Now I'm gonna have to turn my back on you ...

On Wednesday night I decided I was going to try and cut Everton out of my life. The goal of course is to shit out the Premier League - that's the virus. Everton is the host. I'm 43 and have supported them since I was about six. My first visit to the magnificently huge Goodison Park was against Norwich in the late 70s.

It wasn't the defeat to Chelsea - although that didn't help - that finished me off, that just happened to be the day I finally had enough.

A few years ago I'd have been gutted by that late goal but as it was I just shrugged because, in essence, I don't care any more.

I rarely go the match now and on the occasions I have it's become more and more obvious that it just doesn't mean that much to me. I first got the feeling at Nürnberg away - a great trip but for the match itself it just seemed to affect other people more than me.

Of course if Everton were any good it might be different. But they're not so it isn't.

Wednesday's match sums it up for me. Eden Hazard is a brilliant player but he's operating in a time where tackling is all-but illegal - everything's a foul and nothing's handball.

When he - or any of them - gets the ball in the area a defender can't afford to tackle because if he misses and there is "contact" that's it. It makes the game laughable. "Contact" is now the second major currency in a match, after goals. It's all they talk about on those wretched droneathons which fill the airwaves in the ever-briefer moments between matches.

We're living in a time where people go out of their way, not only to hear Robbie Savage, but also speak to him. Why?

Back to the Chelsea game though. Jose Mourinho, the twerp's twerp, made a point that Everton were fouling a lot in the game. But they weren't. The referee was blowing for fouls a lot because every time there was the blessed "contact" the Chelsea players were demanding a foul, which in the main they got.

The referee in that game - arch vole John Moss - clearly swallowed it over the "strangling" incident, and that's inexcusable, but just imagine the pressure on him. Not only on the pitch, but from the sidelines when you've got a "personalty" like Mourinho demanding obedience. That doesn't excuse the ref's shithousery but I think it goes a way to explaining it. Sub-consciously you're going to want to keep that little prick onside.

Not to suggest it's all Chelsea - they're no worse than a lot of them but they're the last game I saw. As a pal said last year, every single player is out to cheat at every possible opportunity from the moment they get on the pitch. If a player dives and the ref gives a penalty he hasn't, unless he's a "homer", got it wrong, the player has cheated - that is the problem.

Yes the referees do get a lot wrong, but why is a referee's mistake - say missing a foul for a penalty - worse than a player missing an open goal?

As the price, of tickets and TV costs, goes ever up the quality of the "product" goes down for me. By trying to make each game an occasion the Premier League has deadened the impact of the real occasions.

And the Premier League is probably the main thing that's done for me. The announcement of the £5 bullion - ha, I wrote "billion" but it auto-corrected to that - TV deal was astounding enough but it was the aftermath that really got me.

Chief exec Richard Scudamore's insistence that it's not down to the club's to pay their stadium staff a living wage just sums up that organisation.

He wasn't overheard making these remarks, which while not making it right might at least explain things. He said it explicitly in an interview on Radio 4's Today programme. As if to say, "yes? And?"

The sheer arrogance, the utter disdain for working - ie poor - people is staggering. The bottom club in the league when this new deal comes in will get a minimum of over £100,000,000 for the season. Pay people an extra two quid an hour - go nuts.

The usual argument gets offered up in mitigation about film stars and the staff who work low down in the film industry. There's no comparison with people making the choice of working at the bottom of an industry because they're paying their dues and hoping to crack it and someone who travels 90 minutes - each way - to work at a stadium on match day because that's her main income.

That last one was someone I knew when I worked at a football club from 2006 to 2009. The job was great, exhausting and horrible.  Compared to other support staff I wasn't on terrible money.

But even then I had to fight for a pay rise - there was no inflation rises - which involved a meeting with the chief exec who said he'd pay me the extra but warned there'd be no money for anyone else to have a pay rise. A classic management strategy, hoping I'd shit out and exit his office ringing my cap. I pointed out that we didn't have collective bargaining there and I took it. That upped my money from £23k to £26k. Big time.

The people working at clubs donate thousands in unpaid overtime over the course of a season and the clubs come to bank on it. "Can you just…" Eventually you have to decide if you want to keep doing it.

The club I worked at was alright, the players seemed a good bunch and my department was small but full of good, committed people, as was the whole club. They're all still there and I miss working with them at times, but then I remember the late nights, the headaches, the time I had to keep going in for two weeks while horribly sick and the time I kept taking other people's trolleys in the supermarket because I was exhausted. Then I don't miss it so much.

