Everton points deduction: Premier League have gone to unheard place with 'heightened risk' claim

Along with glancing up from a laptop screen when putting the finishing touches to some quickly amended half-time player ratings to catch Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s effort sail into the Park End goal in the corner of my eye, the enduring image of Everton’s first Premier League win of 2024 for this correspondent was seeing Neville Southall back at Goodison Park.

After 96 minutes of nerves as the teams grappled with conditions that former Blues winger Gerard Deulofeu might describe as “very very wind,” I surveyed the scene in front of the Press Box and there was the former Wales international posing for a photograph with a fan in the Main Stand. I captured the image myself and tweeted: “At least the great Neville Southall was able to smile at the end of this one as Everton won at last.”

While Kevin Sheedy was my boyhood idol in terms of the outfield players, ‘Big Nev’ was my other favourite and everyone of my generation who followed football was in awe of the Everton goalkeeper who was the best player in the world in his position, including Kopites. Steven Gerrard admitted to having an Everton goalkeeper shirt and declared in 2006: “I loved Southall. When I didn’t fancy playing out, I donned my goalie kit and pretended I was Southall.”

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From the awakening of my football consciousness through to beyond my 18th birthday, Southall was at Everton and, along with turning out more times for the Blues than anyone else (751 appearances), he is also the club’s most-decorated player with two League Championships, two FA Cups and a