Ah, Chelsea up next. A club unique in English football I’d say. Not only because nearly 75% of their fans started supporting them the second they could smell Roman’s roubles, but also for their uncanny ability to turn a well oiled machine into a complete train wreck. It’s all falling apart over at Stamford Bridge, and not for the first time. Not only is Eden Hazard still out injured, but Diego Costa is on strike hiding out in a Brazilian favela somewhere desperately holding out for Atletico Madrid (or Atleti as the hipsters recoiling in horror would want me to call them) to snap him up. How I’d love him here, even if it was until January. For years now we’ve been too nice and Costa is by far the best in the Premier League at wind ups and shithousery. You know what to do Ronny.
Source: Evertonfc.com
Chelsea’s biggest problem though is that Roman is getting divorced, so it’s understandable that purse-strings are a little tight right now. Poor Antonio Conte must be pulling his hair out right now, even though that’s something he really should avoid considering how much those transplants cost him. It must be so hard for him. I mean he’s only spent over £120m this summer hasn’t he? Mind you, still more than Liverpool. Also someone must remind Antonio next time he moans about having 15 senior players that he has practically half the population of London out on loan somewhere. However they did, bizarrely sell Nemanja Matic to Utd. Still, bearing their great start in mind it does mean I can use the old “Jose has upgraded his bus to an auto-Matic” pun at some point when we play them soon. Or perhaps not. Thanks to Marcos Alonso’s double at Wembley last week sadly they won’t be heading into the game winless.
Amazing isn’t it how just over 3 seasons ago Alonso was on loan at Sunderland, which leads me nicely onto the League Cup which apparently for “lucrative Asian market” reasons is now sponsored by Carabao. What was wrong with the Carling Cup? Bring back old cup names I say. Anyway we were given a nice home draw against them in round 3. Sunderland of course were well renowned for years for their ability to not give a shit at all from August until someone reminded them that it was March, the derby against Newcastle was a week away and that it was time to sack the manager. Now though they’re regarded as our B team, as their squad now is full of mistakes, flops and others that we’d prefer to forget. Darron Gibson, Aidan McGeady, Bryan Oviedo, James Vaughan, Tyias Browning and Brendan Galloway to name but a few. Reads like a Who’s Who Guide to Everton Average Flops: 2008-15 edition doesn’t it? I know we do have a lot of games this season with Europe and all but if we’re to challenge on all fronts we have to deal with that. Please god can we at least win something for once?
Due to its reward of Champions League football the Europa League definitely has to be seen as a priority this season and having seen off Hadjuk Split on Thursday we’re now just 15 games away would you believe from glory. The first half in Croatia was utterly depressing as we were dull, turgid and boring for the most part. We also had a bald ref which as we know from experience is something we should always be wary of. At half time we were 1-0 down. I feared the worst. We weren’t quite Dynamo Kiev on the Ev Capitulation scale but still, I was worried. Cometh the hour etc. Gylfi Sigurdsson. Have. My. Babies. A 50 yard volley looping over that fella that looked the spit of Jan Mucha and in. Unbelievable. He’s only been here 5 minutes yet he scored probably the best Everton goal in my lifetime. In the group stages we’ll be off to Lyon, Atalanta and Apollon Limassol. Due to the fact that Alcaraz no longer exists, we have a decent manager in charge and a reliable keeper for once, I’m confident that we can go far. Before moving on while on the subject of European draws, amazing isn’t it how Liverpool have the ability to get easy draws all the time. They could’ve got Real Madrid, Bayern, Barcelona even. But no. They swerved all of those and got Spartak, Sevilla and Maribor. Boom, as he would say.
Anyway onto the team news. It’s likely that there will be several changes from European action this week. Due to an attempt by the ref to even things up after Pep moaned at him on Monday, Morgan Schneiderlin will be suspended. Koeman will have a midfield shortage to deal with as Davy Klaassen and Idrissa Gueye could potentially miss out too. Ross Barkley is still injured and yes, James McCarthy is still unavailable. I have a feeling I’ll be saying that quite a lot this season. As for Chelsea Eden Hazard is still out, although despite his injury for some reason he’s been called up to the Belgium squad by our old fraudster and master bullshitter Bobby Martinez. Gary Cahill will be suspended which is fortunate as he’s the kind of player who’d definitely pop up with a horrible late winner.
Before wrapping up, fair play Wayne Rooney for retiring from international football. I couldn’t care less about England or their army of “fans” that can easily be identified on Twitter through their love of the Union Jack and Brexit so the way he waited until Gareth Southgate called wanting him back in the squad before telling him he was out was glorious stuff. If you somehow didn’t love him before you’ve got to now surely. We now have a player who will be fully fit and motivated for Everton, still with something to prove. 2 Premier League games, 2 goals. Apparently he’s finished though? Behave. 200 PL goals and counting.
I don’t mean to turn all Opta Joe on you here but I’ll leave you with this. Chelsea are unbeaten in 22 home Premier League games against us. The last league win at Stamford Bridge? November 1994. Grim. It’ll come one day surely. Won’t it?
Up the Toffees x
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Ross Edwards
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