Welcome back to Merseyside for the end of the 2026/27 Season. Three League games and the FA Cup Final 🙂
No losses in my 6 games with Everton so far – W5 D1 – And I’m hoping to maintain that. But mainly we need to win the FA Cup Final to get European Football next season (I’m pretty sure that’s still the case in game)
We’ve signed Attacking wideman Bradley Prescott to a 5-year contract – £85k/wk for a 23yo 4* CA player worth £50M.
Enzo Lacoste comes 2nd in the EPL Young Player of the Month for April.
I get 3rd in manager of the Month – Eddie Howe (Man Utd) and Tommy Tuchel (Liverpool) 1st and 2nd.
18yo Keeper Gavin Coyle has been called up to the england U20 World Cup squad.
We are the late game again on Saturday 1st May, and there are some interesting results before the game.
Chelsea remain in charge with 2 games left – a good 3-0 win versus Leicester. Liverpool dispatch Millwall and Arsenal go to Vicarage Road and dismantle Watford but the biggest shock of the day was at the City of Manchester Stadium – West Brom with a massive win, putting them 4 points clear of the relegation zone, Man City almost certainly not going to win the league now, 5 points behind Chelsea. Fulham have 6th place in their hands as well as Tottenham lose 2-1 to a Southampton side still 2 points from safety, Derby with a game-in-hand in 17th. Millwall all-but-mathematically relegated.
1st May 2027 – Norwich (H) – English Premier League
FT Everton 4 (Renault pen 12, Errington 52, 70, Nketiah 90+5) Norwich 1 (Dodo o.g. 75) Att 35,376 (2,115 Away)
Norwich have a had a good season and will be a tough opponent – lots of losses recently but to the top 6 mainly. A quiet opening, but we get a penalty in the 12th minute – Dodo fouled (very soft) by Andy Robertson. Mathieu Renault steps up… 1-0 Everton, tucked bottom right past Jordan Pickford (33yo, left Everton for £9M just before the 25/26 season). Norwick playing Cautiously. Everton very much on top, but its a pretty dour half highlight-wise. 1-0 at the break. Should have been 2-0 in the 50th minute, Prescott missing a 1-on-1 after a great counter. We do go 2-0 up a couple of minutes later, Errington with a nice header from a Renault cross, again after a fine team move and work from Prescott. And we make it 3-0 in the 70th minute – Errington again stabbing home from close range after great battling, another fine team move, Lacoste and Harris involved. Disappointingly Norwich get a goal back in the 75th minute – Dodo with the final touch as a back-post header from a corner deflects in off of him. Time ticks down and we seal the deal 5 minutes into a stoppages, another clinical counter, Eddie Nketiah finishing beautifully. It finishes 4-1 – A brilliant performance.
Top half 🙂 Chelsea in charge of the title race, would be brilliant if we can pass Bournemouth but I’m very very happy with the quality of the lads play at the moment. We have the core of a very good side, we just need to build out the weaker areas, get rid of dead-wood and bring on the talent we have in the youth setup. West Brom next up at theirs in 7 days, the penultimate league game of the season.
£4.3M going to Norwich after Jamal Lewis played his 50th game for Everton against them.
Stoke keep their hopes of staying up alive with a clutch win versus Brighton, and Fulham go 6th by a point by beating a Derby side now on the precipice. If (No WHEN!) we win the FA Cup I think we will deny 7th a European place, so that would be massive for Spurs.
James Errington made the EPL Team of the Week
Our U18’s threw a first leg 2-0 win away versus Tottenham in the FA Youth Cup final, losing 4-1 on the night and 4-3 on aggregate.
On the same night our U23’s beat Wolves 3-2 – Goals from Tahith Chong, Yussuf Poulsen and 20yo Irish MC Dean Miley.
