Still in the game

Many of us have been surprised - indeed awestruck - by Ukraine's determined resistance against Putin's invasion. The experts were pretty united about the likely outcome when Russia invaded. Eliot Cohen published an analysis in The Times a few days ago saying why the experts had got it wrong about Ukraine's ability to resist the initial assault. Like many people who know much more about it than I do, I was a little surprised that the Russians hadn't opened up with more of a shock and awe approach. I assumed that this was because they preferred to try to occupy a functioning country. And I still thought it would be over in Russia's favour fairly quickly. I also presumed that when the Russians reverted to Grozny and Aleppo style bombardment as plan B - as deployed at Mariupol - that Ukraine's collapse would be slow rather than quick but would still happen as I feared that Kyiv would soon face a similar fate.

The best I felt we could hope for was a long drawn out stalemate and possibly a partitioned Ukraine.

But Cohen said the experts (and the mere opinionated like me) were wrong on that also. He said that the more likely truth is that the Ukraininans were winning for which there was "abundant evidence" and that the failure of the experts to recognise it will be one of many elements of this war worth studying in the future. In the subsequent days the tide does seem to have turned and Russia has retrenched to focus on its primary objectives in the south and east. Nevertheless it's worth looking at why Cohen was predicting this (actually to him it wasn't a prediction as it was already happening). He said:

"The Ukrainian miltary has proved not only motivated and well led but also tactically skilled, integrating light infantry with anti-tank weapons, drones and artillery fire to defeat much larger Russian miltary formations. The Ukrainians are not merely defending their strong points in urban areas but manoeuvring from and between them, following the Clausewitzian dictum that the best defence is a shield of well-directed blows. The reluctance to admit what is happening stems perhaps in part from the protectiveness scholars feel for their subject (even if they loathe it on  moral grounds), but more from a tendency to emphasise technology (the Russians have some good bits), numbers (which they dominate, though only up to a point) and doctrine".

Cohen points out that the areas of Ukraine we see marked in red aren't occupied by Russia per se, but just areas they have moved through. Noting the various credible reports of significant Russian losses and allowing for the likely multiple for numbers out of action wounded, he posits that around 15% of the invading force could have been removed by wounds, capture or disappearance, saying this would be enough to render most combat unites ineffective.

What about reserves? He says the Russian army committed well over half its combat forces to the fight, behind that stands very little and that most of those reserves have no training to speak of. We know Putin may get some Chechen and Syrian forces to bolster his numbers but one wonders how well they would integrate. It is striking that Belarus has not committed troops in support and there are reports that Russian national guard forces, normally considered Putin loyalists, are claiming their service contracts don't provide for them to serve outside Russia. 

So there may not be much behind the front line deployment. It would seem that, if the Russian army is routed at its front line, Ukraine could push them out - a prospect that I had thought existed pretty much only in the mind of its president.

How has it come to this? Cohen points out that:

• the Russian army command can be rather cerebral and admire elegant tactical and operational thinking rather than pressing hard on practice. Modern armies rely on a strong cadre of non-commissioned officers and Russia's are weak and corrupt without which "even large numbers of sophisticated  vehicles deployed to a compelling doctrine will end up broken or abandoned and troops will succumb to ambushes or break under fire"
• the repeated tactical blundering, visible on videos even to amateurs, included vehicles bunched on roads, no infantry cover for the flanks, no closely co-ordinated artillery fire, no support from helicopters and panicky reactions to ambushes. The one to one ratio of Russian vehicles destroyed to captured speaks of an army that is unwilling to fight. The inability to concentrate forces on one or two axes of attack, or take a big city, are "striking" as are the problems of logistics and maintenance. (I would add that the Russian military and political hierarchy will suffer from being told over many years only what it wants or expects to hear in a culture where no-one will point out the lack of clothing to the emperor)
• the Ukrainians have auxiliaries too and, while some may be "worthless or dangerous to their allies" they include snipers, combat medics and other specialists who have fought in western armies. More important they have the military industry of many countries behind them resulting in a flow of thousands of advanced weapons: the best anti-tank and aniti-aircraft weapons in the world, plus drones, sniper rifles and all the kit of war. When the UK was providing anti-tank and anti-aircraft systems and training Ukrainian forces in their use in the run up to the hostilities I felt that it surely couldn't be enough to make a difference, but the west would get to see its kit tested in real battle. It has made an enormous difference
• I had presumed that the Americans in particular would have extensive intelligence about Russian deployment and intentions from its spy satellite system and that the performance of the Ukrainians suggests that this intelligence must be being shared. Cohen says the adroitness of Ukrainian air defence and deployments means we can suppose this to be correct
• I had expected Ukraine to collapse quickly into confusion, its communication and other essential systems hit by Russian cyber hackers. But Cohen notes there has been no evidence of Russian cyberwar. I wonder if they aren't as good at it as we feared or the systems the west have provided over the years to the Ukrainians have proved resilient. (I'd also assume that the Ukrainian infrastructure is less connected to the hackable internet than ours). But more than that, it's been the other way around: Russian secure comms systems have been poor or inoperable and their use of conventional unencrypted comms has contributed to Russian generals getting themselves killed. Others have fallen because of their desire to unstick things at front lines. The half a dozen or so generals the Russians have lost has been reported to be about a quarter of the total for the whole of Russia's army
• and, even when a city is turned to rubble, while we look at the destroyed hospitals and apartment blocks and wonder how people can possibly survive and continue to fight, Phillips O'Brien of St Andrews University has argued this conveys the brutality but not the military reality. Even when a town has been practically levelled, its defenders are unlikely to have been killed off. The Russians should know this from their own experience at the hands of the Germans 80 years ago

It also strikes me that the Ukrainians have used the time since the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014 very well. They were apparently embarrassed by their inability to offer any significant resistance. I think the photographs of bridges blown up and Russian vehicles ambushed, the evidence that the Russian advance had stalled and the ability of Ukraine to keep its rail system operational, bringing supplies through from its western border with Poland all show to me evidence of advance planning to an extent I doubt could have been done in the few weeks while Russia gathered its invasion force. They have certainly trained their forces well. The BBC reported that many had, of course, seen service fighting the Russian separatists forces in the Donbas. Another point made by Ukrainian troops Mark and Vlad when interviewed by BBC was that, while the Russian forces adjacent to Karkhiv sleep in their trenches, they take turns to sleep under cover in the town, where they have plentiful supplies of in date ready meals (captured Russian troops have are reported to have some meals dated 2015) and where ambulances can still get access to take the wounded out to hospital. 

The reported arrival of nearly twenty plane loads a day of supplies and weapons to an airfield near the Polish border, mainly from the US, must have been absolutely critical. But I saw a cutting comment from a Times reader to the effect that a few weeks ago we thought Russia had the second best army in the world, now it's clear they have the second best army in Ukraine.

Can Ukraine actually do it? Cohen feels they can but it will help if the west double down by arming them on the scale necessary, throttling the Russian economy pressuring an elite that, by and large, he says don't subscribe to Putin's ideology or paranoid nationalism, penetrating his information cocoon which is insulating the Russian people from the reality that thousands of their young men will come home maimed or in coffins, announcing a Marshall plan for Ukraine and beginning to make arrangements for war crimes trials and naming defendants. I had thought the last of these was pointless but I was wrong on that as well: what harm can it do to inject the possibility that what happened to the likes of Ribbentrop and German military figures at Nuremberg and Mladic and Karadzik at The Hague could actually happen to them?

I had also thought that, in the context of modern warfare, Churchillian type speeches had become irrelevant. President Zelensky has proven otherwise. His series of speeches to various parliaments have been inspirational, all cleverly targeted and producing standing ovations, generally followed by a debate. Apart from Germany where their speaker thanked Zelensky perfunctorily and moved on to next business by wishing two MPs a happy birthday! Zelensky was perhaps more critical of Germany than other countries, referring to the country's "worthless" lip service to the Holocaust and how slow it had been to wake up to the true nature of Putin's regime, though to be fair we don't know whether the UK would have been just as keen to buy Russian gas in Germany's position. He also got stuck in to Germany for being the most reluctant to block Moscow from the Swift banking payments system. He said " When we asked for preventative sanctions we...turned to you. We felt resistance. We understood that you want to continue the economy. Economy. Economy" with a bite of sardonic sarcasm in his voice.

