Hello and welcome to some of the world's most successful most agreeable most annual Everton football Club podcast I am your host Michael Kaylee and as you know, I am forever Everton even while I am only Biannually Everton I am joined by my fellow toffee Michael Goodman to talk about our beloved club And I'm gonna open this podcast the same way I open every podcast Do you remember the film as I recall I think we both kind of like that I do not like this film This film is bad. It's very bad and I have to watch it every week over and over and over again And they just keep losing I do not like the film. I want the film to end I want to watch something else Let me see current land is the way loose. Please download subscribe make us happy as podcasters for some reason You have to go to patreon.com slash double pivot to find us the deep blue something by annual Everton podcast But we're gonna be doing this do we have to do this I don't want to do this It's Soccer we made the mistake of being able to talk about soccer and also liking soccer teams like both of those things were mistakes But combining them in particular was a mistake Well as it seems there's you know going flippers those chance that I will not have to worry about talking about a soccer team That I report on this podcast anymore if you look at how we cover the championship Hey fun though, I don't know I could do that but um But yeah, so Everton are now in a position where they're more likely than not going to be related Yeah, they're like they're like Five thirty eight between they're like a hundred percent.
Yeah, and like it's basically like leads are Burnley absolutely couldn't steal get relegated But Everton are now you know something would have to go right for Everton. Yeah, that's bad and like I get like the place to start I think it's just that Everton are bad like this is not a team that is is unlucky to be in this situation. They're just bad You know if you look at the five thirty eight rankings and Burnley leads an average in are exactly the same Indistinct wishable from indistinguishable from each other and like yeah, I mean there's just been nothing good about Everton for all year long More or less Yeah, they're there you know one of the worst attacking teams in the league and they're one of the worst defensive teams They're not the worst defensive team in the league. They're not the worst attacking team in the league But they if you sort of if both your goal production shot production and goal prevention shot prevention are among the leagues worse That's where you're gonna be yeah, it's not good and and as we were talking about before the podcast like It there are some important ways in which this is not last season's ever done to you obviously But like last season's ever team was a league average soccer team So there's a there's a couple of things I think that it happened here From the league average soccer team you subtract Thomas Rodriguez who?
His minutes and his production were heavily weighted to the early part of the season and certainly the first half of the season But it is easy to forget now that he was a top I mean for the first two months of the season He was a top 10 player in the Premier League when he was on the field and Carlo left for Real Madrid and Thomas was just done and like quite frankly by the end of last season. He was just basically done with average fair enough You lose you'll be sicker soon because that's what we do you like people disappear into legal troubles and we just pretend they never existed and Again fair enough and like to ever since Ready? I don't know like the margarita was more or less replaced him which I think says more about the fact that they spent 50 million for the guy Who was being replaced than the fact that the guy who replaced him was on a virtually free and Then it's just Injuries and everybody getting older has made this team worse right so Dominick how about Lewis very few minutes this season and he is a very very good player Richard has a little bunch of minutes, but it's not been the same player after playing literally all summer long You get Lucas Dinai who you ship out the door And who had himself started to like come off of his peak and then you have all the other guys who you bought in their mid to late 20s Getting worse like a lot for example who can't stay on the field and when he is on the field is not as good as he was And like I think we have said in the past that the danger for everton is always like you can keep buying 27 year olds for too much money But then you have to keep buying 27 year olds for too much money of that strategy You can't like take a year or two off without getting worse and then you combine that with injuries and they're just dramatically worse Yeah, I mean one you know just to sort of put it like the return will send and count blue and thing cannot be To a certain degree overstated yeah like those two guys combined last season And obviously combining xg and xa for two players a little bit fuzzy because they kind of like they do a cage it has to assist each other But nonetheless they combined it for about 30 expected goals and this season they combined for about 13 Seems bad. I think and so you know you had a team where there was a lot that was wrong with the way that they were built But they had to let this they had developed a pre-peak star striker and they'd say they had one big spend on a pre-peak star forward Which both came off and that will make up for a lot of mistakes Which there were a lot of mistakes But those two guys are enough when they're playing 30 games a year to more or less carry your team's respectability And then Calvert Lewin has only played 10 90s this season and has not been at his best when he has played and Rachaela said while he's been a regular as we talked about this the last time I ever done is it's really striking the way that Rachaela Son has his shot production is down, but only some but his ball progression has just disappeared It's just clear and when you watch the team You can see this that he is not the guy picking the ball up on the wing and driving the ball forward all the time And that was what he did last season and and he did that wall putting up big shot numbers And you just take that away and this team, you know, they depend on Gordon and Gray to do that now, and they're just not as good as Rachaela son and And Rachaela son has not you know if you say this is like, okay, this is a system thing This is a choice thing we've got these other wingers were gonna do that job then Rachaela son should be getting a lot more shots Which obviously he's not right so either he's just being terribly misused or he is physically diminished and just sort of Watching him he seems quite physically diminished to be honest.
