Premiership: no guarantee of good football
I was in Liverpool last weekend to see Echo & the Bunnymen twice (my fifth Bunnymen gig in two months :o) and meanwhile attended Everton-Bolton.
What a disgrace. For years I was watching Premiership football every week as a kid. Now I finally see a first Premiership game (I did see a League Cup and Championship game already) and it was one of the worst games I ever attended.
How the heck did Everton manage to end 4th last season? What I saw was a disgrace. Everton as they played this game would have been beaten by Kildare County or Limerick FC with ease. Bolton played one of their crappiest games of the year and still won 0-4, says enough about the "strength" of Everton.
The game was a total disappointment. One single ball on goal in the first half, only the last 20 minutes were worth watching (Bolton scored 3x in this part of the game) and Jaaskelainen had his first ball to save with less than 10 minutes to go. 31 GBP entrance ticket, the game wasn't worth 10 pence however. Luckily that Goodison Park is really nice (an authentic non-modernised ground !!) or the afternoon was a total waste.
The Bolton fans sang "You should have gone christmas shopping" (on the same tones as the ROI or NI fans sometimes sing "there's only one team in Ireland") and they gave a good hint: if Everton does buy a few extra players, relegation is a fact I'm afraid. This Everton is nowhere near Premiership standards.
My first Premiership game was a disappointment, somewhat saved by Stelios' second goal (one single nice moment in an entire game !) and by the beauty of Goodison Park. But all in all, I would probably have been better off seeing Tranmere's game 30 miles further down the road.