Three wins in a week for Everton!

Well. What a week that was. We break is all down, covering all three Everton wins against Forest, Brentford and of course Liverpool. Plus, we discuss the hard time Sean Dyche gets from some fans, and preview the Luton game.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Welcome to episode 72 of the Boys Brothers Everton
podcast.
What a time to be alive.
We're recording this on Sunday,april 28th, so we're on the
back of three wins in a week,which is we're going to get
right into that pretty quickly.
Andy can't be here today,unfortunately.
He's starting work at somestupid hour in the morning, so I

(00:34):
think he's already gone to bed.
So Ben's joining us from DC.
How are you doing, ben?

Speaker 2 (00:40):
I'm very good, very chipper, after three wins in a
week.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
Great Adam's here.

Speaker 3 (00:46):
Yeah, I'm good, thank you, so to Ben.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Dad's joined us.
How you doing.
I'm great, thank you.
It's Dad's birthday yesterday,so happy birthday.
We won't say how old you were,but pick a number and double it
Me.
Adam and Dad are here.
Uh in, uh in mansfield inengland.
So, uh, I went to, got to go tothe brentford game yesterday,

(01:10):
which is great, um, we'll startwith.
We're going to talk through thethree games and it's great that
you know we what we tried torecord in the week, or we we
couldn't find a time that enoughof us could do, basically, but
it's nice that we're able tokind of talk about all three of
them, which is obviously it'sbeen a great week.
We'll go back, we're definitelygoing to spend a ton of time on
the derby, um, because I thinkwe'll still be talking about

(01:30):
that in a decade, to be honestwith you.
But, like we're, we're going tostart with the forest game.
You know, which is amazing tothink, that was seven days ago
it feels like a lifetime when wewere coming off the back of
getting thumped by chelsea, youknow, really still worrying
about whether we'd be in theleague and a lot of pressure on
Dyche and all of those things.
Dad, you were at that game, theForest game.

(01:52):
What was it like?
What was the atmosphere likeand what was the performance?

Speaker 4 (01:56):
like the atmosphere has been the way it has been at
recent games.
There was a lot of tensionabout it, a lot of tension in
the stands, and that did comeacross, you can tell it came
across to the players.
It was such an important game.
Obviously, the winner of thatwas going to, you know, put some
distance between them and thebottom three.
So I think it was a criticalgame for Everton to win.

(02:19):
Obviously, from a Forestperspective, they saw it as a,
I'm sure, as a good opportunityfor them to get three points,
having seen us get beat 6-0 byChelsea.
I think it was very similar tomore recent games where the team
not Forest had a lot more ofthe play than we had, and maybe

(02:41):
that's something that we need tothink about when we think about
how Everton might change theirtactics for the future.
Basically, it was a lot ofpossession by Forrest.
We scored two goals, two daisycutters, and they didn't score
any and basically that was itand they didn't really Obviously

(03:03):
, I've watched two or four gamessince then, but I don't really
remember them having that manychances.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
Am I remembering that rightly?

Speaker 3 (03:09):
They had the Chris Wood chance, didn't they?
Which is a great save fromPickford, and you would say that
you know, especially with a guyin such good form as he is, you
would expect, say were were anyand in in the ballpark of being

(03:31):
chances.

Speaker 4 (03:32):
really no um no it was funny because I was
listening.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
I think I tweeted this.
I was listening, I was watchingsorry that, obviously on nbc
back in the states and they weretalking at halftime about how
everton I think at at that pointmaybe at halftime or just
before halftime hadn't had asingle touch in Forest Box.
And at the end it was oh, wedon't need any.
Yeah, you know yeah.
Yeah, two good goals and youknow it's funny watching, you

(03:59):
know, went from screaming atGarner to not shooting, to
screaming because he'd scored.
You know it was surprising, tosay the least.
Yeah, it was a good game and weshould talk about, look, you
know, we should get to the bit,obviously, that, you know,
fortunately or unfortunately,maybe it's good for Everton,
honestly, because it took a bitof pressure off us.
The only story after that gamewas the tweet Forrest had sent

(04:25):
about the referee and we shouldtalk about the penalties.
That weren't and it was funny.
I mean, I'm joking about here,but just while it's on my mind,
yesterday at the Brentford gameyou know we sit behind the seats
we normally sit in that me andmy girlfriend Sam were sat in
yesterday behind the GladysStreet goal.
In the upper Gladys Street itwas second row, and there was a

(04:47):
moment in the second half whereyou know we're attacking towards
that end and I think we'd hadan attacking corner which
Brentford had struggled to clearand Tarkovsky, a range of about
six inches, had booted the ballagainst some Brentford guy's
arm and all the Everton players,including Ashley Young, were
jumping up and down andscreaming for a penalty and I
thought that's a bit rich, thatlad.

(05:09):
So we talked about this a lot inour text chain and I think our
consensus is, you know, thosethree penalties is that the
first one shouldn't be a penalty.
The second one, which is thehandball, we don't think should
be a penalty, but we've seenthem given and certainly at the

(05:29):
start of this season get seen abunch given.
The third one, I think we allagree, is a penalty any day of
the week, under anycircumstances, and we can't
believe how it's not overturned.
I mean, ben, you're, you're,you know you're.
We talk about this a lot.
You're a qualified referee.
I know we haven't heard the varaudio yet, maybe we will, maybe
we won't, but let me ask youthis the first one I don't think
is a penalty, as I said.
The second one is a judgmentcall about natural position of
arms and they've tried to changethe position on that from where

(05:53):
it was at the start of theseason, I think.
So that's why that wasn't giventhe third one.
Can you even imagine how theylook at that on review and say
it's not a penalty, especiallybecause the referee on the pitch
did the?
He got the ball motion, whichobviously didn't get the ball.
So why doesn't Avar, in thatsituation, reverse that decision

(06:15):
?

Speaker 2 (06:16):
Yeah, and it's a good question because until we hear
the audio, I'd be reallyinterested to understand what
the audio shows about theconversation that was had
between Navar and the referee.
Because you're right, thereferee very, very, very clearly
does the classic, like we'veall done it, where we do this
with our hands when refereeingto say he's got the ball, he's

(06:37):
got the ball.
Now, that's just factually nottrue.
Actually, you didn't getanything of the ball.
He went through the man like itshould have been a penalty.
But if the var are making a, ifthe var are only making a
judgment about whether it's aclear and obvious error in the
context of is it a foul, is it,is it a bit soft, whatever, if

(06:58):
that, if they think the refereehas made a decision that it's
it's contact but not a foul,then that's.
They're not necessarily goingto overrule that, but if there's
, if the referee has been clearin his communication to them and
they've been clear in theircommunication back that he's
made a decision based on didthey win the ball or not, that's
clear.
That's cut and dry.

(07:18):
If the referee didn't give thatpenalty because he thought
ashley young won the ball,that's a clear and obvious error
because Ashley Young did notwin the ball.
I think that's the one thehandball one is like.
I think the handball one shouldhave been a penalty, but that's
because the handball law iswritten the way it's written.
It creates those situations andtherefore it's a penalty.

(07:41):
We saw the Jack Grealish one inthe semi-final of the FA Cup
and the same weekend wasn'tgiven, even though I again think
it should have been.
The handball law has createdall these weird examples of
things that you expect to begiven that aren't.
The third one is like it's apenalty, like it is just a
penalty, and I think that's theone where Forrest have the most

(08:03):
grievance.
Not that it excuses what thenhappened, which was essentially
to say that Stuart Atwell, whowas the VAR, was biased because
he was a Luton fan which, by theway, I'm going to get this off
my chest right now because it'slike my main annoyance with this
.
Like, if Stuart Atwell was aLuton fan, why the fuck would he
want Everton to win?

