Tony Bellew I’m A Celeb Exclusive: Jack Osbourne Can WIN This Year’s Competition
In an exclusive interview with EsportsBets, Former I’m A Celebrity runner-up Tony Bellew revealed his three picks to reach this year’s final and explained why Luke Littler would struggle in the jungle. The former boxer also recounted the horrendous bushtucker trial that left him and Nigel Farage sick as a pair of dogs…
EsportsBets: You were runner up back in 2023 of course, have you seen the lineup for this year’s edition and what do you make of it?
Tony Bellew: There’s some exciting additions in there, and a couple of surprises as usual. I’ve met Alex Scott and she’s a really well-rounded girl. She knows her stuff when it comes to football. She’s got that mentality of she wants to win. She’s a winner. That will help her in that place. There’s lonely times in that place. I remember watching it years ago and thinking to myself “Why would you start bawling when they see their loved ones? Get a grip of yourselves” and then I saw mine and fell to pieces so I understood and got why. It feels like you’re in there for months, and it’s months condensed into days. I can’t stress to you how hard it is and how challenging it can be mentally at times. Angry Ginge does what he says on the tin; he’s an angry ginge. He’s a nice boy to be fair. The first few days in Soccer Aid I think it took people time to warm to him a bit. He’s someone who can be a little bit misunderstood. He didn’t really cross me in any way but he wound others up and always had a little bit to say. But after spending the time with him and by the time we got to game day, I thought “you know what, you’re a really nice kid” and he’s a kid that works hard so fair play to him and good luck to him. But trust me, he will get testing moments in there because his personality will come to the forefront.
EsportsBets: Luke Littler joked he’d like to go into the jungle. How do you think he’d get on in there? Do people underestimate how tough it is?
TB: As long as they have a dart board in there, I think he’d be absolutely fine. He wouldn’t have his games that he usually likes to play. I know he loves gaming and stuff like that. Like I said, it’s a testing environment and I can’t explain to you how tough it gets at times. The days turn into weeks–that’s the kind of time it takes. The boredom is hard to deal with. I’m not going to lie before I went in, obviously I’d watched the series over time, and I’d seen Harry Redknapp’s win which I thought was absolutely fantastic. I just thought to myself “You know what, it can’t be that tough because to go through what they’ve gone through to get here it can’t be that bad” and in my silly, tiny mind I thought at about 10/11 o’clock, they’ll (producers) just go “Right c’mon guys back to the hotel, we’ll come back to camp at 6 o’clock in the morning!” and the first night I was there I was laying looking up at the stars and the sky thinking “when is this call going to come?”. The call didn’t come.
The noises that you hear in the jungle are real. You hear all kinds of noises. I was convinced there were monkeys in that jungle. It wasn’t a monkey, it was a certain type of bird that makes a noise that sounds just like a monkey. The things I was seeing late at night like white spiders running along the floors, huge white crickets, spiders the size of my whole hand. One of the rangers just said to me one night “Oh don’t worry mate, it’s just a Huntsman, it’s not going to hurt ya!” I said “But mate you’ve just told me that a spider is called a Huntsman and it’s not going to hurt me. It obviously hunts MEN. It can hurt me”. I was absolutely petrified so there’s a variety of things in there but it was the experience of a lifetime. Ultimately, the reason I went was to let my wife see Australia. She’s always wanted to go and the sole factor behind it was mostly, besides me torturing myself for basically 3 weeks and losing 10 kilos of weight, it was my wife saying she wanted to go to Australia with our four kids and they had the time of their lives, they really did.
EsportsBets: Are you even allowed to take mosquito repellent with you?
TB: No. You’re not allowed to take ANYTHING in with you. To be fair, mosquitos never really bit me. They probably tasted a drop of Scouse blood and thought I’m not going anywhere near him ever again. The mosquitos left me alone, and everything else went to plan really but like I said, it was hard. I passed the hunger mark after four days. The hunger stopped. My body was probably in what you call Ketosis where it starts to attack fat and muscle. Routine was the most important thing for me there. For any of the people going in there if they’ve not already had their gadgets taken from them which they probably have, find a routine that works for you. That’d be my best advice. Before Colleen (Rooney) went in, I gave her as much advice as I could possibly give her and she used it to her initiative. She was brilliant in there, I still can’t believe she never won it. I’ve never seen a more deserving winner than Colleen.
