Football 2021/2022

[vintagelaureate]

All my Evertonian friends are convinced, and give them their due they've been saying it for months, that Everton are going down this year.

[WS_Jack_III]

Officials won that for Chelsea today.

[WS_Jack_III]

22 minutes ago, charlierc said:

Hmmmmm... I can see why VAR didn't get involved with upgrading Havertz's yellow to a red but I think Chelsea were very fortunate Chalobah's challenge on Murphy didn't get penalised by either on-pitch or VAR, the latter of whom has very little excuse for giving it a pass.

Pretty deflating. Chelsea is not our favourite away day (just 2 wins in all competitions there since the late 80s) but we did look good for getting something in spite of illness ruling out several key players.

Everton away on Thursday has the air of a very big game for the Toffees after they lost while Watford and Leeds both won.

You probably can see why mate, it's becoming more and more obvious.

[rock the clock]

Lucky on decisions today for sure 

class goal from havertz tho 

[charlierc]

31 minutes ago, vintagelaureate said:

All my Evertonian friends are convinced, and give them their due they've been saying it for months, that Everton are going down this year.

Calvert-Lewin's continued fitness issues don't help - he was out again today - but they don't score often enough and can't keep clean sheets (unless its against Bielsa's Leeds or Borehamwood). Dangerous combination.

They may have the luxury of 3 games in hand on Watford and Norwich, but this is a squad that's looked awful for a while, and I've seen a lot of pessimistic comments from Toffees fans in this thread.

Hence the observation. They really need to beat Newcastle on Thursday, but I don't think we'd be an ideal opponent for a side who need to win.

[lost]

31 minutes ago, vintagelaureate said:

All my Evertonian friends are convinced, and give them their due they've been saying it for months, that Everton are going down this year.

Yup. Most realised it at the start:

 

Thankfully its going to happen in a year when most fans are disgusted with the owners for other reasons. As I've said before some things are more important than football. I just wonder what the financial implications will be for the club, the city of Liverpool and football and in general.

[charlierc]

21 minutes ago, WS_Jack_III said:

You probably can see why mate, it's becoming more and more obvious.

Eh. I'm never that interested in escalating things up to conspiracy when ineptitude is often the answer to a question, though I admit it's quite something to be having the question of "Are you in on something or are just an idiot?". Isn't just with Newcastle either - the decision not to send off Brighton's keeper yesterday for wiping out Luis Diaz was pretty shit, and was also quite something, given Mike Dean not sending someone off is a novelty.

I remember years ago we were denied a blatant penalty at Manchester United for a foul on Alan Shearer, with Man Utd also unhappy at having a goal disallowed, and the referee gave a lengthy interview with Sky afterwards explaining the logic behind each decisions. It was a novelty but one that was praised at the time, yet it never seemed to go anywhere. Seems like the kind of resource that might be justified bringing back tbh.

[charlierc]

10 minutes ago, lost said:

Yup. Most realised it at the start:

 

Thankfully its going to happen in a year when most fans are disgusted with the owners for other reasons. As I've said before some things are more important than football. I just wonder what the financial implications will be for the club, the city of Liverpool and football and in general.

Can confirm the financial shock is not ideal. Newcastle have had two dips in the Championship in the last 10-15 years or so and both were huge losses, to say nothing of that being worse for Aston Villa when they briefly threatened to get stuck there.

Admittedly the second time in 2016-17 was because we went for a Hail Mary move of just spending all the money we got for selling Wijnaldum, Sissoko and Townsend on getting back up ASAP, but accounts from the time said our combined TV/prize income compared to being relegated the year before fell by about £30million, and the prize cash for winning the Championship itself before TV money was just 50 grand. Little wonder half the Championship is willing to bankrupt itself.

I saw a sports paper saying this morning that Moshiri may look to sell if he can't find an investor to make up for Usmanov's exile. Can't help but think it may be better for both to part at this point.

Edited March 13, 2022 by charlierc

[vintagelaureate]

I do think if Everton go down, and for the record I think they'll stay up by the fact the teams around them are worse, they'll end up staying down there for a while.

 

[lost]

40 minutes ago, charlierc said:

 

I saw a sports paper saying this morning that Moshiri may look to sell if he can't find an investor to make up for Usmanov's exile. Can't help but think it may be better for both to part at this point.

Yeah all his money has come from Usmanov. The issue is someone is going to have to accept at least half a billion quid's worth of liabilities for the new stadium and that was priced before commodities doubled. I can't see anyone being that stupid.

[jyoung]

Havertz wasn't a red for me. Chalobah was a definite pen though.

[Lizzim]

5 hours ago, lost said:

Yup. Most realised it at the start:

 

Thankfully its going to happen in a year when most fans are disgusted with the owners for other reasons. As I've said before some things are more important than football. I just wonder what the financial implications will be for the club, the city of Liverpool and football and in general.

I think Everton will scrape in, if only because the other 3 are marginally worse.  Surprised that man city fans are so low in confidence.  Nobody but Liverpool can stop them winning the league and as a Liverpool fan I'm not confident. 

I'm just talking football here, the ownership judgements are another discussion.

[charlierc]

10 hours ago, jyoung said:

Havertz wasn't a red for me. Chalobah was a definite pen though.

I think if the ref's original verdict on Havertz was a red, it wouldn't have been overturned. An either way call for me - can see why he might have been deemed to be merely reckless rather than outwardly violent, but equally it was close enough that it was fair to ask the question.