Speaker 1 (08:23):
Like he wants the draw.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
Right At that point, before we played Liverpool,
before we played Brentford andgot some more points right, it
was essentially going to bethree teams into one spot.
Now Burnley have actually snuckback into it, so it could have
been four-two.
Why would a Luton fan wantEverton, want either of those
teams to win the game?
And if you did want one ofthose teams to win the game, and

(08:46):
if you did want one of thoseteams to win the game, you'd
have wanted it to be Forest,because Luton have still got to
play us.
So you go oh, we'll keepEverton in it, because then if
we beat them, we'll leapfrogthem.
So the logic was justinconsistent from Forest in the
first place, because it was like, oh, the VAR was a Luton fan
and that's what screwed us.
Well, luton fans didn't wantEverton to win that game, they
wanted a draw.
It was just utterly nonsensicalon every level.

(09:09):
Before you get into the crassunprofessionalism of essentially
calling a referee a bias, which, like we can do, we're, like

(09:30):
we're a couple of, you know,blokes on a podcast, that don't
mean anything.
You can't tweet that from apremier league account, right,
you can't do that.
Like there is a line and thatcrosses it.
The final thing I'll say aboutthis, and then I will hand over,
is nottingham forest shouldhave got a six point deduction
right and they got two pointsback for acting in good faith
and cooperating with the premierleague, right.
So like okay, so if they stayup right, if they stay up at the
end of the season by a pointassuming they don't get anything

(09:52):
back on appeal, they stay upabove Luton or Burnley by a
point at the end of the season,it will be their good faith and
cooperation with the premierleague that's kept them in the
division.
And then they've gone and donethis, which again makes we don't
want to drag this all back topsr, but just makes a mockery of
the whole situation, whenthey've essentially accused a
referee of bias and they mightstay in the division because

(10:13):
they were nice it was.
It's just.
The whole thing is utterlyabsurd.

Speaker 3 (10:16):
I don't know.
Yeah, I think.
Um, when, when two, it's likewhen people argue, you can get
so much, so far down the line ofan argument, you actually
sometimes forget what theoriginal argument was about.
And I genuinely think that'swhat Forrest's hierarchy has
happened.
They didn't think about theimplications of actually who

(10:38):
they would actually want to winthat game, who Luton would want
to win that game, and they justmade up this absolute nonsense
and apparently I think it wasone of the Sky reporters said
that the person whoever that waswho actually did end up sending
that tweet three minutes afterthe game had finished, wanted to

(11:00):
send it at halftime, but theywere talked down.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
Forrest Owen wanted them to send that tweet half
time.
Yeah, but they were talked down.
Forrest Owen wanted them tosend that tweet at half time.
Yeah, can you imagine that ifthat had come out at half time,
that was another four, the worstone yeah.
It's like he hadn't even had achance.
He hadn't even given them achance to probably screw them
over.

Speaker 3 (11:20):
Yeah, I mean that guy's head has just cleanly
fallen off and he's obviouslyjust there's no coming back,
he's gone full conspiracy, andyou're right.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
Ben, you make an important point that we get very
frustrated about referees.
I think generally rightly,because there was a general
agreement, except inside PGMOL,that the standard of refereeing
in the premier league is notvery good.
You know andy's talked beforeabout the fact that you know
when you look at the, the, therefereeing list for the fifa
list, world cups, europeanchampionships, the, the number

(11:55):
of english officials, premierleague officials, that go is way
smaller it's than other, thanyou know other lesser leagues
and and you know there's reflect, there's a sense there that
that's because the quality isjust not that high and we see it
all the time.

Speaker 3 (12:10):
For the Ukraine-Eurus .
It's the joint highestcontingent now.

Speaker 1 (12:14):
Maybe everything's alright.
You look at stuff like that andyou can really understand why
Forrester agreed.
I really understand it becausein a game that really matters,
for them not to get that thirdpenalty particularly is, like,
absolutely inexplicable.
But there is a line, which yourightly described, ben, which we
don't cross from, where we saythese people are bad at their

(12:37):
jobs and there isn't a properstandard and they're not held
properly to account, which Ithink is completely right to.
There is an active conspiracy torig results in certain teams,
favors based on the personalpreferences of the of the
officials.
I can even go so far and I'veoccasionally fallen down this
rabbit hole a little bit of likethe premier league favors

(12:57):
certain teams, because I thinkthe premier league is a product
and at the top end they want thebiggest teams to do well
because that's the product.
So I can stretch to the pointwhere they go.
Are they putting their thumb onthe scale around some of that
stuff To the point of somethinglike man City's 112 charges, or
it's so complicated we can't getto it until 2047, that kind of

(13:20):
stuff.
But the idea that individualofficials are, it's just silly
and it's embarrassing.
And it's embarrassing and it'sa shame because I think a team
you know we're sat here inMansfield now we're, you know,
15 miles from forest ground andit's a team I've always had a
soft spot for because, you know,partly grew up here, but you
know that between that and thefood bank chanting that their
fans did during that game, theycould sod off back to the

(13:41):
championship.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
Oh yeah, I mean now we're jumping out a little bit,
but now that we're safe I saidthis earlier I want our team
against Luton to contain theghost of Dixie Dean, our dad,
and that dog that we carrieddown the Goodison Road once.
Like honestly, anything that wecan do to relegate Nottingham
Forest, I'm all on board forLike, send the kids out against

(14:06):
Luton, like let them batter us10-0, like, honestly, it won't.
It won't happen, obviously, andI am joking, but like I'm so
and I'm the same as you, austin,I've always had a soft spot for
Forest.
But they can, they can run andjump like, because they've just
behaved in a way I just find soabhorrent on a personal level,
but but also on a professionallevel as well.

Speaker 3 (14:28):
I mean, dad was a good player, to be fair, and he
did play left-back and we doneed one.
I mean Ben Godfrey's in goodform, but you never know.

Speaker 1 (14:38):
We are jumping around now, but while you mention Ben
Godfrey, why the hell?
I know he's won three games, solet me get this bizarre
criticism of Sean Dinesh out ofthe way.
Why is he playing Ben Godfreyat right back and actually Young
at left back?
Because Young's right-footedand Godfrey's left-footed.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
No, Godfrey's right-footed, godfrey's
right-footed.

Speaker 3 (14:55):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:59):
Look it, he's right-footed.
Really yeah, yeah, I alwaysthought he was left-footed.

Speaker 3 (15:03):
No, anyway, maybe it's just so shit with his right
foot.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
No, he's terrible with both feet.
I mean, he does those greatsaving tackles, godfrey, but
nine times out of ten it'sbecause he was in the wrong
place to begin with.
All right, so let's talk aboutthe Derby, because Forrest I,

(15:26):
you know I was.
I watched it in with my matesin the pub and hello to steve, I
will invite you on this podcastat some point.
I promise you, steve.
Steve neb is harassing me to.
Uh, from the new yorkevertonians is harassing me to
come on it.
Um, I just don't know if we'vegot enough bleep in the bleep I
can to enable that.
I don't think it's the onlything we're working out.
Uh, I had a great time.

(15:46):
I had no expectations at all,but you know, my set I was, you
know, obviously thoroughlyenjoyed it.
But dad, I mean, tell us whatthat experience was like well,
it was fantastic.

