NICK ARMITAGE COLUMN
The Big 4 Bias
Comments (27) : Usually before games against United the atmosphere is more than a bit spicy, but the early kick offs to accommodate the viewing habits of the Dubai, Bangkok and Johannesburg United supporters clubs, just stop half the ground getting pissed and Goodison was very very quiet. I asked some fella who the ref was and he said Alan Wiley ? I honestly thought about going back home at that point. Alan Wiley is a terrible ref anyway, but when he has his assistant, the snidey little gobshite that is Ryan Giggs ordering him about, he gets even worse.
After kick off we huffed and puffed for a few minutes but Berbatov found a big hole where Arteta was supposed to be defending. United overloaded that flank and Berbatov, Ronaldo and Ji-Sung ?I am playing for Far Eastern marketing purposes? Park took turns to pulverise the exposed and out of sorts Lescott. Their first went in and I expected an avalanche but we got to half time relatively intact, despite the best efforts of the linesman on the Bullens Road side and the ref himself.
The second half started slowly, that was until Alan Wiley booked the magnificent Philip Neville for nothing. And yes, I did call Philip Neville magnificent. Quite simply Neville and Alan Wiley?s bias turned that game on its head.
Ronaldo had no right whatsoever to go for that ball, his legs were behind him, he had lost possession and had no way of retrieving it. Neville, quite fairly, slid in to knock the ball out of play because the whole of our right flank was out of position and very vulnerable. It was the momentum and arrogance of Ronaldo that caused him to clash with Neville ? but did Wiley see it like that? Did he hell! After watching Ferdinand run 40 yards to have a go at Neville, after seeing Ronaldo flailing like a wounded animal and then listening to Giggs no doubt hissing at him to send off his former team mate, he realised that Neville was mere a Man United opponent and he duly booked him.
That was it, Goodison felt she was wronged and the old girl woke up. The blue touch paper was lit.
The game was littered with comic refereeing decisions ? without exception all went United?s way. The one that stands out to me was in the second half when Fellaini went up for a header whilst sandwiched by Evra and another United player. Our mophead outmuscled two of them and won the ball, despite being held, pushed and pulled. Wiley blew up and I thought, ?about time,? he then pointed to Park End and accused Fellaini of using an elbow. It was pantomime refereeing. Then to rub salt in the wounds, snidey gobshite Giggs marches over to his mate Wiley and tells him to book Fellaini. I was expecting to see a burly fella in a frock skipping onto the pitch singing, ?He's behind you.?
Wiley?s bias and piss poor refereeing is just typical when playing against the Big 4. On this occasion it worked in our favour, our players grew as the crowd felt repeatedly cheated and became more vociferous. The more Riley incensed the crowd, the more the crowd cranked up the decibels and got in United?s face. If past history is anything to go by, United fall apart when Goodison starts to roar and combined onslaughts from the terraces and the blue shirts had the desired effect.
Despite the great fight-back and result the slanted commentary and post match analysis left me bewildered and with a sour taste in my mouth. BBC Radio Five Live bizarrely described Fellaini?s goal as "the most undeserved equaliser in the history of football," work that one out if you can. Alex Ferguson also moaned at Wiley for booking Rooney and said that his players weren?t protected enough ? this was heavily reported in the media and anyone who hadn?t seen the game could, wrongly, come to the conclusion that we had simply kicked three points out of their champions. This couldn?t have been farther from the truth, United were lucky to get out with a point after a storming second half by Everton.
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On a more pleasant note, what a good performance second half, gives me a bit more hope for the rest of the season
Sky, ITV and the printed press simply can?t afford an imbago like that, so they just kiss his arse. Anyone who does stand up and question him gets banned from Old Trafford. That can effectively end the career on many football writers. It stinks but, because United are the cash cow, it persists.
I feel slightly ashamed to admit that recently I’ve fell out of football and have had my longest stint as an absentee from Goodison since I started going as an eight-year-old.
Now I feel galvanised (after the summer horrors) by what Nick touches on here. Everton played with passion, ambition, determination and skill in the second half. Even if they had lost the game I’d still be feeling rejevunated by that 45 minutes.
I’ll be there next week and for as long as they show that kind of solidarity and love of the shirt.
Fingers crossed it is a genuine ’turning point’. Keep it on the deck, keep it quick and inventive and play till you drop and we will always be behind you.
Good article Nick. Fuck the Sky 4 - we’ll always be Blue.
ps: Never listen to footy on Radio 5 Live; so negative and biased against teams not in the top 4. Merseyside and City for me.
We’ll have to be careful of tackling in the next few games because the Referees will take the reports on face value and believe that we are a dirty team.
Remember how little it took for Andy Johnson to be (wrongyly) labelled a cheat and diver.
SAF is a very clever manager if at times unlikeable, he knows that of all the clubs operating outside of the Sky 4 the one club that could break them up is Everton.
I don’t mean that we can do it right now or even in a couple of seasons, but if we had the right leadership and money to go with the fans - who have always had those ambitions - we would have the ingredients to be every bit as good as those sky 4 clubs.
The more the media belittles us the better as far as I’m concerned, as it means that we are showing signs of becomining a good side.
I hope David Moyes realises that Everton will never ever be media darlings and let the players know that the only people they have to answer to are the Evertonians who support them.
COYB time to show us that you mean business.
If we had got beat yesterday we would have been first on MOTD, that's the biggest negative I can say about our Public Broadcaster.
Despite a good second half against the Mancs, I remain to be convinced that we have turned a corner. Perhaps some better performances in the up-coming games this week might help. But the other problem is that we are way busy with other stuff, and maintenance of the website is suffering, I?m afraid.