Clive Efford, Labour MP for Eltham and shadow sports minister, cut down some bonehead on Radio 5 in the week who said football is a business, pointing out it's not like any other business because you have your team for life.

There is simply no comparison with any other aspect of popular culture. What other "business" has people going week after week, year after year, paying good money - rising beyond any reasonable measure - in the hope - the hope! - that it might be any good?

That's what the clubs rely on - they've got you and you can't escape. Everton aren't as bad as a lot and they're better than others but they're part of the stinking hypocrisy that is the Premier League and I want out because, basically, it gives me nothing any more. (I'll watch the Uefa games like.)

Tim to go? (Oh I say!)

NSNO.co.uk security council take the news badly

As we hurtle through another week of squandered opportunity before the inevitable breaking of our collective spirit over the back of apathy/the Tories/your mum, news drifts in that the moderate Blues are to get shut of Tim Cahill.
A lot of people will be saying how Cahill is one of the few recent players to really 'get' what it is to be an Evertonian, and they may well be right.
But they love him at Millwall too - and it went both ways - remember when he scored against them in the FA Cup?
What I liked about him was the goals he scored, so I've gone off him lately, and the opportunity his being a Blue afforded me for getting in the match for free.
I used his name to get press tickets for Everton matches in some of Europe's most exotic fleshpots: Liege and Fulham spring readily to mind.
They were heady days but, like Cahill's powers, they've faded into the background. He's not been the same player for a couple of years now, despite a mini-resurgence when Nikica Jelavic came in. But then no one could keep up that level of effort and not slow down a touch.
The timing is right if he does leave, but it does feel like the end of an era at Goodison. Cahill represented David Moyes' philosophy more than any other player he's signed. Extremely hard working, a bit of a wanker on the pitch, very effective and versatile.
He's getting out just in time to avoid the inevitable abuse that he'd have got this season too.

Same as it ever was

Pfft

It's telling that Leon Osman is David Moyes' most-used player. He is the manager writ large on the pitch - good to a point but can't cut it in the big games.
Osman has never really turned up in the derby - Moyes, only occasionally.
We need change at Everton - everyone can see this - but what's the point of getting some billionaire in to fight for the crumbs that fall of Manchester City's table? That way lies ruin. Everton need a complete overhaul. The way the club approaches everything must change.
Moyes is bulletproof at Everton but this conservatism is holding us back - the idea that if he leaves the whole thing collapses. That's a risk but it's one we need to take. Bill Kenwright, of course, will do nothing as he's in thrall of the manager. As he was the previous one until it was nearly too late.
Here's what won't happen: Kenwright thanks Moyes for his time and gets in, as it was rather eloquently put after Saturday's collapse, 'some foreign bloke'. It's glib but bear with me.
He then says, we've seen the future and it's Athletic Bilbao - the way they press all over the pitch, the way they are all comfortable on the ball, the way they play without fear. This is what we want for Everton.
The club should say that this will take a while and we may be shit for a few years - but then we're pretty shit anyway - but we have absolute faith in this vision. It is the only viable option for Everton.
Evertonians will accept Everton being shit - we're used to it now. But I think we'd all like to see a new young, vibrant Everton. We had a young, vibrant manager but unfortunately he's become stale.
Look at the teams who've wiped the floor with us in Europe over the last few years - the way they all play. Fast, quick passing. And then look at us.
This patchwork squad building model is never going to really cut it - but it's largely the only option open to the manager at present. So we change and have every player at every level of the club playing the right way. Comfortable on the ball and aggressive. The way Bilbao played against United - leaving them looking like a lumbering dinosaur - was exhilarating.
I don't know how we go about this and I have no idea who the manager to do it is, but there should be people at the club constantly working on improving us. If not, why not?
Saturday's routine loss doesn't have to be for nothing if it kick-starts a complete revision at Everton. Of course it won't though, and wouldn't it be just like Everton to go to Old Trafford on Sunday and get shrugged aside ahead of more patronising words from Sir Alex Ferguson?
Nil satis nisi optimum (unless we play Liverpool or in any kind of big game).

Rebirth Song | Bleep Bleep

Rebirth Song | Bleep Bleep

Kopites are?

The humanity!