Speaker 4 (15:55):
I mean, when we were going to the game, we were
discussing, you know what wethought the score was and chris
Sutton from the BBC had said 2-1and we agreed with him.
There was no expectation at all.
After about 10 or 15 minutes Iwas sitting there thinking we're
not doing so bad here.
And then we scored.
I couldn't believe it.

(16:17):
I don't think anybody couldbelieve it.
And then, when the second goalwent in, I think it was 2-0.
We're beating 2-0.
We're beating Liverpool 2-0.
I couldn't and we haven'tbeaten them for 13 years.
What's happening?
And the euphoria of the crowd.
And then the crowd were behindthe team and obviously we won.

(16:39):
It was one of the greatestnights and they did talk 40
years ago.
I think it was on that night.
On that day.
Yeah, and that was the BayernMunich game which I was at and
that was an absolutelyincredible atmosphere and
experience.
This wasn't as good as that,but it's one of those half a

(17:01):
dozen games that, when you lookback on, you'd say, hey, I was
there and it was fantastic.
The crowd was fantastic.
The reaction of the players atthe end going round, you know,
taking the plaudits of the crowdwas fantastic.
I mean to put a bit of contextin.
I think we've now seen thatLiverpool are in a were, in a

(17:23):
poor form, and that hascontinued.
So in a sense, I wouldn't saythe victory was fortunate.
I think the victory was well,was well earned, but there's no
question that Liverpool are notat their best at the moment,
which which clearly helped.
But you know, we won and Ithink after that we thought

(17:44):
we're safe, we really are safe,but talk about a game, of a
result coming out of the blue.
That was extraordinary and, asI say, the experience we want to
remember forever really yeah, I, I, it was incredible.

Speaker 3 (17:59):
I think I'm trying to think of a of a game at
goodison.
I've been to that.
I enjoyed more and I genuinelycan't think I generally can't
think of one probably maybeunited when we beat them, was it
?
Um?
But united three or four, nil afew, yeah, yeah, and I was at
that game and um, and fiorentinoobviously sticks in my mind,
just the atmosphere of being ineurope and stuff.

(18:19):
But um, I think that isgenuinely like my favorite game,
especially, like, especially anight game adds an extra element
to it.
But yeah, dad and I both saidon the walk up to Goodison, we
did our usual.
What are your score predictions?
And you're usually quiteoptimistic.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
Yeah, on this podcast .
Yeah, we win the league if youadd up our score predictions.

Speaker 3 (18:45):
Especially mine, unbelievable, I know.
And yeah, we both agreed on,like you know, we both agreed
like 2-1 or 1-0 to Liverpool orsomething we both said.
Like you know, we just want aperformance at this point.
You just want to carry on.
You just want to carry on andput the Chelsea game behind and

(19:06):
build on the Forest performance,knowing that you're going to go
into the Brentford game andthen the Luton game following
that.
You just don't want to beabsolutely turned over by them.
And, to your point, dad, yousay Liverpool were in bad form
but they actually, as a resultof they weren't great against

(19:29):
West Ham yesterday as a resultof the Everton game, actually
putting them further downwhether the game was a bit of a
blip beforehand.
The games beforehand before ourgame, sorry, were a bit of a
blip for them, but theyobviously certainly didn't
expect us to be as dynamic as wewere.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
I mean, they did win the game the weekend before,
right, I can't remember if theyplayed.
Yeah, they did, they playedfull and they won it.

Speaker 3 (19:55):
They played full 3-1.
So yeah, and they weren't goinginto great form before that,
obviously, the game before thatthey'd lost the palace.
They'd lost the palace at home1-0, which was a real punch in
the gut for them.
But just on the game itself, um, I mean to sort of I think it's
easy to, it's quite easy to youknow ride, ride on the euphoria

(20:16):
of the game.
But we sort of did get.
We were fortunate in the senselike darwin nunes couldn't hit a
barn door yeah um and um uh.
You know, godfrey obviously madethat last-ditch challenge.
In the first half Diaz hitliterally about an inch to the
left.
That shot from Diaz in thesecond half it goes in.
So I think Liverpool had theirchances.

(20:39):
We had a couple as well.
Brantham-waite in the secondhalf had a good chance from a
corner and Calvert-win missesthat.
Missed that chance in the firsthalf too.
But um, yeah, it got to thepoint in the second half where I
thought I was completelycomfortable.
Like the crowd were like reallynervous.

(21:00):
Um, a lot of the crowd werereally nervous and I just felt
quite calm.
We genuinely thought, actuallywe're not going to concede it.

Speaker 4 (21:10):
I mean I might seem calm, but inside I was Whatever
you do, don't get one, because Ithought if they get one they're
going to get two.
And even I think I only feltcomfortable when we'd actually
gone into the second minutes ofthe extra six minutes extra time
.
I thought they're not going toscore two in four minutes, but
before then, yeah, just that inthe back of the mind, couldn't

(21:32):
yeah, and and tactically it isquite a.

Speaker 3 (21:37):
The tactics are quite , you know, they're quite
rudimentary in in the sense of,like you know, they're not.
You're not going to stick us onyoutube as like some sort of
you know amazing passing teamand look at it, you know, you
know we're not going to put like20, 20, 25 passes together very
often to score a goal.
But we know the thing is, weknow what works and that is

(22:00):
pressing, pressing high, um, uh,pressing high when we need to,
and we obviously, you know, playfor set pieces because we are,
I think we're now the highest.
I think, yeah us and.
Arsenal, us and Arsenal are thehighest.
And just on that point, likeyou know, set pieces, playing
for set pieces, has sometimesbeen seen as like a bit of an
anti-football and it's like well, arsenal play, arsenal have a

(22:23):
set piece coach in that, arsenalplay, arsenal have a set piece
coach in that.
And and they have often have aset piece coach, and the
guardian football weekly talkabout this how when arsenal have
a any sort of set piece, their,their set piece coach will get
up off the bench and michaelarteta will come back off,
because obviously the rule thatyou're only allowed one person
in the technical area at anytime, so their set piece coach
will often come off the bench tolook at what happens.

(22:45):
So arsenal, arsenal don't, theydon't, they're not, um, they're
not scoring that number of setpiece goals by the law of
averages yeah they're doing itbecause they see it as a real
tactic.
So the idea that it's a, it'ssome sort of anti-football, some
sort of stuff that you knowdice ball, this sort of idea,
it's not true.
And like jonathan lew on thefootball week, he was quite

(23:07):
critical, saying, like evertondon't really have any particular
style, you know you wouldn'tput them up against on you.
He said, like you wouldn't putthem on youtube showing good
pressing.
I was like I was like you'retalking nonsense.
We absolutely do.
It's one of our key press, veryintelligent, absolutely.
It's why.
It's why abdul haddaqoray plays.
Because, like, technically, youonly have to look at abdul
haddaqoray for five minutes andyou realize he's actually not

(23:29):
that good a player.
Technically he can, he canstrike a ball well, but he's not
going to, he's not going to beum someone who can, you know, be
part of a team and reallycreate.
But what he is good, what he is, he's a very, very intelligent
player.
Yeah, and that's why daeshabsolutely loves him.
And on the other flip side ofthat, you look at someone like
dan juma, who's probably aretechnically our best, probably

(23:51):
technically amongst our bestplayers, can't get a minute
because he just doesn't, hedoesn't trust him.
Jay, um, um, uh.
Nathan patterson in the same,in the same, in the same breath,
because daddy's values, I mean.
I know I know paterson'sinjured at the minute, but he's.
He's spent a hell of a longamount of the season where he
hasn't played.
So dyche obviously clearlylikes these intelligent players.

