Being a fan from the bottom up, Part 3
Perhaps it was all a virus-induced dream, but Everton took a big step to staying up
On Sunday, I was sick. Sick as in “not being able to eat any food and drinking fluids is kind of iffy.” I shall not go into further detail. Monday, I was better but still feeling well below par (and not in the golf sense). So, I was home for a tripleheader of English Premier League matches.
Normally, there is just one match on Monday and it starts at noon Pacific time as it’s Monday Night Football for the U.K. But, because of the Coronation of King Charles III, there was an extra holiday added into the calendar, so there was a tripleheader for people to watch in honor of a guy being given a crown and some scepters. “God Save the King” was played before the matches , which is not standard practice before matches, not just in England, but pretty much everywhere else in the world that is not the United States or Canada. The anthem did not go over well in Liverpool, where the royal family is extremely unpopular.
Monday started out with 16th placed Leicester City hosting 10th place Fulham. Fulham got off to a surprisingly good start this season, but then stalled out when top scorer Alexander Mitrovic was suspended for eight matches for bumping an official and its last match, Fulham lost team captain and USMNT stalwart Tim Ream for the season to a broken arm.1
Leicester had drawn with Everton 2-2 in its last match and really needed to get something from this match as their remaining three matches are against Liverpool, Newcastle, and West Ham. Leicester had one small problem: they were terrible. Fulham led 3-0 at halftime and held on to win 5-3.
The feed of the game showed numerous pictures of Leicester’s owner looking very sad in the stands, but never said his name. That was most likely because his name is Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha and the English announcers can barely keep up with names that are Spanish or Portuguese.2
Next up was Everton, still in 19th place, facing seventh place Brighton (or if you want to be fancy, Brighton and Hove Albion). My best hope for this game would be that Everton would grind out a scoreless tie. It would be just enough to give hope.
Much to my very pleasant surprise, Brighton fell apart on defense at the outset and gave up a goal from Abdoulaye Doucoure just 33 seconds into the match. Instead of sitting back, Everton kept up the pressure and Doucoure added a second in the 29th minute. Six minutes later, Dwight McNeil fired a shot at goal that bounced in off of Brighton keeper Jason Steele. Everton almost added a fourth as the half ended.
With a 3-0 lead, I was pretty sure that Everton was going home with at least a point and most likely all three. Brighton made four subs at halftime and threw some pressure at Everton, but keeper Jordan Pickford kept everything out.
In the 76th minute, a Brighton turnover turned into a quick Everton counterattack and McNeil was able to get past Steele and stroll unimpeded to an empty net, celebrating his goal before the ball was across the line.
Brighton finally scored in the 79th minute when Alexis MacAllister deflected in a shot.3 But that was is it for Brighton. McNeil scored a second goal in the 96th minute.
The 5-1 final may have been one of the most shocking results in the Premier League all season. Everton had been a historically low scoring team and it put five goals on the board in a Premier League game for the first time since a 5-2 win over West Bromwich Albion on September 19, 2020. And no one was in the crowd for that match because of COVID restrictions. Everton hadn’t scored five in an away match since a 5-1 win at Burnley on Boxing Day in 2018, then managed by current Everton coach Sean Dyche.
The win moved Everton from 19th to 16th at the time and dumped Leeds into the drop zone. But the day (or night depending upon where you were) was not over. There was still a match between 18th placed Nottingham Forest and 20th (aka last) place Southampton.
Forest didn’t have a 3-0 lead at halftime like the other two matches. Instead, it was 3-1 and Forest ulimately prevailed 4-3.
As the day ended, Forest was in 16th with 33 points and Everton was 17th with 32 points. The relegation zone teams were now Leicester City with 30 points, Leeds United with 30, and Southampton with 25.
And now my handicap of who will be relegated has changed a bit. But handicapping to figure out which bad teams are slightly better than other bad teams is not easy.
The next set of matches are not kind to any of the teams near relegation. Forest has to travel to play struggling Chelsea. Chelsea actually won a game last week ending a long winless streak and Forest is very poor away from home. Everton hosts Manchester City and since City needs to win every game to win the league, it will not take it easy on Everton. And I don’t think Everton has another miracle peformance in them.
Leicester City will host Liverpool, which has been playing very well lately and should be able to take advantage of the very porous defense. Leeds United will be hosting Newcastle United and should be overmatched. Leeds took the desperation move of firing its interim manager and replacing him with Sam Allardyce, which if you want a baseball equivalent would be asking Tony La Russa to hire your team only if La Russa also had a long history of incompetence. Last place Southampton hosts Fulham, but they are so far down that the Saints are a hopeless case.
It’s very likely that going into the penultimate week of the season, that the placements of the bottom five teams of the standings won’t change.4
Everton, which is really the only team I care about in this whole situation, now looks much better to stay up. I predict them to to finish with 36 points (a draw and a win in the last two matches), which should be enough to squeek by. Leicester City will be fortunate to get three points in the final three weeks. I think Leeds will get just one. Southampton will go down in pretty much any scenario.
While all these machinations are fun for me to mull over, there is still a bigger problem looming for Everton. That problem is: they are not very good. They will likely not be very good next year and could be in the same mess. The team is pretty much a joke in the Premier League because of its incompetence now. It may stay up because other teams are even more incompetent (I’m looking at you Leeds United.) The team needs to be sold.
But those problems are for June. I just need to get through May.
Checking in on my other teams:
In Germany, Union Berlin is clinging on to fourth place and the last Champions League spot from the Bundesliga by the narrowest of margins. Union are tied with Freiburg at 56 points, but Union has a better goal difference. Union hosts Freiburg on Saturday. If there is a winner, that team will likely get fourth place. If it’s a draw, it will probably come down to the final day. Union was routed 4-1 at Freiburg back in November. Union Berlin and Freiburg are Germany’s two iconoclastic clubs and it would be nice if both could make the Champions League with Red Bull Leipzig getting shunted to h
In Belgium, the playoffs are on! And Royal Antwerp has won its first two matches and has taken over first place by one point over Genk and Union Saint Gilloise. That competition will likely not be decided until the final day on June 2. Antwerp has not won a Belgian championship since 1957. A championship would be the biggest thing to hit the town since the River Scheldt was reopened to navigation in 1863.
If you are thinking you can play a game where you can’t use your hands with a broken arm, I would invite you to run several miles with a broken arm to see how it feels.
The notable exception is ESPN’s Derek Rae, who seemingly can say any name in its authentic accent.
It took the World Cup for me to realize that MacAllister was born and raised in Argentina and his family has lived there for at least three generations and is a native Spanish speaker.
Leicester is ahead of Leeds on goal difference (-15 to -25) and that difference is pretty hard to make up in just three matches.