On Saturday Morning We Will Rule The World

The Wrong Beginning 

"Really? Is that really what you're starting off with after a five week gap, a lazy sort-of, 'am I right guys??' meme? 

And isn't it a bit hypocritical given you haven't even been arsed to write anything for yonks whilst all this oh-so-exciting domestic action has been going on?"

All I said it was coming back - I never said it would be good. 

This is at best a quick clip show. But composed of bits no-one's ever even seen before, so lacking even that 'oh yeah, I remember that' moment where a flash of recognition can be fleetingly mistaken for 'oh yeah, I enjoyed that'.

So, that England - Denmark game, eh??

As if. Those depths will never be plumbed - the below, that Alan Cumming pun and giving Chew Lips Album Of The Year - yes, but if you ever catch me anywhere near going on about a) the Englund or b)what a money-grubbing gobshite Sir Steve Redgrave is then you can shoot me at Wembley ("what, Wembley?") before the next exhibition game. 

That's No Way To Win A Tie

For Everton this is without doubt our biggest game of the season - and its one that, in some ways, there area absolutely no statistical positive omens for. We haven't won at Arsenal for over 18 years. Since we beat Sheffield Wednesday 2-1 in in 1990 at Hillsborough, we've won ONE game away from home in the FA Cup against a top-flight team (an excellent 2-0 win at Sunderland in replay 2 years ago, although the game loses a lot of its sheen given how the replay came about and what the win led to...).

So, the draw, you would have to say, wasn't kind to us.

Still A Long Way To Go

But! It could have been worse. Only the most bitter, one-eyed loon could say they'd rather be going to Anfield with the form they're in and the memory of the humptying we got there in January still fresh in the mind (even then though, the last round showed twice how quickly defeats can be avenged: Arsenal reversing a 1-5 shellacking by Liverpool, and City totally outplaying Chelsea, hot on the heels of the opposite being the case).

They are beatable (Stoke beat them last week, so if anyone thought on reading that 'they're not' , well, they just fucking are), but we have to show an attitude and an approach that can help will the win to happen that we haven't seen for such a long time.

So much so, that the only real comparison I can think of is, uncannily, the last time we did win anything, and the result at this stage (albeit at Goodison) in beating an undeniably good, yet fragile Newcastle side 1-0. For some reason, I remember this being the only round I really thought we might go out in then, and similar could be true this year too - if we somehow make it into the semis you'd hope they feel they can take on the world.

As indicated by those stats above, it will be a virtually unprecedented result if we do it. But, tantalisingly, not an entirely unprecedented performance: we acquitted ourselves well at The Emirates in both April & December, and deserved the 0-0 and 1-1s we got. Its still a big jump up from there to winning, but if you're going to win the cup, you have to beat top teams - if you're going to be good, you have to impose yourself on opponents and say "we're winning this" which is exactly what we did in 95.

Run Run Romelu Run

It'd be unfair to say that any one particular player has to single-handedly inspire that attitude and approach (very experienced guys like Howard, Baines, Barry & Pienaar have to too), but if one player can embody it and be 'thee factor' then its clearly our on-loan top-scorer. Although he wasn't totally fit (and Martinez also wanted to make a show of "being fair" to Naismith) it should have been a wake-up as to just how much his form had tapered of before getting a knock at Anfield that such a choice was even possible. Imagine asking in the summer "How'd you go with upfront? Neezy Naismith or that Lukakee lad?". The mind would have imploded at the nonsensicalness of there being any shadow of a doubt.

When he came on, to be fair, he went a long way towards restoring his reputation with a clinical finish and an appreciable lift to the pace and intensity of the forward play all round. More of this please. 

Which Way To Biff 'em?

He will clearly play, as will Mirallas - although the other forward slots are a tough one to settle on. Barkley has been MOTM in those two draws, and Deulofeu was the one who made sure the teamwork got at least some reward in the latter of the two. But neither have been playing well lately. Pienaar, Naismith and Osman are arguably in better form, but have rarely, despite their qualities, done it for us in huge games. If I had to pick, I'd go Howard; Coleman, Stones, Distin, Baines; McCarthy, Barry; Mirallas, Barkley, Deulofeu, Lukaku. The way games have gone lately, we've done better when changing it to bring experience on (Osman v Swansea, Pienaar v Villa, Naismith in both) than the opposite and trying to freshen it up with Deulofeu & Barkley in the last 20 (ineffective at Spurs & downright counter-productive at Chelsea).

