there? That’s the really dispiriting thing. There is, Andy. Paul’s quite right. You know, we’ve now got an international break. You could, if you had the gumption and the run, you just said it, Andy, you’ve got the gumption and the balls, you would replace the coaching team with a new coaching team. 

You would just upgrade if, you know, I would say, I would say, because you know that the Friedkins, you must know, everybody in a power position must know the Friedkins have got somebody, but he’s not coming until they can take over because they can’t do that. 

So I would give it to Baines and Coleman and anybody else I could think of who had some heart and soul and understood what the fans feel every time they go in that place. And just what, four weeks? odds. 

Andy:  What are the odds? I don’t believe that Coleman’s naive, tactically. I don’t believe Baines is either. I believe the pair of them could probably teach Tarkowski and Branthwaite precious little about how to defend better. 

But they might just say to the team, right, let’s play two up front. Let’s try and attack these people whoever the hell they are. Let’s have some fun, boys. You know, Dyche talks about…

Paul:  I think you’re right, George, Dyche talks about, you know, he talked after the game on Saturday about getting back to defensive stability and having the reason why we were so good defensive last year is because, you know, we have a good defence. And if you follow that argument through. If you have a good defence, if you have, I mean, we have England’s number one goalkeeper, we have probably the best goalkeeper in the Premier League. 

In Branthwaite, we have the best young central defender in the Premier League. We have experience alongside him in Tarkowski, although not being as good as he could be. And you could argue that in front of them, just central midfield, Gueye, even though he’s 35, he’s still relatively competitive. 

Obviously, we have issues at fullback and stuff, but if you accept the premise that last year we were okay defensively and we can be okay defensively again this year, and with Brantway back in the side, that seems like a relatively easy fix for the team. 

Why then why then don’t you have the confidence, if you believe that you are good defensively, why then don’t you have the confidence to express yourself going forward and to create bigger and better attacking solutions, i.e. present a greater threat to the opposition with the confidence that you have, as will inevitably happen from time to time, you lose possession. We have a defence that can cope with that.

 If we had a really crap goalkeeper, if we had two really crap centre-halves to go alongside our fallback options, then I could understand the need to be ultra defensive and to have to defend from every position on the pitch. 

But actually, that’s not the case, is it? It’s not the case. The best goalkeeper, we’ve got as good a central defensive partnership as pretty much anybody else in the league, maybe apart from two or three clubs and certainly competitive, you know, the best probably in the bottom half of the division. Why, why doesn’t that liberate the rest of the team to play better football? Because they know that they’ve got defence, good defence backing them up. 

That’s the bit that I really don’t understand. Why are they all scared? Why, why do we go into every game? Why does Dyche talk about every game as if, you know, we’ve just played Real Madrid or Barcelona? 

Why does he set up that way? If that’s his mentality when he’s talking to the media, that must be his mentality when he’s talking to the players throughout the week. Yeah, and the fear is that they’re falling for it. 

George:  Yeah, I’ll have fun for it and I’m struggling to, struggling to. But knock them in bed, doesn’t it? It’s just part, it’s just become part of the footballing culture. Yeah, I’m sick of this. This is depressing because the answer to your question is in the day who is easily the best first touch in the club. 

Yeah, he’s got pace to lose you over three yards. He’s a danger to everybody. Where does Dyche park him? Oh, I’m just done with it. He doesn’t know how to coach attacking football, Paul. No, he doesn’t know. 

George:  And as you said before, the players must play to the pattern that he plays, otherwise you get dropped or whatever, and he doesn’t actually, you know, I mean, I’m not sure who I’d pick to, but I’d certainly put an endi as close as I could to the centre forward to watch him fiddle about on the left wing while Doucoure, who’s, you know, only oh, I can’t, I’m sick to death of slagging people who are miles better at this than I am. 

It’s just so exhausting. Being a fan sometimes. McNeil is a really good football player, so is Ndaye, and I’m very fond of DCL and his effort. Beyond that, I think Lindstrom wouldn’t get a game for any other club. 

I’m not sure Jack Harrison would. And I don’t quite know what his options are. But those three should be playing close to each other. And I think they could rip people up. If you give them the licence to and don’t go, you have to drop back, you have to cover, you have to, you know, all that stuff that I presume goes on, I don’t know. 

Andy”: I can’t disagree. It would be nice to see you Ndiaye playing a lot closer to DCL. He started the season there. I don’t know what he did wrong. And I don’t know what is supposed to be so wonderful about playing him at left wing. 

I’m lost. It’s a waste. It’s a waste of a dangerous man. He is a dangerous player. We’ve not actually stuffed full of dangerous players. We have got 10 internationals, but they’re competent. He’s not competent. 

George: He’s a bit special. If I was a defender, those two big lumps at West Ham, who played well, and I had a nice time knocking DCL about between them, would have been a lot more worried if I’d been going, you know, and can you do this, this fast? 

Paul: I don’t think you can. I don’t know. Before we finish, on the subject of change and people saying how difficult it is to make these changes, the changes that all Evertonians have been calling out for. 