(24:14):
So the idea that we don't haveany sort of real method of
playing is nonsense.
It's just what we do.
Isn't pretty on the eye forsome people, but we're fighting
for our lives.
Yeah, and it worked, and andand Klopp.
I mean, if you want anyevidence of what, of how well it
worked, klopp, in hispost-match interview, basically

(24:34):
said we know what they weregoing to do and we didn't do,
and we didn't do anything aboutit.
We know they're going to putthe ball at the back post, um,
and they're going to have peopleblock, block defenders, runs
for one of their big players,because if you think we've got
so many, we've got really tallplayers, we've got like three
centre-backs in as part of ourback four, and then you stick an

(24:56):
arna on the pitch as well.
Yeah, you've got five, fiveplayers there over six foot two.
You know, that's a real, that'sa real asset yeah, and I
thought go ahead I was justgonna say like I wasn't.

Speaker 2 (25:09):
I wasn't watching the game because I was at work so I
wasn't able to get away.
So I was sort of checking on myphone and I like, when the live
score ticked over and it waschosen one nil, I was like, oh,
that's it.
Well, that's interesting.
And then I like, when I gotfive minutes, went and had a
look at the the goal, and that Imean the two goals are
interesting really, because oneof them is like how people think

(25:31):
Sean Dyche scores goals, whichis it's scrappy and messy and it
all looks ugly, but you bundleit over the line.
And the second goal is actuallyhow Sean Dyche's team score
goals at set pieces, which isvery well organised and set up
and everyone has a job, and whenyou execute it all properly, it
works.
Because if you watch that goalback, you watch James Tarkovsky.

(25:55):
He absolutely has a job to do,which isn't to win the ball.
His job is to get in the way ofVirgil van Dijk and stop the
defenders, because what they've,what they've banked on there,
and you can sort of see how thisgoes into it.
To the lad's point about theset piece coach, they know,
trent Alexander-Arnold marks theback post and they know he's
not very good in the air.
So what they've gone isCalvert-Lewin will beat Trent
Alexander-Arnold in the airevery day.
What we need to make sure isthat one of the other defenders

(26:16):
doesn't get there.
So they've come up with a.
You watch it back and someoneshould do an actual breakdown of
this.
Branthwaite runs the othercentre-back can't remember who
it was Canate maybe to the nearpost, so he goes with Brantwaite
.
Van Dijk is sort of in thatarea between the middle and the
back post.
So Tarkovsky runs andessentially stops his run.

(26:37):
So when Van Dijk's backing off,because he's the sort of zonal
player, he bumps into Tarkovskyso he can't get there.
And then Calvert-Lewin getsahead of Trent Alexander-Arnold
and McNeil puts the ball in theperfect spot.
So, like it was funny, the twogoals, because the first one is
like the mess, one of themessiest goals you'll ever see,
and the second one is that he'sactually a beautifully executed

(26:58):
um setup of a strategy, butbecause it happens from a corner
, no one wants to give it anycredit because it's like it, oh,
it looks, looks like, oh, it'sa corner and a header.
The other thing I would say isthat we are like peak pessimists
as Evertonians.
It's built into our DNA, right?
But the number of times that wehad a conversation running up
to looking at the fixture listand knowing when that game was

(27:20):
and knowing the situation wewere in and the situation they
were in, and the number of timesEvertonians would have gone, oh
, and the number of timesEvertonians would have gone, oh
God, they're going to beat usand they're going to win the
title and they're going torelegate us.
It's going to be horrible.
It's going to be the worstthing in the world.
How glorious is it that we gotto do it the other way around.
But not only was it the gamethat kept us, basically ensured

(27:41):
our survival, but also westopped them winning the title
because we essentially did Like.
I know they then drew againstWest Ham, but even if, like,
that was the one where they youknow man City aren't going to
drop the points, they need todrop Arsenal don't look like
they're going to drop any pointseither.
So losing to us was like youknow.
They lost the league atGoodison Park and we stayed up.
It is like the dream forEvertonians when we focus so

(28:04):
much on the nightmare yeah, they, they would have.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
I mean they would have banked all three points
from that game and theirprojection.
Do you think?
I mean I echo everything youguys have said and I think you
know I really enjoyed watchingit and it just I agree with my
sense of watching it on TV,obviously, but with a lot of
other Evertonians in New Yorkand you know I had the same
sense that you know you had,that it was how relaxed it was,

(28:31):
what was surprising.
So that was the thing that wassort of different.
The only thing I'll say ispeople talk about tactics.
Really, what dice does well,there are tactics and the
tactics are good.
Dice does well actually isstrategy and there's a very
clear strategy for that game intwo ways Set pieces we talked
about.
There are tactics, the tacticsare good, there's strategy and
you know there's a very clearstrategy for that game in two
ways.
Set pieces we talked about Playfor set pieces because that's

(28:53):
how you know we can get forwardand this is you know, and we'll
come on to the Brentford game.
But I was observing yesterday,you know, as play, you know, and
it's different, you see howthings are sort of fitting
together more and you know God,they were working hard, but this
is a very limited team in termsof creativity.
There's no who is there thatcan do something.

(29:14):
You know James Garner, maybeDwight McNeil, maybe you know.
So if you look at your dice,you go well, yeah, set pieces
are going to be the way you'regoing to get the ball into the
opposition box, right, becauseyou're sure as hell not going to
play it there.
Yeah, against liverpool and theother thing.
So he's pretty adam.
The other thing he he did well,I think, in that game was we
often know there was this periodin the back end of this first

(29:38):
half where we were under thecosh, where they had those two
big chances picked and makes acouple of great saves, and it's
a classic thing for us to sayand we all say it oh, we don't
want to score one and then sitback, right, we want to keep on
the front foot, and that isobviously right.
But if you look at how thesecond half played out played
out, we did sit back, but we satback really well, right, like

(29:58):
it was actually the case that wewe were not running around
going crazy trying to get thesecond goal.
We got the second goal becauseyou know that we win the ball
high up the field, as you weresaying, adam, and then it goes
to a corner.
We score a goal from a corner.
We weren't being crazy, we weresitting back and actually
sitting back's fine if you do itwell against the right team and
and the other strategic youknow, insight that dyche had was

(30:21):
liverpool.
You know, with the way they'replaying, even with nunez, who's
tall, I'm not going to do muchif they're just throwing crosses
in, you know.
So the whole thing was makethem cross ideally deep, and
we'll we'll deal with that.
Our centre-backs not goalkeeperwill deal with that all day,
and that's basically whathappened.
I mean, you saw it in the, thesecond half, you know, they just

(30:43):
didn't have a sniff.
So we thought it wasinteresting.
Actually we did, we did sitback, but actually we did it in
a way that wasn't stressfulbecause we, we were still, you
know, they had all, we were incontrol, like all the time they
were playing our game yeah, no,I agree, I think the um.