Germany's policy towards Russia and China is Wandel durch Handel (change through trade), the idea being that the more it did business with such countries the more democratic and less authoritarian they would become. A former British ambassador to Germany told Dominic Lawson "The German attitude is that trade is the key to harmonious relations and should not be threatened no matter how vilely Russia or China behaves towards its own people. It is a genuine principle but, of course, self-serving." 

Lawson noted a comment by German journalist Raplh Bollmann: "We are in a dep crisis of the German economic model that is not yet in the minds of many Germans: our model depends on exporting to China especially and importing cheap gas from Russia". 

Zelensky's addresses have been very clever and adroit. Germany has moved more on defence in the last few weeks than in many decades but it still has a lot of ground to make up and the Ukrainian president hit that nail firmly on the head.

There was some carping in the UK about how relatively slow the UK was to enact sanctions on Russian oligarchs. The government decided it needed to tighten the law before it could proceed and it's striking to me that those complaining were likely to be exactly the same as those who had accused the government of acting illegally in proroguing Parliament and on other issues. I'm only suprised that they didn't blame Brexit because it did actually have something to do with it - the UK hasn't had experience of sanctioning countries for several decades and has had to relearn it. Never mind that the UK sanctioned Abramovich before anyone else and has now probably acted against as many bodies and people as any other country or group of countries. What is also clear from listening to Zelensky and, come to that, everyday Ukrainians is that the assistance the UK has provided and the leadership the UK has shown in the international community is very much appreciated to the point where I've heard it said that the second most popular politician in Ukraine is Boris Johnson. 

Johnson has so far had a good war, as it were. Oh sure he says some daft things as always, in particular his wilfully misunderstood but crass comment linking Ukraine and Brexit. While I found his remark rather odd, if he'd left it at Ukrainians and Brits tend to choose freedom without bringing Brexit into it as an example for the Brits no-one would have batted an eyelid. Bizarrely Nicola Sturgeon then joined in, saying:

"Putin's war has also cast new light on the realities of Brexit and the particular challenges posed to Scotland and the rest of the UK by being taken out of the world's biggest single market. The events of recent weeks have underlined the importance of independent countries co-operating in supranational organisations such as the EU. That is why we are determined to achieve independence for Scotland by offering the choice of a better, fairer future."

Wow. What a bunch of convoluted non sequiturs. Sturgeon's remarks were condemned as unacceptable and tasteless but I'm left wondering firstly why on earth either politician would make such strange remarks. More importantly, as regards Sturgeon's statement, we could question very seriously whether Ukraine being in the EU would have made the slightest difference. You might want to be in the EU, Nicola, but in this context I'd suggest NATO is rather more important. And having your own nuclear deterrent. I daresay if you get your independence you'll freeload like Germany on defence spending and want the nuclear bases removed while being secretly glad that Britain will maintain the deterrent and would not dare leave the northern part of the island exposed.

It seems to me that despite Johnson's never ending ability to say daft things, he has done pretty well as one of the main western leaders pushing for action and unity. Indeed I read that Canadian PM Trudeau praised Johnson at one of the early international meetings for being able to find the words to get the leaders on the same page. The actions the UK took in providing lethal aid early (stepping it up before the Russians invaded) and pressing for concerted action via Swift etc seem to me a damned sight more relevant than prioritising sanctioning some oligarchs. Especially since at that point pusillanimous Germany was refusing to let our lethal aid even transit their airspace en route to Ukraine and was itself sending field hospital equipment (useful but hardly likely to change the outcome). The sea change in the German response was welcome but needs to be just the start.