BANG! And so the mask finally slipped to reveal the ugly, twisted, ugly, toothless, pale, ugly, a-bit-like-Darth-Vader-without-his-hat-on face of the Liverpool supporter.
So much has been written about Luis Suarez and the rest of those oiks we shall waste no more time on them here. For it is at the coal face where the really interesting buggers are to be found.
A world of slaveish cultism, banners, badges, meetings, videos and general all-round dingbattery.
And I for one salute them. I'm an Evertonian and I have many (three) chums who support Liverpool, each of whom I would trust with my own nutsack, should the situation demand it.
But it's the collective that I can't be doing with - never could, never will. Such a self-satisfied bunch of blowhards.
For convenience I'd chuck my pals in with this crowd of halfwits but I'd know, deep down, they were okay. Then came Suarez and the whole thing collapsed.
One of my most trusted inner circle (yes, YOU Ben, you potherb) started trotting out the party line. That Patrice Evra had lied/been rude/something and poor innocent Luis was innocent - it's a line that John 'bellend' Aldridge was trotting out on BBC Five Live at the weekend.
Even now, despite the verdict and apologies, there are still some Kopites clinging to the wreckage, with their fingers in their ears, screaming. Snot running down their faces, eyes wild with hate, thrashing against the world (their mums, mainly) at the sheer injustice of it all.
Sky TV, the BBC, Yanks (not those ones, THOSE ONES), Manchester United, the media in general - have all incurred the Kopites' wrath as they bounce around their crusty sock strewn bedrooms writing on the internet (yes, just like this!) about reports and declaring that they have read the reports and understand the reports better than some poxy QC and what the hell are we going to do about it well we'll show them.
All their self-manufactured 'goodwill' (other clubs' supporters probably didn't hate them, just thought they were nobheads) built up over years of flags and scarves and singing shit songs has been destroyed at a stroke.
And now, as the discussion finally moves on from Suarez and Evra, there are still a few, a select, dainty few, still raging, emboldened by the smouldering internet news that one of their top minds has found a video of the ghost handshake which shows Evra's arm wasn't out enough to be engaged.
Remember the episode of the Simpsons where Bart writes 'insert brain here' on the back of Homer's head and he spins round and round and round trying to see it and at first the family laughs but then it becomes awkward? Well this is just like that.
The worst thing that could have happened for normal Liverpool supporters was the agitators believing their press - that they got rid of 'dem Yanks'. No. You didn't. You're not some highly politicized force, you're noisy irritants.
And why do you all have to call it 'Libboobuborrblub' when you're clogging up the airwaves with your self righteousness and appalling clothes? We know what Liverpool refers to in this instance. No one's watching wondering what all this has to do with Liverpool chamber of commerce, or 'synagogue'.
Take this bundle of joy. He goes by the handle Skrtel Power and he's clearly vexed about Manchester United and Evra. Ooh he's vexed. As is his right as a consumer (who watches the games on the telly). But look at his room - there are pictures of footballers on it. This is a man of voting age.

This is the new, 'empowered' supporter. It's not exclusive to Liverpool but they do seem to attract them. A few years ago, Evertonians used to think of the Kopite collective as balloons but, like cockroaches and spiders in one's house, you could share the space as our worlds needn't clash.
That's changed now because some of them - and it seems like a fair number - think they're some kind of 'force for good'. Their protest marches against Tom Hicks and George Gillette - and I'm not knocking anyone who can be arsed doing something like that - will become the Kopite equivalent of the Sex Pistols at the Screen on the Green.
But the truth of it is, as a group: You take yourselves ridiculously seriously, you should shut the fuck up, and you wear bad training shoes.
That said, the world can look forward to seeing what the Kop banner random word generator throws up in support of Kenny Dalglish and ratboy Suarez. 'At the end of a storm there's a golden sky' was one being suggested on the Red and White Kop gentlemen's discussion forum. It's good because, apart form anything else, there isn't, even.

This load of old tosh was first published on http://www.sabotagetimes.com

Get your kids out of my alehouse - NOW

That'll be £19 please

Some dingbat tweeted this today: "Hither Green people: DECENT LOCAL PUB ALERT!! The Lord Northbrook near Lee station. Completely refurbished & familyfriendly. It's lovely!" 
I feel compelled to respond.
Take your children, your buggies, your piles of fucking toys, your colouring in books ('oh Josh and Hetty are so creative!' 'Yes, so's my Jacasta. Don't pull Max's hair, darling') and sod off.
It's a pub - it's for grown ups. I don't bring a bag of cans down the nursery. Hardly ever. Because it doesn't fit. No one wants to hear your precious little angels until they have developed something approaching an indoor voice. Kids have two settings - loud and off. They are unsuitable for public consumption.
No one cares if they can walk or talk or play the recorder or ride a bike or do joined up writing. We can do all that for ourselves. 