Bad Boys & Painful Puns

Another exciting aspect of being in a high-profile later-round-of-the-cup show-piece is that you know it'll be on Tv, but which channel will be it on*? If its BT Sport who get the gig** will scourge of the women's bridge club rooms across the country Andy Gray be summoned to punditrise from on high? Cards on the table (another bridge reference, which goes nowhere) - I enjoy Andy Gray. He gets into a game, knows what he's talking about - and he does his best to make it seem a proper big event. He's basically Gerry Lawlor.

And did anyone ever say 'oh, I'm not sure The King is really a suitable person to be doing colour on this, what with him being a bit of a lech?'.Or as Sky seemed to suggest by re-leaking that old clip: "Oh, we're not sure it sets the right tone - for people who are often in a pub, often drinking, often having a bit of a laugh whilst watching the game, whilst being bombarded with adverts for more drinking and ever-more convoluted ways of gambling, by a company owned by a man who's other business is the home of Page 3, who's sister-channel employs an endless troop of hot young busty thangs to bore people to death by repeating Bournemouth's injury crisis latest every ten minutes - to have knowledgeable guy involved because he went 'phwoar' once".

Absolute nonsense.

Sky Sport's position is even then completely inconsistent. Shane Warne is described in the excellent Twirlymen by Amol Rajan as the man who "had sex with a student, had sex with a mother of three, sex with a TV assistant, sex with a women on his BMW, sex in Kevin Pietersen's flat...whilst married" but he is one of the best commentators on the sport at the moment, so have him and pay him (lavishly) to do so - are they worried they're going to lose viewers? People reckoning 'I agree with that tactical insight, but he's a crass bugger after a few drinks I've heard, so I don't accept it'.

Of course, both Gray & Warne are actually good.

David Pleat has worked extensivley for The Guardian, BBC, ITV, AL Jazera, The Daily Mail and ESPN. The Daily Mail who described Gray-Keys-gate as "a mysoginistic sexist storm of shame", happy there to give paid work to David Pleat, who was arrested three times for curb-crawling and soliciting prostitutes. So catually breaking the law and harming people - whilst offering insights such as

"There's Thierry Henry, exploding like the French train that he is" 

& 

"The Dutch will be wary of the big lad pulling off at the back post"

An English Gentleman

The laddddddz innit!?! The laaaaaddddz tho! The! Fucking! Laaaaaaaaddddz!!!

Well, isn't it? Its very easy to be superior and dismissive of that level of humour, but sometimes, isn't there a kernel, a seed, a hint of truth and insight some of the time?

I think there is, and here's an example of why. On the infamously - and admittedly far more miss (wahey! It implies an unmarried woman. With zing-rated wazzers!) than hit LADBible, I saw this:

Just on its own....I think its relateable situation described in an economic and light fashion. The same day I was finishing Three Men In New Suits, J.B. Priestley's bitter take on the emptiness of life for returning soldiers in 1945 and was struck by this passage:

"Oh damn and blast!" (she slumped her head on his shoulder and slung her arm round his neck"
'Are you crying?' asked Herbert, astonished
"Yes, you fathead. Hold me a minute - and shut up"
So there they were, by the dim canal, the night settling around them, while she sniffled and her heart thumped away. All of it was a complete surprise to him. He had forgotten how odd and unexpected girls could be. He could not have said whether he was enjoying it or not. This particular experience had to be judged outside of mere enjoyment or otherwise.

More detail, more atmosphere, more use of the word "fathead"...... but describing essentially the same, peculiar, difficult to explain situation.

Was JB Priestley the LADBible of the 40s? Is the LADBible the JB Priestley of today??

That, this time, is the end. 

*this is disingenuous bollocks. Its definitely on ITV. But if I allude to the chance it might somehow not yet be decided, I can drag this bit out from the clipboard which was topical at the time but not used as I went out instead of finishing off the 'Spurs Away' preview.

**Its not.

Every Shift Is A Work Of Art

Taking a look at things roughly half-way through

The correct point for this kind of classic 'where are we now' and 'hopes for the new year' waffle would have been after 19 games not 20 and on New Year's Eve rather than a few days in, but I was otherwise pleasantly engaged with no reception in the North Wales and had better things to do than prattle on and make a rod for my own back by publishing views which can only come back to haunt me in 6 months time. 

But tonight? Nope, its this or the washing, so here goes - incidentally, see if you can spot the pictures which have been previously saved for forgotten reasons and not yet used getting used up here.

The Whole Goddam Bag Of Chips

Given that the festive period tends to sort the men from the boys like a Vaselline's chorus, it's probably quite significant that the only three teams to come through totally unscathed are Chelsea, City and Arsenal. In the last round of fixtures, it was the first time anyone played another team for the second time this season: by my reckoning, it was also only those three teams who completed a double over their opponents. I dont think either is a co-incidence and I imagine that those three will start to gradually pull away into a very tight slighly separate top three.