I don’t know if you noticed, but obviously one of the more successful clubs in recent years, given who they are, has been Brighton HA and how well they’ve done, both on and off the pitch, particularly with recruitment and stuff. 

Have you noticed that they’ve gone completely, now almost completely down the route of just data-driven recruitment? 

Andy: Are they playing money balls? 

Paul: Effectively, they’ve either redeployed or fired all of their scouting operations, so they don’t actually scout now. 

It’s all data-driven.

George:  That’s a bit weird. Don’t you scout for young kids? 

Paul: Well, a lot of that now is you can get the data on young kids.

Andy:  That’s Moneyball the other night. It’s a terrific film and it’s a terrific story, but that’s in a stop-start game of baseball. 

I’d love to know how they’re playing moneyball with a fluid game like football. 

George: Well, the answer to that, Andy, is know how they want to play football and they change. managers but the team plays the same kind of football. 

Paul: I think I suspect they also know more about the game than with the possible exception of Brentford and I suspect they’re ahead of Brentford in this respect. They know more about the game from a data perspective than any other football club certainly in the Premier League. 

Tony Bloom has for years developed his own data model to the extent that he used it. He actually first started because Bloom made most of his money through gambling, through betting. What was the name of the company? 

Starlizard. He set up a data company, I think it was in Switzerland, called Starlizard. just to do analysis of the sports betting market so that he could make money professionally, which is what he did. 

And then that then evolved into a data model which allowed Brighton to identify players before other clubs did so. And what they’re saying now is that their data model is so sophisticated, so superior to what might argue the more human elements that everybody’s relied on in the past in terms of recruitment, that they can actually do away with those human elements. 

And that’s a massive move. And I don’t think necessarily it’s a high-risk move, because again, I suspect it’s data-driven. They’ve done the analysis. If we did just what they for want of a better expression, the computer model tells us to do in terms of the players that we need to buy, the players that we can buy and sell for profit, et cetera, and we compare that to the results of what is more human and done elsewhere, 

then they must have the data that proves that their systems are more accurate and more correct than others. So if we’re thinking about how difficult it is to make change at Everton, here’s a club which by its own standards is now extraordinarily successful. 

Not winning silverware, but very, very successful established Premier League club, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. There’s no reason why Everton under somebody like the Friedkins couldn’t do the same. 

Absolutely none, obviously. I’d like to see that evolve, really good. Now, I, you know, I don’t think the frequency of that data and I don’t think that they have the systems but what I’m trying to say is, is that it’s a model, isn’t it’s a model, and we can make, we can make changes that are not just driven by the management team and not just driven by the people who are running the football club, it can be data driven. Right. And maybe, maybe it takes a while to work through the system. And maybe that’s what’s what’s needed, because we’re not going to change overnight all we want, even when the frequency come in. 

But no, I just, I just, I just thought it was interesting. 

George: Yes. Yeah, I’ll say. Wow. Sure. not sure we’ve got much else to talk about really, have we? Yes, another international break. And yeah, I’m surprised we were able to talk this much about what happened over the weekend, but there you go. 

Andy: Oh well, we’ve managed it. Sorry. I say, oh well, we’ve managed it. We’ve managed it. 

Paul: Indeed. Can I just finish on one thing? I know sometimes it’s a bit strange talking about other podcasts and stuff, and I don’t know the reason for this, but I noticed that the American Toffee podcast has ceased publishing. 

Andy: Really? I haven’t noticed that. 

Paul: Yeah, they didn’t do one this weekend, and there was a tweet by them saying that they would basically, the podcast has finished, which is a great shame because not only was it a very different podcast from podcasts like ours, because that was a data-driven podcast in many senses, but I just think they, and I can only talk about myself, they need congratulating for the work that they did in expanding and encouraging and developing the Everton fanbase in the US. 

So I know the guys at that podcast listened to our podcast, so if they’re listening to this, sad that they’re no longer podcasting, but I think it has to be acknowledged the great work that they did in getting information to and encouraging the growth of Everton Football Club in the US. 

Andy: Fair play. Yeah, absolutely. 100%. Maybe, maybe. And do we know if they’ve ceased permanently or are they just taking a break? 

Paul: He said an indefinite break. Right. They’re depressed, they’re bloons. Trump’s won the election. 

They haven’t been playing football that you wouldn’t want to show your granny. And they’re just going, right, chill your boots, boys. They’re Friedkin, wait for that. And they’ll be back. Yeah, new year. 

Paul: Yeah, so. Yeah, yeah. All right. We’ll set them a target. A new year return. Well, I’ll send Ryan a message after this podcast and see what he says in response. Yeah, there we go. OK, guys, listen, have a good week. 

And we will talk at the weekend. Although, obviously, no Everton football to talk about, but we’ll, I’m sure, find something else to talk about then. No worries. Thank you so much, thank you, Andy. 

Thank you. Take care, guys. Thanks to everybody for listening. Goodbye. Thank you.