Mark Pendleton

I wish some people would learn to distinguish between opinion & fact:- If a light is on, I say it’s off & you tell me I’m wrong, it’s off, that’s fine you’re correct. If I say I think a player is promising & you tell me I’m wrong, he is terrible, that just makes you an arse.

Superb night listening to Duncan Ferguson in Mansfield tonight, hosted by this absolute legend too @graeme74dj 💙

@henrywinter @SteveH1878 I would say unbelievable, but… 🤷‍♂️

Good result for Chelsea: club fined only £10m and given a suspended transfer ban after Premier League found 36 separate undisclosed payments totalling £47.5m made “to 12 persons or entities on behalf of the club”. Lenient sanctions. No sporting sanctions. Yet these are serious offences, as the sanction agreement between the PL and Chelsea makes clear, stating “they were not only obvious and deliberate breaches of the rules but also because they involved deception and concealment in relation to financial matters”. Yet no points deductions. Just a manageable (if record) fine and a “suspended one-year first-team player transfer ban (suspended for two years)”. Surely they gained a sporting advantage by recruiting such players? So surely a sporting sanction should be in order? And where's the consistency? In 2008, Luton Town received a 10-point deduction for irregularities in dealing with agents (nb from FA). There still could be some further sanctions by the FA following its "ongoing investigation". PL points to mitigating factors: current owners Clearlake/Todd Boehly in May 2022 voluntarily self-reported potential historical breaches from the Roman Abramovich era. Club co-operated extensively and helped provide (with others) 10,000 documents for PL investigation. PL established “that between 2011 and 2018, undisclosed payments by third parties associated with the club were made to players, unregistered agents and other third parties”. Payments related to the purchases of players including Eden Hazard, Willian, Samuel Eto’o, David Luiz, Andre Schurrle and Nemanja Matic - there is no suggestion any were aware of the illicit payments. The detailed work of the investigators – and level of Clearlake’s co-operation – is impressive. The sanctions less so. It is a legitimate debate: should a club be punished for offences under a previous owner? Yes, most fans of other clubs would scream. It's a deterrent. And the value of those players' contribution and subsequent sales arguably still benefits the club. PL also investigated “potential breaches of the Premier League’s Youth Development Rules, committed by a former senior employee, relating to the club’s registration of Academy players between 2019 and 2022”. Again, self-reported by the club, this time in 2025. Chelsea punished with £750,000 fine and immediate nine-month ban from registering academy players from PL and EFL clubs. #CFC

@GiuliaBould @Bluenerd1878 Make it make sense 🤷‍♂️

£47.5m is more than double Everton's breach that led to a Premier League record sanction of 10 points being deducted (it was recalculated to 6 on appeal) While this is a different charge, the commission said EFC "gained no sporting advantage" but still agreed a deduction.

McNeil and Beto been “training well” this week then 🤦🏻‍♂️

@BillEvram Always loved Yobo… wasn’t he actually the first ever foreign player to sign a new contract with EFC? 🤔

we gotta revive him icl

AI almost got it right.

Eni Aluko has gone full Sol Cambell, everyone knows you never go full Sol Campbell.

@GiuliaBould @philmunnsradio Done.. brilliant as ever 👏🏻💙

🔵You can now listen to the one hour documentary on the build up to the final Everton men's game at Goodison Park by @philmunnsradio & I 🔊Lots of amazing people feature including Joe Royale, Seamus Coleman, the late, great Lily Barnes & many Evertonians bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0…

Gnonto crossing for DCL to head in, who’d have thought eh

To be honest I’m amazed so far they haven’t referred to him as “the wily Kayode” yet #BRELEE

@steviemac2010 @brian_sherriff To be fair he’s right, it should have been about 7-2.

😆😆😆😆 fuck off you blagger

@r4chaelc1878 What would you have said after the Leeds game?

Before the season started if you’d said that would be our points tally going into the busy Christmas period I’d have snapped your hand off. Hopefully we can keep progressing.

@GiuliaBould @AddisonsUK What a truly remarkable woman 👏🏻💙

🌍 Let's raise awareness this #InternationalDayOfPersonsWithDisabilities! Same person but the two sides of my life. Addison's Disease is very rare, life threatening & incurable. Resus trips become familiar to us unfortunately You never know what someone is dealing with 😊

@learyg85 @bal1878 @modelturnstiles @EITC Our fan base 💙

@mcs275 Thank you 🙏🏻 💙

Another Blue lost too soon. Sleep well Dad 💙

How much did Thiago cost Brentford 🤔

And so in the middle of the pitch the referee gives a free kick for a slight shirt pull from Shade yet in the penalty area two attempts to drag the shirt off were unpunished. Absolutely zero consistency.

Did look a bit like it was the arm that finally got that under control for Schade, but that goal had certainly been coming.