Who Is Winning The War On Terror?

Most people I speak to seem to think City are comfortably the best team in the division (possibly as they're the only side to beat both Everton & Liverpool?) but I haven't yet seen them play with the absolute certainty that seems to be lurking in them unfulfilled. A cursory glance at the fixtures in my head says they've still got to go to Old Trafford, Anfield, Goodison, White Hart Lane, The Emirates & St James's, so the second half of the season is a real test for them. 

Classic Poocher's Goal

Chelsea havent looked anything like as interesting to watch so far, and must look at Aguero/Negredo/Dzeko compared to how their strikers have done so far (g/d +34 vs +19) and wonder how they're only 1 point behind. Possibly putting more faith in Mourinho based on previous record than anything scientific, I have a hunch that the last minute winner Torres got when they played each other earlier in the season will prove even more crucial than it seemed at the time, and Chelsea will win the league by a snidey point or two come the final week. 

Janey Dont You Lose Heart

Swansea (A) 2-1

Everton came out of Christmas with 7 points from 12, which was just about acceptable - such are the vagaries of supporting a team that if it was Stoke who had levelled in injury time with a pen, the exact same group of facts and statistics might take on a less positive tinge, but that's just the way the courgettes are diced.

At Swansea I thought we just about edged the win, although in another quirk of perception, the fact our goals came from two screamers almost fed the impression we were a bit lucky - as if we'd chanced our arm by relying on skill to get us through. We were much the more controlled and forward-thinking side though and were all over them before a messy equaliser got them into the game a bit. 

Sunderland (H) 0-1

In the last blog I did say that something could go wrong against Sunderland with so much pointing to a routine romp - the one scenario I doubt anyone foresaw was a defeat where the team came out with a lot of credit and gave in some ways our best half performance of the season. For what its worth, I thought the spectacular fuck up that cost us the game was 85% Osman's fault, as he knew he was in trouble and should have used his experience to do something horrible like put it out for a corner. There were three really top-drawer performances in this match: Mannone will probably never have such a good game again: as well as brilliant saves from Oviedo and Barkley, he held onto another 7 or 8 lesser shots on target where one fumble for a rebound could have been fatal. For us, Barry and Oviedo were absolutely outstanding. If the sick man of Europe Borini hadn't got up higher than his temperature a few days later to head Jelavic's effort off the line we would have had a deserved draw, but this really was 'one of those days'. 

Southampton (H) 2-1

The Southampton game was closer to being what the spin on the Swansea game suggested that was: a possible draw on balance of play, converted to a win by two top-drawer goals coming a bit out of nothing. I thought Southampton came and played well, but paid the price for their two strikers not getting into the game or box at all. Rodriguez had one shot blocked, that was it, whilst Lambert toiled away horribly and only contributed by getting a tittish booking for throwing the ball at MOTM James McCarthy. 

Given it was Baines and Naismith's first start for months, Ovideo's first game in midfield for a year and Robles and Alcaraz's first ever, it was a victory not to be sniffed at, and it was notable to see us play out the last few minutes fairly comfortably with just the one goal advantage. In fact, it was a bit of anti-climax when the final whistle went, so in steady control were we and so far away from our own goal we were keeping the ball.

Stoke (A) 1-1

Something that Stoke probably wished they'd done a bit more of in our last match. This was a case of finding a new way to do a familiar trick: the late equaliser to save a point was a staple of the last ten years, but usually from a corner or similar - this was earned by carrying on the same way in the dying stages as in the rest of the game (60% possession away from home) and trusting the plan to work. It might not have if anyone less briandead than Pennant had been up against Osman as he jinked into the box,but again on the highlights I've seen it would have been a very harsh outcome to not get a draw. In fact the whole game was an exercise in giving a 13/14 twist to an established pattern, the third 1-1 in a row but by all accounts both teams played much better than previously. Given we've not won there since 2008, and were missing both regular centre-backs, you'd have to say you'd have taken a point, so to get it in such a morale-boosting manner was really pleasing. 

Red Sleeping Beauty

What Liverpool Fans Like

To come fourth, I think we'll have to do two things: win at Anfield in a few weeks and not have a replica of the Sunderalnd game all season - that has to be what it seemed, a complete one-off confluence of circumstances. From now on, all 'should win' games have to be wins. I think on balance of probability them horrors will pip us despite having plenty of imperfections in their squad. So far Sturridge and Suarez have both looked excellent when compensating for the other one being out and when both playing, so by sheer weight of goals (46 v our 32) we'll have to do everything right to get there, but 5th should be doable for a team who have lost 2 of 20 games and conceded less than a goal a game so far. 

