Everton demolished Manchester United 4-0 on Sunday but it seems that such a brilliant performance doesn’t register with the mainstream football media. Why is that?
It is always instructive to see how the media sees Everton games, especially when the Blues play so-called ‘superior’ teams like United.
You feel that if another club had produced a display like the Toffees did on Sunday, then it would have been met with high praise and talk of how competitive the team has now become.
I genuinely don’t buy into conspiracy theories as a rule and tend to be more of a believer that history is determined by incompetency and accident rather than nefarious conspiracy.
But it’s hard not to think that the mainstream football media have a blind spot when it comes to Everton. Is that perhaps because so many of their pundits are ex-Liverpool and Man United players??
For example on BBC Sport and Sky Sports all the articles on the game focus on United’s deficiencies, almost exclusively. And some of these articles make the assumption that United are obviously far superior to the Blues, but is that really the case?
Although United have a significant points advantage over Everton, that isn’t necessarily a truly telling statistic.
Yes since making their managerial change, United have won at Arsenal and Spurs but they also won a lot of games against teams languishing in the lower reaches of the Premier League.
Coming into the match in their past games at Goodison Park, the Toffees had gained a deserved draw against league leaders Liverpool and beaten Chelsea and Arsenal all without conceding a goal.
And so it’s amazing that such a devastating performance against a team that just a few days earlier had been competing in a Champions League quarter-final, can just be ignored in this way.
But it seems that for the mainstream media dominated by obsession with the ‘big clubs’ Everton don’t make much impression on them.
Much of this is linked to the fact that many football outlets and commentators only think about football in the post-Premier League era with little or no interest or knowledge about the game’s long history.
Everton have had very little success in this Premier League era. Apart from an unexpected FA Cup triumph in 1995, the Blues have won nothing else since.
More from Prince Rupert's Tower
- Everton 0 Arsenal 1: Blues fall to third home defeat
- Further chaos in Everton takeover as other lenders not keen on 777 Partners
- Everton need repeat of Arsenal win to kick-start their season on Sunday
- More madness at Everton as Moshiri now agrees to sell club to 777 Partners
- Everton takeover talk cools after UK govt doubts and further questions
But the Toffees are historically one of the most successful clubs in English football. With nine league titles the Blues still have more championship wins than any other English clubs apart from Man United, Liverpool and Arsenal.
Back in the sixties Everton were a glamorous, high-profile club and it was Goodison Park, not Anfield, that was chosen as the venue for the 1966 World Cup group held on Merseyside.
However the Toffees are not regarded as a glamorous club anymore and the attitude of the mainstream media seems to underline this.
Well anyway I just found the whole reaction a bit bemusing and not a little frustrating and felt that I had to write about it.