Your Achilles Heel Is A Tendancy To Dream

Backer than back.

Backer than Eirik Bakke, listening to Bach at Bache station.

And what about tomorrow's match wouldn't be drawing people's attention after months of inaction?

Palace v Everton Baby!

All About The Game (and how you play it)
Its extremely difficult to come up with a case other than 'weird things happen' and 'its Everton' for this to be anything other than a comfortable away win. We've played pretty well all season, especially away from home against teams below us in the league - it seems to be a good combination for us when the home team thinks they should be having a go and causing problems, the change to having out and out midfielders (albeit not the most adventurous) instead of defenders 'doing a job' has had the not illogical effect of improving our passing from a bit deeper, setting us up for breaks better.

So, you'd expect Barry & Mccarthy to start even though there's been some 'getting ahead of ourselves' talk of not playing one/both so that they're not injured/suspended for the derby. Incidentally, what I've said there about better passing from the back doesn't incorporate Jagielka's scything hoofs across the pitch, which remain awful, despite some odd praise for them. This website (which I often refer to, not just when it comes up on Google to support a pithy comment) "Totel Football" has it right:

Phil Jagielka's Characteristics 

Likes to play long balls:

Very Often

The defence & keeper do seem to have got themselves sorted out again, only letting it 1 in the last three games, after a bit of an iffy spell, although there's a feeling that letting in one absolute farce of a goal is going to happen soon (Distin's near OG v Hull).

If seven of the side are pretty much guaranteed to start, the four further forward gives a bit more room for manoeuvre. I dont think the quartet that played v Spurs have really been consistent, despite all having flashes of quality, so Barkley, Deulofeu, Naismith and even maybe Jelavic could all be options. Despite his two starts so far being an iffy win over Stevenage and a loss at Fulham, I think i'd take a chance on the Spaniard this weekend

You look at Palace's squad......(have to actually do this, not just use the expression as shorthand for 'think about what players they have, what they're like, how they might line-up' as I genuinely dont think ive seen them play since that mad game when Danny Butterfield got a hattrick) ....and when we signed this lad off Barca, I'm sure it was with the intention of thinking he would have the arrogance to shred the likes of these. He worked well against Spurs lasts week and could have nicked it, so I would put him in for the mysteriously underwhelming Mirallas, and put Barkley back in for Osman as well.

Without trying to be the contrary wise-ass, I think Lukaku has been a tiny bit over-hyped too. He seems to need the whole team to focus through him a bit too much, and can drift out the game more easily than you'd want. He's clearly the best option we've got at the moment, but I think the lazy narrative that Mourinho has got it totally wrong by thinking Torres/Eto'o might score more and do more for the team over the season might end up being revised.

Brokedown Palace

Kate Beckinsale has a phobia of what? Answer at the end of this bit!

So, call me old fashioned, but the only player i actually know enough of to say 'he's actually a good player' is Kevin Phillips, who is 40. I actually think he was under-rated and must have come very close to getting a proper big move at one point. For a long, long period he'd have been recived with open arms at Goodison. In fact, if you look at the European Golden Boot winners list, it runs: Ronaldo (34), Jardel (36), Phillips (30), Jardel (42!) - and he's the only English player to have ever won it. A lot of them were spectacular goals too. I actually remember him playing v us in a rank Sunderland team in 2002/03 and thinking he was a much better all-round player than I'd ever allowed for too.

So, I'd play him if I was......Keith Millen, of course, Keith Millen tomorrow. There was a stat on MOTD last week that Chamakh has managed two shots on target in nine games, so he could hardly do worse. Jimmy Kebe is probably the 'danger man' aside from Phillips, although that agsain is based on an impression from over five years ago.

So, all in all I cant predict anything other than an Everton win, although the sight of all 15 sheets in Hotshots in work going for an away victory makes me wary of saying it - 2-0 to the Blues.

Its emetophobia - fear of vomiting. Dont really know how that works, hope it doesnt affect her too much though, 'cause she's lovely isnt she? Coming up to Christmas too, chance that the flawless festive feast that is Serendipity might get shown....

The old days were the old days. And they were great days. But now is now.

Unless I've misremembered, in the Premier League Years, we've been to Selhurst to play Palace four times and won four(2-0, 4-1, 3-1,3-1), with one loss during the monstrous Mike Walker dynasty of disaster - to an Andy Preece goal, which gave Palace their first win in about the tenth game of the season. So there is a potential equivalent there for a horrible loss to a goal from a sub-prime performer, but I dont think there's much 'read in' from that or the other previous encounters.