If you doubt that Johnson has done well so far, reflect on two things. Firstly sleepy Joe Biden's ability to say even dumber things (what on earth did he mean when he told American troops in Poland that they would see for themselves when they got to Ukraine? Is he trying to start a nuclear confrontation?). And secondly, Russia's reaction when they described Johnson as "the most active participant in the race to be anti-Russian" and called him public enemy number one.

The fact that internationally Johnson has been seen to leading the west's response as much as Biden may not compute to those ordinary Brits who've had enough of him. But either way it doesn't mean the PM is in the clear once Plod finally concludes its risible investigation into Partygate. To be fair the Met can't really win on this: quick and cheap or drawn out and expensive, many have made their own mind up either way and depending on that will find the investigation flawed. So why take quite so long and spend quite so much on it?

The inevitable question to come will be whether a few fixed penalties whoever they land on will be enough to make people decide the PM should be brought down over his failure to set an example to civil servants who didn't directly work for him while the world has been looking into the abyss.

A week ago I would have said Zelensky was more in the no-win situation. Now it's not so clear. It will become clear in time. But for now, both Johnson and Zelensky are still in the game. Except for Zelensky it's not a game. It's life and death. One can only watch in admiration and hope for him and his people.

I'll leave you with this photo of the Russian embassy in Lisbon, illuminated by protesters in Ukraine's colours. (From twitter but fact checked as true)

 ****

Cohen's piece The experts were wrong: Russia hasn't won and isn't going to was in The Times on 23 March

Ukrainian troops Mark and Vlad told the Russians "go home while you are still alive" in item on BBC website on 24 March and video that was shown on the tv news; https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60860548

The Bundestag reaction to Zelensky's speech and the German media's reaction to it is covered in https://www.politico.eu/article/zelenskyy-speech-sparks-soul-search-germany/. It was also noted in Dominic Lawson's Sunday Times column on 20 March, "Zelensky lays bare Berlin's failed strategy"

Decoupling from China would be a much bigger issue than Russia for the west. For example, VW had a 14.6% share of the Chinese market in 2019. The nearest competitor had 7.3%. VW sold 4.184m units in China in 2018 compared with 4.326m in the EU; from https://daxueconsulting.com/volkswagen-in-china/. I read that half of all VWs are made in China.

Russia says Johnson is the most active particpant in the race to be anti-Russian https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-kremlin-attack-russia-ukraine-b2043073.html?r=76065

Best musicians I've seen: Guitarists encomia* resumed! 4.7 Guitarists

A significant chunk of a lifetime ago I was writing a series of posts on the musicians I considered to be the best I happen to have seen play live. Other things have intervened but I have contracted covid so the long list of outstanding tasks - and walking, and golf - are out for a few days. So here I resume my encomium* on the best guitarists I've seen play.

To save you looking back, guitarists I've written about from the very large number I've seen included Carlos Santana, Richie Blackmore, Tony Iommi (who arguably created the doom laden sound of heavy metal) and Peter Buck, none of whom made my shortlist and David Gilour, Jimmy Page and Robert Fripp, who did.

Before moving on to my final shorlisted guitarist, other prominent guitarists I've seen include Keith Richards (fourth on Rolling Stone magazine's list compiled by celebrity guitarists**), Pete Townshend (10th) and Dave Davies (91st). These three guitarists illustrate why my original question - who was most the master of his instrument - probably doesn't make sense. Rock music isn't like classical, where a virtuoso violinist's creativity is limited to interpretation (unless they also compose, which is rare). The reason Richards is so high on the list clearly isn't just his skill as a player. C'mon, he wrote the riffs to Satisfaction and Gimme Shelter! And Dave Davies slashed his speaker cone to produce the rasping sound likened to a "barking dog" by one music industry executive, changing Ray's gentle acoustic riff for You Really Got Me into the template for punk. And, according to Mike Rutherford of Genesis, "still one of the greatest riffs of all time". These guys were hugely influential innovators.