You sit there all smug with your JCB prams, taking up the corner - yes, you always wodge yourselves in the corner - with your ghastly 'work in progress'.

All the lads have long fucking hair - you think it's you allowing them 'personality' but singularly fail to grasp that you're schooling them in conformity. These uniformed little toy soldiers are racing up the same track as their vapid parents. 

You with your Sunday papers and your friends all sitting there, dead from the neck up, desperately looking round the table for something, anything to tell you this is all worth it, and wondering which one of them you could fuck.

Sandals and shorts in the summer, Gola fucking trainers and scarves in the autumn - coalition-tolerating, dribbling halfwits. 'Family friendly' pubs are an abomination - they should be WIPED OUT! You gave up fun for kids, why poison the rest of us?
You've had it your own way for long enough and it's about time we pushed back. Next time you see this shower, plonk yourself down in the middle of them and swear and fart as if your very sanity depends on it. Because it just might.

Had to include this emailed response from a chum: 'A local cafe near me has felt the wrath of the mumsnet crew as well. The cafe put up a sign saying that the regulars were being driven out by screaming kids running about the place. All they said was ‘you can come in but you need to ensure that your kids are kept under control for the sake of other customers’. From the reaction of the parents you’d have thought the place had arranged a sex offenders coffee morning. Bellends.'

 

Letter to Zero Degrees in Blackheath - re pizza droopage

This isn't the pizza in question

I was in your place on Saturday with my girlfriend and we both had pizzas. Mine was the Italian sausage one and hers was parma ham. They were both very tasty but the bases were simply too thin to function. This is, I feel, a fundamental problem with the pizzas. The middle bit - radius of about three inches - was just mush. Any attempt to pick up a full slice was sheer folly as this middle bit just collapsed, dragging the cargo of the whole slice with it. So I had to eat the middle bit with cutlery - my face burned with shame - before eating the outer half slice by hand. 

I mentioned this to a waitress as we were leaving and she said they're supposed to be eaten with a knife and fork. I batted this aside, insisting that pizza should be eaten by hand - at the very least it should be an option.
Thin bases are the only way to go but the problem with the ones we had - and it's happened every time I've been in - is the base is just too thin to pass the fold test. This is where you pick a slice up, fold it in at the edges and the rest of the slice stays erect. There may be a couple of centimetres droopage at the end but that's acceptable.
The pizza was among the tastiest I have ever had but, because of the base, it was rendered merely adequate - a 9/10 effort becomes a 6/10 disappointment.
That said, the pilsner is ace.

More pizza guff

And here

And we are done

Name the year

That's it for me and Everton. I don't go much now anyway but Saturday's pathetic display at Arsenal has finished me off - specifically when Louis Saha was replaced.
Yes, he'd done fuck all but come on - give him something, anything! And bringing on Sylvain Distain means basically you're declaring at 0-0. Oops, and not for the first time.
What made the whole thing doubly annoying was the pub we'd been in pre-match actually had the game on. It's fitting that it was at Arsenal where I finally decided enough's enough. They compare their ticket prices to things like the theatre.
I'm going on Saturday to watch The Ladykillers - tickets were about the same as Saturday (£35) but with the theatre or a concert or whatever you have an idea of what you're getting. You make an informed decision based on reviews, experience, word of mouth.
It's not like that with football. What other part of your life do you pony up real money, knowing that it's going to be shit? You voluntarily do this week after week.
We were predictably insipid on Saturday. And yes, most teams go there and lose but it's different with Everton. We used to swat them aside. And now what - we (ie David Moyes) treat a 1-0 defeat as some kind of success.
Well we all know where we stand now, and I'm done with it. Fuck you Moyes, fuck you Bill Kenwright and chums, and fuck you Dermot O'Leary (whom I just don't like).

Last night's nerd togger - righteous!