The Chalobah incident on Murphy was inexcusable. Especially from the VAR guy.

[charlierc]

14 hours ago, lost said:

Yeah all his money has come from Usmanov. The issue is someone is going to have to accept at least half a billion quid's worth of liabilities for the new stadium and that was priced before commodities doubled. I can't see anyone being that stupid.

Yeah... this is certainly going to raise the stakes of the relegation battle exponentially. Football does seem to attract a lot of people that just wanna rock up and thrown tons of cash at the sport to see if they can be a hero, but those would be some very heavy terms and conditions and would require some pretty extraordinary wealth.

[efcfanwirral]

17 hours ago, vintagelaureate said:

All my Evertonian friends are convinced, and give them their due they've been saying it for months, that Everton are going down this year.

 

16 hours ago, charlierc said:

Calvert-Lewin's continued fitness issues don't help - he was out again today - but they don't score often enough and can't keep clean sheets (unless its against Bielsa's Leeds or Borehamwood). Dangerous combination.

They may have the luxury of 3 games in hand on Watford and Norwich, but this is a squad that's looked awful for a while, and I've seen a lot of pessimistic comments from Toffees fans in this thread.

Hence the observation. They really need to beat Newcastle on Thursday, but I don't think we'd be an ideal opponent for a side who need to win.

Way too much is put on Calvert Lewin (and Richarlison) by other club's fans. Neither are that great and that's where our problem is- if they're our best two players we're screwed from the start. They also can't play in the same team together - Richarlison isn't creative and DCL needs service, while richarlison takes away from a winger being able to play as he's more a striker and just runs around anywhere.

Overall its a Championship side, and ultimately that's where we'll end up

Looking at the fixture list and which games are away, I'm not sure we'll even win another game this season.

Edited March 14, 2022 by efcfanwirral

[efcfanwirral]

16 hours ago, lost said:

Yup. Most realised it at the start:

 

Thankfully its going to happen in a year when most fans are disgusted with the owners for other reasons. As I've said before some things are more important than football. I just wonder what the financial implications will be for the club, the city of Liverpool and football and in general.

Not one person I know has expressed much interest in the ownership side of things nor care less about the on the pitch issues because of it. More focus on the bad decisions around signings and managers that have left us in this situation.

I'm amazed they haven't paused the stadium, money just being thrown away now on something that is realistically never being completed 

[DareToDibble]

18 hours ago, vintagelaureate said:

All my Evertonian friends are convinced, and give them their due they've been saying it for months, that Everton are going down this year.

I've been saying for a while "they'll be fine" based on the fact the other team around them are worse, coupled with the 2 or 3 games in hand on the others. However I've been looking at their fixtures and they could be in deep trouble.

Newcastle (H)
West Ham (A)
Man Utd (H)
Liverpool (A)
Chelsea (H)
Leicester (A)
Brentford (H)
Arsenal (A)

They still have their 4 games in hand on top of those (and I'm not sure who they're against) but that run could very well produce 0 points. Game against Brentford could be huge.

On top of that run, I'm sure I saw they have scored only 9 points since September. The omens aren't great.
 

[DareToDibble]

In fact the form compared to others down there is horrendous 😯 

[vintagelaureate]

6 minutes ago, DareToDibble said:

I've been saying for a while "they'll be fine" based on the fact the other team around them are worse, coupled with the 2 or 3 games in hand on the others. However I've been looking at their fixtures and they could be in deep trouble.

Newcastle (H)
West Ham (A)
Man Utd (H)
Liverpool (A)
Chelsea (H)
Leicester (A)
Brentford (H)
Arsenal (A)

They still have their 4 games in hand on top of those (and I'm not sure who they're against) but that run could very well produce 0 points. Game against Brentford could be huge.

On top of that run, I'm sure I saw they have scored only 9 points since September. The omens aren't great.
 

Two of their games waiting to be announced are versus Burnley and Watford (both away). Pivotal! 

[DareToDibble]

3 minutes ago, vintagelaureate said:

Two of their games waiting to be announced are versus Burnley and Watford (both away). Pivotal! 

Oh my.

It's amazing they're even down there to be honest as they have some really decent players, just seem to be devoid of all confidence.
Still think they finish 17th though.

[efcfanwirral]

20 minutes ago, DareToDibble said:

Oh my.

It's amazing they're even down there to be honest as they have some really decent players, just seem to be devoid of all confidence.
Still think they finish 17th though.

This is the thing - no combination seems to produce goals and the defence is shockingly bad. The squad isn't even close to a Premier League squad

 

Assists last season

vs this season:

Clear to see our creativity was mainly sent away by Benitez because he didn't like them (or of course... other reasons for another player). There's nothing to replace that these next 2 months. 

Edited March 14, 2022 by efcfanwirral

[blutarsky]

On 3/13/2022 at 12:51 PM, thetime said:

Just had a look at leading goalscorer this season, its a 1 horse race this season.

Leading on virtually every stat 

Liverpool 3 of top 4!

[DareToDibble]

Thank you Palace 👀

[mcshed]

Can't believe nobody is talking about Bonnyrigg Rose securing the Lowland League title at the weekend with 4 games to spare. After all the stress about letting Celtic's and Rangers' B Teams into the league it's been something of a stroll for the Rose.

[Neil]

just because somone would be saying it if it was another team, tghe collapse by man city in the last few weeks is massive, they've bottled it.