Moreover some of the best guitarists I've seen have been hired guns, albeit longstanding ones in the case of Daryl Stuermer who was brought in by Genesis to cover for Steve Hackett in 1977 and has played with them ever since. I haven't seen Hackett, another innovative guitarist, but Stuermer knocks those guitar pieces off like shelling peas (or a virtuoso violinist). When I saw Genesis last year Phil Collins wryly introduced Starmer as being indispensible, as the one who actually knew how to play all the songs. I'd probably add Rick Fenn to that list, who has filled in for Eric Stewart on guitar in 10CC very capably, also since the 70s.

So I don't think you can completely separate skill on the instrument from creativity in this context (Rolling Stone clearly didn't).

Others I've seen included Frank Zappa (22nd on Rolling Stone's list, a great musical magpie and writer of the superb extended guitar solo in Willie The Pimp, a very memorable gig when I saw him in Manchester). It's possible Zappa should be in my shortlist, but he isn't. Another that easily could have been is too obscure for the RS list: Del Bromham of Stray, formed in 1966 and still gigging. I recall their first album being played at teenage parties but didn't buy it until after I saw them playing at a pub in Derby around 2010. As noted by several music publications, Stray may not have gone platinum but  Bromham is seriously good. Hearing Harry Farr made me turn round, go to the back and buy the CD before they had started the next song, something I'd never done before. Del is partial to a bit of Hendrix influence but, as a pure guitar player, I suspect he's actually better than most of the names mentioned above. When we saw them again at The Flowerpot (a pub where Mrs H wouldn't have a drink and avoided going to the toilet!) our younger son laughed at how good they were: "there are bands filling stadiums who aren't as good as this".

My last shortlisted guitarist is also partial to a bit of Hendrix influence, but rather better known, mainly for his various stints with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Influenced by Beck, Page, Gilmour, Hendrix and Zappa (not a bad list!) the young John Frusciante was a fan of the Chilis and knew the original guitarist, Hillel Slovak, who died of an overdose. He knew many of the riffs of their early songs, which gave him a head start when, having already jammed with bassist Flea, he auditioned for the role. He had been due to audition for Zappa's band but pulled out when he realised that Zappa, who ran his band with an iron hand, strictly prohibited drug use. "I realized that I wanted to be a rock star, do drugs and get girls, and that I wouldn't be able to do that if I was in Zappa's band" though by the age of 20 he turned away from hedonism and ended his first stint with the Chilis because, driven by sales of the seminal Blood Sugar Sex Magik album, he found the bands sudden success disorientating. He went back to drugs and then back to the Chilis, living a more health conscious, spiritual lifestyle. In this phase the band produced their biggest selling album Californication  and their other major sellers besides Blood Sugar, By The Way and Stadium Arcadium, which they were touring when I saw them twice. In this phase the band coupled their hard edged funk with a more commercial pop-rock style to great effect.

I recall reading a newspaper article on guitarists which advocated four as the greatest of all time. I can't recall who they all were but two were George Harrison and John Frusciante. The reasoning was that it was impossible for any guitarist to come up with a more appropriate guitar section for a Beatles or Chilis song than Harrison and Frusciante had. Any cover version has to be rendered in a very different style to stand a chance of working - and most don't. Frusciante sounded immaculate live but listening to his recordings I am consistently astounded by how his playing is always perfect for the song on those classic Red Hot Chili Peppers albums. To the point where I listen to the double Stadium Arcadium album all the way through quite often, even though there are some fairly average tracks, because I can't stop listening to what the Frusciante is doing.

Yes some of it is inevitably derivative: he's 26 years younger than Jimmy Page so that's inevitable.

But John Frusciante is the final guitarist on my shortlist making it Page, Fripp, Gilmour and Frusciante.

I guess I now have to choose just one...

To be continued.

