 Welcome to Toffy TV today, I am joined by Sky News editor, listening needs no introduction, it's Alan Myers. Alan, how are you? I'm good, thanks mate, how are you? Yes, I'm all right, I'm all right mate, holding up. I mean, just in your career, is this being the weirdest time for you trying to report on football when there's been no football? I've had some weird times in my career, as I can tell you, but yeah, this is up there. In a strange way, for someone of my age, it's actually quite good. What I've found that people of my age, during this, it's been really good because what you've had to do is go back to proper journalism if you like. Most of the time now in football, everything's put on a plate for us to a certain point, press conferences and going to see training and all that sort of stuff. So a lot of it, you're sort of doing what's available, if you know what I mean. But now, because you're having to use your contact lists and you're having to go out and find stories from sometimes your front room, that's been difficult, you know what I mean. But I've loved it in a sense because it's like, before we had Google and all the rest of it, you know what I mean, the internet, you know, we could find something in the touch of a button. It was a little bit like that because in those days, you have to find, you know, you have to have contacts and you have to be able to find people to talk to you and that's what we've had to do with it. But it's been tough in fairness, you know, it's been difficult but, you know, in regards to everything else going on, it's not a problem. Yeah, it's been fascinating. If we move away from the obvious things which has been dominating the news and it's been, we've had a horrific time of it really throughout the world and in the UK as well. But from a sport football perspective, it has been really interesting to see how everybody's trying to meander through the fact that there isn't any football and for such a long time there's been no start. But we are moving towards a start before I get onto the Premier League and I know that you've spoken to John Joe Kenny a couple of times who's obviously out in the Bundesliga and Bundesliga started a couple of weeks ago now. I mean, what have you made of how they've responded to it and how they've gone back to work almost? Well, I think what I've found, especially speaking to John Joe, I've been speaking to a couple of other people at the Bundesliga clubs, you know, who, you know, they've, I think Germany's ahead of us by a few weeks, you know, or possibly more. And they've, as you can imagine, you know, there's been a very sort of structured comeback, you know, they've been training for some time, everything's been in the right place. And, you know, speaking to John Joe, you know, he was saying that there's everything's in place to train properly and to, you know, to be isolated where you need to be distancing. And as I say, I think they're a bit ahead of us now and they can, you know, they can do contact, obviously they can now do contact sports and, you know, so, you know, for me, I can see how they do it because there is a really sort of, it's a sterile place. I mean, I'm not sure, you know, when I've seen people saying it's safer than going to the supermarket and all the rest of it. But, and whilst that might be the case, you know, it makes me feel a little uncomfortable when people are saying that, you know, because, you know, most people have to go to the supermarket, you know. So, you know, and I think what you said before, you're right, you know, there are so many more important things to be talking about and doing at the moment. But the bottom line is, is you've got to talk about these things because they are going to happen at some point. And, you know, they shouldn't, you should be able to distinguish between one and the other, you know, and nobody, nobody thinks, you know, that you don't understand, you know, what's going on in the world. You know, of course you do. But, you know, we can either sit there and just say nothing or we can talk about what, you know, what we love and what we miss and, you know, and all the rest of it. But I think there's a structured way that's been worked out to do it. I've always been a believer that the league should finish, to be honest. I think, you know, and, you know, I have to laugh at my social media because any time I put anything that slightly suggests there could be a problem with the league restart, you know, I have thousands of replies, you know. And anything that is sort of suggests that maybe the league will carry on, you know, I have thousands of replies the other way, you know. So, you know, we all know, you know, how we feel. But, you know, what the most important line is for me all through this is that, yeah, I'd like to see the game played again. I'm not so sure I want to see them played behind closed doors, but that's life. But the bottom line is it's only when it's safe. And if it's safe, you know, there's no reason why we can't do it, you know. And that's what I need to see before I'd be convinced it's the right time to bring football back, you know. But it has to come back sometime, you know. And, you know, as long as it's safe, that's the main thing. Yeah, I mean, that's a really, you know, to really good points. But I think, and not both makes me sound like I'm going to disagree with you now. Obviously, we are following the kind of road map that Germany have put up. You know, we are like you rightly say, we're four weeks or whatever behind them. The Premier League clubs obviously returned to training last week at the training grounds. And there's obviously a lot of protocol you've got to go through training in small groups. But there's been a vote this week now that they're going to return to contact training, which is the next phase, phase two. Just on what you've seen in Germany, Al, with regards to the games being played. And obviously, the Premier League is going to come back whether people like it or don't like it. It's coming back, I think we know that now. What have you