Bring me the head of Rio Ferdinand

It's going to take a number of trophies and/or Premier League titles before we're looked upon as being one of the BIG teams again. Sad but true, I'm afraid.

I agree, and I hear it all the time over here on TalkSport on satellite radio, 606 podcasts, various other radio shows and call-ins, etc.

"What do they expect?"

Really? Really? What do you mean, "What do they expect?" To challenge your little elite group, you fuckwits! It drives me mad, and I'm not near as exposed to it as you are.

The television over here is much, much more balanced and very good on NBC. If I had to suffer through the crap you do on television, it'd drive me nuts.

We're going to bust their preconceived, hierarchical notions very, very soon.

They've won three knockout competitions in the last 18 years and have never won the league they play in — despite trying to for 27 years.

I will apologise in advance, for being an old git going on about how great our history is, about how great Young, Ball, Harvey, Reid, et al were. But it creates my perception, my very idea, of Everton.

Two years ago, a 16-year-old red was cheeky enough to tell me I'd chosen the wrong team to support. I asked him when he had become a red, and he said it when he was about 8. I then asked him how many trophies he's celebrated, and all he came up with was the League Cup, which is a few years ago now.

I then told him that I didn't choose Everton, that my dad took me to the match when I was 7, that I was hooked, that Everton chose me, that by the time I was 16, I'd celebrated 3 major trophies, that up to now I've celebrated 8, that when I was his age Everton were the coolest team on the block, the wealthiest, the team that played the best football, the team that signed the 66 World Cup Final MotM, that we were the best team in Europe in the 80s, and that for me, the last couple of decades is an aberration from normality that does not represent the Everton that I know, that does not reflect MY expectations, which are for Everton to be at the very top of the pile.

The cheeky red didn't really have an answer to all that.

Well, I'm very happy with what I see at the moment. What I see reflects the real Everton, MY Everton, and fuck what any red or any 'pundit' says. We're on our way back to the top, and it's going to frighten the shit out of a lot of them fuckers.

I hope we're on our way back. I've seen a few posts claiming we are, but I never experienced our rise in early 80s people talking about the Milk Cup final and then us getting fa cup in 84 and knowing we were on our way back. I sincerely hope so, although I feel we lack goals.

I've got to agree with Mike's article about how quickly Silva has transformed us however; I'm actually looking forward to our matches now and I can see positives even when we don't play well.

I have to say after the initial shock, fury and dismay of that goal on Sunday had subsided, what came to mind was that Japanese admiral at the end of "Tora, Tora, Tora" who, as all around him celebrated wildly, grimly muttered:

"I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."

Excellent post, mate.

To be honest I've come to ignore all that bollocks that the pundits say. Last season they all seemed to jump on the "What do they expect" bandwagon when it became quite obvious that the more they twittered on they hadn't really seen us play apart from highlights. They just talk without actually putting any kind of brain I'm gear, typified by the idiot Merson.

Just ignore them, our time is coming and that will be revenge enough for me.

Silva, is talking about the bonding of both the fans and the players getting stronger, and once this truly happens, then the next stage of our development will become easier, and the fact that he acknowledges how important this is, then it fills me with real confidence that we have hopefully found the right man to take us forward at long last?

A club so big they have not won the league in my memory and I am 64 (I was 6½ when they last won it). Who last won the FA Cup a few years before we last won it. Who last won the European Cup Winners Cup over 20 years before our last win in the competition.

Big Clubs are decided by the media - not by reality.

As we all say, Those who understand need no explanation. Those that don't understand don't matter

Football's changed. People like Ferdinand will be paid to spout this nonsense. The game most of us were brought up with is slowly dying. The European superleague will finally kill it.

There are lots of reasons but mostly it all boils down to one thing: money. Money and the bias that overwhelming amounts of money brings. Sky and its parent company, News Corp, are a significant part of that whole milieu.

But in English football the single biggest deciding factor affecting the game is the obscene amounts of money Man City and Chelsea can bring to bear. Mostly the differential in money that they can bring to bear over even Man Utd, Arsenal and the Shite.

There is no way that any of the other clubs can compete. (Unless they do a deal with the devil, cf. the Shite.) I came to this realisation in the season before Leicester won the Premier League, thank you soccer gods.

So, back to Rio. For the time being, Sky will favour Man Utd. As soon as it become expedient, the word will come down from Murdock to drop them. In the meantime, why are the Man Utd supporters upset with their lot? One jammy goal against, and a truly mystifyingly bad game against Watford and Everton would be above Man Utd. What more can they expect? They should take their mediocrity and over-the-top manager and accept their lot.

It's been 5 years since they won the Premier League. They should accept major honours are in the past and just hope to win a worthless cup every now and again.

I thought he got that message right, if nothing else.