Zoo 2.0

You do realise that they have only 9 players right? The club is quite literally on fire at boardroom level and as a result there's not much Guardiola could do at Derby, nevermind Rooney.

"Never felt more like singing the Blues, when Everton win, and Real Madrid lose woahhhhhh"

Wasn't sure where best to put this so threw it in here, bit shit if this goes ahead for me as my second vaccine is in September, so I'll likely miss more games at Goodison, this time when there's a capacity crowd. Hoping to get my second dose pulled forward to get in for the opening home game. I think this will cause a bit of chaos though - making the vaccine mandatory to basically enjoy normal life doesn't sit right with me, despite being in the camp that thinks there's a lot of lies about Covid but that it is pretty serious anyway.

Top stuff, been meaning to measure the skirting boards with the ruler I got for Christmas, so excited to put it to the test at this weekend. The sprint races are shit, not interested in the slightest.

Not officially announced by Everton (yet), but clear to see that he's finally moved to the UAE, with Sharjah FC. I really like Bernard, but the right decision and a massive amount of wages of the bill. Best of luck to him!

I love André, one of those players that I really, really wish well if he moves back to Benfica. Half of my family will hate me for it, but let's live life on the wild side.

That's correct, in Spain there is a mandatory release clause inserted into every players contact, effectively meaning that they always have the option to leave - although as you can imagine release clauses are massively inflated there so that they are practically unachievable, even if the player in question has a good season(s) and has an inflation in his value - Griezmann for example has a clause of around €800m, with Benzema famous for having the highest clause of the league at €1bn. In the grand scheme of things they mean very little, if the Spanish club is happy to sell they will negotiate a fee, the release clauses are high to protect themselves from losing someone on the cheap. I wouldn't pay too much attention to that detail in the sense of us potentially signing Chukwueze.

I thought I was in the Begovic thread and got really confused about this stat .

Yep, he was born in Belgium but went to school and did all of his karting across the border in the Netherlands as he lives a few minutes away from the border. Classes himself as Dutch so races under their flag .

Grey was binned off at Leicester for being shite, I have mates who are Leicester fans who were made up that he left - rings alarm bells that after only 10 games Bayer Leverkusen are happy to send him packing too. It's just dross on top of dross, absolutely absymal recruitment so far this summer. Basically cementing ourselves for the dizzy heights of 14th come May.

Arise, Sir Lewis Fantastic race today, pulls himself right back into the title fight with a pretty much even keel for Hungary. Glad that Max is OK - absolute bullshit from Horner about not being able to overtake at Copse (it's all a racetrack ffs) but said from the beginning that the way Max & Lewis started the race was always going to end in tears.

I'd like to see Virginia loaned out to be honest, in a perfect world he goes back to Portugal so that he can get top flight experience. I think he needs to take the next step in his development in order to hopefully actually make something of himself. As you say, he will only get the cup games (at best) with Begovic now here.

The only saving grace is that it's a free transfer, imagine spending money to add to the deadwood that we already have. I just don't see in what shape or form this lad is needed, or useful. The only way I can understand this is that he will be on less money as some of the other shite, so basically we're cutting costs by getting rid of high earning shite and replacing it with low earning shite.

George fucking Russell.

Shame, but not surprised. If you had no loyalty to Everton why the fuck would you stick around, especially with the Manchester clubs, Bayern and the rest of Europe's elite all wanting to give out a contract. I don't know, or care about the ins and outs of his decision or behaviour but not an outcome I'm particularly surprised by.

That's a bit like saying the roof has fallen off your house but you're paying to have the kitchen taps changed instead as it's cheaper. I'd rather we worked on the problems that need fixing and can bear the best reward over what is the easiest/cheapest option. I agree that creativity is key (and needed) but the mantra I always used when viewing football and coaching is that you can score 7 goals a game but it'll give you fuck all if you've got a shit defence that concedes 8. Keep things tight at the back and you need just one goal to win; a tap-in, penalty, deflection of the goalkeepers arse who cares? Defence is king to me and it's proven throughout history that the team that concedes the least generally lifts shiny things at the end of the competition.

1. CB - Happy to move Mina on to fund this, I'm in the minority that likes him but he just can't stay fit long enough. 2. RB - To replace Seamus, Max Aarons would be my preferred choice with us moving God Benfrey back into RCB. 3. LW/RW - Happy to sell the likes of Bernard and/or Iwobi to help with this. 4. ST - should Kean depart, which is likely. Outside of DCL we have horrendous depth up top, bar shoehorning Charlie there.

In Liverpool's title winning season they scored 85 goals, which is 17 less than Manchester City who came 2nd. They also conceded 33 goals which was the lowest in the league, 2 less than Manchester City. The joke every season was that Liverpool had world class talent up front but absolute buffoons at the back; Mignolet, Karius, Klavan, Lovren - it's no surprise that as soon as they fixed their defence (signing Alisson and VVD) they went to 2nd place (where any other time it would have been enough for 1st) and won the league the season after that. To suggest that Liverpool won the league due to their attack, not their defence is just simply untrue.

All the best teams and champions have a solid defence, it's the absolute backbone of any eleven. It's absolutely critical that we sign a centre back this summer and anyone suggesting otherwise is mental. Without sounding rude some of the posts in this thread have genuinely made me speechless - one of the best teams in the Premier League's era was Mourinho's 2005 title winning Chelsea as they conceded 15 goals. Don't need to do much up top when you're conceding none every week.

I watched about 10 minutes of the press conference, it's not a dig at Rafa directly but it was filled with politician speak; we're going to give 110%, this is a massive club, the players will work hard etc. Will judge him on the results we get, after being stung by Ancelotti (and to a lesser extent Koeman) I can't be arsed getting too attached to our management.

Can't really put into words how gutted I am - Gareth Southgate is an absolute hero though, has absolutely lifted this country and should have that trophy in his hands - abysmal from Rashford (inexcusable to stutter like that and then miss) and poor from Saka who was bang average all night. The sad reality is that this feels so much worse because of how detached I am from Everton at the minute, happy to just skip to Qatar tbh.

Yeah, that's true. I didn't realise it myself and was a bit horrified. When my wife was in labour there was a sign in the hospital saying that domestic abuse goes up around 52% (if I remember correctly) when England play. As much as I do consider football life and death, I wouldn't be doing any of that shite which is just plain wrong.

I think they genuinely said that Pickford was one of the five, he took (and scored) a penalty against Switzerland in the Nations League so does have the technique. I'd expect Harry Kane, Raheem Sterling, Mason Mount, Jordan Pickford, John Stones, Jack Grealish and Marcus Rashford to be some of the main names mentioned.

Sad to hear that, at least she got to see the trailer which is something . Could be a film that's good to watch together at home, with your other half there in spirit of course. Hope you and Josh are doing well under the circumstances.

It's the old shirt, so not sure how helpful but I bought a baby kit for my daughter and personalised her name/number no problem. Might just be a case of needing to reload the website due to a glitch @Goodison Glory? On the subject of the models for the kit, the club will want to use those that are the most marketable; which is James and Richie due to their South American pull.