Fans have vented their frustration with banners and asked the players to show passion, but what will their efforts achieve?I’ve been particularly enjoying the protest banners. Everton is a furious club right now, its fans and its ownership in open warfare, a mixture of rage and desperation and powerlessness. And yet for some reason all this anger seems to express itself in perfect, playful rhyming couplets. “Everton were magic, Kenwright is tragic.” “A football giant owned by a clown, all you’ll achieve is taking us down.” “A chairman who won’t let go, an under-qualified CEO.”Only Everton fans, you feel, can capture an existential cry for help with the levity of a child’s nursery rhyme. I don’t propose to analyse the...
The derby draw with Liverpool was no great escape and many players are growing in stature former Chelsea managerIt was the plumes of blue smoke that gave the game away. As the Everton team bus inched its way up Goodison Road, the crowds reluctantly parted to allow it through. Shirtless children. Women with blue soot on their face.Men clutching their four-packs of San Miguel with one hand and shaking a fist with the other. A swelling, soaring, billowing wall of noise filled the narrow little terraced streets like a fever. A “Road Closed” sign was slapped by an Evertonian for the crime of being red. Continue reading...
Liverpool’s ability to wear teams down with targeted pressing will be crucial in the Merseyside derby – and for their seasonThere was a significant moment on Wednesday night for observers of the styling, the optics, the physical theatre of Liverpool FC during the Jürgen Klopp years. With 83 minutes gone at Anfield and Newcastle’s players maintaining a fine pitch of drilled defensive aggression – plus, of course, some equally fine-drilled defensive time‑wasting – Kostas Tsimikas, Fabinho and Harvey Elliott produced a three-man blitz on the left side of the Liverpool midfield, nipping and snapping at Joe Willock’s heels and drawing a free‑kick 40 yards from goal.And there it was at last: the Anfield face, the Klopp sweats, the red rictus...
The season’s first Merseyside derby, an Old Trafford blockbuster and crunch time for Bruno Lage at WolvesSeven games into the season in all competitions and Frank Lampard can finally select a recognised striker he wants in an Everton shirt. Providing someone at the Premier League has registered Neal Maupay in time for the Merseyside derby, that is. Lampard and Jürgen Klopp will be relieved to concentrate on the renewal of old rivalries after the distractions of a transfer window that both believe dragged too long into the season. Everton are without a win in the Premier League but building gradually. A derby debut for Maupay, signed from Brighton last Friday but not cleared to play at Leeds on Tuesday, would...
Can a man who rose from a Milton Keynes council estate to a World Cup and a Champions League final be deemed a failure?Dele Alli has moved to Besiktas on loan, where he remains in a critical condition. The Everton midfielder was airlifted to Istanbul on Wednesday night, where he is expected to play in the Turkish Super Lig, a disease widely believed to be incurable. Naturally, everyone at the Guardian sends their best wishes to Dele at this difficult time.OK, but seriously for a minute. How should we think about this? Perhaps the most natural reaction has been to conceive of Alli’s career in terms of loss. On one hand there is a wistful sadness for the player we...