Obsession

40 Years of luck my arse, we need to take a long hard luck at ourselves and stop the bleating, yes we had bad decisions and they were bad but we had no shots on target when it was 11 v 11 yet Moyes says we deserved to win.

Get real, if you are not used to it after all these years then stop going, the reality is it is not refereeing that is the difference between the clubs it is a total mentality.

Too many of our fans with an obsession on that lot. In no way whatsoever did we deserve to win yesterday but no way did they deserve to either. We didn’t - that’s life and time to move on to the next game.

Mick, I understand your point of view that there is more than this one important game to the season, especially now we are in Europe, but what game were you watching? Ok, we only had one shot on target the whole game, but after the first 15 minutes and apart from the last 5 minutes, we controlled possession and looked the better team. Ok, we were not great and didn’t deserve to lose, but we were better than them and they never looked like scoring apart from the two pens. A 0-0 probably would have been a fair result but after the OG we looked more than comfortable and looked the more likely to score, even at 1-1. I even believed we would still win it with 5 mins to go, only then did we seem to settle for the draw which allowed them to attack us. Its about time the FA stepped up and showed some professionalism and did something, at least suspend the ref (like what they did after Chelsea got their pen at Anfield). The same should be said about Clattenberg. It takes a bigger man to come out after the game and admit he made a mistake (or several) and apologises, but nothing. Where is he? Has he gone into hiding? Will the FA act? No. We are not a ’big 4 club’ so we have to get on with it, and it will happen again and again. Football is still corupt and unless it happens against a ’big 4 club’ nothing will change.

Well as a scouse born blue, I look forward to this more than any other game, this has to be one of the most ridiculous articles I have ever read, everyone has their enemies and the teams they hate the most, for us it’s beating Liverpool.

This is a historical match and for people living on Merseyside it’s pride and passion over your neighbours (on and off the field).

Mick i totally respect the point you have made.

I have followed Everton for 20+ years, and i’m only 29 next month, when i read that, as good as it all is, i thought to myself, has this man never had to listen to the crap Liverpool fans dish out to Evertonians and everyone else? I don’t get half the crap thrown at me from every other team’s supporters all put together.

Come to my work mate, i’ll show you 2 Liverpool fans who you will want to beat the living daylights out within 5 mins, who use every Liverpool success to tell us how bad Everton always, and they are the classic "Sky Sports News Big 4 Armchair Supporters" who have never played the game for any team themselves. Supporting Liverpool is an extension of their egos.

For lots of Evertonains who have to put up with this day in and day out a good victory over them is the best way to silence them for a while without having to resort to voilence and for a peaceful existence. It shouldn’t have to be this way, but it is for some of us.

I know alot of Arsenal, Utd, Newcastle and Spurs who feel exactly the same way. Getting beat by those 4 above is less painful and stressful than getting beat by Liverpool.

Try to remember that, it helps to understand and explain the dislike towards our neighbours!!!

Hope this helps pal.

Well said Declan. Let us not forget that ’the next best thing to an Everton win is a liverpool defeat’ especially on Derby day.

I reckon Larissa will feel the backlash on Thursday.

Come on you BLUE BOYS ..........

Shut up Mick.

mick are you housebound?

Where to start from?
Where were their efforts before the half time? We created a lot more and we were the team that controlled the game. We had 5-6 very dangerous set pieces and let me tell you something, if you create pressure you put your opponent on back foot and if he messes up things you punished him simply that is what happened.

?I would like to have heard what our crowd would have said if it were Yak through on goal and one of their defenders brought him down around the box? ? just for reminder last season AJ raced clear and was denied at least of 8 penalties and that was more of dive then all of his 8 efforts, Gerrard was looking for contact and he simply conned the referee, who by the way was looking for opportunity like this to even the score. Why don?t you comment the change of the yellow card to red?