Perhaps in the interest of making the site even more interactive, people can help us in a number of ways:
Make your selection and do a write-up for Players of the Month, August, September and October.
Also, for news coverage, send us web links and a brief synopsis for anything you think should go on the homepage.
Thanks!
I've been on Moyesie?s back as of late, but the fact remains that at few times during his tenure have any of us felt as low as we did the day Walter Smith?s charges surrendered so meekly in the Cup at the Riverside. While he deserves a fair amount of criticism for his questionable tactics, team selection and protracted wavering over the new contract, it should be remembered that this man is more or less solely responsible for the elevated hopes that we have for the boys today. How he steered that bunch of misfits to a 4th place finish a few years back will mystify me forever. The spirit shown yesterday, along with the promise of a developing Fellaini, should be enough to give us all back some hope.
You remember the year that only an unfairly disallowed Bolton goal kept us up?Well, we?re far from that terrible time now.
You wanna lift yerself? You Tube the ?84-?85 highlights. I did, and it worked wonders. One day soon, the ridiculous imbalance that exists between the haves and the have-nots in English football is bound to implode. The financially irresponsible status quo of the current Premier League cannot and will not last forever. And when it ends, let?s hope that we still have Moyes. Frankly, we deserve better than to have a Cup Winner?s Cup Semi Final stand as the greatest night in our history. And, one day, it won?t.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/article5019671.ece
perhaps it is considered worthy of wider publication by the esteemed TW editor?
Well said Chris and that statement alone sums up the solidarity I think we need right now as a fanbase; I just hope the team can now start to play with the passion and belief we have gotten used to over the past few seasons.
I do despise some of the cheating refs we have in the Prem and the diving twats in the likes of Ronaldo & Torres etc; but our fate is in our own hands and unless we show the same commitment for the rest of the season as we seen in the 2nd half against United, we will be left feeling sorry for ourselves. The next two games are crucial. COYB’s
I wish that the likes of you would stop banging on about the "perfectly good disallowed goal at Bolton". Watch it again. Southall was fouled before the ball crosses the line. If the referee had allowed it to stand it would have been an injustice far worse than anything that Clive Thomas engineered. It?s misinformation and the rewriting of history from ill-informed people like you that really pisses me off. It?s bad enough having the media against us without doing it ourselves...
Rant over; back to the decorating.
All we can do is fight it like we did on Saturday ? by putting as much pressure on the officials and opposing teams both as a team but also as supporters.
Wenger has often said Goodison is the hardest ground in the country to come to ? let's make it that way for every team that wants the privilege of playing in our great ground.
COYB! Our season starts here.
I think the second half gave Everton players and fans some confidence and a little bit of pride restored; we had the European Champions on the rack for 45 minutes and could have won.
As for Willey, he gave them everything (how the fuck can Fergie moan???). It?s rotten everywhere. That Shithouse Hackett never does anything. Do we ever hear about a ref that had a shite game who?s had some sort of sanction against them, do we hear them giving explanations for their shite displays? Do we fuck. That?s why they get no respect because they are cowards. Until they start being less incompetent and if they make a mistake coming on MOTD and apologising, etc - they deserve all the shit that is thrown at them, bastards the lot of them.
The crowd were great at the match. The players played better so we made some noise and so on; just shows we make a difference, so let's make noise at games other than just Man U and the odd other one! When it?s good there?s not many places that can beat it (Man U 05), when it?s quiet it?s shite, and it often is these days.
I think Wednesday night is very important. If we can get something there (a win would be great), then we have Fulham, who we should beat; then we can really try to kick on. Everyone is back now, no injuries, suspensions, etc. If we lose, it?s all a bit ?bollocks? again. We?ll see.
It is possible to get up there (eventually) to 8th or so, probably not much higher as Villa and City look good. We?ll see, we might stay shite and finish 15th, who knows! What felt good though, is that I did not come away fully pissed off thinking ?we were shite again, we lost again? and that felt good.
COYB
ps: Ronaldo is a cheating, classless scumbag.
Keep up the good work and you will be writing for the Wirral Globe/Birkenhead News before you know it...
PS I love Theo Walcott so much.
I must admit. Over the years quality of refs in EPL went down like gigantic avalanche. As a foreginer for obvious reasons I cant travel to games too often, and lately it is just ridiculously expensive. But I remember games (live/TV/radio) where tackles on the edge of broken leg were rarely penalized with "yellows". If you think about game in 2005 when Big Dunc goal was the difference between the sides, there was a ref who had guts to show MU players where is theirs place in the line. Effect - MUuuuu finished with 9 men. And to be honest MU on 25.10 should finished with 10.
You can love or hate Phil Dowd. He had some absolutely shocking games in his carrer. But here the issue is that in 2005 Mr Dowd was up to the task. On Saturday Mr Wiley ( yet again) was not. There should be some kind of punishment for serial offenders other than demotion - why fans in the lower leagues must suffer?
Nick as always pleasure to read. :)
COYB stick it to them. 12 points from next 4 games. First notloB away. If ’Spuds’ beat them, then certainly EFC is up to the task too! :)
a:) We?ve been absolutely shite so far and are still above Spurs and the Barcodes
b:) We have played 3 of the sky 4 and Hull away (I know it doesn't look right but the table doesn't lie as they say)
c:) We should have all our best players back and/or reaching full fitness (Saha).
Come on Everton, Bolton are down and almost out, I hope everyone who makes it there can make it known from the start who?s arrrived back and make the difference of the ?12th? man.
COYB
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1 Posted 26/10/2008 at 18:15:55
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I was also less than pleased with the reaction we got after the game by the media, and Ferguson himself to an extent.
Still, hopefully this means onwards and upwards from here on in.