I can't you just have ran into the ground for the last 12 months so Yeah, it's not a Exaggeration he didn't get a break. Yeah, and like the two Brazil guys who didn't get a break him and Pedry both really suffered for it. Yep I mean the one person the one Brazil guy and one smash guy, but yeah The double tournament guys did the Olympics and and their view respected some of tournaments. Yeah, so I mean That's the place to start right is that this team for all of that is bad Even given that should they be this bad?
Probably not like you look at the talent that they can put on the field We can we got him you compare it to say Bern Li like they have more talent they should have more talent and they're on Well regarded manager number two and still not getting anything resembling a performance So I guess the question then is like what does that mean? Do we reassess the talent or are we just over to a managerial performance? Like where are we here with like whose fault is this? Who should I be really really angry at?
And it seems to me that it really is a combination of the two because I think there's I think it's clear you question question the premise of my question We never do that on deeply something podcast we accept every premise and work from there that is our promise to you so More or less, you know, I think that I would put the blame much more on the squad construction than anything else because The squad construction doesn't make any sense. They have no midfielders. No And the head no midfielders a year ago to solve a problem They brought an old Alan who had injury issues when he was younger and until the core who doesn't do anything unless you already have a midfield And then they brought in Donnie Von anime and deli Ali both of whom don't do anything less than you have a midfield And what they've ended up doing is playing Alex and wobie as a third midfielder who Doesn't do anything unless you have a midfield Now all of these guys and the core is like the best example of this is a guy he runs around a lot All of these guys are active but what they like to do is either run the ball forward with their feet out of midfield into the Final third into the penalty area or show up or run out of midfield into the penalty area The core actually does both which is why we seem like really is a useful midfielder if you already have a midfield But what they're going to do is Constantly unbalance your midfield with the things that they are best at and if you don't let them do those things They're not useful. I mean look and theory Alan is a guy who's supposed to be able to knit these things together But again you bought him at well past his like physical peak and you're getting declining returns Both of his ability when he's on the field and his ability to stay on the field and after that it's like Fabian delph like what are we doing?
Yeah, the closest this team looked to like a reasonable team was when they played Alan and Delph together And that's you know both sort of a statement of how much of a message is when you have to play a lawn just with those other guys But also like as you mentioned when I said hey, they kind of look okay with Delph You're like well, yeah for the one or two games a year that Fabian delph can start It's not good and this this singular hole has been like super apparent for years like top TV is like a maybe like interesting 22 year old prospect and The issue with everything is that they were starting him in midfield when he was 17 because they didn't have anybody else except for like a 36 year old Gareth Barry It's the same problem Yep And so what you look at then is last season that you know last season a 30 year old Alon was Able to when he played more or less knit that together and they had enough attackers that like they could sort of at least when the team was Healthy they could pin other teams back just with attacking quality and I will say two other things to that one Is that like if you had a pick a manager who's like well? I'll figure out a way to get us like goals and stuff without a midfield because like I'll play a bunch of attackers Like Carl Raffa Benitez doesn't do that and like Frank Lambor the only premier league manager real time We've seen him spend has had a goal content so like he is no experience trying to magic up defensive midfields And then the other thing I will say is that down the stretch less is whenever to were already pretty bad They were frequently just playing for centerbacks anyway because all of their fullbacks were hurt So you just had like bigger beefier slower more conservative defenders anyway Like extra ones sitting there so that when the midfield got broken through there were a bunch of defenders sometimes actually even playing defensive So you know it ain't good and I thought that the the Darby was kind of interesting in a way for like You know they lost to Liverpool because you can play really really well defensively against Liverpool and concede two goals You know they get a better job than the virial did try to do the same thing I mean, so yeah, you know concept of how they would counter attack Liverpool did not ever did not Look, I'm gonna have a defensive performance. Well like incredibly cynical was fine ish against Liverpool If they didn't need the points I think it was too cynical a way to just sort of play on its own But like given that like they desperately needed even a point like it was clearly the right set of decisions to make but like Liverpool are really good So yeah, so it'll be interesting because Lampard at Chelsea He had that period where they attacked a lot and they attacked a little bit too much and it was a little bit silly But it was basically working and they put but then it was basically working and then they had a really just a bad run of luck and Lost some games playing the space of the same football They've been playing when they did doing well and he decides to throw the whole pressing plan out the window and play a very sort of like standard defensive English football and It was not a good idea for that Chelsea team at all and this is sort of you know the You get this sort of managerial vortex where they're trying to solve problems They don't necessarily need to solve any two their solutions makes the team worse It does seem to me that if that's what he does with this Everton team It might be the one of the better ways to try to quickly make this team not garbage But then you're sort of like you were really depending a lot on luck to get points while you're playing a very defensive style I mean, I don't know what else they're supposed to do. Yeah, it's better than what they were what they've been doing under Frank up until this point I mean the question is like When there are a couple of games late late in the season the last couple games that they will need to win whether you can win games Doing that that you have to win and the answer's probably not which is why they're like the most likely seem to get relegated But I mean they can't defend an attack at the same time They just can't they're not good enough without a midfield You need like good attackers and when it's like a half-fit for Charlotte's and a half-fit Calvert Lewin and a you know Gordon I guess who's like three years away from being at the maybe a familiar league where like I don't know like what What are you supposed to do?