EsportsBets: When were you informed you were going in? I know you didn’t go in with the full group.
TB: My nan had unfortunately passed away a couple of days before and I was on the verge of pulling out. It was only my mother and my wife saying to me that my nan would want me to go (that stopped me pulling out). We were going through a bit of grief in my family. I just thought I don’t know whether I can do this.
EsportsBets: If you could give the new contestants one piece of jungle advice, what would it be?
TB: When you get a chance to drink clean, fresh water and not boiled water that tastes of smoke, you better drink it quick. Drink as much of it as you can. Flood your body with as much clean water as you can because trust me, the taste of smokey water is absolutely disgusting.
When you are having to boil the water every day, it’s not nice. So when you go on a trial, they know you need clean, fresh water. They’ll have a canister on the side and they say “listen, this is for the staff. You use your water canisters.” Well every single time I walked up there, my water canister got empty, then it got filled with that fresh, clean water and it didn’t matter what the staff said to me, I was doing it regardless. They’d say “Tony, you can’t do that!” I was going “I don’t care what you say mate. Don’t touch me when I’m touching the water canister, that is not on.” You’ve got to understand. I never ate anything. I couldn’t even eat the rice and beans because the beans knocked me sick. The only time I ever ate the rice and beans was when Fred worked out how to make kind of hash browns out of the beans. He got a bit of oil, crushed loads of the beans and he basically made hash browns. It was the only time I could eat the beans. I could never eat them. So I would literally have a mouthful of rice each day and if the main meal didn’t work out, I just didn’t eat. Danielle always gave me the leftovers of her meal because she never wanted it and other people helped me out but I lost so much weight. You only have to look the picture up when I go in and the picture of when I come out. It’s like two different people.
It doesn’t detract from what a great experience it was. I’m very fortunate that I was able to experience it and very grateful and I look back on it with fond memories. I really do. Sam Thompson was an absolute blast. He was an absolute psychopath, a lunatic but basically my fifth child. Marvin Humes I absolutely loved and Nick I loved. I liked everyone. I got on with absolutely everyone. My advice to anyone going in there would be just please be yourself, because trust me, if you aren’t yourself and you go in there with an agenda, it will fall apart within four to five days. You cannot keep it up. I just went in there and I treated everyone as I expected to be treated. I got on with everyone. I know people like to point towards a bromance with me and Sam and I have never watched it back but people said that it was like we were together every minute of every day. That was kind of not true. I spent the same amount of time with everybody. It’s just that Sam was a maniac and a mad boxing fan who wanted to just jump on my back and wind me up and poke with the bear. He’s a lovely, lovely boy but I loved most of the contestants in there.
Everyone got on great. I absolutely adored Frankie Dettori. How he didn’t go further I was absolutely gob smacked when he went. I could not believe he’d gone. So you never know what’s around the corner in there. You get shocked constantly. When Marvin went, I couldn’t believe it. I thought Marvin and Sam would be the finalists. I suppose people see what they want you to see and when friendships are built and bonds are built, I think it goes down really well for them. So I tried to be friends with everybody. If I’m being totally honest, I didn’t try and build this particular bond with anyone. It just seems to happen when you’re in there and people gravitate towards each other. My advice would be to be yourself and enjoy yourself.
EsportsBets: Which bushtucker trial pushed you the hardest and would you do it again? Did you ask to be excluded from the ‘down the tubes’ bushtucker trial on medical grounds? Did you just not fancy it!
TB: No, I didn’t get removed. I drank them all but you’ll never see it again now. They gave us pints to drink. Me and Nigel Farage had to drink PINTS to get through the challenge. And I’m telling you now, it couldn’t stay down. I spewed and spewed and spewed and when the challenge was over, I spewed my guts up. It’s because I never ate anything. Obviously I was drinking the pint and then I was bringing some of it up, but I wasn’t bringing all of it up. I was bringing parts of it up. So the bits my body absorbed, the best and nicest, kindest way I can put it, is that the toilet had never seen anything like that before because even though it was all fly puke, testicles, vomit fruit, which just are salty and disgusting but obviously put the salts back in my body. It was just the most revolting and disgusting thing you could ever imagine. And even though I was bringing a lot of it up, my body was absorbing some of it and using it. And then the toilets after… I was on the toilet for two and a half hours. I literally could not get off the toilet. Every time I moved I was petrified to pass wind because I was in such a bad way, and that worried them. So now they’ve taken that challenge out of it and they’ve changed them to cups and not pints.