Attacking

I've held off LNNT since Nerd12 came out but last night's was too ace to keep to myself.
I've found myslef bumping between divs eight and seven.
Was two points off promotion to div six once with three games to go but lost all three and got relegated.
I tend to bounce straight back though and L story S last night found myself needing a point to stay in div seven. My opponent was Santos and they, like that Russian lot Eto'o plays for, are tricky fast little buggers.
I've only been Everton on live nerding up to now so I never play United, Bayern and the like, but these two seem the pick of the teams at Everton's level.
Anyway I went one up double quick thanks to Osman, but they hit back with three quick goals - each one a lesson in idiocy from nerd Tim Howard - to put me 3-1 down with 25 nerd minutes gone.
So I went for it and switched to my legendary 3-1-3-3 formation (above), with Coleman and Baines either side of Jerjelka, a midfield of Fellaini, Drenthe (left), Osman (right), Cahill pushed forward, and Saha, Anichebe and Magaye up front. Late on Bilyaletdinov comes on for Osman or Drenthe, with Cahill going in their position and him centre, because he's ace at long shots.
I'd hardly had a shot before making the switch but from then on I was all over him with Fellaini pulling one back with a crisp low finish from the edge of the box right on half time.
Second half I blitzed the 'mother' with two goals in 10 nerd minutes. First a Saha header from a Baines corner, then Mugaye slithered through to crash home.
By now my opponent was sliding in all over the show - first rule of nerd togger, don't lose your rag - and I was dancing through at will. Cahill picked up a loose ball on the edge of the box, spun his marker and smashed home to make it 5-3 to Captain Cool.

Thus far and no further

Seriously, just fuck off

Five pounds fucking 50 for a pint of lager! That was the astonishing deal I was bummed with on Saturday eve. I was meeting Mrs Biff for some grub in Shoreditch's trendy 'Shoreditch' and had 20 minutes to kill so nipped for a quick pint.
Found some gaff called the Redchurch Bar on Redchurch street. Looked okay inside, quite dark, lots of deep red furnishings. Gang of girls to the left as I went in, couple of blokes to the right, few people scattered around the back by the bar, to which I headed.
One pint of Sierra Nevada lager ordered and the fella drops the price bombshell on me, prompting the now customary 'how much?!'
He repeated the price and all I could stammer was 'why?'.
And it's a fair question - what possible business has anyone asking £5.50 for a pint? They've not even paused to admire the view from £4 a pint mountain - which is outrageous anyway - they've just hurtled on, busting straight through the previously-theoretical £5 a pint barrier and landed plum 'twixt a flim and six pounds UK.
I bought it like because I didn't want them thinking I was poor or a mingeo, both of which are true.

Fold

The thing with this gaff was, the crowd didn't look particularly well off or even very 'Shoreditch'. And there was at least one student in (I heard him talking about his course) so how can he afford to sup there?
This comes tepid on the heels of being charged £8-odd for a pint of Peroni and a small Baileys at the Hen & Chickens by Highbury Corner - a scandalous amount for two drinks but a bargain compared to the Redchurch deal.
These places are supposed to be - at least nominally - neighbourhood establishments but they're charging the sort of prices people who've visited Scandinavia come back weeping about.
Presumably it's an aggressive move to ensure people like me don't go in places like that. Well that's fine, but eventually more people will start thinking, is this really worth it?
I've lived in London 11 years and I'm braced for the price of most things but if we're seriously saying that a tenner might not be enough to secure two pints then the whole thing's gone to shit. This should be hover-packs-for-all in the future, not here and now.
Anyway the grub at the Hoxton Furnace was dead on - pizzas were v tasty and passed the fold test. Rubbish picture I know. The service was pretty hopeless though. Slow drinks, slow bill, not a huge deal but a bit wearing.

Funster in 'da house'

Then it was off home and a chance to marvel at this idiot's shoes - he was being loud and wacky, even by East London Line standards. I think he was foreign.