? the flying tackle from Kuyt I did not see any contact at all and that was right in front of me.? WTF should he lay him down and injured for 6-7 months to get red? Are you crazy, this is not the first time it happens to our player and the RS get away with it but obviously you are happy about that. I cant blame you, after all you were there, maybe screaming ?Neville you piece of s..t get up and apologize to the kind man?

?Yes we had some bad decisions and some fair but the underlying fact is that they had all the class on the pitch and should really have killed us off well befor the final penalty.? If you have a player sent off in the 52min and penalty against, you will be under pressure for most of the remaining time. Credit to the boys the kept going and tried to win it but it was never to be.

?Their manager is now treating us with utter contempt by the teams he is picking against us?what was their team, are you talking with your ass? Which important player was missing? Please give us your insightful info.

Moreover you seeeeeeeeeeeeems to forget the Lescott accident but for you being such an Evertonian I am pretty sure it was a dive.

In conclusion I have to say that I read a lot of bad articles on this site, written from myself as well, but I have never came across with such piece of shite.

The way Liverpool celebrated Mick. Are you sure you mean Everton fans. True, we are not as good as them, but the way they played, I don’t think we are that far behind. They can improve better than us as they have the better players. On yesterdays performance, I saw nothing special. If you want to aspire then look to Arsenal who are far more classy in my opinion.

Remember, it’s a local derby game and the same goes to all derby games wherever they are played. It’s been like that for many years. Even Dixie Dean enjoyed scoring against them and they were nothing in them days.

A big reason I hate them and want to beat them is, I live in Anfield and see them going to pubs to watch the match when the ground is round the corner. They tell you they are ’Liverpool mad’ and talk about Everton like they are some kind of super fan. When you put them right and they lose track of what they say, they then turn thier bile towards Man Utd hoping you will join in with them. Call me what you like but I will not see this club being talked about by people who could not tell you the price of a ticket.

Next time Mick, think a bit more before writting something like that.

Here as I still cant belive what I read:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/l/liverpool/7055259.stm

there is also photo of the "tackle"

sorry but any team should look forward to beating their enemy and will no doubt feel aggrieved when one of their players is blatantly pulled down in the box (lescott). it doesnt matter if kuyt catches neville or not its about "intent" and kuyt was intent on catching neville with two feet. the referee bottled it when it really mattered, no wonder we feel robbed. the good news is we can hold our heads high as we played decent football in spells. this will only get better with the likes of cahill, vaughan and gravesen coming back. lets hope we can put this behind us an get back to the football that took us in to europe in the first place.

Are you a kopite in disguise ? Of course we were the better team , we WERE denied at least one blatent penalty by a weak (at best) referee , If You were in front of that tackle and you never thought it a snding off offence you were either in with the Liverpool supporters or that stupid that you don’t know the rules of football , a tackle by a player when both feet are raised is a sending off offence , FACT , I’m amazed an Everton supporter cannot see fit to back his own team and players in a game like this . Don’t you think that their "" fans "" ae obsessed by the derby , Gerrard and Carragher certainly are , so obssessed that they have to resort to cheating , getting a fellow professional sent off and verbally abusing a referee ( I thought this was a bookable offence as well ?) , I came away from that game yesterday with one thought that actually made me feel a little better , the fact that we were the best team on the pitch , gerrard knew it , why do you think he resorted to getting Hibbo sent off , in fact it never affected us that much until we started to tire , in fact it ma backfire on him , some of the fairer minded players will never trust the bastard again !!!!!

I thought we played really well, even with nine men we were still in it. There were points of the game when we dominated. We can take alot of credit from this game.

