Before I start, I would like to reassure anyone in two minds whether to bother with reading this that I will not interrupt my 'coverage' at any point, regardless of the declaration of nuclear war, death or any other event no matter how seismic. The blog will go on.
Brains retrained by a 24 inch remote
What on earth was that about though? To recap, the BBC received 'over 850' ('more than 1,350' according to the ever keen Daily Mail: "The coverage was so over the top. You would have thought the Queen of England had died it was so all consuming") about cutting ten minutes off from a repeat of an episode of Mrs Brown's Boys to report the news that one of - by any assessment- one of the most significant figures of the last century had died.
I'm not bothered about what programme it was they interrupted, so much as the total lack of perspective this is indicative of. How inured to actually thinking about anything do you have to be to not understand the basic principle that some things are bigger than others?
I remember being a bit peeved in 1995 when the BBC cut off from the cricket to announce that Douglas Hurd had resigned as Foreign Secretary. A far less monumental event, and I love watching the Test match - but there is a hierarchy of events that you figure out and accept.
Even more hope-sapping is the fact that it hasn't been laughed out of sight entirely. The Metro managed to slop some reassuringly grey gruel into the greyed-out dead brains of the grey masses on the grey omnibus that they were right to have been furious at the snooty BBC for tricking them into momentarily thinking "who's this guy? He isn't Irish!".
"....the BBC have a channel called BBC News. If people want to know what’s going on in the world, they can watch that.Those watching Mrs Brown are within their rights to expect the entire show to be broadcast....The BBC can tell them about Mandela’s death ...on their news channel."Eh?
'If people want to go what's going on in the world'.What an amazing sentence. 'If'?!
Following through his argument, why ever show the news on BBC (or ITV, or 4) then? People can just go to the news channel! Would would happen if a war did break out? Would people just be expected to find out in their own time - and maybe think after a few big bangs outside
'Blimey, what's going on here then? Flick to News 24 for a min baybz..'
"Cant find the changer, shall we just leave it? Probably nothing"
'Yeah. Thinking about it, I don't even want to know what's going on in the world actually. Not going to affect us is it?'
Making Me Shallow
There shouldn't on paper be many surer bets than Everton to win this weekend. In the Premier League our record at home to Fulham is P12, W12, F28 A 6. Fulham are struggling pretty horribly and we've just put together our best three consecutive performances for about six years. It's been a pleasure to see such positive, vibrant displays. Maybe the most eye-opening section of all three was the last ten minutes; against Stoke we kept going for more goals, at Utd we made it so there would only be one winner - and then at Arsenal got up and came back admirably after a bit of a sickener in conceding and (barring Giroud's superb effort) looked most likely to nick a fabulous match.
This fixture has fallen at reasonable times for Fulham too at times - the game where Saha scored his first goal for us was in amidst a turgid spell of form, with a very prickly crowd and a line-up with no discernible pattern or shape. I vividly recall Arteta cocking up a quick freekick by playing the ball to Yakubu when he was about ten yards offside - the Yak then gormlessly played it anyway, the flag went up and there was a torrent of frustrated derision from the stands.
And we still won that.
Even by 'typical Everton' standards, it would be something of an anticlimax to drop anything in this one. I don't think we will, but I think it will be tougher than it might be supposed - 2-1 to the Mighty Blues.
Can I Borrow A Feeling?
The only change to an XI that has surprised even the most optimistic of observers in the last two games by looking so effective and comfortable is that James McCarthy is suspended. That's a shame because he has been playing as well in centre-midfield for us as anyone since Arteta in early 2009 just before doing his knee at Newcastle. The signing from Wigan is nowhere near as classy or as much of a threat going forward, but for covering the pitch and dominating from the middle he's been immensely impressive so far.
So Leon Osman will probably come in - although Martinez must be very tempted to use McCarthy's absence as a way to get Gerard Deulofeu into the team, after 'amking an impact' so noticeably over the past week. The finish at Arsenal was in some ways quite simple, but not something that I could imagine any other player I've seen for Everton score bar Rooney.
It's been amusing to see the desperate attempt to find a negative aspect to the season so far which has been a spate of comments and stories about us being "Loaneverton".
The aforementioned Arteta, along with Pienaar and Howard from the current side, and Duncan Ferguson going further back, were all initially loan signings and it wasn't like they only began to earn points for us once we'd made the signings permanent. In all cases there was also negative briefing to the effect that we'd never be able to retain them.
The flip side is that if we had somehow signed Lukaku and Deulofeu (plus Barry), the crushing lack of imagination which makes up 99.9% of the received wisdom regurgitating vacuity that passes as football punditry would be saying "they're off at the end of the season anyway"(for the record, I think at least two of the three will very likely be playing for Everton next season, and the better we do can only enhance the chances of any/all of them staying).