8th May 2027 – West Brom (A) – English Premier League
We make the trip down the M6 to play a West Brom side sitting in 16th and all-but-mathematically safe from relegation this season. The expectation is a win, but it was against Millwall as well, and in their last game they beat Man City away…
FT West Brom 0 Everton 3 (Prescott 29, 41, Errington 59) Att 26,688 (2,668 Away)
It’s a full program this afternoon in the EPL – We are one of 7 3pm kick-offs, with Arsenal v Chelsea the pick of the games at 5:30. Spurs draw with Watford in the early kick-off, meaning Fulham can pull 3 points clear with a win in 6th. We are top of the form charts currently, so the expectation is of a comfortable win. West Brom playing a 5-2-1-2 WB formation – will try and overload the wingbacks. A decent start, Everton on the front foot, and we could have had 2 goals early except for fine saves. We take the lead in the 29th minute – Bradley Prescott with the header after fine work by James Errington – starting to look like a fine partnership up top. It’s almost an identical goal for the 2nd, Prescott again with the far post header, Harris with the work down the left this time after an amazing long-ball by Keeper Rogerio under pressure. Prescott loving life with his new 5-year deal. 2-0 at the break, lovely job. Matt Harris showing as 66% Condition, so think he might have picked up a knock, even though its not showing, so Zhegrova comes on at Half Time. 3-0 in the 59th minute, a beautifully worked free kick, dinked forward by Prescott and headed in by Errington, Keeper out of position. Beautiful. West Brom start to press a bit more after the 3rd, the boys keeping them out with a succession of saves and blocks. Time runs down and it finishes 3-0 – 12 goals in the last 3 games 🙂
Man Utd, Liverpool & Man City do what they have to – Man U play Bournemouth and Liverpool play Fulham on the final day. Man City are 4 points back. Fulham pull ahead of Spurs in 6th. The bottom 5 all lose.
With Arsenal beating Chelsea 4 teams can still win the League on the final day, and we play Arsenal 🙂 It’s looking like Man U. Millwall and Stoke go down, Southampton have to beat West Brom and hope Derby lose to Spurs – definitely doable. And if we win we could potential finish the season in 8th, a brilliant turn-around from the lads. Arsenal in our last League game of the season in 8 days.
Our U23’s beat Brighton 6-1 – goals from Tahith Chong, Joe Gelhardt (25yo STC) and braces from Ricky Davies (21yo AMC) and Des Higgins (20yo STC).
Captain Leonardo Forcato and Brad Prescott made the EPL Team of the Week.
Three of the lads going to the Euro U21’s in Poland this summer.
Looking at the Championship Burnley and Villa are back up, with Newcastle in the playoff final versus either QPR or West Ham.
16th May 2027 – Arsenal (H) – English Premier League
FT Everton 1 (Harris 45+2) Arsenal 0 Att x (x Away)
We’ve beaten Chelsea and Man City, lets go and ruin Arsenal’s season 🙂 As things are so close I’ll do updates when important goals go in across the grounds as all 10 games are being played at 3pm.
1 Min – Man City 1 Leicester 0 (Unuvar) – Man City go 4th, Arsenal 5th
11th Min – Chelsea 1 Norwich 0 (P Charalabous) – Chelsea go top as it stands
12th Min – Liverpool 1 Fulham 0 (H Mayor) – Liverpool now top, Chelsea 2nd, Man Utd 3rd. Very quiet here at Goodison.
24th Min – Man City down to 10 versus Leicester (N Gerits Red Card)
27th Min – Arsenal have the ball in the net from a free kick, Umar offside in the build up. No Goal.
31st Min – Derby 0 Spurs 1 (A Iwobi) – Spurs back to 6th, Southampton need a goal to put Derby into the relegation zone.
36th Min – Derby 0 Spurs 2 (A Iwobi)
38th Min, chance for Everton, Errington well saved by Luiz Marconi.
45 min + 2 – Everton 1 Arsenal 0 (Matt Harris) – A succession of bad passes ends with Matt Harris intercepting on half way, running all the way in unchallenged and scoring the 1-on-1. Great time to score 🙂 We move up to 9th.
Man Utd 0-0 with Bournemouth at the break – The are 1 goal from the title. And Southampton are 1 goal from safety. Brighton are 3-0 up Wolves so 9th will be the highest we can finish. Let’s ee if we can finish the job, its been very tight so far.
51st Min – Should have been 2-0 Everton, Errington picked out by an audacious Prescott ball over the top, the finish was straigh at the Keeper. we are making inroads.
