The Premier League - 2021-2022

I appreciate that you'll have a different perspective on this. Everton haven't been out of the top division since the early 50s. You'd need to be about 80 or so to remember it. There are generations of Everton fans who've never known anything other than top flight football. To us the prospect of relegation seems like the end of the world. I'd much rather be celebrating actually winning something, but what you saw last night was a massive outpouring of relief - I totally get from your point of view that you have experience of going down and coming back up and not seeing it as the worst thing to ever happen, but for a fanbase who have never known anything like that and to see the likes of Forest and Leeds (traditionally "big" clubs) and what they went through after going down, relegation is something we can't imagine. Grown fellas around me in tears last night because the idea of going down has been consuming their lives. I've barely slept since Sunday myself. From the outside looking in, I can imagine the bemusement but this last 6 months or so has taken years off my life. Demotion to the 2nd tier disappointed/annoyed my Watford season ticket-holding father-in-law, but you can tell that his perspective is different because of the experience. My Everton season ticket-holding father (the most laid back guy you'll ever meet) has been a nervous wreck for weeks. Usually watches every game on telly, but hasn't watched a game other than Everton for months because it's been making him feel ill. He was 3 the last time Everton weren't a top flight side. All I can tell you is that for us it's different and that's almost certainly based on experience.

I ended up in getting in at 3am this morning and I'm dying at the minute, but I don't regret celebrating last night. The relief was something else. At some point today when I've sobered up, I might start to engage in conversations with mates etc about how that can't be allowed to happen again and where we go from here.

 

It takes a big man to come on here and admit all the ways in which you’re tinpot and don’t care about being perceived as such.

Fair play to you.

Look forward to your next one, and all the subsequent Instagram selfies, when you reach the Carabao Cup semi-finals or equivalent.

 

Covid regs - they were in temporary dressing rooms.

EDIT: Beaten to it by @IBB

 

Thanks mate. I'll look forward to your posts about the big games against Rotherham and Bristol City next season

 

LOL

 

I thought him leaving was why we went down and we should have gone out of our way to make him stay. State of this club etc

 

Yes. I cried when we got promoted at Brighton and I'm a grown man

 

And Watford are just down the road as well. There is a boat with 200+ Watford fans sailing up the Thames at 10am-2pm on Sunday and no doubt they will be pi55ed and will probably be a pain in the arse. Great day to be in West London!!

 

I shed a few tears when I saw us lift the Premier League trophy.

Just about managed not to assault anyone though.

 

Touche!!
I don't like Everton partly because of the "were a massive club" nonsense, but you've always been a good and fair poster on here so hope you enjoyed last night as much as we would have done had we stayed up last night.

 

Only because you're a 4 ft wimp though

 

I will cry if we are promoted next season because of the pending pain and suffering the following season.

 

Yeah I just chucked a few flares about.

I was asking someone about this the other day. You can’t take a sandwich or a brolly in through the turnstiles at our place without getting Australian border force style treatment.

How do these ******* idiots keep getting flares into games?

 

Presume they just hide them tucked into socks under trousers ? Or in the case of Everton, they could use the excess space in the crotch area ?

 

Think if I remember rightly we were the idiots who set the precedent of pitch invasion for a semi final play off - But it was slightly different circumstances and wasn’t a “done thing”.

But Huddersfield abusing Luton player and throwing coins at fans, Forest fans goading Sheffield united fans and running over Billy Sharp, Port Vale fans going after Swindon players… And of course the Everton idiot going after Vieira - There’s a deep seated feeling in this country of anger and it’s starting to show in different ways.

Utterly utterly disgraceful.

 

My 7 year old had to take her bobble hat off at your place, presumably to prove she wasn't hiding her coke stash under it. Fortunately they didn't properly check her pockets.

 

There was a stat quoted yesterday that Everton's win was the first time they had ever won from 2-0 down at half-time in the whole history of the Premier League. Seems unbelievable, but of course some of us were at Goodison when Watford were 2-0 up mid-way through the second half and still managed to lose 3-2. Is that another record to chalk up for the Hornets?

 

He’s generally the worst one so doesn’t surprise me. He often has a meltdown and gets a load of questions wrong on the bounce. I believe our very own moog has been on the chase?

 

It was tinpot. End of.

 

It’s funny because the stalls in the gents in the South Stand emit a chorus of snorting and sniffing followed by a stream of idiots singing songs about Iwan Roberts.