So, can you really do anything other than just enjoy players whilst you've got them? After Rooney's historic first goal the media rushed to say he'd not long be around,and any realistic fan knew that was a possibility too - did it undermine the moment when he scored at Leeds a few weeks later? Did Liverpool fans think during Suarez's extraordinary display last week 'I should be enjoying this, but i cant shake it out of my head that Madrid might come back in soon - he wont be ours forever y'know?'.
No they did not - and if they did they're miserable gobshites who shouldn't even bother watching what is an essentially 'of the moment' sport.
Life Is Beautiful
In complete contrast to what Martinez said before the Utd game about preferring a good, stylish display to a sneaky 1-0 win (its an indication of how well things are falling for him right now that he got a combination of both) - this just had to be won, with any aesthetic considerations shunned entirely.
Whereas we can pick two out of Deulofeu, Pienaar or Mirallas for the wide roles on Saturday, the "wingers" in this game were Lee Carsley and David Unsworth. Whatever criticism there is of David Moyes (and I have/had more than most) you cant lose sight of the fact that in the 'long view' he made an enormous amount of progress. The squad we had assembled by this point (March 2002) was stagnant, totally unfit, incoherent and de-motivated.
And so frightfully incompetent had recent tactics/performances been, we were underachieving even from that level of expectation.
So, to the chagrin of a frankly incredible 72% in a Echo poll who disagreed at the time, Walter Smith was removed and in came Moyes from Preston, everyone was 'taken out' from shambles at Middlesbrough and a limited but at least vaguely comprehendable line-up was sent out to a wet, grim, muddy Goodison which hadn't seen a goal from open play in its last four games.
If any goals have ever been scored purely by fervent, logic-defying zealotry from the stands then it was these two; after 27 seconds Unsworth blammed one in from the corner of the area and a few minutes later Ferguson chased down a backpass, charged down Van Der Saar's clearance then outpaced him to slot in.
The lack of conditioning in the squad was then laid bare: we were knackered after 25 minutes. Gravesen got sent off and the second period was played I would guess 96% in our defensive half. And one of the brief parts that wasn't only occurred because David Weir curled a pass deliberately, cynically but effectively right towards their corner flag along the ground so it held up on the grimy pitch and gave everyone a couple of seconds breather. Barry Hayles got one back and the pattern of play intensified. The phrase 'backs to the wall' is often used, but from what I remember we ended up playing a sort of 8-1-0 formation with Joe Max Moore(!) as the furthest man forward.
But we hung on, and things got better.
Berby Can I Hold You Tonight
If Martinez is wondering what he could do in January to improve the squad and give us that extra dimension to finish as high as possible then surely he will have raised an intereted eyebrow when that paragon of reliability the Gossip Column reported that the me-proclaimed best player in the world Dimitar Berbatov is frustrated at 'the Cottage' and would like a move.
This is the moment. He's 32, so, even though it will be amazing to watch him in a few years when he slows down and plays in a more peripheral way, here is the last realistic moment for Everton do something purely to indulge me. It wouldn't make a whole lot of sense, but if (as seems sadly likely) Jelavic is going to go, and someone like West Ham pay us decent money for him, we are going to be short of options upfront.
We have struggled at times to break down ordinary defences (0-0s v Cardiff, Palace & West Brom), he would surely be as close-to-motivated as he's ever going to be by trying to get in the Champions League, possibly over two of his former teams and would be a great influence for Barkley and the other young players. It could hardly be a bad thing to add someone who even as curmudgeonly figure as Alan Hansen admitted on MOTD2 is "in the top three players for pure technical ability in the history of the Premier League...maybe even number one".
Of course, he followed that up with a fairly blistering attack on his 'attitude', which isn't really the right word for me - does running round to no end show a good attitude necessarily?
Hansen said his effort etc was 'absolutley shocking...embarrassing...a disgrace' and implied it got Jol fired.
You'd never get such unhedged criticism in reverse.No pundit would ever be so frank as to say about a limited but trying player "his workrate is good, but his touch, vision and composure are an utter disgrace.....by consistently miss-controlling and giving the ball away, he's contributed to getting the manger sacked" even though they're deficiencies just as likely to lead to bad results.
As well as all that, he's also starting to show a lovable wacky side, with his cartoons of Snoop, uploading photos of him brandishing his kid in the sky and crazily patriotic delight in Bulgarian athletes success in even the most junior and obscure competitions
Also: This.How can anyone see that and not fancy a bit of it? So come on. Just for the hell of itSign him, make him captain, put him on everything - you know it makes sense.
Please, please, please.....
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