I’m an Irish Evertonian and I don’t get over to Goodison as often as I’d like. I have been over to quite a few matches over the years but never the Derby....until yesterday.
Putting the result aside (and believe me I feel totally devastated by it) I’ve never witnessed anything quite as spectecular as it. 2 penalties, 2 sendings off, own goal, non-awarded penalties and the little gut throwing the ball straight at Benayoun from the lower bullens.
There are more Evertonians in Ireland than you might think but we are far out-numbered by RS. Yet still we can watch them spend their hundreds of milions and take comfort from the fact that they had to rely on shambolic refereeing decisions to keep them in the game.
Generally matches at Goodison aren’t this exciting. The rivalry is healthy contrary to what the above rubbish states.

I will make a point of ensuring I never miss a Goodison Derby again.

Bring on Larissa...... Come on you Blues!!

Meant to say ’little guy’.
Either way it was a classic

9Leaving aside particular allegiances did the derby game not provide us with some perfect examples of, and reinforce the moral bankrupcy pervading football from top to bottom now for far too long? Firstly the totally inept "Football Authorities" both national and international for their ludicrous imposition of statutory red cards for "denying someone a goal scoring opportunity" thus punishing someone twice for the same offence! The victim is not "denied a goal scoring opportunity" - he is actually given one, a penalty! Leave aside the issues surrounding whether Gerard went down too easily etc the real issue here is the inept cowardice of another soccer referee allowing himself to be intimidated by overblown footballers and their ludicrous egos into possibly changing a decision he is about to implement namely the red or the yellow card. In a physical contact sport, few Evertonians could deny that the referee could WELL have made a case for judging Hibbert’s challenge an offence but few spectators of any ilk could argue a case that the challenge, albeit illegal, was vicious, malicious etc and patently not demanding that the player be sent from the field, thus denying 40000 paying spectators proper competition. Then the craven refereeing standards that are prepared to allow what DOES amount almost to assault at every corner-kick, free-kick delivered into the box with no suggestion of exerting his authority or getting help to stamp it out, this time exemplified in the controversy over the Lescott incident. The equally craven "assistant referees" who are unable to actually react to tackles such as Kuyt’s when it is perpetrated under their eyes. This is not "an attack on the Liverpool player’s character" for I doubt if he is in in any way a malevolent footballer of the Vinnie Jones ilk. It simply beggars believe that the game can allow a tackle that could have physically decimated another player to escape the severest of punishment while it insists that a pull of the jersey - admittedly illegal - means that you are sent from the pitch!! Both sets of officials then tolerate incessant verbal obscenities and abuse; allow every decision to be "challenged" in the usual foul mouthed manner of today’s soccer player; allow players to drape their arms around the referee’s shoulders when the former is actually being admonished!; then rarely if ever impose the 10 yard requirement and when they do, only after much effort, sometimes even physically having to move players back etc!!. Then to adopt their own ludicrous personal posturing which simply reinforces the contempt that so many players hold them in. However, all that being said, one must still feel sympathy for the task asked of referees when every time they set foot on the pitch 22 players invariably are intent on cheating them at every opportunity; 50000+ spectators bring their own "view of things" forcefully to his attention; millions of pounds are often at stake over a particular decision; careers of managers, players etc, the future of clubs themselves often thrown into turmoil; dozens of cameras relay every incident every second and yet not once is the referee and his so called assistants able to call on ANY of the evidence!! "Did the ball cross the goal-line?" "Oh I have to judge from dozens of yards away at ground level with bodies inevitably blocking the way" and the "authorities" still resist calling on technology to help these poor "totally out of their depths" officials! Is this not madness? Has every soccer supporter not looked admiringly in recent weeks at the authority of rugby referees in the Rugby World Cup? At the discipline of the players in THE most physical of games and the role that technology CAN play in helping officials come to decisions and to actually relay those decisions to the people paying the money to watch? Just look at what happens regarding a 10 yard issue in Rugby if a player mouths off at a referee. He moves the offence 10 yards further - Result|? They rarely mouth off !! Then we have soccer’s ludicrous airbrains claim that it would "interupt the flow of the game"!!! Even their paymasters at Sky TV can tell them that each game on average sees the ball OUT of play for approx 20/25 minutes!! Then we have the officials of the football clubs, invariably managers, incapable of speaking honestly of any incident/event from which they have unethically benefited, thus helping to stoke up the prejudices and often the bile to be found in some elements of those attached to soccer. I am afraid that Mr Benitez of late has by no means covered himself in glory in this respect where even the sullied "pots" from within his own "profession" have begun to grow tired and irritated and to comment on this his own particular "kettle"! Sadly, these wider contextual issues bedevil the ability to truly analyse the creative malaise that still pervades the Everton team when key squad members remain sidelined and, save for the first 10 or 15 minutes, the sheer paucity of the Liverpool play whose aspirations to be known - and loved? - as the Champion Football Team of England appear riseable when compared to the wonderous football being constructed again in another red-shirted team but plying their trade in London. What a sad state of affairs for soccer and even sadder personally because I do not know where the leadership and authority is to be found in order to restore, renew and recreate the game in order to make it worthy enough again for parents to take their children to it with confidence - albeit for us Evertonians I have to admit that that even in our great days they could never totally Instill us with THAT! Maybe if anybody agrees with anything here we could all start writing en- masse to FIFA, EUEFA, the English FA etc!!