FA Cup

Impossible to try and predict how the game tomorrow will go as the make-up of both teams is unclear. Martinez seems committed to making some changes - the re-introduction of the all-new nicely arrogant Tony Hibbert being all-but pre-announced - but how many exactly maybe only he knows. I hope he realises just how much air he risks deflating from the Big Blue Balloon if we go out needlessly. He should, as clearly it played a huge role in him being where he now is. 

In my mind, Harry Redknapp will rest a lot and trot out the excuse that promotion for them is the be-all-and-end-all, so if I was Roberto, I'd play a 95% full-strength team, try to get ahead and then take players off with the game in the bag. I niggling think he will go further than that, and we could end up with a disjointed, ragged game, Everton sneaking through 1-0 with an OG or similar. But really I have no clue. 

Old Timers Aint What They Used To Be

Kick & Rush

One thing that has baffled me about Everton this season has been the fact that by far the most impatience with the 'new way' Martinez has brought in has come from the older fans.

Given that we've made an industry out of trotting out the School Of Science tag and worked "Everton's the team that play beautiful football!" into a semi-official club song, its a bit odd that most my age are trying to always to see what the idea is and think ahead.

"3-4-3? Yer wha??"

To imagine how the pattern might develop when Jagielka and Distin are usurped by better ball-playing defenders, or think how things might go when there's an option that allows someone else to play number 10 with Barkley dropping back - its the veterans, the people who've actually seen us batter teams and win stuff who are screaming "big kick!!" and "no! don't be trying things you!!" at the first (or no) sign of trouble. 

As someone else said somewhere; its not as if we've never played from the back or had the keeper roll the ball to the fullback before in all our 135 years. 

She's Done Well For Herself

Don't Listen To The Radio

Something they would have in America that

This is a bit people will only realise was great when its not here anymore: me talking about radio programmes most people will have not heard nor never will. Are you going to go away and listen to a three-hour Tony Blackburn Festive Special just because I say it was half-decent actually? 

If so, here's the link "So You Thought They Were Hits?!"

What Would Happen If You Only Ate Crisps?

This was on Radio 2 on Wednesday afternoon when we were driving back from Llawrst in filthy weather and was a total revelation. His between song banter was horrendous at times, but its so unreconstructed of him that his gormless jocularity does win you over partially. It probably wouldn't if he didn't show that he must have a well-hidden genuinely encyclopedic musical knowledge. If you just saw this  Playlist and didn't know who'd compiled it you'd think 'intersting'. The Vogues, Springsteen & Elton John songs were great, and against the odds, this was a sound show. 

BeardI probably have even less time than I do for Blackburn (who, frankly, I never ever think about) for Frankie Boyle,and again didn't even mean to listen to this show Chain Reaction: Frankie Boyle & Kevin Bridges on Radio 4 but it seems a good, simple idea (someone interviews someone, then the person interviewed asks the questions of someone else next time) and Boyle came across better than I thought him capable of. 

Nice scarf dickhead

To be honest, I've never seen Bridges and he did little to impress here, aside from facilitating an interestingly loose conversation and the double-Scottish angle leading them onto the Independence debate territory, on which Boyle was very good: both in comparing Alex Salmond to a bozo who's regular grotty pub got done-up into a smart winebar but he couldn't go anywhere else so just kept going there and tries to look a bit smarter, and in pointing out that the people who try to over-push the 'traditional Scottish culture' angle are the same people who really dont get it, and are those who least understand what it really is that makes it special (this works for if you substitute Liverpool for Scottish for me,and probably most places too). 

One Of The Worst

He also said very honestly that he hated doing the panel shows, although not sure well it reflects on him that he took the cash and slagged people off for money without even enjoying it, but I did get the impression he's a bit better than he's allowed himself to be and regrets getting boxed-in as Mr Outrageous. Obviously if he wants any more than that impassive praise, all he has to do is go back on one without telling them he's not playing the game anymore and rip the spinal column out of Russell Howard, then get the imagine of him screaming printed on a pink t-shirt with a 'well random' caption like REMEMBER ASTRO BELTS? or something. 

Argh, that was a bit of an angry note to finish on. I do really detest Russell Howard though.

Calming

Next time: A crowd-pleasing stroll through the books I read last year in a wanky, superior tone. Tickets going quick.

Bring it on!