The Football Ramble’s take on it was that “you can’t give that in the 98th minute” (refering to the foul on Konate) which is stupid but at least honest.
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I’d like to see some action/resistance from the club. Do not isolate Slot. Let him coach and lead the team to the title. But someone from the club, high up, should issue a statement to at minimum highlight the uneven refereeing, with a request that Michael Oliver (perhaps one or two others too) do not referee our games again.
Then the bigger part, so it is not self-serving but rather for the good of the game, we should go balls out on calling for the disbanding of the PGMOL, highlighting the main problems with it. We should spearhead the call for a group of custodians of the game to come together to form a new thing that is fit for purpose.
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As for the day after, the draw feels like a defeat, and getting robbed blind still feels as bad as you might expect.
So what now? Apart from what I said above, which probably won’t happen, I see a short team meeting to go over the game and learn whatever lessons, but not too much raking over the coals, because very quickly we need to look forward.
So today the focus will switch to Wolves, and making sure we get the three points there.
We have an intense period coming up. If it goes poorly Arsenal could get themselves right back in it. If we navigate it well, we could get the title all but wrapped up.
In the grand scheme of things a point at Everton, under the circumstances, is not terrible, and we have actually extended our lead. It is important to build on it now, and not go into a funk because of the injustice of it all.
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What I saw was a team that is unable to win the ball and keep it. Macca and Jones for all their merits are not a natural ball-winner or a destroyer.
Endo on the hand is a destroyer. Why he didn’t appear on the pitch after going 2-1 up is a mystery.
Yes, Oliver has fucked up. However, the team including the coach didn’t cover themselves in glory as well.
Beto’s goal was a massive fuck up defensively with a poorly executed high line.
After our subs came on, it changed the game offensively but still retains the loose control of the game.
2-1 up and the team is still pumping impossible long balls for the forwards to chase with the middle of the park lacking a whole lot of physicality and ball winning ability with a tiring szoboszlai, a tiring macca and Curtis Jones? That’s on the entire team including the coaches for not rotating the centre of the park for us.
The second goal from Tarkowski didn’t start with that push on Konate. It all started when Jota failed to press Ashley Young effectively, nobody picked up Decoure, Szoboszlai failed picked up Decoure’s knock-down, TAA failed to close down Mykolenko’s cross fast enough or even take the man out.
The worse of it is how the fuck did Tarkowski get so near to the left of our six yard box without a single man picking him up? What was Jota and Nunez doing???
Any of our players succeeding in what they have to do in that sequence would have made the push on Konate inconsequential.
This is nonsense. That is given as onside because the system is incapable of reliably determining who is in front of whom at the right point in time when the players are that close. Of all the things we have to be upset about with this refereeing performance, this is just a distraction.
He reffed the entire game in line with the narrative everyone wanted - plucky everton rise to the occasion with a full hearted performance in the last derby at goodison.
Buying into the demands of the home fans was part of that, but it was not something he got pressured into. It was a required part of the performance he was already committed to.
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I’m fairly certain I’ve seen some comments either made by Oliver himself or maybe a retired referee that they believe their job is to manage the occasion rather than go by the rules of the game. That’s how I see his performance yesterday. He decided before kickoff, consciously or subconsciously, that it was his job to stop this game being one sided and to give Everton every opportunity to have their moment in the last derby at Goodison.
From minute one he broke up Liverpool everytime they tried to counter-press. The most obvious example is the first goal, Liverpool swarm Ndiaye and he loses the ball - throwing himself dramatically to the ground in hope that the ref bails him out. Of course Oliver does and then Liverpool fail to defend the free kick properly - but that was the last time I remember us swarm them like we normally do in every game we play. The referee had set his stall - I’m not going to let you do that - and the players had to respond to it.
I don’t think it’s corruption I think it’s a referee who thinks its his job to contribute to the narrative. I said yesterday that no one is walking off that pitch happier than Michael Oliver and I do believe that. He will have seen that as a textbook example of him managing a game to its narrative best.
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The level pf physicality their defenders were afforded to challenge when we played the ball forward was incredibly high. I counted three occasions where one of our forwards was tugged to the ground while trying to control a ball played forward to them. Ok, it’s a derby. That means there is a lot of second balls to compete for and with our ability to press you’d think we’d get a lot from that. As you point out though, what tended to happen was they’d throw themselves tot he floor and get a free kick. This was far more like playing a peak Atletico than an 80s style derby.