learnt about watching it as a television? As a television, fan, I guess, is probably the way. Because, let's be honest, that's what we're going to be for the next eight months, that's what I'm adding at least, unless there's a vaccine materialisers very quickly. We're probably going to have to consume a lot of Premier League football from our sofas army. So, what would you like to see differently, the Premier League do differently that Germany do? Well, it goes against everything, doesn't it, as when you talk about crowd noise being pumped into stadiums and plastic people in the stands and all the rest of it. It just goes against everything you know and feel about being a football fan. And I think everyone, it doesn't matter who it is, whether it's commentators, production staff, whatever. Nobody would want that, everyone would want to see fans in the ground. But you've got to deal with the reality, that's the problem. For me, I read, I was listening to Don Hutchison talking to you, they're saying that he thinks the games have been fantastic and high intensity and all the rest of it. For me, I think, I can't be convinced that a crowdless stadium is the same performance from a player that is in an empty stadium, I just can't believe that, I can't get that. So, I think the crowd either lift you or take you under 10% either way. And I think any player who has been honest would say the same thing. If you've got that pressure on of 35, 40,000, 50,000 fans on your back or supporting you, we've all seen it, I've been at Gooderson Park when things, I remember it was a game, it wasn't long ago actually, I can't remember who it was against now. But the second half started and we've been playing really bad, I said what we need here is an incident, we need something to happen to get this crowd, and there was a tackle, and it was only a tackle. And I think it was possibly Theo Wolcott or something like that. It was when Marcus was in charge. And that was the catalyst, that was the spark that the crowd needed. We went on and won that game in the second half, I can't remember who it was against. And I remember thinking to myself, the crowd have done that because that's what was missing, the players needed to react and the not human beings, if they don't react to crowd. And if anyone tells me the Merseyside Derby is the same without fans, well I can't have that. But the bottom line is you need to finish the season, for me you need to finish the season out of integrity. I keep saying it when it's safe to do so. But if it was me and my team was 25 points at the top of the league, I know what I'd be calling for and I'd want to see it finished, I'd go mad if it was us. And a lot of us don't want to hear that, but it's the truth. The bottom line is, and I think just from the integrity of relegation, we're seeing in the FL at the moment that people are going to possibly go down on points per game on a mathematical solution. And that doesn't feel right to me. I think it's the only thing the FL can do by the way. There's a problem in league one and two, in the fact that they can't afford to pay for testing and the money's not there and the club's playing behind closed doors is going to cost them rather than give them anything. So you've got to deal with two things. You've got to deal with what you'd like and what the reality is. And if you can bring those two as close together as you can, I think that's what we've ended up with with the Bundesliga. And I'm not a big fan of other footballers, you know what I mean? I don't really watch European games a lot, because it's just not the same for me. I want to watch English games and games in this country, but I mainly have it to be fair. But it is what it is and we just have to get on with it. I've got to admit I've watched probably every game that I've been able to watch at the moment through mission football and everything. I think I know what Donaldson's saying, the quality's been quite good. It hasn't been the same, of course. You know, we were into him last season at Dortmund with 83,000 there, it was incredible. So watching Dortmund play by Munich in an empty stadium isn't the same. But I think what doesn't... I've seen people say leave it until it's safe to play again till we can all go back in the stadium. That ain't gonna happen, because it could be a year. Football clubs can't. Exactly, so football clubs can't go where I haven't a year off. More than half of them wouldn't survive. You work in the football industry, you know more than anything. I'm talking Premier League clubs as well, by the way. I spoke to David Maddick yesterday and he was saying some of the estimates they've been told is like the Liverpool and Manchester United are already £180 million there for next season. £180 million. Everton will be up there with... So... What supporters do, Baz, right? And you get this all the time, is they see the money coming in but they don't think about the money going out, you know? And everything's relative. You know, whilst the championship clubs and then League One and League Two after them are running a certain operation, when you're in the Premier League you might be getting a lot of money in but you're also paying lots of money out. And it's all relative when you look at it. So all clubs will be struggling at the moment. It doesn't matter who it is. The difference with the Premier League in many cases is possibly in ours, whatever it is. Is that they've got an owner who can take the hit. That's the thing. League One and League Two clubs don't have... You might get the odd one but they don't have owners that can take that hit. They're usually local businessmen or people who are just trying their best to run the club for the community. So that's a very different argument. Going back to the football though, the other thing you're talking about is the quality of the game. I actually think games behind closed doors will be better quality because people won't make mistakes. And that's the thing. If you're going down... It's like a training game. You hear about all these games in training