all evertonians look forward to the derby games each season just to silence the big headed red shites who brag constantly about how big they are,how much theyve spent,how many european trophys they have won blah blah blah.just to beat them gives you so much joy and happiness knowing that they are completly fuckin gutted to lose to a supposedly small club.ill never stop looking forward to the derbys.

Tony Lamb: You and Me both mate, we’re a pair of Victor Meldrews. It all been going downhill for years and mostly to do with money.

I can agree with some of Micks point Re. making the Derby our ’Cup final’. To think we all used to laugh at the jocks when we played them on a regular basis, coz of their once a year high point of hating the English.

Funny, as Mick says that, how come we can ’raise’ the commitment one week but not another?? again its due to money. You still get your 30K per week, or what ever, if you’re on the bench and don’t play AT Derby. You don’t get a penny more if you bust a gut IN The Derby.

Money, Contracts, The squad system, Agents, Sky, The CL. ALL have something to answer for

Lads, Mick is blatantly a redshite how any Evertonian could write that shite is beyond me

We played well albeit in fits and starts. Take away the tongue biting officiating and certain red shite individuals who will remain nameless we were outplayed for most of the match. On another day we could of had a draw a least but with the choice of referee we never stood a chance from the off. I would have like to see that challenge by kuyt on another player such as a roy keane. The ugly dutchman would now be reading saturdays report in intensive care. I hope in subsequent games an oppostion player tries (and succeeds) in taking him out. I will be rooting for besiktas with all my might when they do battle with those bastards. saturdays game, if anything just epitomises for me what liverpool football club is all about. Bitter, resentful, cheating, unsporting, red shite. To hell with the lot of them.

When you’ve supported Everton through thick and thin for 50 years, you just wonder how much more frustration and dissappointment you can take.
The Derby game on Saturday, just fits the pattern: Winning at the start but losing in the end.
It’s been like that far too often over the last 50 Years. Back then, we were top and they were flops in the old 2nd division.
THEY were obsessed about winning then and the only way they could was in the Liverpool Senior cup. WE bragged when we beat them too. Plenty of good scouse humour was added to the mix.
How times have changed: they’ve won things were still dreaming about, but I ’m not "obsessed "about beating the dark side,
pre-occupied maybe. Many years ago I even went to watch them and hoped like hell they’d lose.

On the other hand a short story:
Last week a 17 year old swiss girl was strangled in Galway, Ireland. An only child, she was a devoted fan of the local ice-hockey club:
SCB (Berne). BIG team in Icehockey, with the largest crowds in Europe.

Her relatives asked if the club could have a minutes silence before the next home match to show respect for a real fan.

