It’s a right royal pain in the puncture when you have your story more or less written in your head and then Everton go and spoil it.

The theme, following a swashbuckling Tractor Boy triumph, was going to be how Kieran McKenna is exactly the sort of young, dynamic coach – the sort who probably employs a specialist coin-toss coach – who the Friedkin Group should be looking to recruit when they replace papier-mache-head, Sean Dyche. 

However, it turns out that Ipswich are absolutely fucking shite and their football is about as attractive to watch as someone unblocking the plughole in Ed Sheeran’s bath. 

For a start, ’You’re just a fat Princess Leia’, Kalvin Phillips – surely the world’s luckiest millionaire – made Abdoulaye Doucoure and his brutal first touch look like primetime Tony Kroos. 

And while Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s finishing remains the reason why he still plays for Everton, the home side were simply too anaemic to punish the otherwise excellent striker’s succession of apologetic goalward prods whenever the defence were carved – yes, fucking carved – open by the Blues’ midfield.

That Carry on Screaming left-back is definitely a Kopite as well. Has to be.

Iliman Ndiaye opened the scoring for the Blues. He looks like your mate who comes along to make up the numbers in a church hall, playing with one of them big tennis balls. Afterwards one of you work colleagues, sweating like Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, pulls you to one side and says ‘Don’t ask him again, alright. It’s just meant to be a laugh, this.’

Some big landscape gardener mis-controlled a falling ball in the penalty area, allowing Ndiaye – who is thankfully so good we never got to give him the nickname ‘Fuck Off’ – to lash a shot through a crowd and into the roof of the net.

Ipswich then had a penalty overturned by VAR, after Jack Clark kicked Dwight McNeil’s leg after seizing on a moment of indecision by the midfielder on the edge of the box. 

It’s not a penalty. 

Yes, sometimes you get them, but you shouldn’t. 

Incidentally, talking about refereeing decisions. Has anyone else noticed that the fella who gave the red card to William Saliba is off Back To The Future? As soon as he blew his whistle, the Bournemouth supporters could be heard chanting, ‘Biff! Biff! Biff! Biff!’

But that’s not important now.

Everton put the game out of sight before half time with a screamer of a finish from a tight angle, courtesy of the left peg of Michael Keane, the one he usually uses for standing!

And tripping up attackers.

Man alive, he has scored some vital goals in the past few years. 

Talking of oft-maligned figures, by the way, Ashley Young again started at right-back. With a squad thinner than a Mick Quinn yearling, we would be absolutely fucked if it wasn’t for his versatility and fitness. 

McNeil, another beneficiary of the home side’s midfield largesse, set Keane up with a neat turn and cute pass, as he had probably his best game in the new central role he’s playing this season. I have to confess, McNeil’s one-footedness, and the way he runs the first few yards like you’ve flashed your lights to let him cross the road and he feels obliged to break into a polite trot halfway across, made me think that his effectiveness there would be limited, and that his all-round game was being sacrificed solely in the hope he scores the occasional screamer. But he was central to all Everton’s best work at Portman Road, so shows what the fuck I know.

Another vital three points for the Toffees then, as their Kelly’s Heroes-style assembly of misfits continues on its noble quest to beat the shite teams and stay in the division. 

Next week: Dyche Out Again! Get Marco Silva Jose Mourinho In!