Stapes and Browns, where's all the fun

Mayhem

It's easy to forget, under this new insanovision Coronation Street, that Fiz's family used to be funny, and Chesney was very cute.
This was before that small mole started trying to get out of the end of his nose.
But gone are the knockabout larks of yore - even Chez's mate Kirk's been dragged into the abyss lately.
This is a family that, off the top of my head in the last two years or so, has seen Fiz convicted of murder - for which she's just been bailed pending appeal (!) - for a crime she didn't commit. Okay so she might have covered up the body - or was that the other one? But the actual killing was done by her (now late) husband John.
That's Stape, who has killed one person (Charlotte the Smash robot) by caving her in the head with a hammer - whose body, actually she was still alive at this point, he dumped in the rubble caused by a train wreck outside his gaff - and let another (Colin Fishwick) die in his house, before burying him under the knicker factory floor, so he could continue living under John's name, thus allowing him to teach.
The reason he couldn't teach - his old job - under his own identity is he had an affair with a schoolgirl (Rosie) and then kidnapped her - can anyone remember why? So he nicked Colin's identity.
While in prison for at least some of that, and diagnosed with acute mentalness of the cranium, he and Fiz get married. Outside of nick John gets a stalker, and L story S, it's Charlotte.
John and Fiz have a kid which develops a hole in the heart, John also kills Colin's mum to stop her shouting after he confesses to her what he's done (up to that point).
Then Fiz nicks the mum's legacy, meanwhile John is pretending to Charlotte's parents that he (as Colin) was going to marry Charlotte. Chesney susses it so John holds him and Charlotte's parents hostage in the basement for a bit until Fiz - who STILL won't turn John in - rescues them. At some point in all this John had stopped taking his mental pills.
But before that John gets a job digging holes for Chesney's girlfriend's dad Owen - he's only about to dig up Colin! Luckily he gets Fiz to help him sling the body in the canal.
After that she rescues Chesney and the parents before the police turn up and John then nicks his and Fiz's baby. Fiz then gets run over, John comes back the hozzy, gives her the kid, goes to the roof, falls off it and disappears.
Then he comes back a bit later and kidnaps Rosie again before crashing his car with her dad Kevin in hot pursuit. John then dies in hospital but not before he videoed a confession supposedly exonerating his wife of all crimes.
As of last night Fiz was still in nick, but about to be bailed. She's been found guilty of one murder and possibly she got done for nicking the old girl's money, although that bit seems to have been forgotten.
While in nick, Fiz has been accused of being a grass, had her baby threatened, grassed, and bashed the woman who threatened her baby.
And just to round things off about two weeks ago they (the government?) gave the dog Schmeichel (a great Dane - I only just got that) cancer. The dog. Got cancer. This is how you want to get people watching, ITV?
He died last night, but only after Chez had nicked the money his bird's dad had given her to pay the rent, which was late so a bailiff came round, on vets bills and medicinal bonio and the like. Was the rent really bailiff late though?
I think that's about it. Now, is it just me or does that all seem a little far fetched?

Onwards and crudwards

Gone (he isn't mentioned anywhere here you know)

To business. What we saw at Sames' Park on Saturday was Everton's problems simply nutshelled. Can't score goals, can't defend, tippy-tappy it around a bit in the middle to no great effect.
The excellent executioners bong website says we're only three points worse off than the same stage last season, when we went on to finish seventh.
Yes we are, but we're also really shit. I mean, needing-a-priest-to-get-out-of-it shit. We seem incapable of regularly getting the ball and some of our players around the opposition box - it's one or the other. Jack Rodwell's goal shows what can happen if you get people forward.
At the back we can't keep crosses out, and this is where we're letting goals in from. Maybe it's because the full-backs aren't getting any protection - I don't know.
Let's not dignify playing Seamus Coleman on the left with any discussion, but generally he's been poor this season. He works had, and yes he was cheap, but he isn't very good. Running fast is great if you're strictly in the running fast business, but he isn't. He's in the controlling the ball and doing something with it business.
On the other side Royston Drenthe is clearly lively and quick and actually a good player, but he's also an idiot.  Prone to wander in, leaving Leighton Baines - our one truly excellent player - on his own. With Drenthe you probably have to budget for one major cock-up a game. Like if your mother was a hen.
Generally the problem seems to be we're going out hoping to get something, rather than forcing things. David Moyes has always been a reactive manager with Everton - rarely changing things early, even if we're playing shit. He's also been generally a conservative one, favouring 4-5-1 most of the time.
It worked well while we had good players but now we don't. Louis Saha - and it's an abject dereliction of duty to leave your team relying on him for goals - is isolated in most games or ends up going out wide to pick the ball up, leaving us with nowt up front.

Goal!

