Premier League — Matchweek 1

Glad to see Coventry back in the top flight.

I'd like to see Sheffield Wednesday do it one day.

Ellis Simms up front for Coventry.

Let's see if he's Premier League ready?

Coventry look more like Sheffield Wednesday in that strip!

What happened to Sky Blue?

Beat me to it, Paul, we should put in a bid for him, failing that Ollie Watkins at Villa.

Arsenal will be champions. Hull Ipswich and Coventry down. But I wouldn't be surprised if palace went.

Easy peasy!

Welcome to the Premier League, Coventry!

Why would the Sky Blues, on their return to the Premier League after I don't know how many years, play in royal blue stripes and look like Sheffield Wednesday, beggars belief.

I wouldn't be too happy with that kit as a Coventry fan, nope.

Not that it's not a decent kit but it's not Coventry DNA, is it?

Like us playing in sky blue stripes.

Tzolis looks real quality.

Arsenal look quality.

Nice away kit for us that Jim.

Coventry look shellshocked. This three could we end up being the worst promoted three ever.

I've got Hull finishing the season on 5 points; McBurnie top scorer, 3 goals.

Is that 4 against us PG?

Megan and Harry bought a nice big gaff in St. Helen's Hewey.

We don't have big gaffs.

Two 1-1 draws, Hewey; McBurnie scored in both games.

Horrible error by Kyle Walker for their leveller in the March match

Game over

FRANK OUT

Carragher's scouse accent is really irritating, and that's coming from a scouser.

He makes my shit itch, there's no need for him to be so grating, it's frankly embarrassing.

Serves them right for trying to imitate Sheffield Wednesday,
oh wait…..

Why would anyone imitate Sheffield Wednesday?

I know, we've just got promotion, let's bring back that kit that the Tykes got relegated in 1998.
.
Tommy Hutchinson, Willie Carr, Gordon Strachan and Ernie Hunt will be turning in their old Coventry shirts, see this, it's fuckin Sky Blue.

Fuckin hell Paul.

Got Hull finishing on 5 points, cracker that.

Poor buggers haven't kicked a ball yet and you've got them on 1 win and 2 draws.

The win will obviously be against us at their place, and one of the draws will be against us at HD on a freezing cold midweek night.

The other draw, Ipswich at home, relegated by Christmas.

Do you think that 5 is being a tad optimistic Andy? I've got them down for 5 draws:

P38 W0 D5 L33 F12 A 117 GD -105 PTS 5.

But I'm paying serious attention to your 1 win 2 draws, as they do play us twice. Very good shout.

Had me in stitches that Paul, bit harsh though.

I had forgotten that they had to play us twice Andy.

Hull gone 1 up Paul and apparently United are all over the place.

Er you might have to have a rethink on Hull mate.

2-0 nil now don't send paul the bookies

Two nil to Hull

Well Griff what a turn up 2 zilch, gonna take some turning around.

I predicted 2 1 to United so you're not alone mate.

In 17 minutes... will it be good or bad news?

Could do with Hull dropping points

Bookies delight, Hull win

Didn't wear well Paul - unless it is 2 draws from the next 37.

Two superb set-piece deliveries there from Hull for their goals.

Well done, you Tigers!!!

Excellent Leeds free kick for their goal, a good strong accurate strike that caught out the Forest keeper.

have to say I like the look of this new Spurs team.

Richarlison will get the blame for the 3rd no doubt.

Spurs look worse than last season

De Zerbi checking train schedules to Brighton. Didn't Ange get them a trophy?

Should have stuck with him. Hope they get relegated.

Regarding Spurs, I would like to make a comment:-


HAHAHAHAHAHAHA


Thanks :)

I read the tea leaves incorrectly. Not my fault. I'd had a fair little river of of dry white to be fair. The leaves said man utd FFS not us. Now that was possibly remiss on my part, but I am free of all blame and criticism. At worst, it was an understandable lack of attention.

Hull will get two more points this season. Two. Now that's pathetic.

Not changing the subject by any means, but how good was Enciso for Ipswich today?

Emery possibly walking tonight, if this ends up 7 or 8.

What's with Onana?

Is he injured?

Knee injury according to Flashscore.

Jack Grealish coming on to save Man City!

Ah, thanks Kevin.

I continue to be impressed by the 3 B's - all 3 well run clubs and impressive performances.

What amazes me the most is how they overcome the continuous churn of players and managers and continue to play a fearless style of football. I love watching them!