where they always score the world. It's a bit different when you've got 40,000 behind you giving you a stick or whatever if you're away ground. So I think actually the quality will probably be better. That will mean the quality teams will have an advantage in that respect. No one can tell me that going to Crystal Palace away is going to be the same without that crowd in that ground. You'll see those... We saw just before we finished the Wafford Liverpool game a lot of that was down to the atmosphere in the stadium that night. And that's where I think we should lose a little bit, you know what I mean? But as I said before, you have to deal with what you've got. That's spot on. In the Bundesliga I think there's only been four home victories out of all the games so far which is madden a couple of teams who are near the bottom of that big away win. It has been a bit of a leveler and something we'll see in the Premier League. It all looks like the Premier League is going to return the 19th of June, the same now. That seems to be the date if things progress without obviously a big outbreak of Covid from the players. I know we've had another couple of positive tests this week. That gives the teams just over three, four weeks away. And I guess the first few games, I will be a bit pre-seasonist in terms of where the players are up to fitness wise won't it? Yeah, players can't, no matter what you do at home, we've all seen players who have come to clubs and they might be fit, but they're not match fit. There's a difference between fit and match fit. And all players, the good thing about it I guess is a leveler in the fact that all players will be not match fit. It's not going to be one or two, you know what I mean? It's going to be all of them. And it doesn't matter what you do on the bike at home, it doesn't matter what you do and they'll be doing stuff now. But I think because of the amount of season they've had, I think three weeks will give them enough to get back up to speed. I think it's more about settling into the games more than anything. The longer the games go on, the more you'll see a bit more commitment and a bit more, not commitment in the sense that they won't be committed, but what I mean is they'll be, players will lose their inhibitions a little bit more because it will be all going back, because there'll be all kinds of things going around the heads of the players. But I think, as you say, the games will get back to normal, the games will become, but I just missed the fans. I spoke to a leading infectious disease expert this week who talked about, and he's really good actually, he talked about it from California and he talked about fans being able to go into a football ground. And I said, well, what's the deal? And he said, well, you know, don't forget, you've got to have a six foot circumference around you. It's not just when you're standing in the supermarket, you've got someone six foot behind you, you know, a football ground, it'll have to be at the sides and the front and the back, you know what I mean? So that's a problem straight away. And what he said was because of people's, you know, you lose your inhibitions in a football match, you know, and so you're not in a supermarket queue, you're not looking at, you know, a referee giving a red card to one of your players, you know, you're not going to shout, you know, you're not going to scream in a supermarket queue, but you will, whether you like it or not, you'll do it in a football ground if there's a game going on, you know, if you score, you won't be able to, you know, you know what I mean? You won't be able to not do it. And what he was telling me, you know, I said, well, what's the danger of that? And he said, well, the infection, the virus at the moment that comes out in droplets, in very, very fine droplets, you know, when you talk and whatever. And he said, when you shout at this moment in time, what it does, it goes three foot in distance to these droplets. So if you're six foot away, you're pretty, he's going to say if you've got the three foot and then another three foot buffer, but when you shout or scream, he said that can go up to 12 foot and that's why, you know, there's more of a risk of, you know, those droplets become, he called it the aerosol effect, you know, it becomes like an aerosol, like a can of liquid that we spray. And it's, you know, it becomes an aerosol spray, you know, and that's, you know, that's the worries, that's the concerns around football grounds. We only seen this week about the, you know, the data that I come back regarding the Liverpool, what was it called? Athletic Madrid, you know, you know, so that is a big risk, and I know I wouldn't want to be putting myself at that risk to be honest, you know. They even said this doctor, you know, he said cricket on the other hand, you could socially distance in a cricket match. I mean, they do that regularly anyway, don't they, in some of these county cricket matches, you know. So that's a worry, you know, and I don't think until there's a real sense of a vaccine or something, I don't know where it's going to go with football crowds or really don't. Probably masks on when you first go back, maybe, I don't know, but even then, it's everything you touch, you need to have gloves on, and it's just too risky. And that's why people are kind of saying it's a year. We're looking at a year, and if that's the case, that then leads me to, we do have to have kind of cardboard cut out almost in the crowd and crowd noise pumping because we've got to get a sense of, as someone who works for Skyside, their production of a game, they'll want it to look and sound as authentic as it can. It's never going to, ever in a million years, get near to having a ground full of people, of course it isn't, but when you're looking down the camera, if you can, I mean, I watched the Bael Eva Cws and Bruce Eamons in Gladbach game on Saturday, and they had the cardboard cut out and from a TV perspective, it looked like crowd. So if you had the noise as well, you'd kind of trick yourself that there's