Speaker 3 (31:00):
The only their own criticism that I would have was
um, they sort of got a bit wiseto that.
Because I said to dad duringthe game you sort of looked, you
, look at what luis diaz wasdoing.
He was sticking, basicallyglued to the by, like glued to
the um, to the byline, to thetouchline, sorry.
And um, because he wastargeting ben godfrey.
And I was surprised approach,because I said in the start of

(31:23):
the start of the game that, likeyou would have, you could have
either actually young right backor you could have Ben Godfrey
right back and my my choicewould be Ben Godfrey because
he'd be good up against LewisDiaz.
It turned out he was actuallypretty awful against him because
he just kept backing off andbacking off and backing off and
it was really frustrating meseeing that and eventually
culminated in him pinging itagainst the post and eventually

(31:45):
Jack Harrison then went back andand started helping him and
then Harrison dealt with him farbetter than godfrey did.
But you're right, if you look atthe game, we basically our
defense when we got the ball,our defense played just a few
yards wider.
Our right back and our leftback were no wider than a couple
of yards to the right or leftrespectively, of the 18 yard box

(32:09):
.
Yeah, because they were likeyou can cross it all you want,
we've got.
We've got Tarkovsky andBrantham way who are going to
win.
You know, 95 out of 100 headersthat come into this box and
that's not the way we'll play.
They they had a lot, quite a lotof luck in the first half where
they you know what they feellike to do is they do that
really quick pass and get it outwide.
They pass inside, pass inside,and then they have the wide

(32:30):
player who makes a darting runand someone dinks it over the
top and they have that and then,just on your point of like, you
know the creativity, what theyalso have is those they had,
like Alexander-Arnold, twiceBrilliant passes, and if Darwin
Nunes could turn with his touchhe'd be like the perfect striker

(32:54):
.
Because I said to Dad at thetime I mean, it's such a
fundamental part of being astriker is to be able to receive
the ball and turn at the sametime.
And he just can't do it.
The guy can't do it, um, and itmust be really frustrating for
Liverpool players to doAlexander-Arnold ping something

(33:15):
that goes, you know, 40 yards,exactly where he wants, and the
guy can't turn because he turnsand shoots and he scores, um,
and you know, we don't have thatsort of, we don't have that
sort of player.

Speaker 1 (33:27):
So we have to adapt our, our, our strategies yeah,
and you know we haven't gotanyone who can do anything like
what Trent Alexander-Arnold cando with that pass of the
football.
I mean, gomez maybe on his bestday can start to do stuff like
that.
But you know, you say you knowwe'll move on.
Now.
I guess talk about Brentfordand you know great win and you

(33:48):
know they tried really hard.
I think the most pissed offperson in Goodison Park would
have been Dan Juma, who didn'tget on, is behind Michael Keane
in the striking fecking orderthat A brought Dij, brought
Keane on for the last threeminutes and put him up front,
which I could make it was fire.
It made sense.

(34:10):
But my sort of takeaway as wellas I.
I mean the players were a bitknackered, but Brentford were
poor, didn't really.
You know, they didn't reallycreate that much and didn't
really have an idea and werepretty easy to play against,
honestly.
But the thing I took away fromit was two things.
One, as I said, we're not ateam that's blessed with

(34:30):
creativity, we're just not.
And you can't, you know.
It refocused my mind on thesort of manager question,
because God, you changed themanager.
What are you going to do?
Dwight McNeil is still DwightMcNeil, you know, like you know
Calvert-Lewin, calvert-lew, hewasn't playing yesterday.
But these players, they arewhat they are and they're not
like you're really buildingsomething that's more than the
sum of its parts if you go toeto toe with Liverpool.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
And also the manager thing is like we can all be
frustrated at Dyche and some ofthe limitations that he has in
terms of you know, I think he'stoo fixated on one model and I
think sometimes he misjudges thenature of games.
I think there are games thatare winnable, where he doesn't
approach them in a positivemanner.
But saying all of that, if youtold us at the start of this

(35:19):
season that we, with three gamesto go, we played 35, won 12
games, drawn drawn eight, you'dhave gone great, wonderful.
That's before you even get tothe point deductions.
We've won more games thanbrighton.
Like who are lauded as, likeyou know, this transformation
and this is nothing againstbrighton, but like the

(35:39):
difference in how the teams aretreated like we've we've won
more games than brighton.
Brighton have won 11 games.
We've won 12 games.
Everyone focuses on the bad run, the 13, etc.
People forget two things aboutit.
We still picked up points inthat run.
Yes, we didn't win games.
We drew a lot of games in those.

(35:59):
We were still racking up points.
We talked about this on thepodcast when I was in the UK.
The reason why we are where weare is we're an inconsistent
team, and so it's not a surprisethat you go through these runs
where you have a good run ofresults and then you have a bad
run of results, because that'swhat inconsistent teams do.
That's why we're not higher upin the league, because we are

(36:22):
inconsistent and because we arelimited.
But the job Dyche has done, weshould name a fucking stand
after him.
But the job Dyche has done, weshould name a fucking stand
after him.
All this talk of sacking him?
And is he good enough?
Is he for the job?
If we think back to the lasttwo seasons of football that
we've had last day of the seasonlast year and then 2-0 down at
Palace at home the season before, and now I watched man City

(36:45):
Forest earlier and I was able tonot.

Speaker 1 (36:49):
Oh, I'll do this without avoiding the scores.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
I was able to not give a shit about what happened.
I wasn't cringing every timeForest went on the attack and I
wasn't like, oh my God, like Iwas just able to watch it as a
game of football because itdidn't matter, it was glorious.
So, so, yeah, it was, it was it.

(37:15):
He's been great.
And the reason why he's beengreat actually, and the sort of
the, the, the thing he's reallynailed and where he deserves a
lot of credit is I'm just goingwith my phone, so I get this
correct.
If you take the bottom seven ofthe premier league, so us and
the teams around us, we haveplayed 10 of those teams and you
create essentially a minileague table of those seven
teams.
Right, we are played 10 wonseven, drawn two, lost one,

(37:37):
which puts us on 23 points, andwe're top of that mini league
table.
So when it's come to beatingthe teams around us, we are
comfortably better than everyother team around us.
If that makes sense, and that'swhat he's banking on.
Right, you're going to play 12games against the shit teams
around you.
You do well in those games.
You're going to pick up theLiverpool 2-0s along the way and

(37:59):
you'll be good.
So, yeah, I mean we're going tohave a rocky couple of years
financially, but he's proventhat he can do what he needs to
do to keep us in the league.
So fair play to him.

Speaker 4 (38:12):
Yeah.
I thought his definition ofplaying direct as well.
I think he clarified that theother day.
He said people think it's justa question of, you know, moving
it from the back to the front.
He said it isn't.
It's about direct football.
For him it's playing forward.
Yeah, you know, always lookingto go forward.
Might be a short pass, it mightbe a long pass, but it's always

(38:34):
about going forward.
And we've seen Roberto Martinezand that's what really
frustrates the type of football.
That's what really frustratesus.
It's just playing at the backend.

Speaker 1 (38:45):
Yeah, why was it?

Speaker 4 (38:46):
not, he doesn't believe in that.
So I think hopefully, as wemove on, we can get a little bit
more sophisticated and we canhave more of those direct
football not quite so much ofthe long ball, because I think
he would agree there's probablya little bit too much of that at
the minute but I'm sure thatwill become more sophisticated

(39:08):
as time goes on.

Speaker 1 (39:09):
You can even see that a little bit.
Yesterday I thought, you know,obviously you know, 0-0 at
half-time and it had been anothing game really, and the
crowd were fine, because peopleare like, honestly, if we get a
point at the end of this, thenyou know we've still had an
amazing week.
So no one was stressed about it.
But even second half, you couldsee, I felt you could see told
them to sort of calm down andtry to be a bit more deliberate,

(39:31):
because we didn't have carverlewin up front.
We got chimitio I don't playwell, you know and through the
game but he's not got cal lewislewins now, you know.
So it it was less effectiveplaying an up team.
And then the second half we didpass the ball around much more,
you know, particularly from youknow, there was way more
transition from defence tomidfield, you know which.