People commenting that our forwards didnt get into the game much need to take this absurd imbalance into account.
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Only frustration Everton could have had (had they lost). was that they ballsed up a couple of decent shooting opportunities. A couple created by challenges on our players that were clear fouls that weren’t given.
Anyway, I’m content with the point given the circumstances. And happy with no injuries form the game.
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I also made the comment at half time that Diego Simeone’s management influence has been severely underplayed compared to people like Guardiola and Klopp. Everton as you said looked much more like Atletico Madrid. Out of possession they were aggressive and physical, in possession they were diving and crying to the ref for absolutely anything. In all honesty it was quite embarrassing the conduct of some of their players. Ndiaye for example, although I wish him no injury, managed to get himself hurt by throwing himself to the ground for the second time in the opening 15 minutes.
It wasn’t only their defenders either. Beto and Doucoure spent the whole game running into our players and ignoring the ball. Diaz was called for it (correctly) twice, I remember one going against Beto - every other time Oliver totally ignored it including obviously the second goal which is frankly indefensible outside of the narratively satisfying answer of “you can’t get that as a foul in the 98th minute of the last Derby at Goodison”.
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Forward catches the ball and runs it into the goal, touchdown style. Liverpool players’ appeals for handball are waved away.
Savvy opinion havers: “you cannot let the ref decide the game by giving a foul like that so late in the game. Liverpool just have to find a way to defend the situation better.”
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And now we have the ‘sympathy call’ from the Bitters…and the Racism call…poor Doucoure says he was racially abused badly by LFC supporters…when fingers are pointed at him for incitement to cause a riot…the only card he can pull is Racism…sure it shouldn’t be used against anyone, but I’m dam sure it only happened after he went to the LFC supporters and goaded them at the end of the game…Racism should not be used anywhere but neither should his goading and inciting the fans…he literally caused the pitch invasion, for which Everton will be fined…but will they…nah…brush it under the carpet…but again Racism should not appear anywhere…
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Its just absolute nonsense the point onn Endo from going 2 -1 up Everton created no chances or any pressure till the goal and in that im not sure what if any difference he would have made. If Konate isn’t hit he headers that ball away.
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Jagielka said it perfectly if its not last Goodison derby that’s ruled out.
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We all saw his behaviour, he was out to goad. Hé even tried winding up Virgil.
He ran over half the width of the pitch to goad our away fans and with the noise the Bitters where making couldn’t have heard a peep from our lot.
It’s just nonsense from an unpleasant thug.
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The accusation is racist abuse online, not in the stadium, which I can certainly believe happening given the absolute shit-stain that SM platforms are/have become.
Some people might find themselves losing their jobs soon because the idiots feel empowered to call people whatever they want from behind their phone.
Doucoure runs over to our fans and Jones pushes him for it. They both get a yellow card and that’s the end of it, I’m certainly not holding him accountable for online abuse he then receives. We could all (fans and players) could do with being a little more mature.
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So why goad our away supporters?
Doesn’t add up at all now!
We had multiple chances to defend that situation better even before that cross that Ibou didn’t deal with. There is no guarantee Endo does anything meaningfully different, but there is an open question. I think given how uninterested we were in playing the ball out from the back in that period, a 5 min run out would have made sense for him.
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Because in the minds of Everton we are the big, evil demon bad guys of the Premier League. Where we have a general dislike of Everton due mostly to the geographic location they have a strong hatred for us that it only getting more toxic by the year.
They apparently got very upset at Liverpool fans singing YNWA at the end of the game - despite this being something we regularly do.
They fed off that energy to get a point from the game yesterday and that conduct, which was very poor in my opinion, during the game carried on to full time. He didn’t goad our fans because he was being racially abused, and he made no such claim, he ran to our fans because he and his club absolutely fucking hate us and he got carried away in the moment.
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Because he’s a prick. He was giving it large to Virgil after the game as well. There are plenty of them in football though
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Sorry chaps n chapessess…the headline didn’t say online abuse…it intimated stadium…sorry once again for the wrong info…
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