‘Everton are like…’ loads of things. For the sake of argument this time out though, the Blues are like the Mam and Dad in the story, The Monkey’s Paw.

The titular ape’s appendage grants wishes, and so the down-at-heel couple who happen upon it ask for a load of dough. It duly arrives but it’s an insurance payout after the accidental death of their son. They instinctively ask the obliging hairy hand for him to be returned to them, and on a stormy night they hear heavy footsteps and a dreadful drumming on their door.

Finally, they use their final wish to send the visitor away.

It was that or a new centre-forward. They argued about if for some time, while that noisy cunt kept hammering away, trying to get in.

‘It might just be the Bettaware woman, let’s just check, for fuck’s sake.’

Anyway, trying to weigh up this whole present situation at Everton is pretty macabre, and every opinion seems to come loaded with prior prejudice when you are dealing with a figure like ‘Big’ Sam Allardyce.

There is an almost overwhelming willingness, especially after any bad result, to say, ‘Look, everything I’ve always thought about this fella has been confirmed here.’ The ‘Rafa at Chelsea’ syndrome, if you like.

On the other hand though, he really doesn’t make it hard to…even if it’s not ‘dislike’, but definitely distrust him.

The more you actually listen to the former England manager, the more you realise that his career has almost been a piece of performance art. His ability to survive, to instinctively attach himself to clubs at the optimum time, learn just enough buzzwords to sound plausible, and then to craft a glowing ‘narrative’ around himself, and to get enough other people to buy into that narrative, is in itself a work of near genius.

He’s the Fat White Duke.

Ultimately though, Allardyce isn’t the cause of Everton’s problems. He’s arguably a massive symptom, but this all started with that mad spending spree undertaken by that other ‘comes up smelling of roses’ get, Ronald Koeman.

And Steve Walsh, of course.

Now, sometimes you see people lash out at executives and non-playing staff whenever the team are cack, and you wince a bit because none of us really know what these people’s daily roles consist of and whether they are indeed any good at them or not.

However, you would have to say it’s fairly fucking safe to presume that by most indicators our Director of Football has done a terrible job thus far.

Recruitment has been an absolute disaster – we can’t be bothered naming all the names again, but everyone knows who they are. And in terms of the apparent key function of the Director of Football, ’providing continuity’, well, fucking hell.

The transition from one manager to the next couldn’t have been more disjointed had it been overseen by the fella from Memento, the one with the memory loss who has to frantically decipher the cryptic messages he’s scrawled all over his body in order to navigate his perilous life.

Break the bank for Michael Keane

Left-backs….cannot be trusted

Number 1o!

Sell Michael Keane

TOSUN

In fairness, that last one originally said ‘Brendan Galloway to Sunderland’, but it was written in lipstick across Walshie’s midriff and, well, his belly button region gets a bit sweaty and smudged when away on ‘fact finding missions’.

Shit happens.

Anyway, increasingly you hear people saying ‘It just doesn’t feel like Everton’. Which will mean nothing to you, unless you feel that way, in which case you will understand the hollow feeling that the club ‘inspires’ at present. Now, the Bolton Billy Bean – is that Billy Barm? – and his ‘algorithm company’ (fucking algorithm company!) would tell you that’s just the luxury of being more or less safe already.

We’re not going down – we’re certainly not going to win anything – and so apathy has set in. And there is probably some truth in that.

Still though, when you see things like the startling wholesale booing of the Morgan Schneiderlin substitution on Saturday, it’s clear that there’s a major disconnect between the fans and the management.

Supporters are looking for some sense of the direction that club is going in. Having been hampered by a chronic lack of cash for so long, a billionaire owner was meant to see the Toffees liberated and on the road to fulfilling their undoubted potential. And again, that could still be the case – in a few years we might be sitting in a state-of-the-art stadium watching Paolo Fonseca’s Blues terrorising Europe and the Premier League. For the moment though, every pronouncement by Farhad Moshiri makes him look like the fucking Mad Hatter.

Presumably he is a super-smart fella – hence the ‘billionaire’ bit – but the impression you get at the moment is he’s like some Japanese Kopite in a Moncler ski coat and Luis Vuitton rucksack walking around Anfield taking pictures with his iPad and trying to buy a ticket on derby day. He’s quickly surrounded by Nike Air ninjas being his best mate and saying ‘yeah yeah, that should probably be enough, lad’ when he opens his wallet, stuffed with enough dough to choke a donkey, before selling him a page out the programme and then pointing him towards the away turnstiles.

There are rumours of radical moves afoot, with all sorts of exotic managers and ‘execs’ being ‘sounded out’. And there’s certainly something needed if we don’t want to remain the latest incarnation of Steve Gibson’s Middlesbrough, which is essentially what we’ve become.

There’s only so many times we can tear everything up and start again though, paying off all those fat contracts and trying to move on the unwanted players for far less than we paid. Because that constant churn of staff and the lack of a real focus is what will create a fractured squad and the poisonous, indifferent atmosphere that eventually turns you into Sunderland or Aston Villa.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock….