🎙ToffeeWeb Podcast: ‘Massive Relief’

Favourite moments? I can pick a few, which is surprising given such a tough season.

Simms bullying Koulibaly at Stamford Bridge. Brighton away, when the doom-mongers had us doomed.

We weren't going to get anything out of Leeds and then Seamus pulls that one from nowhere. And he meant it.

I think I'll have to go for Wolves away. When Mina slid and tapped that in with 30 seconds remaining and seeing the pandemonium as the away section all alongside the pitch erupted was something else. Hope and belief remained.

Nice shout-out for the much criticised Maupay. I don't shy from criticising players when due, but credit when due.

As for players, I agree with Tarkowski for consistency. Great seeing him step in on Sunday and laughing in the face of the Bournemouth player, who acted oddly and unnecessarily. Only one winner there, especially when Coady joined in.

McNeil deserves the plaudits. Written off by quite a few early on, then went on to be one of our better players.

Yes. Coupling that with Lyndon's comments about the NBC crew and Robbie Mustoe standing up and celebrating the goal, it's so clear to anyone with any time watching English football that Everton are a giant club. We should never, ever be in this position.

The remit is clear moving forward: become the giant you're meant to be.

As Sean Dyche stated yesterday in his absolutely brilliant press conference, it will not be easy. You're not going to wave a magic wand and finish top 10 next season. It just doesn't work that way, especially financially straining yourself to build a new stadium. But a return to formidability must be the goal, if that's even a word.

This giant of a football club must find its stature again.

Yesterday after the game I was exhausted. At halftime I thought we'd go down. I got angry. Since 2007 just about every weekend I'm out of bed, ready to watch the game with sons. It's become part of my fabric of life - a regular occurrence I share with my boys and enjoy so thoroughly. I thought about all these weekends spent with my boys, on the Live Forum and the relationships I so enjoy there, the whole experience as it's been weaved into my life. And I became so, so angry and distraught that it would be taken from me. When we got the goal and then the 40+ minutes of absolute agony holding on to that precious goal lead, I just "collapsed". My energy plummeted, emotions spent, and I went to make my eggs at 2 pm (hadn't had a single thing to eat, downed two beers to help the nerves).

I then simply laid down on the couch and chatted on the Live Forum - Exshaw, Ferry, Self, Mabon, McDine, Gaynes, Tran, et al. And I thought to myself, no one is allowed to take this away from me. It can't happen. Then I thought of Foster, Daly, Ruane, O'Neill, Glassar, the Abrahams, Moore, Harris, Boyce, Tressell, and a host of others who's posts I read and love and thought if we went down, people might naturally be inclined to not engage as often, and how much I'd miss reading their contributions.

This can not happen again. If some idiot in America would feel a palpable loss and a quality of life dip with relegation, imagine how the cradle-born Evertonian would take this!

Never again. Two years in a row far too close to disaster. Awake the giant.

Great podcast.