Newcastle had two up front on Saturday and it meant that our centre halfs couldn't settle, whereas we are content to sit back and defend from the halfway line. This can work but wouldn't it be better to have some pressure further up the pitch?
This formation got the best out of players like Mikel Arteta, Steven Pienaar and Tim Cahill, but two of those have now gone and the other one is struggling for form.
Cahill's not scored for Everton since - you'd think this would be easy to find what with that internet and all but it isn't. I think it's about a year. Anyway, coincidence?
We look like a team struggling, not just for form, but for confidence. If we concede one everyone knows there's little chance of us scoring two.
Look at how Newcastle defended on Saturday, they did just enough most of the time. Like against Manchester United we never really looked like scoring - there were few occasions where you'd think, he should have scored.
Newcastle look half-decent but that's about it, we look slow and knackered. They had more than enough for to keep us out.
Moyes has obviously been dealt a shitty hand on transfers but he has to get on with it because if this team gets stuck down the bottom I doubt it has the quality or the oomph to get out of it.
Moyes seems to send them out looking to keep it tight until half time and go from there. He needs to send them out to attack because lately we look like we're hoping to draw, and it isn't working.

This week's top search terms

Search

Ever wondered how other right-thinking individuals end up on the website that lets men breathe out and scratch the bits that don't scratch themselves?
Here are this week's top search terms which landed, well you get the idea:
happy festivus
night club
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Nick in here, a celebration

Can you guess?

I work with two fellows called Nick. They're both idiots but main Nick has an incredible capacity for blather - one unmatched in any human animal I have encountered.
Steve Martin's rant at the fat fella out of Uncle Buck whose name I forget could have been written for Nick.
Anyway, presenting this week's Nick in here gold (all material is from him, where a conversation ensues it is marked accordingly).


'As soon as you stop looking for something you always find it dont you?'


'If he's having a fag break hell be outside having a fag wont he?' 

In conversation with other Nick: 
Nick: 'I can't believe its November already.' 
Other Nick: 'It is.' 
Nick: 'It's incredible.' 
Other Nick: 'I know.' 


'It's amazing, isn't it?' (This didn't appear to be aimed at anyone or anything)


In conversation with me: 
Nick: 'Bless you.'
Me: 'That was a cough, it doesn't count.'
-An hour later-
Nick: 'Bless you' (barely audible, behind his hand and facing into the corner after I sneezed)
Me: 'What?'


'I wonder how much time I've wasted...' (Tailed off at this point - a cry for help? UNHEEDED)


'I've watched every episode of Smallville.'


'I went twice. But in the end I just put it under the door. Ha ha ha!'


In conversation with other Nick: 
Nick: 'She goes and moves her car every couple of hours.'
Other Nick: 'Who does?'
Nick: 'Sheila.'
Other Nick: 'Why does she do that?'
Nick: 'It's the meters. A few people do it.'
Other Nick: 'Oh, the meters.'
Nick: 'Yes.'

Everton v Manchester United REPORT!

Takeaway

Manchester United bounced RIGHT fucking back from last Sunday's humiliation at the golden hands of Manchester City by dispatching Everton with minimum fuss.
Everton had a go at it for about 15 minutes and went close, then United scored and Goodison deflated and sagged like Nigella Lawson after her 'best' girdle splits. Does that work? I'm not sure it does.
Anyway half time came and people didn't even bother discussing the match because no one really cares any more, I mean what's the point?
This happened to Everton against United even when we had a half decent team, but now? We've now sold all our best players - Fellaini? Oh fuck off - and signed the Argentinian Ashley Ward as back up for two perma-injured layabouts and a Greek lad who looks slightly embarrassed to be there.
Be honest, have you ever seen anyone look so awkward as Aspostolos Velios after his two goals, which I think make him joint top scorer for the Blues. Fucking two.
There was a - ACTUALLY THIS DIDN'T HAPPEN AS UNITED WERE HAPPY TO LET EVERTON HAVE THE BALL BUT IF THEY'D SCORED A SECOND I THINK IT WOULD HAVE - brief rally at the start of the second half, from the players and the stands, until United popped in the second on the hour, leaving the Goodison support with a stark choice - early dart or stay to boo?
It'll probably stay 2-0 because, if we're honest, it's a result which suits us all - points for them, and at least we didn't get fucked by a team that, horror of horrors, spends money. Ooh, the rotters.
Everton: Howard, Hibbert, Jerjelka, Distain, Baines, Coleman, Osman, Fellaini, Rodwell, Cahill, Saha. He'll have Coleman on the right, Osman on the left and the other three fannying around in the middle with Saha looking like a fella starved of attention 30 yards further up the pitch.
Okay, so Cahill was injured but the Russian came and showed us all what a superb piece of business he was. I've never seen anyone so adept at making sure there was an opposition player between him and the ball at all times.
Also does Fellaini ever pass it forward? You too, Rodwell. Either/or with those two I think.