Yeah, now you you hope that Richard Elson or Calvert Lewin can be more than half-fit miraculously for a period of time because that's that's how you have an attack and then like the other part of this right is You know there are teams that are like clearly primarily quality teams in some capacity or another who get relegated and bounce back fairly quickly you know the history of Fulham is like you know they're like you know usually the Somewhere between the 19th and 22nd best team in England and they pretty confidently bounce back when they get relegated You know West Ham several years ago Newcastle several years ago. There are a number of these teams who have been bad enough to Legitally bad enough to get relegated but of a stature of both financial salinity and sort of like talent pool that it has been a fairly robust job coming back up and It's been a hell that's not the end of the world you spend it here in the championship maybe even to but like That doesn't feel like what's gonna happen to Everton here because of where they are as a club because of how they have spent because of both How they have built this thing and then because of course the geoblogals that we talked about where their money may or may not have been coming from It may no longer be coming from You know it feels like this team is gonna take a look is gonna have to if they get relegated relegated be like fairly robustly remade Right like you know guys like we're charlissant are not gonna stick around Guys like how we're doing are probably not gonna stick around and you have to reinvest or not that money as you see fit And it doesn't like it doesn't feel like this is a team that is just gonna sort of like have enough talent to like default Be top three in the championship when it's all said and done Yeah, and it's a really open question at this I think that like when Newcastle got relegated when West Ham got relegated You basically knew that they were going to put together and then full and recently you knew that they were going to put together a good championship Yeah, and they were going and so there was that wasn't like an open question and so the issue with Everton is not that like oh we know that they're going to be bad in the championship. It's that there shouldn't be this open Yeah, that's right. They're going to be right like you know You're gonna a bunch of the long moves that they've tried to make to keep himself afloat won't be there Right like Delhi's not gonna be there not that he's done anything since showing up at Everton Vanderbilt is gonna go back to Manchester United One assumes that we're gonna sell regardless and one assumes they're gonna sell counter the way and then what does this team look like?
You know do they keep Michael keen right like right maybe like the shim is called my having his legs to be a good championship Right back. I don't know like you still be the midfield like what assumes Alan is not the Brazilian Alan But most of his prime and Serie is not sticking around for the championship. So who's playing in midfield? Like who?
Like I don't know. Can you find something to go and show your hands? Remember Andre Gomes or will be for that matter is a will be now just like a like a championship attacker is that is that what his career is? This and like is he on wages where that can happen?
I mean it will be being a guy that you get to hang on to seems in the range of reasonable. Yeah, that's possible but I mean yeah the problem with this team is that it is not at all clear You know how they are going to keep all keep Which player do they keep on this team for next season? Oh, okay And then if they can't keep a bunch of them then it is the same everton recruitment team that has to find you know good Championship players and then at the same time has to use money to get them not to mention the fact that it's actually worse than that because they clean out most of the front office because Rafa didn't like them and they fired Rafa and the front office has a really been placed and Like I don't know is Frank sticking around. Do you want Frank's to stick around?
