Carney backs overturn of 10-point deduction

MARK CARNEY is the latest high-profile Evertonian to back the club’s fight against the Premier League’s 10-point deduction. The former Bank of England governor, along with former trade union bigwig Brendan Barber and Sue Owen, formerly of the UK’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport, has written to the Premier League to highlight concerns over the treatment of the Merseyside club. Carney’s letter calls the punishment ‘draconian’ compared with the meagre fines clubs received for trying to form a European Super League. ‘We have no confidence in the process for deducting points from Everton,’ reads the letter. ‘And feel very strongly that the severity of the deduction must be reduced by the new commission assessing the appeal, or, ideally, replaced with a fine. We feel Everton have been unfairly punished for cooperating and making this a “quick” case.’

SEAN DYCHE had a good chuckle in his post-match press conference at the expense of multiple media outlets, including Sky Sports, who failed to detect the sarcasm in a joke he made last week. The Everton boss was asked a question on Friday about why winger Arnaut Danjuma had posted a picture of himself on board a plane amid speculation of a move to Lyon this month. Dyche shot it down by sarcastically saying the Dutch international must have been taking an express route from his Manchester home to Everton training in Liverpool. Many websites did not get the joke and lambasted Danjuma for environmental reasons. Dyche then ended his conference by saying he was going to fly home to Nottingham.

DYCHE was in more serious form when discussing VAR, after it took four minutes to disallow a Villa goal. ‘I still believe in it but things like today could have been done quicker,’ he said. ‘There’s enough debate, these guys are under a lot of scrutiny at the moment because of VAR. I just think we could tidy it up and speed it up for the fans.’