* a word I learned recently. I shouldn't assume that, because I didn't know this word, readers won't but just in case it's a speech or piece of writing that praises someone or something highly. I am reminded of a female comedian we saw support John Bishop last year. She was great - bonny, loud and very rude, with swear words very prevalent. She noted that she hates it when anyone says to her that swearing is a sign of a limited vocabulary, her standard response being "isn't that a bit of a solipsistic assumption for a tw*t?" Anyway, apologies for my solipsistic assumption

**  https://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-greatest-guitarists-20111123

As ever Wikipedia is indispensible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Frusciante

My earlier posts were Best Musicians I've seen - 4.1 guitarists, 8 April 2018 which featured Carlos Santana; 4.2 Richie Blackmore, 22 April 2018; 4.3 Tony Iommi, 24 May 2018, 4.4 - David Gilmour; 4.5 Jimmy Page, 22 June 2018; 4.6 Peter Buck and Robert Fripp, 15 August 2018

Stormy Waters on the Mersey

 Mrs H and I had a day out at New Brighton recently. "A day out at New Brighton" used to be a big thing on Merseyside. I'm pretty sure there was a photo of me as a baby with my parents on New Brighton beach, though I haven't found it so it might be a false memory.  There's still three-quarters of a mile of sandy beach around the tip of the Wirral and, according to Wikipedia, it has the UK's longest promenade. You could get the ferry directly to New Brighton from Liverpool's Pier Head but declining passenger numbers brought an end to that in 1971 and the ferry now shuttles straight across the river to Birkenhead Woodside. (OK pedants, there is also the Seacombe terminal which, like New Brighton, is in Wallasey but right at the Birkenhead end and anyway it's currently out of action for refurb). 

We went to New Brighton for the Fawlty Towers dining experience, which did full justice to the characters of Basil and Sybil Fawlty and their hapless waiter, Manuel. 

Our day out was very windy, with larger waves than I can recall seeing on the river sending spray splashing over the promenade by the Floral Pavilion. My photo above, looking towards the cranes of the north Liverpool docks - the container terminal I think - doesn't really do justice to quite how stormy it was. 

The construction site for Everton's new stadium is somewhat off the right of my photo. The early stages of the work are progressing well. The dock has been filled in and construction has started. Here is the only real heritage feature of the dock, the hydraulic tower, in the process of being preserved notwithstanding the bollocks we heard from UNESCO about the impact of the project on the once world heritage site of the Liverpool Maritime Mercantile city:

However, nothing much else about Farhad Moshiri's project for Everton is progressing well right now.  I couldn't help reflecting that Everton have a stormy passage to navigate a way through to being a Premier League club when they move into the stadium in 2024, assuming of course that it is completed. Everton say the funding for the project is in place, notwithstanding the club ending its sponsorship from sanctioned oligarch Alisher Usmanov.

The Sunday Times threw up a farrago of innuendo about Moshiri and Usmanov last weekend. Moshiri has distanced himself from his even wealthier friend, for whom he was a financial mentor, having first met him while working as an accountant at Deloitte in London in 1989.  By 1993 Moshiri was helping to manage Usmanov's investments in metals, mining, telecomms and technology and they remained close until Moshiri cut links a few weeks ago.

Usmanov rewarded Moshiri with shareholdings in several companies. This might sound unusual but is fairly normal in privately owned companies, the lead shareholder wanting a small number of his main men to have, in that unpleasant phrase, "skin in the game" and a strong incentive for the companies to do well. Usmanov, who Moshiri has described as a "crazy fan of Arsenal" bought into the Gunners with Moshiri but was denied a place on the board by American owner Stan Kroenke. Moshiri funded his purchase of Everton by selling his Arsenal shares to Usmanov. However, the leaked Panama Papers suggested Moshiri's stake was originally a gift from Usmanov in the first place. I'm not sure why this would be materially different to how Moshiri "earned" his wealth but according to Jonathan Northcroft it raises the possibility that Usmanov ultimately paid for Everton. Moshiri has dismissed the documents as a "mistake" and his representatives have said very clearly that Usmanov never had any equity in Everton. Indeed when Everton terminated the sponsorship contracts from Usmanov's USM Holdings I had a good holler at sloppy reporting on the BBC TV news when they described Usmanov as an "investor" rather than a "sponsor" of the club.