Nigel went a bit too far. Nigel was really ill. Me and Nigel were really sick after drinking them and they’ve taken it out now, which is fair play if they needed to, but I think they just wanted to push us. When it was me and Nigel, they just must have thought “Ah, he’s a boxer. He’ll do anything instead of losing, he’s tough” and they probably just wanted to put Farage through as much hell as they possibly could. That was a seriously tough challenge. Same with the one where I went down the tube and climbed into the snake’s mouth. Anything with things splatting on me and falling on me, it’s not nice and it feels disgusting and the smell is revolting. But I can get through anything like that. The snake pit was really hard for me.Snakes frighten their life out of me. I refused to tell them what I was scared of when I went in. I just said to them that I’m not scared of anything. I’m petrified of everything. I don’t like rats. I don’t like mice. I had to put my hand in a cage one day and I couldn’t see and it was just frogs all over the place and I thought they’d be wet and slimy and slippery, but they were actually rough. I put my hand in and I was jumping around and they dropped thousands of cockroaches on me and I was just screaming the house down. I was throwing punches like I was having a full blown fight to get them off me.
EsportsBets: Gazza says he failed the psychological test for I’m a celeb 5 times. What do you remember about that test?
TB: They realized that I never had a brain, so I didn’t do any psychological tests. When you’ve been punched in the head for 25 years, the brain cells have kind of evaporated and left.
EsportsBets: Did you ever picture yourself going in there and being the camp leader?
TB: I never wanted to be a camp leader and I was quite open about that. I didn’t want the responsibility and the burden of it all. I was just happy to help in any way I could and do as much as I possibly could. I took it upon myself to change the dunny each morning. I took it upon myself to go and collect as much wood as I could. Mentally it just kept me going and collecting the wood was like a workout. You are walking a couple of hundred meters with as much heavy wood as you possibly can, splinters in your arms because you’re carrying it in your backpack as much as you can and I was carrying as much in my arms. I would do that for like two hours straight so it would make me tired. The girls loved being camp leaders because they got to just sit on the backside and order the men around with what to do which was quite funny. But it didn’t really bother me.
When Sam and Marvin were the sheriffs, it was quite funny because Sam is obviously constantly just at people all the time and he’s constantly poking the bear and winding people up and he doesn’t even know he is doing it. He’s just constantly at people all the time.
That’s testing when you’ve got someone like that in there because it’s pushing you and you’re hungry. Most snap reactions happen in life through hunger, believe it or not. You know, you have these moments where people fly off the lid or they say something wrong and I’m telling you, you put 80% or 90% down to it through studies, it’s through hunger or lack of hydration.
EsportsBets: Do you think the producers deliberately restrict the food to provoke flare ups?
TB: No. The one thing that I realized when I was there was they don’t want any issues or problems, but they want you to experience what life is like in the jungle. Like the worst TV, believe it or not, and I’ve found this out since I’ve left and done the challenge myself. Negative people in there and arguing and fighting actually puts the ratings down instead of up. Happiness and a good vibe and people, and everybody getting on sends the ratings up. They want good chemistry in the camp. They don’t want bad chemistry. They really don’t. Like I said, it’s testing, it’s difficult and it’s hard, but it is rewarding and when you get to the end of it. All I wanted to do, I’m not going to lie, was beat Nigel Farage. I just thought if I lose to Nigel Farage, the lads are going to tear the back out of me and most of the country hate him. He’s got 10 or 15% of people who absolutely love him. I don’t really know him, so I just thought, I just want to beat him. I don’t know what was in me but I remember my mum saying just beat him and I had a few other people saying that.
I knew from the minute I met Sam I couldn’t win him. Even before I met him, I thought he’s acting the goat. They showed me the first episode before I went in because I went in three days later and when I watched the episode that they showed me, I thought, is he an actor? I asked one of the staff “Is he an actor? because he’s f***ing acting. What’s up with him?” Then I went in there and like I said before, you can’t act. If you try to be something when you are not, it will show and believe you me, what you see is what you get. He is a f***ing maniac who never stops. I don’t know where he gets the energy. When he used to have a nap in the daytime, I used to say to people “do not wake him up. Do not wake him up just yet.” If we let him sleep for more than an hour, he’d be on 100% when he wakes up. So we’d wake him up at about 50 minutes and give him a little nudge, and then he’d be at about 80%. If he ever got to a hundred percent… Jesus Christ. The camp is in uproar. No one knows what to do. He’s messing with the fire, he’s doing jobs he shouldn’t be doing, he’s just pissing around. So you learn so much about everyone. But like I said before, I thoroughly enjoyed it there and it was something that I didn’t expect.
