It’s about the points deductions. It couldn’t not be about the points deductions. In another world, in another season, Everton v Nottingham Forest would just be 16th v 17th (at the start of the weekend). Except that in another world, the points deductions wouldn’t have happened and so it would be 14th v 17th but with 17th starting the weekend five points clear of the Premier League relegation zone and so a lot less anxious than Forest actually are. This is the points deduction derby.
At Goodison on Sunday, there will be protests and coloured cards, chants about corruption, perhaps even a sense of fraternity, two clubs united in a brotherhood of outrage. There will be a great sense of the injustice of it all, which is not entirely unreasonable: when you look at what’s happened in football over the past couple of decades – the wage inflation, the absurd sums spent – you can understand why fans might think: “Why us? How come we’re the ones who’ve been done for this?”