I'd go for Hurzeler at the end of the season. Or maybe for Season 2028-29, if he's still available.

I assume Moyes will be given a contract extension when we finish in the Top 8 this season, playing good football with a vibrant, young side.

Ajay yes, it's remarkable.

I think he's onside...

Grealish comes on and City go from 0-1 to 2-1.

Er... without him really doing anything.

It's a funny old game!

Ahh, I spoke too soon!

I jinxed Bournemouth.

Keegan one of very few (3 to be exact) RS players I'll never talk shit about, he really was something.

Lots of love for him at St James today. RIP Kev.

The Good and the True a goal down.

St. Virgil getting slower by the match, good times

Who is slower, St Virgil or Tarkowski?

Mind you, Kerkez was running in treacle there.

They'll be back sniffing around for Branthwaite soon, you watch.

Liverpool seem to have resurrected a truly awful kit from the early nineties.

All flecks and slits. is that cos they have Glen Hysen still playing at the back?

Oh geez, that is a crime against football fashion.

Is he playing more like Dick van Dijk?

(As he is now, not when he was in Mary Poppins...)

I fear Liverpool could be set for a long period in the doldrums.

Who's job is it to dive for a 95th minute penalty now?

You know it's coming, Andrew...

Every season without fail...

Fucking red spawn -- you knew it was coming.

Newcastle must hate playing the RS as they beat them as many times as we do.

It's a huge point for two crap sides.

Ridiculous substitute with 20 seconds to go by Newcastle, RS got the penalty at 95:20.

No sub, game ends at 95:00.

Jeff (66),

I was thinking exactly that, no rhyme or reason for it.

C'mon Jeff, the rule is that injury time goes as long as it takes until the RS score.

If it was still 2-1, they'd still be playing now!!!

Very naive by the barcodes manager there, Dave.

Jeff. Substitution was at 94 minutes 20 seconds when the board was held up so the whistle must have even gone before that.

Play restarted at 94 minutes 46 seconds. So that's at least 26 seconds stoppage time to add on.

The penalty offence was at 95 minutes 10 seconds. That seems well within the minimum time added on.

My point being Brent Newcastle were cruising and playing out the game, the sub shifted momentum and gave the ref an opportunity to add at least 30 seconds on, which he has to, I just think it's a substitution that's cost them 2 points imo.

Btw Moyes did it yesterday and the ref only added 7 seconds on, 2-0 up was the difference.

I'm absolutely devastated after saving up all summer to make a big bet on the opening weekend of the season. I'd saved £1,000 and, even though they were not playing until eight other games had already been played, I'd decided to put it all on Liverpool to score the first penalty in the Premier League this season.

I went to the bookies on Friday afternoon and the best odds I could get was 11/4, it cost me £2,750, not making that bet, they're clever cunts those bookmakers!!!

Seriously, it was a penalty in the modern game but only because football has now become like basketball. You would have got laughed at in my day for playing for a penalty but not only can you not touch an opponent in this modern game, you would also be able to get out of the way in case he runs into you.

Should be no subs after 90 minutes has gone, that would stop all this attempted time-wasting.

If someone has to go off injured, then tough.

Tony,

I'm clueless at betting (which is why I am quite minted 🤑🤔🤣) but what odds would you have got this morning, having let those 8 games pass?

Tony, console yourself as that's one of the worst bets I've seen in years.

Should have been at least 25/1 (worked out by ChatGPT) considering there were 8 matches before the RS.

I wasn't being serious, Kevin, I was being sarcastic, mate!

On a serious note, I think it's really sad to watch how much Newcastle have regressed in the last couple of seasons. They absolutely murdered the Liverpool team that was on their way to becoming champions at Wembley in the League Cup Final the season before last, bullying them into submission.

Now, it seems that they have been bullied into submission themselves because of those very unfair PSR rules. Same with Villa.

The two teams who looked ready to go and overthrow a couple of the Sky 6 teams have now been decimated by these rules that are there to protect the chosen few.

I did read it with a bit of apprehension but people do put on those sort of bets!

You are correct about PSR, outside the Sky 6, no one has a chance -- no matter how much money they have -- of breaking in long term.

And of course Bezos now pumping money into the devils team just makes it worse.

When the Everton fans started booing the Premier League anthem yesterday, Kevin, my initial thoughts were that how can Chelsea be starting on the same points as everyone else?

They were guilty of what was a much more serious offence with regard to gaining a sporting advantage when you consider how many backhanders they were found guilty of paying to agents to secure some of the best players around.