It's not clear that any of this presents a problem for Everton from the point of view of sanctions.  After all Moshiri isn't Russian - he's Iranian. He came to the UK with his family as a young man before the 1979 revolution, studying at UCL and is usually described as a British-Iranian businessman. Moreover, all the time Moshiri was working with Usmanov the latter was the opposite of persona non grata with the UK government. I have some philosophical difficulty with politicians who have traded throughout with Russia (and still do) suddenly retrospectively deciding that individuals are beyond the pale for their connections about which we know little more than we ever did. We were buying their oil and gas and, in the case of EU countries particularly Germany and France, selling significant quantities of arms to Putin's regime.

A bigger problem for Everton and Moshiri is that they have wasted so much money during his tenure.  Northcroft reported that Moshiri has "probably injected £450 million into Everton, by far the highest owner funding in the league and double what Roman Abramovich put into Chelsea over a similar period". Some commentators think Everton is at real risk of breaching the Premier League's financial fair play rules. Now FFP is an oxymoron as far as I'm concerned as it is actually designed to keep the current bunch of "elite" clubs at the top forever by preventing speculative investment. Be that as it may, it seems that Moshiri has sunk getting on for a quarter of his fortune into the club which has, unbelievably, spent £668 million on transfers and £40 million paying off a succession of managers in Moshiri's six year stewardship. Unbelievably because the squad doesn't look suffused with quality. They seem to have been a soft touch for agents, who were frequently entertained on Usmanov's yacht for talks about players and managers. 

The result is that Everton recorded a loss of £140m in 2018/19 and £112m in 2019/20, losses that were in the top seven recorded by any English club in history and which totalled more than the combined losses of the nearest two Premier League clubs in the same peiod, Southanpton (£117m) and Manchester City (115m).

Everton say they are confident of being able to show they have operated within the profit and sustainability rules partly because the club has suffered high covid related related losses and have significant new stadium related costs to offset (both permissable).  They were praised for maintaining the pay of their casual staff when there were no matches, in contrast to clubs like Arsenal and they have one of the best community programmes in the UK, if not Europe. All laudable but not great for the business when cash is haemorrhaging. They have apparently been in close contact with the Premier League throughout the season and spend in the summer and January transfer windows was deliberately modest. 

All this is a concern but nothing remotely like the situation on the pitch.

I had another couple of days out on Merseyside over the last ten days with my first visits to Goodison Park since pre-covid. (Thanks, mate, for the loan of your season ticket!) It was also quite like seeing Basil and Manuel though not for me, or most of the crowd, remotely as funny as they tamely lost to a competent but hardly effervescent Wolves team 1-0 in the first match.

Frank Lampard's team selection was strange, with two right backs in the line up. Officially Coleman was ahead of Kenny in midfield but they adopted a curious tactic. When the left back (Ukrainian Mykolenko) went forward the rest of the back four shuffled across with Coleman dropping to right back. This meant that a full back, a winger and two orthodox midfield players were up against the midfield five of Wolves, with predictable results. Neves and Moutinho (who is so old he was coveted by Moyes when he was at Everton) bossed the show and Marcal stood out wide on their left side, offering an almost permananently available out ball when Everton attacked down their left and Coleman vacated that position. Wolves were able to keep the ball and Everton weren't.

Everton's truly awful recruitment policy was illustrated when Mykolenko was substituted by Dele as Kenny moved across to left back. Everton acquired two full backs in January. One, Patterson, has been trusted to play half a game against non-league Boreham Wood. Right footed right back Kenny, who had hardly been able to get a game for three seasons and had been farmed out on loan with a view to a sale, is now preferred to not only Patterson but also left back Mykolenko. That's how much Lampard thinks can trust the new players. 

The fiasco was compounded when Kenny got sent off for two yellow card offences within a few minutes, though at least it meant that, for the second game against Newcastle, Lampard only picked one right back. Instead he picked two left wingers, Gray and Gordon. To be fair Gordon is doing well and has become the fans' great hope, even though it wasn't clear at the start of the season whether Benitez would trust him with many minutes on the pitch. He can operate down either flank, but he was deployed more like a no 10. To see such an inexperienced player trusted with that role was curious, but inevitably he did tend to drift into the same space occupied by Demarai Gray, hence my comment.