52nd Min – Derby 0 Spurs 3 (M Ilhattaren)
53rd Min – Man City 2 Leicester 0 (J Hill)
61st Min – Chelsea 2 Norwich 0 (O Dembele)
64th Min – Chelsea 3 Norwich 0 (P Charalabous)
68th Min – SOUTHAMPTON 1 WBA 0 (Fabricio Oya) – SOUTHAMPTON SAFE AS IT STANDS, DERBY DROP TO 18th
76th Min – SOUTHAMPTON 1 WBA 1 (D CLEMENTS) – DERBY SAFE AS IT STANDS, SOUTHAMPTON BACK DOWN TO 18th
83rd Min – MAN UTD 0 BOURNEMOUTH 1 (A PEARSON) – MAN UTD NEED 2 GOALS IN 7 MINUTES, LIVERPOOL STILL CHAMPIONS AS IT STANDS. We drop back to 10th. Quiet here, We are far on top by chances made and highlights.
90 + 1 Min – MAN UTD 1 BOURNEMOUTH 1 (R DIAS) – MAN UTD NEED 1 MORE GOAL IN STOPPAGE TIME TO WIN THE LEAGUE (Think Man City v Stoke here, have they got an Aguero…..) – We go back to 9th.
90 + 4 Min – Man City 3 Leicester 0 (J Hill)
IT’S ALL OVER – LIVERPOOL WIN THE PREMIER LEAGUE, SOUTHAMPTON GO DOWN
That’s what final days should be like, can only dream of the atmosphere in Anfields, plus the squeaky bums in Injury time when Man Utd drew level with Bournemouth. Chelsea were champions as it stood for 1 minute, Man Utd 11 and Liverpool the final 78. Southampton were safe for 8 minutes and Derby have dodged a massive bullet. We finish 9th, a superb turnaround from the 13th when I took over 2 months ago. The missing result off the bottom of the page is Wolves 0 Brighton 5. Now – 6 days – lets do that again in the FA Cup Final, lets see who the big-game players are!!!
We get £27.4M for the 9th place finish – £2.2M goes out on bonuses. We are now £23.8M in the black.
Interesting Wages to Turnover info – we are one of the lowest with 42% (Wages £148M Turnover £344M). Chelsea have a turnover of just shy of £750M!!! Madness.
Just seen that Dean Smith is England Manager 🙂 And that England won the World Cup last Summer (2026) – Beating Germany on penalties after a 1-1 draw after 120 minutes. Ben Chilwell with the winning Penalty 🙂
And here we are – the last game of the season – The FA Cup Final
22nd May 2027 – Arsenal (N – Wembley Stadium) – FA Cup Final
He we are. Arsenal already have Europa League football next season, win this and we should replace Fulham (I believe). It’s difficult to tell as the Competition Rules don’t say anything and nobody outside the top 7 has won the FA Cup this save. We’ve shown we are in better form than them last time out, but they are still a bloody good side and (rightly) favourites for this.
FT Arsenal 1 (Everton 116) Everton 0 AET, 0-0 FT Att 89,657 (Arsenal 45,013 Everton 44,645 )
Let’s see who the big-game players are shall we? No other games to follow, and its very quiet early on. Just like the league game we are well matched – if anything Arsenal playing quite defensively and trying to hit us on the break. Arsenal with the only 2 highlights, very tight indeed. 0-0 at the break, not a classic. Our first highlight is in the 66th minute – side-netting from Errington. Last 10, we’ve had a couple more good highlights and Rogerio has pulled off a great save from Bellerin. Stoppages…All Over, Extra Time it is.
We are slightly better-off from a condition standpoint, still feel penalties though… No highlights in the first half – their defenders rating high, Harris playing an 8.2. Arsenal have the ball in the net in the 114th minute, Everton(!, Yes, Fuck off game) with the finish, but he was offside in the buildup. But he does finish 2 minutes later, a far post half-volley from a cross from Umar. Bollocks. Time for the kitchen sink (It never works). But we do have the ball in the net, 119th minute, , Errington given as offside. Yep, fair. And it’s all over. Arsenal win 1-0, a real shame. Not FM’d, but we deserved a shot at Pens.
That’s the season done. Judging on my first 10 games with Everton I think we can push for top 6 next season without any European fixture snarl-ups, definitely, with a good clear out and purchase of some good, young talent with top potential.
See you next time for the End of the 2026/27 season malarkey and the build up to opening day of the 2027/28 season.