In 93, Everton dogged out a grim win on a grisly pitch in the January gloom. Nigel Martyn hacked down Beardsley in the first half but inexplicably wasn't sent off, but in the second half Matt Jackson potted the ball past the future Over-Rated-Everton-XI keeper after being teed-up by future Gobshite-Everton-Pundit-XI stalwart Ian Snodin. Beardsley had the last laugh by making it 2-0 late on from a neat scooped ball by future Wasted-Talent-Everton-XI captain Billy Kenny.

This game is also 'notable' as an unsightly chapter in the catalogue of incompetence that is the 92-93 Everton season review video, the "highlights" just being indiscriminately chosen chunks of inconsequential play - an ambling passage that goes no-where, curtailed eventually by an offside and "Roger Milford....stopping play" shown in laborious detail, then the goals rattled through in blink-and-you'll-miss-it cuts, with no commentary.

And no, I haven't seen it for years, I just remember all that. I am that cool.

Brand Extension Exercise

Jo Brand (pictured above in a picture on loan from the Most 90s Things Ever Gallery) supports Palace, which I am going to use to segue off into a political bit that no-one will like in a minute but I only remembered her at all, because she recently appeared on this: Can't Stand Up For Falling down , a nice little Radio 4 programme about Stand-Ups 'dying' on stage. Now all Jo Brand ever says is 'Men! I'm Fat! Arsenal!' right? - everyone knows that. But in fact in this instance she veered away from doing that and actually told a hilarious story Explained here (involves Sooty).

She has also been (in an incredibly minor way) in the news recntly supporting the NHS vehemently and saying

“To me, a politician’s job is to listen to constituents’ problems and try to sort them out.

"I suspect most politicians feel overwhelmed because people’s lives are a real struggle, full of unhappiness, and you would probably feel powerless to do anything about it.

"So you have to be a particular type of person to cope with that.

“I wonder how members of the present Tory Government can have any idea just how hard it is for most people, given how wealthy they all are. They don’t understand what being poor means.

“I like Ed Miliband very much and think he is a very decent bloke, and I hope the nation is warming to him.”

All of which I agree with and is conspicuously more constructive than her Russel Comic namesake's pathetic cry for absenteeism. I genuinely don't understand how he can attempt to be the voice of revolution, whilst at the same time espousing a course of action that if taken to its logical conclusion wopuld usher in an indefinate period of rule by the incumbent Conservatives - something that you'd think he'd realise was in fact quite a conservative, revolutionary thing to do.

Pork And Beans

This bit isnt even topical by the way.

Hypocrisy's great though isn't it? Everyone loves a politician being a complete hypocritical gimp, particularly when the one doing it is Danny "The Absolute Fucking State Of Him Though" Garbexander.

This was him in 2010, supporting Cameron & Clegg in the 'difficult & painful' decision to cancel all the attempt-at-growth plans Labour had put in place:

"Before the election Lord Mandelson had a giant chequebook which he went round opening up all over the country... he promised 200 projects, two thirds of which were conveniently located in Labour marginal seats.. the truth is that (these loans) were promised by the outgoing Labour Government as a calculated ploy to win support in (Labour areas)"

Such lofty, apolitical, putting the country first, all in it together, sentiments. So, how surprising that this should pop up a month or so:
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/10/danny-alexander-brings-home-pork-fuel-duty-cut-lib-dem-seats

As we get closer to the election, we are likely to see ever more instances of "pork barrel" politics, an invaluable US term to describe the use of government money for the benefit of ministers' constituents. Of the 10 areas that Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander will announce will benefit from the rebate scheme (a 5p reduction in fuel duty), eight have Lib Dem MPs, including two in his own Inverness constituency .....this isn't the first time that Alexander, whose seat is being aggressively targeted by Labour, has doused his constituents with state largesse, "including funding for a tourist railway, a bailout for the London-Scotland sleeper train and tax breaks for ski lifts."

Spurious File Photo Of Dog Pushing A Pram

So, all that remains is to stick in a completely unrelated and immaterial photo in to end on a nominally light note - and wish a 'Happy Stag Day' for tomorrow to the Phidler!!!

"If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain!"