Tony #77,

In his recent BBC interview, Angus Kinnear was suggesting Everton's transfer strategy would avoid the pitfalls Villa and Newcastle encountered.

Are you buying that?

I'm not really buying anything to do with the silent Friedkins, so far, Brendan, mate.

Yes, they've gone a lot more professional with regard to the money that can be earned from sponsorship, but up to now I am not even slightly encouraged by them regarding their ambition to bring real success to Everton Football Club.

I was looking around the stadium yesterday at the supporters during the build-up to the game and my overall thought, Brendan, was that these supporters deserve a lot more.

Maybe this will happen in the future, but right now I have got them down as billion dollar leveragers, who have shown no real affection for a club that they now own, who have a saying which goes along the lines of… Once Everton Has Touched You.

TFG are businessmen, not fans like us. Short term, I'd think staying in the Premier League will do for them, should turn a profit.

Long term? Our squad is getting younger, we're not pissing away money on ageing Premier League experience (which probably annoys our manager no end). Patience is the hardest thing to have but, if we stay the course with a youth movement and the manager actually uses the squad, we could find ourselves in a good place sooner rather than later.

Still a bit of time to add the long-awaited right-back and mythical centre-forward in this window without falling foul of SCR or whatever the new PSR is.

It cannot be overstated how important it is to stay on the right side of those regulations. You know we'd be the first team to get a points deduction if they had a reason.

Tony,79. I have said it before and I'll say it again, where do you actually think we would be if 777 Partners or Textor, or those mystery billionaires you dropped in a few years ago as you drove around BMD and Goodison, getting your inside information, had been in charge now??

TFG were always our best option then, and thankfully they have taken us on. I'd rather have them now, than any of the tinpots being touted 3 years ago, mate.

"Tony,79. I have said it before and I'll say it again, where do you actually think we would be if 777 Partners or Textor, or those mystery billionaires you dropped in a few years ago as you drove around BMD and Goodison, getting your inside information had been in charge now??"

13th?

13th?

777? Receivership?

777 Partners were never passing the fit for purpose rules.

My point is, anyone who took us over would have achieved similar with Moyes in charge.

Neil, you can bet on it with 777. Administration. Right now.

And Textor would have had to put us right back up for sale.

Bell and Downing were honest and local but would have been badly underfinanced.

Vatche Manoukian? Or MSP, the two Yanks? Both quality bidders but with only a fraction of the financial muscle of TFG.

Friedkin was our best possible outcome. And we will see that in time.

John #86, there is no reason to believe that any of these other possible owners would have hired Moyes when Dyche bailed out.

MG 87, thank you, the voice of reason over the last 2 years and over the next 2.

I don't always agree with you, but on TFG you're spot on imo.

On a plane coming back from holiday yesterday.

Went the toilet and seen someone watching their game, looked at the score and seen Newcastle 2 1 81 mins, I said to myself ill watch the last 9 minutes plus 16 inj time, was thinking to myself have I done the right thing here, their bound to get a pen, lo and behold 97th of 5 added could only happen to them.

But as Tony said, in the modern game it was a pen but by god did he make a meal of it, one good thing I believe they were shite.

In the modern game it was a pen. The phrase that should make every football supporter physically sick Andy. The only part missing is that it probably wouldn't have been the other way around in the 97th minute.

I never get inside information when I'm driving my taxi, Jeff. People often talk, but I never class that type of conversation as being inside information, though, mate.

I think we would have still been in the Premier League, Jeff, and only a fool would keep reiterating 777 Partners because it was clear they never had the credentials to pass the fit and proper owners test.

The group I mentioned stayed quiet until the very end but there was a few groups lining up to take over Everton when TFG got to purchase us. I'm absolutely certain every single one of them would have embraced Everton a lot more than our current owners.

When Martin Broughton forced through the sale of Liverpool, they got American owners who wanted to win. When the sale of Everton went through, I was glad we had new owners but now I just think they're more about their portfolio rather than trying to deliver the type of success that the Evertonians both deserve and crave.

Time will tell, but I'm not as patient as others because I don't have any real faith in our current owners.

I often agree with you, Mike, but how you can be called the voice of reason with regard to the silent Friedkins is hard to fathom, if I'm being honest, mate!

George Downing would have been perfect, Tony. Not sure he had the financial backing to buy the club but he would have been my first choice.

A mad Blue, George... loves the club.

In a totally different way than Bill Kenwright, John!

