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THE Reds are on holiday again.

Say what you want about Jürgen Klopp but he mustn’t half love a bevy by the pool in the afternoon. There is about three fellas not on international duty in the Liverpool team and yet big Jürgen still manages to cobble together a squad to blag a trip to Tenerife. What a man.

As far as Liverpool news and discussion points go that is it for the Reds this week. Which, while pretty boring, wouldn’t be a problem if I didn’t have to find 1,200 words for Robbo before Monday lunchtime.

So, the only thing left for it is Everton and the curious case of the Bramley Dock ghost ground. Say what you want about the tricky Blues but they absolutely love a molehill don’t they; love it so much they turn it into a massive big mole mountain. I don’t know about you but given the build-up to the press release of their new super duper ground on the Docks, I was expecting something a little more advanced than a frigging heads of terms agreement. The build-up would lead you to believe that they had built the fucker and hidden it behind a load of containers, like that fella who tried to blag planning permission for a mansion on his farm by hiding it behind a wall of hay bales.

I pictured Bill Kenwright, fully harnessed up, astride a massive big shipping container wearing nothing but one of them see-through ‘you’re in my heart — you’re in my soul’ car windscreen stickers and a pair of blue socks, as the container was whisked away by an overzealous stevedore to reveal a big, shiny, bright blue ground that looks a bit like a massive big shipping container. What we got instead was an agreement to pay a certain cost, for a certain piece of land, confirmation that they have got no dough to build it despite them being billionaires, an agreement from the council to act as guarantor on the debt in return for £4 million nicker a year over 40 years and an estimated build cost of £300m quid plucked from thin air.

There are Blues, quite a lot of Blues, who are very excited. Some of them are acting like it is built already which is cute. The issue is that this is a bit of hocus pocus at this stage. By the way, sorry to interject, but did I tell you I am going to the moon? Yes it’s boss, isn’t it? I’m going to build a massive big rocket in our back garden and fly to the moon. Yeah, I’ve agreed the cost of the metal with a scrap merchant in Bootle; Richard Branson is going to act as guarantor for the cost if I promise to take him with me and extend my subscription to his broadband. Yeah, £300m it’s going to cost. I’ve just to convince the council to give me planning to build a factory in me yard, find some investors willing to give me £300m, figure out how to build a rocket out of auld Ford Focuses, go through a rather intense training regime for five years and explain to my wife that there is a big chance I might die in a fireball.

Sorry, my moon expedition giddiness got the better of me there. Where was I? Oh yer, Everton’s new ground. If I were them, big massive alarm bells would be ringing here. Their owner, when he bought the club, was seen as a saviour, a billionaire to project them into the 21st century, finally able to compete on a level playing field. Except, at the time, they were briefing pretty heavily that he wouldn’t necessarily be putting his own money into transfers as such, more investing in infrastructure, a new ground perhaps. Here he is, a billionaire they will have you know, who is trying to broker a deal to build a new stadium, without so much as a pound of his own money being at risk. Liverpool City Council will be acting as the guarantor and copping for the risk of default on the loans and Everton will agree a (minimum) £300m loan with associated interest rate to be paid out of future income. Farhad Moshiri will be the majority shareholder of a club which is building a massive asset at no cost to himself. Is it just me that thinks that this is what big Tom Hicks tried to do with the Reds? The only thing that stopped him was a financial crises of an unparalleled level. Don’t get me wrong, this fella looks like a genius, just not a very nice one.

That said, it is funny isn’t it? The Echo said that the council are going to invest heavily in the surrounding infrastructure by building a new bridge among other things. They didn’t say where the bridge was going to be but one can only assume it will provide a direct link to Holyhead for the majority of their season ticket holders to get over. The site is right next to a sewage works. I’m not even going to bother with this one, I’ll just leave it here for you to have a think about.

I’m intrigued to see the design, I mean £300m seems like a lot of money, doesn’t it? Except when you think that the Emirates (finished in 2006) cost £390 million and Wembley cost nearly £800 million. When you factor in the strength of the pound and the looming Brexit induced financial blackhole, they might end up moving Goodison piece by piece and getting a couple of joiners to stitch it back together. I’m also a massive fan of building a big massive stadium next to a big massive river when big Donnie Trump is about to set fire to America and their entire fossil fuel collection as The Ev are trying to get to their ground and the Mersey is giving it The Day After Tomorrow treatment. The dopey pricks will end up spending two-thirds of their budget on a massive big frigging levee.

I don’t know, perhaps it will go ahead. Perhaps big Don will get impeached before he can decimate the environment. Perhaps Moshiri is sound and I’m the dickhead. Perhaps they will get a massive naming rights deal – The Lonsdale Palace has got a lovely ring to it, hasn’t it?

LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - Saturday, August 13, 2016: Everton's owner Farhad Moshiri with chairman Bill Kenwright before the FA Premier League match against Tottenham Hotspur at Goodison Park. (Pic by David Rawcliffe/Propaganda)

Perhaps it will all work out fine. There is a lovely song doing the Everton Twitter rounds at the minute which is boss. Perhaps they will be singing this for years to come; I hope so. It goes like this:

We’re sitting on the dock of the bay,

Watching Ross Barkley put two away,

We’re sitting on the dock of the bay,

All the tiiime.

We left our home in Walton,

Headed down the Bramley Moore,

We are the first in the city,

Winning leagues before you were even born,

The Blues are sitting on the dock of the bay,

All the tiiime.

Ha ha ha. Up the Reds.

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