(39:53):
So I think I, I basicallybelieve him.
I don't think he's, you know,opposed the idea of having the
ball on the ground.
I think he, you know he's, he's, yeah, I want to play winning
football first, and bloody hell,the job he's got is to keep
Everton in the Premier League.
I mean, you know, don't get outfor artistic merit.
So I'm sure that will.

(40:14):
I'm sure that will happen, butit's not even as you rightly say
, dan, it's like it's not evenwhat people think it is.
You know the people who are saton you know other podcasts
talking about Everton aren'twatching Everton.
You know they're not and sothey don't know what they did.
I think you know against wedon't really sort of play them,
but bloody hell, I've seen somelong ball Everton teams in the
past Like this is not one ofthem at all, even even honestly

(40:37):
under.
You know I would.
It's interesting.
It's an interesting contrast.
Even Dyche and Moyes who I'vewatched and we've all watched
hundreds of Everton games withMoyes and Moyes as actually has
a very similar philosophy.
But you know all Moyes' teamswould do if you were in your own
half.
You were basically instructedto hoof it down a channel, have

(40:58):
someone run after it andhopefully get a throw at it, and
then you played football in theother half.
Now Dyche is a level above that.
You know no doubt at all he'sway.
You know much smarter.
So I think it's you know that'shey, why do we care what people
think?
You know like we.
We know what we're doing andwhat we're trying to build and
you know, hopefully he's got atleast now until comfortably the

(41:19):
start of next season.

Speaker 3 (41:23):
All the pressure off him.
Yeah, you've got to play withwhat you've got.
You know, this is the thirdseason where we battled and
successfully battled relegationand you know, I think
Evertonians myself included sortof can be guilty of living in
the past and sort of notaccepting the reality of the

(41:45):
situation you find yourself in,which is, you know, we're a club
with limited creativity interms of the playing squads and
we've now got limited resourcesin order to improve that.
So the idea that that's goingto change anytime soon is not
you're in dreamland.
If you think it's going tochange fundamentally, I think
you can add certain things to itand improve it definitely, but

(42:06):
it's not going to change quickly.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
And look.
Success for us this year wasgoing to be comfortably avoiding
relegation, and we've done that, despite the fact we've lost
eight points through thededuction and the only reason
we've even got a question aroundus.
We'd have been safe weeks ago,effectively, if we hadn't lost
those eight points.

Speaker 4 (42:24):
I want us to beat Luton and Sheffield United
because that would give us a net50 points.
They had an eight points backand that compared to what 34
previous season yeah.
That is it still is a measure ofthe improvements, even
irrespective of what happens inthose two games.
But if we can, just, you know,win those two games as well, I

(42:47):
think that would put a realmarker down to our the work that
dice has done and where we'relikely to be, and where we can
think we are likely to be in,yeah, non, um, you know, a year
when there's no issues with, uh,with pso and these up to points
.

Speaker 3 (43:04):
Yeah, so very positive yeah, no, and it's good
that everyone, and it's goodthat we're all in.
I like to think the vastmajority of attorneys are
realistic about the job thatDyches has done.
I saw some nonsense yesterdaywhere he was saying the thing
about Dyches at Dyches Evertonis we've only beaten the teams

(43:25):
around us.
Well, yeah, that's why we'renear the bottom of the league,
ed.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
And also, you don't get more points for beating the
teams at the top of the table.
Beating Liverpool and beatingSheffield United gets you three
points.
So, like, this is the problem.
Ultimately.
I worry that we have a problemas a fan base because, as we've
talked about before, as a fanbase, because, as we've talked
about before, we sat robertomartinez when we were 10th

(43:55):
because we we weren't happy, weweren't and I there is something
I worry about fundamentallyfrom the everton fan base is
like, are we ever actually like,do we have the ability anymore
to be satisfied with a job thata manager is doing in the
context of how he's doing it?
Because, like, if we all sat atthe start of the season and did
our previews right and we allsaid the priority was staying in
the Premier Division, avoidingrelegation and anything above

(44:18):
that was a bonus, dice hasdelivered that in spades with
about the worst situation youcould possibly imagine from a,
you know, a club structure withall the ownership stuff, with
the points deduction and, andyet, and yet, still people like,
oh, he doesn't play nicefootball or we don't beat big
teams.
It's like, okay, well, what doyou want?
Like, go support man cityhonestly.

(44:40):
Like you're not.
That's there's just the realityof where we are and and my
worry is and I think there areenough evertonians who are
sensible about this, but, likemy worry is that, you know,
people are just so focused onlike, well, he doesn't do x or
it doesn't, we're notchallenging for this.
It's like okay, but what's thepriority?
The priority is staying in thepremier division until we get in
the new stadium, like and thenpeople are varying.

Speaker 1 (45:04):
Look, you know peter johnson, you know Peter Johnson,
you know Everton you know,everton infamous Everton owner
said once you know when, whenthe team are losing, the pies
taste bad and like you know,basically it's all about what's
and people are very reactive tolike what happened the last five
minutes.
Basically, and you know, and Ithink that we have a bad row, in

(45:26):
particular the Chelsea game,people are saying we've got to
change the manager Because it'sall you can do.
Right, it's all you can do as aclub.
You can't sack the players, soit's an easy thing for people to
go to.
What I will say is I don'tthink it ever got to the point
where it was sustained orinvolved a large group.
It was not not a.
People were turning up to theforest game with dice out

(45:47):
banners.
You know, like it never reachedanything like that.

Speaker 3 (45:50):
It's a small group, people on the internet, yeah, I
think people like to be right aswell, especially on social
media.
Um, you know, people have ashort memory of what the sort of
things that they've they've putin, you know they've put,
they've put in the past and, um,uh, so you know, especially
Everton, twitter can beabsolutely cesspit.
I mean, it was an absolutecesspit after the Chelsea game,
but the Chelsea game was just ananomaly, like it, just it

(46:13):
didn't, we didn't turn up, butthen you judge it against the
team's three games that precededand succeeded it, and that's
the judgment for me.

Speaker 4 (46:24):
Yeah, I think, exceeded it and that's the
judgment for me.
Yeah, I think the last threeyears including this year,
although we're obviously out oftrouble earlier I think it's
been quite traumatic for us all.
This, I mean people talk aboutsleepless nights.
Well, we've all had sleeplessnights and waking up at five
o'clock in the morning askingyourself why do I feel like this
?
It's only a football game, butyou can't help it.

(46:46):
That's how you feel.
Now.
I think that for at leastanother three seasons, people
will remember the trauma ofthese three years and will be
comfortable not having thattrauma.
And I think that two yearsgives us an opportunity to get
into the new stadium, sort thefinances out, and maybe then we

(47:06):
can kick start for the newstadium.
Sort the finances out and maybethen we can, we can kick start
for the, for the new future.
But I think we are in a we willbe in a period of relative
stability, mid-table.
Get the finances right, maybeshows our academy out, so we're
getting some players comingthrough, so we're not having to
think of spending lots of moneythat we currently have got to

(47:30):
boast to the team.
So I'm comfortable that peoplewill be alright with Dice and
what's happened in the last week, I think, will have eased a lot
of our anxieties about thefuture and Dice's capacity to be
the right person for, I think,years.
Another two or three years andthen we'll see.

Speaker 1 (47:53):
Yeah, and winning, you beat Liverpool 2-0, that
buys you a lot of goodwill for along time.
Absolutely.
We all kind of feel that, adam,you wanted to say something
about the referee, you wanted topraise a referee, I did.
So we're going to call out weshould have a little jingle that
plays now, but we haven't butpraise a referee.