Not a single one clutching a bottle of pop bought off the premises though so it’s all good.

 

Looking at this whole rumpus in a completely neutral and even-handed way, I do think both clubs need to receive some punishment to protect the integrity of the Premier League. My view, with barely a glance at the table, is that Everton should immediately suffer a 20 point deduction and, without sanctioning Viera personally for attempting to relocate that rather excitable Toffee's scouser 'tache to another part of his face with his boot, the mighty Eagles of Selhurst should be deducted a wholly reasonable 26 points.

Very straightforward and fair in the circumstances. By the way this fella has done the maths...
https://twitter.com/KirkoGrinds/status/1051905449677791233

 

I just can't imagine football being that important in life.

 

Abolutely not. That would mean we'd have to live through another 12 months of this nightmare.

 

Vieira should have had security walking next to him across the pitch, that is Everton's, fault however there is absolutely no excuse for him to get involved in a conversation with a fan which results in him kicking that person!

A fine should be coming for Everton not controlling their fans and for Vieira not controlling himself!

 

Can see Everton and Lampard parting ways. They will lose some of their better players and little to invest in the squad, so could be another very tricky season for them next year. If they are struggling by the time of the World Cup break I can see him sacked.

i would have preferred Burnley joining us next year, but Leeds look woeful and all the new manager bounce is turning into another Ranieri like inevitable decline. Another overseas manager who won’t last the calendar year.

 

Not having a go at you but this type of statement that is said many times in the media about teams and that they "should" be in the PL.
All of these teams have one the top division as many times or more than Leeds - Sunderland, Sheff Wednesday, Huddersfield, Blackburn.
And in addition to them these team have won it as many times as Forest - Preston, Derby, Burnley, Portsmouth, Sheff Utd, WBA, Ipswich.
Where is the clamour for these teams to be in the PL?

 

I don’t mind the flares, it’s those creepy OAPs in skinny jeans that want stopping by security

 

I've just picked a couple of names there, I could have chosen others. I don't think anyone "should" be in the Premier League.

 

I think I've said this before, but when I moved to Herts I was surprised by the different culture re football to up here. Up here, life practically revolves around it. Everyone is blue or red (more red than blue these days, which is symptomatic of how bad Everton have been for the last 30 years). When I moved to Herts I was shocked by the number of people who had no interest in football at all. It was totally alien to me. I can only tell you that my experience was that culturally football is the lifeblood of the city here and as a kid I didn't know any different than that. I would suggest that this isn't the same in Hertfordshire. That isn't a criticism, it's just different, but I can completely understand your struggle to understand why people here would place this level of importance on it.

 

It's a bit more nuanced than that.

Everton are cash rich, but we are struggling to comply with FFP. There are a number of high earning players out of contract this summer - Delph, Tosun and he who must not be named . Everton entered into an agreement with the PL a year ago or so with regard to their finances - we aren't currently under any pressure to sell, but if we want to buy anyone we are going to need to make accounting profits on players to allow this - Calvert-Lewin, Pickford and Richarlison are the most likely, but Richarlison seems the favourite, which would be a huge shame but is totally understandable.

I find it impossible to make any predictions about Lampard at the moment - it's very difficult to evaluate his performance. 20 points from 17 games since he took over - this isn't great, if you average that sort of return out over the whole season, that would have us one place higher than we are now. However, that does miss the context that we had 6 points from 14 games before he got here - the worst run in our 144 year history, so it might be reasonable to expect that it would take a little time to turn that around, as we saw with Eddie Howe at Newcastle.

Allowing for that, if you look at Lampard's last 11 games, we've got 17 points and if you average that sort of points return out across a season we would currently be going into the final day a point ahead of West Ham in 7th place. Basically I think, from the numbers, it's a little soon to be making any sort of meaningful conclusions, but there are some vague reasons to be hopeful.

On less tangible stuff, what I've liked about Lampard is that he's been flexible enough to change his approach - we've seen him change style and system. We've seen him get it totally wrong (eg Spurs away and the first 45 mins last night), but we've seen him make also be willing to adapt his approach.

He's also a pretty likeable guy - he's won over most of the fanbase and that does actually count for something. I wasn't a fan of the choice of him as manager given his experience, but I'm slightly more hopeful now than I was when he came in.

 

Tbf it is a bit sad. You must have a pretty unfulfilled life if it means that much.