Folarin Balogun

And there are 13 World Cup holdovers, but some big names are missing.

Christian Pulisic, Florian Balogun, Weston McKennie, and Tim Weah among them.

We're gonna get into all of it, so we appreciate you hanging out with us today.

Uh, let's get into the roster first, 'cause I think if we, we get into any other chit-chat, we're gonna get lost in all this.

How are you feeling about these five strikers?

I think this roster is exciting, is what I think about when, when I'm looking at this.

Obviously, Florian Balogun's not here because he's been injured.

Um, outside of that, yeah.

And just one quick thing, just so we can get the elephant to leave the room.

Uh, Flo Balogun is not suspended In any capacity, right? For this window or any other future window.

I think he's got a suspended sentence, is that correct?

For a year, right?

You've got the CEO, um, ma- making decisions and stuff like that.

But, uh, the following Balogun situation, I don't think E- I don't think Evertonians are too concerned that he didn't sign.

I think we were more concerned that we didn't replace Beto with anyone.

You know-

He moved to Monaco and was effectively, like, third choice striker.

Flo Balogun was there, Mekhki Berez was there.

And this season it's like, oh, okay, Philippe Luis has just looked at it and gone, "Yeah, I like that guy.

I like that guy a lot." He's started him in pretty much every game that Monaco have played so far, and he's banged in five in six.

And there is a reason that Monaco were pretty comfortable selling Flo Balogun in the transfer window in the summer.

Obviously, that deal fell through, but I think part of it was that Philippe Luis was like, "Yeah, I love this guy.

I want him to, to lead the line for me." Mekhki Berez on the outside looking in.

The minutes look really good and will continue to look good with no replacement striker signed for Ba- uh, for Beto, sorry.

Balogun was obviously meant to come, but I think he failed his medical, didn't he? There was something weird that happened there anyway.

But he's fairly differential.

He's cheaper than some of the other options, and I think he holds his own against them.

Which isn't even the first time in that World Cup that the Trump curse reared its vile head.

When Team USA striker Faler and Balogun got a red card during the round of 32 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina.

And of course, Trump isn't one to simply accept results that don't favor him.

So he called FIFA President Gianni Infantino directly and asked him to review it.

And shortly thereafter, FIFA did something nearly unprecedented, suspending the suspension, clearing Balogun to play against Belgium.

Trump naturally took a victory lap.

All I did, I asked for a review because I didn't think it was a foul.

And that doesn't help the discussion on referees, does it? Because the wider football fan will just turn their nose up at that and rightly so.

And when you have something like the Balogun red card overturned with no explanation, that also doesn't help the credibility of refereeing either.

I mean, but it's important to differentiate between just discussion and debates about refereeing and then actual issues as deep as that.

I mean, Jack, are we a fan of, you know, Ref Watch on a Monday morning? Are we a fan of, you know, the live Darren Cannon for the BBC or whether it be back in the day, Peter Walton on BT Sport? I think they were the first to bring it in, really, in the English game, because I think you'll know better than me being a big follower of the NFL.

It's not... quite obviously from a from another era where we had Calciopoli and that's a totally different thing corruption but you mentioned Miguel about the World Cup and poor officiating potentially as damaging even if there's no substance to it in this case when the social media narrative is around oh the officials have done it again for for Messi it can be quite damaging how that's the backdrop and it it forms the sort of the baseline of discussion between fans on social media or when they're messaging or potentially even if they're just only half joking, it's not helpful in the slightest.

Well,

and of course, that was skewed in the World Cup by what happened with Balogun.

Like, I mean, obviously that...