In the first match Everton adopted a measured and fairly cautious approach, which meant the crowd never got very animated. By the end there were some boos but the atmosphere was one of resignation. In the second match, under the Goodison lights, the crowd were full throated in desperate support. The team either responded or were sent out to be more pro-active and gave a high energy and determined performance, albeit lacking in much gumption. When ref Craig Pawson gave Allan yellow for a professional foul, VAR categorised it at serious foul play and Pawson upgraded it to red. The offence was pretty much what you see Manchester City do week in week out when they stop the opposition breaking by, in Mikel Arteta's barely English phrase "making a foul". 

It produced lots of noisy indignation as the crowd shouted the team on. They played more sensibly with 10 than they had with 11, defending  effectively and breaking when they could.  It was almost ironic when Alex Iwobi showed great composure to score the winner after being released by substitute DCL, whose presence made a huge impact. Ironic because, at half time in the Wolves match the chaps in front of me were chatting about Moshiri and Everton's transfer "policy". I interjected that we had bought two full backs who, while they might be "ones for the future" the manager didn't trust now. and that Moshiri, while he had a big wallet and his heart was in the right place, didn't have a clue. One of them thought and responded "that's right but just think, without Moshiri we wouldn't have Alex Iwobi".

We all looked thoughtful at this bit of biting sarcasm. The much maligned Iwobi (at least much maligned by me) is thought to have been a personal transfer pick by Moshiri and cost a whacking £30m plus. But he was a hero on Thursday and the stadium was rocking at the end.

Everton gave their fans that very dangerous emotion, hope. My hope is tempered by the fact that, while Everton have games in hand, they have a tough fixture list.

With their morale improving win Everton now have 3 wins in 21 league matches (and only 3 draws as well). More to the point, they have won only one away game all season. It's all very well doing it with that crowd behind you at Goodison - though that can be a mixed blessing in terms of composure as they get too fired up. Two red cards in those matches I saw and, against Newcastle, my heart was in my mouth when both Gordon and Richarlison "went down easily" when already on a yellow. But as Alyson Rudd said recently "on the pitch they are suffering an identity crisis and their away form threatens to land them in big trouble". She wrote that before the 5-0 embarrassment at Spurs.

When you play with commitment at home but are lacklustre away I feel that shows a certain lack of character. (I exclude Richarlison and one or two others from that remark). Everton's upcoming confirmed fixtures, with games to rearrange, are: West Ham (A), Burnley (A), Man U (H), Leicester (H), Liverpool (A) and Chelsea (H). Yes they had a win but Leeds got two, making the table look very much like 3 to be relegated from 4. Not great odds. The Burnley game is huge. If they don't get something out of that I could see them getting 'nil points' from that run of games, putting them deep in the mire by 1 May. 

I haven't seen Everton play league matches in any other than the top tier: they last got promoted when I was two years old. The nightmare scenario is that  they have a shiny new stadium but have been relegated, haven't bounced back at the first opportunity and then run into the far stricter Championship financial fair play rules. We know where that can go: just look at Derby County.

Farhad Moshiri could be the living embodiment of that old joke: how do you get a small fortune? Answer: start with a big one and buy a football club.

P.S. According to a quotable quote by American academic and author Brene Brown hope is "not an emotion; it's a way of thinking or cognitive process". I doubt she knows much about sports fans!

Jonathan Northcroft's column "As if relegation scrap wasn't bad enough Everton are beset by links to oligarch Usmanov and runaway financial losses" was in the Sunday Times 20 March 2022

The Sunday Times reported that the Investigate Europe project had found that EU countries, mainly France and Germany, supplied Russia with €346m of military equipment including missiles, rockets, torpedoes and bombs between 2015 and 2020 - after Russia had seized Crimea!

Alyson Rudd's column "So much of what Everton do off the field makes them a role-model club. But on the pitch they are suffering an identity crisis and their away form threatens to land them in big trouble" was in the Sunday Times on 6 March 2022