I have no idea None of it like there's nothing stable here Yeah, and so there's no reason there Nothing it would not surprise me in the least if they were able to hang on to a fair number of their players And they were able to use money to buy a bunch by several more, you know lower table quality talents to fill out the team and they come back up and we talk about whether they're able to do this and avoid from your league FFP regulations But like right now the story is that the premier league is going to give them a pass on their FFP violations because of the pandemic and so then and then they You know, there's no there's no there's obviously no FFP the championship the championship you are encouraged to blow your entire team up And you know in pursuit of being in being prone It's like all that could happen that nothing about that would be weird It's just that when you have a team that is as rich as Everton that has spent as much money as Everton It's crazy that like we're in a position We're saying it wouldn't be weird if they got promoted it also wouldn't be out of the question for their finances to just completely implode Right because if you don't have money coming in from from usanov Which you no longer do and you have all these guys on stupid wages for stupid too much money that you can't move like What happens bad things man? Thanks I mean I do think that like I guess for FFP if presumably they have to sell rich Arleson and Calvert Lewin They get a whole bunch of money in right away for FFP and then all their sales all their purchases are amortized Like it left the FFP issue correct and it's much more the will they actually have money will their owner You know to what degree does Mosheri have his own money that he can spend to what degree is someone else possibly going to shut off the tap And to what degree even if he has money is Mosheri interested in spending money on this team like If you were to suppose that the reason that Everton had all this money spent on it is because they were a good way for Alex Usmanov to move money into the West like Well, like it's not at all clear that Mosheri would be interested in spending in the same way Yeah, and all of these things really are unknowable. Yep, you know, maybe Mosheri just like spending money on a soccer team I'm not gonna spend maybe it's possible, but we just don't know the answer to these questions But I think the my main concern is this it's that When robust teams get relegated and come back up they basically they can sell a couple of players Maintain their finances for a year to two years and that's enough right like Newcastle sold one all them and sold to so I'm like that was kind of all they had to do and it was fine like If ever didn't sell Richard Allison and so Calvert Lewin and don't do anything else use that as their operating capital for two years Are they good enough to just get promoted? I don't think so Yeah, especially because like they'll be losing guys like Alon and right several others It's you know, I think they didn't take that much to be good enough to be promoted You know, I don't know Damari Gray and Anthony Gordon is a pretty and also obvious pretty good set of attackers If you can find some of the score goals in front of them for the championship and playing midfield behind them Yeah, oh, yeah, it's a couple of purchases It just need to be like, you know good bottom of the premier league table quality to do But it's it's not an easy thing to do it's not a like trivial thing to do and it depends on a lot of internal stuff Regarding how much money they have regarding who's spending the money and regarding who is making the choices where to spend the money Which are totally unknown.
Yeah Right, I mean there's there's also like there's just no like robust like front office that makes you at all confident that they would be better Making decisions that Champions League clubs that are run differently like they are for all effects a team that was run like a Champions League Championship club just with a lot of money So there is there's no competitive advantage on that end of things either, right? We've talked about this that like the only teams that have ever lost money at the rate that everton has lost money in the last several seasons Are sport-washing clubs this is it's an estimate The thing and I said it right now. Yeah You know be warned. Yep.
Yep But the striking thing is that within all of this the thing that is that could derail Everton remains not FFP It remains not the regulations that are in theory designed to prevent this from happening those regulations have not prevented this from happening and If Everton collapse it'll be because of precisely the things that FFP was designed in theory to prevent. Yes I will also say that like this one of them are clearly like Created a framework to work around that Which I think speaks both to the problems with FFP as a structure but also to like the dangers of wanting spending at your club at all costs because like If I told you that like, you know, we're gonna implement the system in which we can spend more Despite FFP trying to hold us back. I think a lot of people who were fans would be in support of that But this is if you don't do it well where you end up so yeah, we will be tracking our beloved toffees over the next few weeks of the season and you know, I don't know Could be another another podcast at some point. I mean you'd be fun, right so much fun Coming to you next year the deep blue something championship report only on the double pivot Fun though, I'm not like cheering for her for you know my boy hood team to get relegated But I'm told that people enjoy having a team in the championship Of course, I specifically told this by foam fans who root for a team that keeps getting promoted again Yeah, just just snatch up meet for a bitch get 40 goals Yeah, right thing bang boom look if I was confident this team would be good in the championship And that this was like the beginning of an implosion that would see them going bust in league two in 15 years like Maybe I would be a little more sanctuative at this, but I think this is just potentially really really bad That's where we're at.
All right. Well, thank you for listening And we will be coming back at you with more podcasts in the next week We have sort of a backlog of who's been bellies to come out and so you can look for that at