I watched the Maradona video coming home from my holiday last week. What absolute joy he brought to Napoli, and I thought it was a great quote by Kevin Keegan which the Newcastle fans made into a very long banner yesterday.

Every single owner of every single team in the Premier League are business people but I'm not sure they're all aware of the joy that success brings to the supporters.

Dare to dream... there's a lot more to life than money.

Home and away Blue George, paid for it all himself so yes deffo different to the snake oil salesman. The video of the players singing Mama, mama, mama is brilliant, Tony.
If you haven't seen it, Google it.

Oh mama mama mama, my heart is beating fast, because I saw Maradona that's his team mates.\ Best I ever saw Diego. Just reading his book, the local lads were responsible for him not becoming an even better player, if that was possible 😁.

The banner was fantastic at Newcastle mate.

What struck me, John, was that the only person who was aware or come out and said that Diego Maradona wasn't ready for everything was that other great player Pele. Maradona was always destined to be a kid from the streets who never knew how to take control of himself.

I don't know the lifetime history of the other incredible Argentinian footballer, Messi, I think being taken away from home at an early age to be nurtured at Barcelona, has definitely helped keep him in good stead throughout his unbelievable career.

The sign on the cemetery was the best thing in the video for me, though, because football means as much in death as it does in life sometimes. How else could you explain Everton twice coming from two goals down to preserve our top flight status, without thinking about the ghosts that lived at Goodison Park!

We are fucking Everton…. I just wish everyone would wake up and start realising this once again. Soon to be 32 years without a trophy and people still talk about patience. Self-entitled, I've read... even though we have shown more patience than Nelson Mandela sitting in his prison cell.

Chavs looking good going forward. Palmer is beginning to look like the player he was.

Here we are: 194 hours from the window shutting down. We have not made a single signing that can be put down to 'ace' recruiting. I think that we might be the only Premier League club who have not bought someone from over the channel, sea, or ocean.

Everton do not do water!

We should not have been put in this position. This ought never to have happened. We are supposed to have a crack recruiting team and diagnostics. What exactly were they doing from October to June???

Iwobi never ever played like that for us!

Throughout history, words have always been important, and we revere them.

But actions have always seriously spoken way more than words have from anyone: Churchill, Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Mandela, Ghandi being just a few to have publicly shown this essential quality in seeking public support.

I use those eminent ones above merely to illustrate what real action, never mind words, can achieve to the core benefit of right-minded "ordinary-but-vital" people supporting the (sigh) "project" propounded by owners.

Us lot, when it comes to assessing Friedkin as any sort of action-man behaviour, are being deluded in believing he's at all interested in trophy-winning.

I’ve just watched a robot beating Usain Bolt’s, world record and I think to myself what are the human race playing at? Where’s it all going? What is the endgame?

Clarke-Kent has got nothing on us, because these robots spy like James Bond, and will crush us like King Kong!

Ordinary but right minded people could prevent a lot of these things from happening, but they’re too busy admiring the speed at which things are now presently done. Speed has become everything, but sometimes it’s better to be patient… Thirty one years and fucking counting.

Billy Hunt by The Jam, Tony from the best album ever made

Tony (100) I was in Tesco - London Road yesterday, and a bleedin’ robot was brushing up, nobody in sight was serving, so I asked the robot was anyone serving, it just swerved round me and carried on sweeping up, eventually the security fella came in from having a smoke and told me to stand by the counter and someone will come out and serve you— thank fuck it wasn’t another robot, mind you that will come, God help the shoplifters when they put the robots on security they don’t miss a bleedin’ trick.

Forgot to add when I went into town then got a bus to Old Swan, a load of Muslins got on with me and by the time we got to the end of Kensington the bus was swarming with them, good job the bus told me we were going to Huyton I was thinking it was going to Mecca!

The world is certainly changing — too fast for me to be honest.

I think a lot of those Muslim people on the bus would agree with you, Dave, especially over digital currency and paying interest just because you have been forced into paying by card.

All mod cons, Nigel, it's not often that a singer or a group, can produce a double-sided album without having one bad song on it, mate!👍

I remember getting some inside information in my taxi, from a man called Rick Parry, when Everton were talking about moving away from Goodison Park.

It might have been around the time when Paul Gregg wanted to help fund the stadium but make his own money out of the proposed Kings Dock Stadium.

Parry made a lot of sense to me when he asked me, “Besides their match day revenue, what other revenue do Everton currently make from Goodison?”

How times have changed, with Everton now looking to get the council to award them eight non-sporting events a year?