The Warm-Up: No saviour in sight for Everton; PSG want Marouane Fellaini (!?)

After Atalanta rattled in a fourth goal at Goodison Park last night, condemning Everton to another miserable defeat in front of the paltry crowd of 17,431 who had bothered to turn up and see the latest indignity thrust on this historic club, Ashley Williams summed up their season in one moment.

The confused stare, the shake of the head, the brief hint of the word “no” about to escape the lips. The horror, the horror. Everton’s captain had the look of an infantryman cornered in a trench somewhere in Vietnam.

Everton went on to concede a fifth to make their misery complete. Four defeats and one draw makes for a shocking Europa League campaign but having failed to prise Marco Silva from Watford this week, Everton have no saviour on the horizon, no quick fix. They are in a considerable mess with no sign of an answer.

David Unsworth has surely played himself out of contention with four defeats in six games, conceding 16 times in the process, even if Wayne Rooney was still half-heartedly trying to make a case for the caretaker even after the Atalanta shellacking.

It’s all very well sacking a manager mid-season, but maybe make sure you have an acceptable back-up plan in place.

Congratulations to Arsenal, who have finished top of their Europa League group with a game remaining. They haven’t raced across the line so much as drunkenly stumbled over it, while losing control of their limbs and seeing their face smack onto the concrete outside KFC.

After a dismal 0-0 home draw against Red Star last time out proved enough to secure a place in the last-16, last night it was a 1-0 defeat in Cologne which ensured they would finish top of the group. They’ve made a bit of a mess of the last two games but the final match, at home to BATE Borisov is a total dead rubber. Given they haven’t had to use their most experienced players in a competition they aren’t much interested in, this is quite an achievement, right?

Well, no. Not according to lots of people on social media, who have been furiously describing Wenger as “clueless” and making ludicrous comparisons to Robert Mugabe. Mugabe, after all, did resign under duress.

OK, losing 1-0 is never a great look, but Cologne only scored from a dodgy penalty and Arsenal created some decent chances. Wenger’s biggest mistake was starting the painfully slow Calum Chambers at wing-back and waiting too long to bring on Reiss Nelson, who provided Arsenal’s best moment with an electric dribble and shot, but topping the group with one game to spare? It’s exactly the scenario Arsenal would have wanted at the outset. Even if, admittedly, Wenger didn’t see to know what to make of it all.

Asked what it meant to finish top, he said: "I don’t know. I will tell you after the draw.

"What does it really mean? I don’t know. It’s what we wanted."

Have you ever looked at Paris Saint-Germain, perhaps during Tuesday night’s brutalisation of Celtic, and found yourself thinking, ‘what this team needs is a big lad to help them throw it in the mixer, and two of the sharpest and most liberally used elbows in Europe?’ Apparently, so too have PSG, who according to reports on Friday are considering a move for none other than Marouane Fellaini.

There’s not a great deal more to say about this than either Le10Sport have some creative writers or Marouane Fellaini’s agent has an overactive imagination.

All the best innovation in football comes from Germany these days. Take it away, Union Berlin U16s...

“But it was Ramsey's approach to matches that caused the most consternation. Defensive tactics were considered counter-productive. If an opposing team, for example, had a devastating left-winger, Ramsey would pointedly not protect the right-back by bringing in support from another player to double-man the threat. He wanted his right-back to be exposed. He wanted his right-back to evolve.”

Over at ESPNFC, Iain Macintosh chats to Chris Ramsey about the youth-team strategy at Tottenham which helped produce England internationals like Harry Winks, Danny Rose and Harry Kane. If England do anything at the World Cup this summer, the work of Ramsey and his former colleagues at Spurs will have surely played a big role.

Saturday sees Liverpool take on Chelsea in the Premier League. It’s been a healthy domestic rivalry in recent years, as well as supplying the single most devastating personal gaffe in English football history with Steven Gerrard’s slip, but for many this fixture will always bring to mind some engrossing Champions League battles. But forget your ghost goals and s*** on a stick, over two quarter-final legs in 2009 they combined for 12 (!) goals.

The best of which is clearly the free-kick from Fabio Aurelio which completely fools Petr Cech.

David Moyes gets his first taste of the famously convivial atmosphere at London Stadium as his first home game as West Ham manager is a Friday night affair against Leicester City. Kick off is at 8pm on Sky Sports.