people there. There isn't, it's not to say. I don't know what the plans are to be on. I genuinely don't know what the plans are with regards to coming back with the Premier League. I don't know. But what I've seen around the world, you've seen certain things in South Korea, which hopefully won't come into our game. But you've seen, one I saw the other day was Arhus, who were getting these video screens and you can join the game on Zoom. If it's as difficult as it was getting us up to do this interview, we probably won't bother. But that looked quite, I mean, it was weird, but it was an interesting concept. So you were actually at the ground, not physically, but certainly in your presence and you were watching again. Whether or not there's the sound on that, I don't know, but I know you're talking about masks though. I've sat next to a few people in the past where I wish I had a mask on, I'll tell you. But no, it's a difficult one and I guess whatever anyone does, people will be critical about it because it's not what we want. I keep getting back to that, that what we've got to do is get a dose of reality and realise where we are and what we can do and just get the best. I heard someone, a chairman of a club was talking to me the other day in League 2 about this thing that they're going to do, this proposal that they're putting through with the punch-by-game and all the rest of it. And she said to me, it's as near to normal as you can be and that's all we can have it because normal is not available. And I thought, that's the bottom line and I'll look at the traveller situation and I feel for them so much. But it's about getting as near to normal as possible and whatever that is. People say, he's thinking, he just doesn't want to be relegated or he wants to be promoted or whatever the argument is. Well, what's wrong with that? I know I'd want my chairman to be fighting if there was a chance of promotion or winning the league or the other one getting that going down but it is what it is. We've got to get as near as normal as we can. Just on Everton, obviously Carlo Ancelotti's coming. It's hard to kind of comprehend. He's only had 12 games in the Premier League and we've seen some good stuff already. It's obviously the effects of Duncan, Ferguson working with him and Ancelotti. And then obviously we've seen some Everton displays, which was shocking at last performance. But these last nine games, it'll give him an opportunity to really evaluate looking forward. But obviously Everton is still only six points off a European place if there's European football next season. I say if because we're, you know, where we are at the minute. So it's still within, it's still within touching distance, but we've seen this week John-Philippe Goebbamann, who wasn't expected to play again this season and wouldn't have done because the season should have finished last week. He's now got an opportunity of throwing himself into these last few games and Ancelotti a good option for him to use these nine games now with planning for next season. Totally, and the thing is as well, there will be a lot of players who, I know my other club, the club I was involved in at Blackburn, they've got Bradley Dac, who was not going to be playing this season, but now he's back in the training ground. And same to for Everton, in Everton there's a number of players, Andre Gomez will have had more time to feel but I spoke with Andre the other day on Sky and he was saying that it's given him a chance to really get the fitness going again. Whereas before, Goebbamann probably would have just been thrown into a game, which is what you've got to do to get back to fitness. So there are opportunities in this. From a club point of view, from a selfish point of view, that you can use and the manager will use. I think also we'll probably see some of the characters as well because at times like this, you see real people in and out and how people react to these things. And he will have seen because they've been doing these video conferences all the time. So he'll be seeing how players react to this situation and he's a clever enough manager to be able to use that information and look at that situation. And I'm sure he will have learned a lot in this time. But I still love this to get European spot, to be honest. I'm not one of these who say it won't be good for us. I'd be delighted to be in the Europa League next year. And I think it's still possible. I think one of the interesting facts about coming back playing these last nine games is that, you know, it'll interest to see how teams react, especially if they play them in neutral ground. It'll be very interesting to see how, because you don't know as a manager, you won't know how your team will react to playing like that. You know, you'll have no idea. And I think this was a worry for some of the clubs down on the bottom end because, you know, all of a sudden, your teams happen to deal with something else and it's not what was on the table before. You know what I mean, before you had these nine games, you knew that when there were crowds in, your team would react in a certain way. You don't know how it would react. So there might be teams three or four or five places up from the relegations zone who may have a terrible run and all of a sudden find themselves in the bottom three, you know what I mean. And that's some of the fears around the whole situation, I think. And that's what the discussions have been going on about those sort of issues, you know. But it's down to the managers and the players to get it right. And some will get it right, some won't. And I hope that Ancelotti and Everton would probably get it right and see it as an opportunity to make up those games, you know. Definitely. And obviously if we're going to be playing in empty stadiums next season, it gives you this introduction to it now so that you're ready to go for next season. I mean, just quickly, Al, how much you think it will be, obviously, is transfer plans will be affected though, cos obviously it doesn't seem, and now there's a lot of reports