Speaker 3 (48:11):
Cormac, yeah, but it's part of a wider point
around.
You know, we've talked allabout refereeing standards and
officiating standards rather,rather than refereeing standards
being below par and theyobjectively are and have been
for a number of seasons, are andhave been for a number of

(48:31):
seasons, um, and I just thinkpart of the plan of improving
refereeing standards is to givethem credit where it's due,
because it was in the game.
Um, it was a game yesterday.
Well, it's a little gameyesterday, sorry.

Speaker 1 (48:40):
well, you know, not an emerson game, a different
game yeah, there was a game.

Speaker 3 (48:43):
There was a game yesterday.
We'll go into praise Andy Madlyspecifically in a minute, but
there was a game yesterday whereStryker misses a chance.
It was in the championship gameactually.
Stryker misses a chance, butthen the referee doesn't give
the same team a penalty.

(49:03):
And what's the manager going tocome out and talk about at the
end of the game?
He's going to talk about thefact he didn't get the penalty,
of course, as opposed to hisstriker, who is paid to score
goals, didn't.
And, like Chris Wood, chrisWood's chance in our game was

(49:24):
something that he should.
You know, he should be scoringthat eight times out of 10 and
he didn't.
Is that being talked about atall?
No, because refereeingdecisions are being talked about
, and rightly so, but you can'tdismiss one.
You can't just say, oh, one'shuman error on the one hand and
then just completely chastiseanother human error in the same

(49:46):
breath.
And we've all been guilty.
I mean, I've been definitelyguilty of it many, many times
and I just think we just need topraise referees a bit more, or
not?
Some of us on this podcast, youknow, with a few hundred
listeners but like pundits andstuff, need to need to be get
into the habit of actuallymaking a point, of saying
commentators as well, of saying,or the referee did made a

(50:06):
really good, but a really goodadvantage there, because that
led directly to a goal.
It's like a referee made playsan advantage, it leads directly
to a goal.
How often does it actually getpraised when actually it's
actually really fantasticofficiating when there could
have been a, there could havebeen a situation where they
where they didn't do that, andthen then you know it's

(50:27):
Schrodinger's cat, isn't it?
You don't know what's going tohappen next.
But, I just think that's part ofthe plan of improving standards
overall.
And on the Liverpool game, Ithought Andy Madly was really
really good, and not justbecause we won it's easy to say
that after we won 2-0.
But I genuinely thought he wasreally good.
He didn't fall for, you know,he gave free kicks well,

(50:50):
genuinely free kicks that wewere playing.
Obviously we were trying toplay for, but we were putting
ourselves in situations where wecould buy free kicks.

Speaker 1 (51:03):
but we were getting fouled and he wasn't letting
them go.
Yeah, and he didn't let theLiverpool players because Van
Dijk particularly was reallygetting at him.
He just refereed the game as hesaw it and gave us a penalty,
which I don't know wasn't apenalty rightly, but you know he
gave us which you know was likeso many referees would have
that early in that big a game ifthey'd not wanted to make that
call Exactly.

Speaker 3 (51:27):
And there were like things where you know there were
fouls by everton players andyou know the crowd saying, you
know, why are you giving that?
It's like because it's a foul.
It's like you know he's givenit and um, yeah, I just thought
he was really good and I'm goingto try, you know a bit, make
more of an effort to sort ofnotice where referees have
actually had, you know, goodgames and um, I think you know
pundits and commentators inparticular need to do more of

(51:47):
that, because that'll be the oneof the ways in which, uh,
officiation standard officiationwill be will get better,
because constant chastisementand um is not, is not the, is
not the way to go about it no,we'll make you a jingle, thanks
on this.

Speaker 1 (52:03):
But on the um subject of advances of common, which
man united game, it was verymight have been actually a
couple of days ago where theyhad that classic situation where
there was a foul, but very,very quickly, like a second and
a half later, the ball ends upin the net but the referee is
blown for a penalty.
Yeah, yeah.
So then they have to take apenalty, which is the stupidest

(52:26):
thing a referee can do.
Andy Mandela at the Derby didthis.
When Calvert-Lewin goes down,he obviously waited a little bit
to think about it, but hewaited till the ball had gone
out of play before he.
Because, you know, maybeCalvert-Lewin gets there, maybe
he doesn't, and why not justwait, just take a breath and

(52:47):
then decide?
You know I say that I can'tremember who the referee was,
and you know I said he came theother day but he gave a penalty
and they scored, and then BrunoFernandes had to take the
penalty.

Speaker 3 (52:55):
You know which he scored but yeah, it was, simon,
was it?
Was it the same game where itwas like Anani just punched?

Speaker 2 (53:09):
you know, absolutely punched the guy last night that
was that was that was that wasthe Burnley game.
This is, this is like threepeople trying to remember, like
where they put the car keys,like this is we're gonna stop
this now for that exact reason.

Speaker 1 (53:23):
But no you're right because you know the when when
referees referee get games asthey see them.
And then you know vr should bea backstop to egregious errors
and we spend enough time rightlytalking about it.
Doesn't work, so it's rightthat we called out that that it
when it does.
Um, we're going to preview theluton game, but before we do
that, anything else on everton,the three games we've had,

(53:45):
general glory, us being thegreatest football team ever,
sean Dyche's track suit,anything else from anyone else.

Speaker 2 (53:52):
I'm really sad that I'm probably never going to get
to watch Jared Brantley in reallife, because he just looks
incredible.

Speaker 1 (54:00):
He is sensational, he's very good.
You're definitely not going toget to see him.
Well, you'll get to see himplay for man United or something
.

Speaker 2 (54:05):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll get to watch him play
against us when they play us atsome point at DJF.
But yeah, he's a proper player,isn't he?
But, those bloody PSR rules aregoing to mean that we make an
enormous profit for our accounts.

Speaker 1 (54:20):
But the fee we're going to get for him, I'll drop
him off.
I mean, yeah, I love the guyman.

Speaker 3 (54:28):
You know it's going to be he's left-footed as well,
and he's left-footed as well.
Yeah he is left-footed.

Speaker 1 (54:31):
See, I'm very bad at this.

Speaker 3 (54:33):
Yeah, he's very much left-footed, Is he?
Yeah, like You're two-footednow, see, which, because a lot
of teams play three centre-backsnow is a much sought-after

(54:55):
trait on centre-halves.
So that will literally add tothe fact he's English as well.
It will add a huge bump to hisvalue.
I think we should be pushingfor £70 you know, 70, 80 million
for him.
I really do.

Speaker 4 (55:09):
Just an observation about expected goals.
I think it's interesting thatat the start of the season our
expected goal was very high butwe didn't score any, and then
towards the end of the season,recent games, our expected goals
have been very low and wescored goals.
Yeah, be very low and we scorea goal.

Speaker 3 (55:28):
But we still have a difference of 13, I think, rxg
and R-Actual.
Now I'd be surprised if anyonehas still surpassed that.
But at one point in the seasonI think it was back in February,
January time it was RxG.
The difference between RxG andR and actual goals was double
the team with the second biggestdifference.

Speaker 4 (55:49):
So yeah, I think if you're looking for a difference
next season not 13 goals or the13 extra goals that you're
hoping to expect Calvert-Lewinto come up with in a normal
season.

Speaker 3 (56:03):
Well, you said before the Liverpool game or Burnley
game or something you said thisis obviously your point, dad.
You said before the Liverpoolgame or Burnley game, or
something you said for yourpoint, dad.
You said you read about how,out of 500 players, a finisher
scored a goal this season, butCalvert-Lewin's chance success
rate was bottom of those 500players.