The club said "NO"

"What would we be coming to, if everyone made such requests after the death of a supporter". Shock, Fury, sadness and total disbelief was my reaction.
I don’t intend to take that lying down.

Now when Rhys Jones died, Everton did the decent thing (hat’s off) and to be fair, and even the "dark side" did too. "Z cars" played at Anfield!
Even "you’ll never walk alone" sounded reasonable for once.....
Yes the referee was a disaster.on Saturday Gerrard proved once again what a ..... he is.
Kuyt had to admit he could easily have been sent off.

We lost, let’s get over it, life moves on...

We can win at Anfield anyway, if we get a normal referee...


They’re not that good with all their millions

Firstly.. how come ToffeeWeb allowed this tripe as a lead article?
Secondly, and more importantly for the closet RS who wrote this piece.. Did he see the way the fat waiter run across the pitch at the final whistle? The RS supporters trying to get on the pitch? The RS players throwing their shirts into the crowd? The look of bemusement on Gerrard & Carragers face when Gerrard was substituted... So which team would you say thought it was their cup final..
Get real mate.. it?s a derby, we hate the twats, end of!

yesterday it was stated that clatterburk would not be officiating at the weekend as a result of a one match ban following saturdays antics.

Read this morning he is in fact taking a holiday.

Fans can add their own input to this. I pass to comment.

As much as the misery-side derby (sorry) is anticipated each season (especially at goodison) i dont necessarily see it as our biggest fixture of the campaign. i get just as excited facing the likes of arsenal and manchester united, but with always a sense that we are going to fail with opponents of this nature. Not being pessimistic but man for man the big four are streets ahead of us in terms of talent , and sadly finance.

I have had a healthy disregard for the red shite for as long i can remember going back to the days of gordon lee there has been a significant level of animosity. Saying that it seems at times from what i have read thus far today that some of us are not on the same side. Some individuals who shall remain nameless have let themselves down with petty and snide comments upon fellow supporters. Mind you i suppose there are a few like that on most club web sites you could visit. Imagine what the spurs pages are like. But never mind that, thats not our concern let them sort out their own problems.

I was fortunate enough to grow up during the kendall years and thrill at the talents and exploits of players such as Sharp, Reid, Mountfield, Southall and so on. In those days, circa 1984-87 we could play the shite at gooidson, or even at the other end of stanley park and know that a victory was more than capable. sadly after howard left for atletico bilbao derby victories were hard to come by, the most memorable being the replay in the 5th round in 1991 after THAT game. For a time in the mid to late 1990 we actually went about eight fixtures against them unbeaten. Not bad going.

The thing now is to let the weekend go, enough has been said already and the fact of the matter is the result will not be changed by constant bitching and moaning. Lets try and get them back at anfield, its a tall order but its not as if its not within our capabilites. All i ask for is a fair and impartial referee. none of the bullshit i had to endure at the weekend. i dont think i could go through that again.

seems the higher ups in toffwebtowers have taken umbridge at my comments yesterday.. it seems their mates can say anything they want but the rest of us can?t.. its their website they?ll do as they please..never mind open debate.. can?t say i?m suprised, they either haven?t published or deleted far less contentsious material of mine without any type of explanation..this by the way after one of them insulted me in print!!.. they?re getting pretty narrow minded down at toffeewebtowers and rather thin skinned...shame really..

Agree with you 100%, Tony Lamb. Rugby refereeing is light years ahead of football’s. When you refer to player discipline, the thing the FA has to implement straight away that rugby does is that the referree only speaks to the captain - everybody else is waved away, the ref is not interested in their tuppenceworth, and if they don’t immediately comply they get a yellow card -none of this surround the ref and whine stuff. And where there’s indiscipline or repeated infringements, the ref calls out the captain and requires him to speak to his team thereby ensuring the captain does what he’s supposed to do - actually captain his team. The only difference between the captain in football and the rest of the players is that he has (c) against his name in the programme and gets to wear a band on his arm.