going around of ridiculous amounts of money from every club. I don't see many clubs spending big money at all. I think this is the one year that everything will probably be loans and a lot of transfer fees, you know, halved even. But how much do you think this will affect Ancelotti's transfer plans, the way the economic world is at the minute? Well, you know, I think clearly, you know, because I've spoken to people, and clearly there was work going on, you know, and a lot of the lack of movement in January was down to the fact that they were getting the duxion of row for the summer, you know, for me. And I think, you know, undoubtedly the transfer market will be affected, you know, not just cos it already is affected on a timescale, but it will be affected cost-wise. There's no two ways about it, you know, people will have to look at what they can spend, they'll have to think, because we've not really seen the financial impact yet of this, you know. This will come July, August, September. That's when you'll see the financial impact starting to come. Especially if there's no income, you know, and I know people say, oh, you know, it's a very small percentage of Premier League clubs' income it is, but it's a very important percentage as well. You know, they need that income. But because don't forget, you know, if that income isn't there, you have to take that from the pot, you know, from the central pot, you know, to run the club, sort of thing. So getting back to transfer movement, I mean, I don't think, first of all, it certainly won't open until this season's completed one way or another. So whether the season is completed by playing the games as it looks like it will be, whether it's completed, you know, under a, you know, with a containment or whatever way it gets finished, there's no way you're going to see a transfer window open, you know, until that's done, because that just wouldn't be right from an integrity point of view. Maybe they might have a situation where, but you see, you know, what you've got a problem with is the contract situation, because if players are out of contract and there's a system where they can go and join someone, legally they can go, you know, unless they sign an extension or whatever, no one can force them to sign anything after their contract, you know, that's the law of the land, you know, but so I can't see that creating a situation where players might think, oh, I've been off of the job, you know, somewhere else or a club somewhere else, you know, and going, I just can't, I just don't see that, you know. So you're looking probably the transfer window not open until mid-August to maybe September, you know, and then obviously, you know, when next season starts, you know, everything will be reduced in time because you're waiting until December to start the league, you know, so, yeah, it's, there's a lot to work out, yes, I think. Yeah, definitely, it's going to be, it's going to be really a strange, a strange period of time, really, and not one, not one we've seen, and it'd be interesting to see what everyone does, not just everything, but hopefully, some of those ducks in a row can be, you can come up with clever ways to get round it, whether it be alone with a guarantee of buying next some of a certain amount of money or whatever. Hopefully, his plans won't be affected too much. Just finally, Ali, are you confident that we've got the right man at the helm, though, because it's, you know, I don't think we could have got anyone more qualified could be when we brought Antelotian. No, I said it on the day when he joined Baz, and I'm still of the same impression, is that it's not about whether Antelotian is right for us, it's about whether we can be right for him, you know, and that's the challenge for Everton, is, you know, he's a winner, we know he's a winner, we're not, you know, in the last out, it was 25 years wasn't it this week, or whatever it was, so we've got to get to his standard, you know, not the other way round, you know, he's not got to, you know, of course he's got to understand the club and I think he already does that to be honest, you know, but we've got to show him that our ambition is big enough and great enough and feasible enough, you know, to match his ambition and that, and I think we will, I think, you know, I think we've got an owner who wants that, you know, I think Farhaz Mishir, he loves the challenge and he wants that buzz, you know, of being successful and, you know, I think obviously Bill Kenright did as well, but, you know, but there were limitations there, you know, but Farhaz Mishir, he has got the facility to be able to take that and to take that to the next level and I think, you know, I've got a good sense from the club at the moment, I feel that, you know, the group that's good together, you know, there's a professionalism there, you know, which makes you feel like there's a chance, you know, but I do think he needs to sort his squad out, you know, because, you know, clearly, you know, he hasn't had the chance to do that and when he does, it would be very interesting to see the quality of play that he brings in, you know, very interesting, you know, but A, what he would like and B, what we can get him, if he doesn't mind. Yeah, it's going to be very interesting going forward, exciting times as well once it all settles now. Alan, listen, thanks for taking the time out, I know you're incredibly busy and you're getting everywhere, making phone calls and doing old-fashioned journalism as you've said, but it's been great to chat with you today, so thanks so much for taking the time out. No problem, but I do everything old-fashioned mate, not just journalism, you know. The best way out. I love watching the toffee TV, so I look forward to it. Cheers, Al, thanks so much mate. A big thanks there to Alan Myers for joining us from, you know, taking a break from the top of Sky News editor there for trying to have a chat with us. Make sure you give the video a thumbs up, subscribe if you haven't, and if you want more videos join us on Patreon. See you later.