Speaker 4 (56:25):
Yeah, he said Beto actually was sixth from bottom,
so some improvement expected andI'm sure will happen next
season maybe we should havewoken up.

Speaker 1 (56:36):
We should have woken Beto up your name's, pele so it
would be good to have him back,or maybe they'll give Michael
Keane a run out on Friday.
Alright, so let's talk aboutthe Loon game playing the Loon
on Friday.
Ben wants us to lose.
I want us to lose to Arsenalone, because it's funny, because

(56:57):
we always get battered.
I was explaining this.
Check my maths here.
Right, there is a 1 in 38chance that you play Arsenal
away at the end of the season.
Right, it could be one in 19teams could be home or away.
Yeah, one in 38 chance.
It seems to happen every otheryear and we always get

(57:18):
absolutely mullered by it.
I mean absolutely.
Remember we finished fourth.
Was it 2003 or four?
2005.
2005.
We finished fourth.

Speaker 4 (57:26):
We it 2003 or 2004?
2005.

Speaker 1 (57:27):
2005.
We finished fourth.
We were the fourth best team inthe league.
We were a really good team thatyear, Really good.
They beat us 7-1.

Speaker 2 (57:33):
Yeah yeah, have you heard the story about that?
I'm going to sell yoursoundtrack to extend this, but
have you heard Alan?
There was a great podcast AlanStubbs was on the other day and
I don't know what podcast it was, because I saw the clip on
TikTok.
But Stubbs was on this podcast,right, because he was in that
team and he tells this brilliantstory where, like, he says that
Moyes, after the game we wereplaying like Newcastle or

(57:57):
something on the Saturday andthat was the game that got us
fourth, guaranteed us fourth,and Moyes had basically said you
know, go out, have a good time,whatever, blah, blah, blah.
So basically said you know, goout, have a good time, whatever,
blah, blah, blah.
So they all turn up on Wednesdayfor the Arsenal game and
they're all like hungover anddying and like have just been
absolutely blasting it for twodays because they've got in the
Champions League and we're likefive nil down at half time and

(58:20):
Moyes is ripping into them athalf time and Stubbs says that
someone in the changing roomsaid what you said on saturday,
like go out, have a good timeand moise just goes.
That was saturday.
This is fucking now the reasonwhy we got back at seven one.
My arsehole is because theplayers were all like hung over,
because they've just beencelebrating for like three days

(58:42):
straight and I think was it.

Speaker 1 (58:43):
nigel martin was our goalkeeper at the time and if
you watch that game back whichI've only done once he was
absolutely the man of the match.
Nigel Martin, I mean, theycould have scored twice as many.

Speaker 3 (58:55):
He's T-Total, probably that explains it.

Speaker 1 (58:58):
So I think we'll lose to Arsenal Because you don't
want man City to win the league.
So I'm happy for us to lose toArsenal, but Luton one man
cities to win the league.
So I'm happy for suez toarsenal, but lutein uh, I mean,
ben, do you want us to lose?
So what's your score prediction?

Speaker 2 (59:10):
no, I never actually want us to lose.
I just in a world where I thereis a situation where forests go
down, I want that to happen andI feel like losing to to lutein
is is, is part of that part ofthat master pilot has happened.
I actually think we'll we'll,we think we'll draw.
I think it will probably be 1-1, because I think Luton are

(59:31):
actually really bad, but equally, I think now that we're safe,
there is a natural inclinationfor it to tail off, and everyone
talks about on the beach and etcetera, et cetera.
So I don't think there'sanything strong riding on it for
us as it is for them, but Ithink they're a bad team.

(59:51):
So I'm going to go for a 1-1draw.

Speaker 4 (59:54):
They're a bad team who've beaten us twice already
and we've only played them twice.
So my view would be that theyshould be out there saying
there's no way we're going toallow that Luton team to
certainly beat us three times,and I think you know they should
be going out 100% to win and Ithink part of the problem is

(01:00:15):
that we've had in the past thatyou know.
We've had games where they'vebeen brilliant and worked hard
and you've thought, fantastic,they've turned the corner.
What they now need to show isthat it's not just three games
or four good games out of five,that they are now able to keep
it going and our next two gamesare Luton and Sheffield United

(01:00:36):
and expect them and hope thatthey win both of those for those
reasons.
So I'll be very disappointed ifwe don't beat Luton on Friday.

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
What's your?

Speaker 4 (01:00:45):
score prediction.
I'm going to go for 2-1.
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:00:51):
I've gone for Lawrenson the last few times.
We've done a prediction, so I'mjust going to go the opposite
of that now and just say thatwe're going to lose.
In the back of my mind I agreewith that.
I think we'll go into it with apositive mindset, but I think

(01:01:11):
it's worth bearing in mind thatthe relief these players must be
feeling will be absolutelyastronomical at the minute, and
it's only natural that therewill be a bit of there will be a
tail-off because we are nowsafe and we're safe beforehand.
There will be In their mind.
There will be a tail offbecause we are now safe and
we're safe beforehand.
There will be In their mind.
There will be.
I think that's inevitable.

(01:01:32):
You can still pick them up andget them to play to a level that
will beat Luton, but they'renot going to show the same level
that they do against Liverpool.
They're just not.
So I think we will draw.

Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
Okay, what's the score?
One more, all right, see, Ireckon the only thing we're now
playing for is Jordan Pickfordto get the Golden Glove for the
most clean sheets, which I thinkhe's got his eye on.
The way he's been reacting tosaves recently has been extreme
even for him, but Arsenal arewell ahead of that.
Three games ahead, yeah.
So if he gets his clean sheetin all three games, including

(01:02:08):
Arsenal, including Arsenal.
So on that basis, I think we'regoing to win 1-0.
And I don't think we'll concedeanother goal which is now the
end of the season, wow.

Speaker 3 (01:02:18):
Because I think Pickford is obsessed with
keeping clean sheets.

Speaker 1 (01:02:22):
He was celebrating what?
Was it?
A game against Forest?
The Forest game celebrating theForest.
Why are you talking 12 yards?

Speaker 3 (01:02:29):
away from him he's like he's all over it on a wild
point.
I mean, even if, taking theChelsea game as well into
account, we've got, we stillhave the fourth best defence in
the league, which again you goback to the point around Dyche's
influence.

Speaker 4 (01:02:46):
You know, that's not, that's not by accident it is,
but that is still haven'tconceded 48 goals it is, but
maybe there's a why.

Speaker 3 (01:02:54):
I mean, I'm sure the Athletic are very burrowing away
on some analysis that will popup over the summer about you
know why there seem to be moregoals scored in the Premier
League around this time.

Speaker 1 (01:03:10):
So I think that wraps it up.
We'll be back.
I guess we'll be back after theLuton game and we'll see how we
did, whether we turned up likeLions, as Dad predicts, or like
Slots as.
Adam believes we will.
And then there's stuff we needto talk about.
At some point we're going totalk about 7-7-7, transfer stuff
over the summer, all thosethings, but we'll get to that.

(01:03:32):
Right now, I just hope everyoneenjoys us getting nine points
from three games, playing well,beating Liverpool, happy days
and sleeping of a night.
Yeah, and sleeping of a night,I know, definitely, it's so true
, I I woke up.
It's the forest game.
Actually, before the forestgame, I woke up in the middle of

(01:03:52):
the night before that and Iknew you wake up and you just
know something's on your mind.
Yeah, it's unbelievable.
So, yeah, that's all behind usnow.
Yeah, um, follow us on applepodcast, subscribe on on spotify
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