Everton v Southampton Preview

Not unlike turkey meat you may be getting a little sick of too much Everton in such a short space of time.

To offset that for those unfortunate enough to read these try-too-hard previews you’ll be pleased to know this is a short preview as I’m sure you want to read as much about Everton as much as I want to write about them in the post New Year social festivities. Hanging out of my arse here.

The Hull game could be looked at through the usual spectrum of Evertonianism in that there’s a couple of oblique ways to view it. It could be a point salvaged or points dropped. Personally I’m in the latter as Hull really are a load of bilge and any confident decent team there would have took away the points.

Maybe we’re just not a confident decent team. Or maybe I’m being a little too melodramatic as we find ourselves in 7th place at the turn of the year despite not really putting a 90 minutes performance together at least once in the games since August.

So there’s some work to do in January which now comes with bellwhiff narration from the media trying to get you to click on their articles of utter horseshit transfer rumours. I don’t blame them for trying to find a business model for funding, instead I like to lament the hordes of nuggets who fall for it and end up in a fervour over a football club signing some players (or not, often in Everton’s case) because they play FIFA Ultimate Team and think that it’s easy to put together a Champions League winning team in a number of seasons.

In the midst of this will be some peculiar lids vying for ITK status when the reality is that Everton is very a closed book compared to what it was five years ago. Again I don’t blame the ITKs, I blame really gormless people falling for it. What does it matter if you know two days before a player signs? Where does anyone benefit? Wait until the player is holding up a moody umbro shirt next to the bad blue swimming bath tiles outside Finch Farm and then see if they crack on at making it in the team. Lest we turn into them geordie texans and their misplaced icon worship.

Southampton then and as I promised you a short preview we will skim over them. As for their fans we can genuinely marvel and sneer at the various mutants that support teams the width and breadth of England, but mutancy is taken to occasional agog levels in Southampton. They’re a really good example of all that is wretched with the English game as they’re lard headed bantz merchants who – really – think their club has some sort of relevance in the English game. They finished sixth and were happy to try and look down on Everton (how are Villa and Newcastle doing by the way?) and then we just casually asked their manager to come and be our manager and they went from defiance, to disbelief, to rabid anger in the space of a week. All sorts of size anxieties came to the fore as they tried to grasp they are Everton’s bitches and will continue to fulfill that role for the rest of their lifetime in all likelihood.

A bunch of south coast dwelling scruffs who have little identity other than being near London, and that the Titanic sailed from there once. Influenced by presumably Green Street they try to act all ultras when they travel to others grounds but instead look like a fantastic bunch of Inbetweeners who’ve had a line of beak for the first time ever. I’d urge those travelling from Southampton to leave a little earlier and spend some time in Liverpool to explore what clothes they will be wearing in twenty years time, even in the wool Mecca of St John’s.

They are upset with the new manager Puel who was meant to be better than Koeman but is having a difficult time moving them onto the next level they were predicting. Welcome, you bellends, to the magical glass ceiling. Now get the fuck back in your box until you’re inevitably relegated again and hopefully soon.

They’ve got a few key injuries which usually means some players who will never be heard of again will turn up and dazzle against Everton and take the three points home with them.

There’s not the usual list of players for this game as you know what to expect, from the little fuckgoblin Shane Long noncing the flanks up front to Yoshida and Fonte competing for shit balls played too high or two low by assorted Everton players into their box at the back.

What do you do with a problem like Everton? Sign loads of ace players with needed character for the team I don’t hear you cry. In the meantime we can expect Lukaku up front not running around as much as we’d like but likewise having to feed on dogshit service. Valencia puts a shift in but so did a lad who used to play five a side with us who forgot his boots and had to play in Chelsea boots on astro turf. Both he and Valencia have similar impacts on the game, being not so much. I’d personally prefer Deulofeu playing off Lukaku if we are playing two up front but then I’m not a football manager so I’ll leave it to Koeman, with his face like haunted kumquat, and his cute little biff smile showing only his bottom teeth. His top lip famously having had a stroke on being told Everton will pay him six million pounds a year.

I’m guessing we will play five at the back so there’ll be three in midfield with our beautiful prince Gana Gueye’s last game before the African Cup of Nations, alongside maybe Barry or maybe even Tom Davies who looks a player doesn’t he? I’d much rather see him given some time than the various shitehawks festering Everton out this season. Or and maybe Mirallas further up somewhere, fuck knows.

The four at the back thing is working as well as American diplomacy at present, and our full backs have sadly reverted into winter hibernation. Robles in goal I’d guess.

Sorry for the lack of effort, too much turkey dulls one’s senses.

Hope we can liven Everton up with some stuffing, starting with doing just that to these wavering quims at 3pm. Up the toffs.