EsportsBets: Have you asked to appear on the I’m a Celeb All Stars out in South Africa?
TB: Once is more than enough, mate. I think the country’s seen enough of me.
EsportsBets: We saw you on Who wants to be a millionaire too. How did that compare?
TB: Yeah that was raising money for the kids, so that was another nerve wracking thing. I’ve done these stupid things, these shows when they stick me up high and there, because they know I’m petrified of heights. They’re a**holes, but I can’t complain because if they’re paying, guess what? I’m playing! These clowns are paying and they do stupid things to me. Like, stick me up really high in the air. Ask me questions that I haven’t got a clue about. I mean, who in the f**king world knows that biscuits can relate to friends? I remember that the first question was ‘You are going to meet a group of friends and they relate to a pack of biscuits? What would that be? Would it be creams? Would it be bourbons? Would it be digestive or would it be hobnobs? Now, who in the f**king world has ever heard of a group of friends named after biscuits or how you behave with the friends that relate to the biscuits?
I thought Clarkson was winding me up. So I sat there for 20 minutes basically threatening Jeremy Clarkson that if he does not give me the answer, and I go and lose all these kids money after one question, I’m going to strangle Clarkson and I’m going to strangle the director at the back of the studio. At that point, Clarkson just said, Tony, I have been known to go hobnobbing. I could not believe there is such a phrase as hobnobbing, but they got my stupid fat ass on the show. I made an absolute fool of myself. But you know what? I raised, what was it 60 or £70,000 for Alder Hey children’s hospital. So I was over the moon. I cannot believe it to this day, mate. I got, I think it was 15 questions, right? Impressive stuff because I’m a punchy boxer. I can’t believe I’ve done so well.
EsportsBets: Going back to the contestants on this year’s show, Jack Osborne’s dad, the legendary Ozzie Osbourne, recently passed away. RIP to him. You kind of had a similar experience with your nan so how will he be feeling going into this?
TB: He’s had a little bit more time than I had to be fair, but it’s his father so he will have been so much closer to his father than I was to my grandmother. I adored my grandmother and she helped raise us during our childhood. But I was 40 years of age when my nan passed away. You’ll see moments where he’s looking to the sky. You’ll see moments where he’s just sitting there and he’s quiet and they’re the moments that he’d be thinking about his father, I’m sure. His father’s an absolute legend. He seems like a lovely boy. I’ve met his sister Kelly on Celebrity Catchphrase, she was a lovely girl and they’re really well-grounded kids. So you can see the mother and father have done fantastic jobs with them. They haven’t let fame go to their heads, they haven’t spoiled them and they’ve turned into horrible little brats. You’ll see they’re well grounded people. I’m sure he’ll give a great account of him and his family.
EsportsBets: When it comes to leaving the jungle, were you prepared for the impact it would have on your career and suddenly being so much more well known to the general public?
TB: You know what I don’t really, I don’t really buy into the bulls**t really. I’m no one special. I’m the exact same as you guys. It’s just that I was really good at punching people in the face once upon a time. It’s the only difference between us. We’re all the same. I’m not a celebrity. I’m a normal fella. I’m a normal Scouser. I love watching football. I go to matches with my kids. My job, fortunately, is just that I know an awful lot about boxing. So that means I go on TV and talk about it and outside of that, I’m a normal guy, mate. There’s nothing exceptional about me besides the fact that I’m really good at having a fight.
These idiots who think there’s something special, they just need a good slap across the back of the neck. Why do you think you are better than anybody else? You muppets. I’ve done that a couple of times to people I’ve met over the years and said don’t speak to such and such like that, or don’t speak to an older person like that. And if my kids ever do, they get a slap as well. Everyone should treat everyone how you want to be treated. It’s quite simple in life and that’s how I live my life. So don’t get me wrong, I get your point. When I first came out of the jungle a lot more women recognized me and they all thought like, I’m this big perfect human and husband and I’m this loving my, I’m the exact same as everyone. As a husband, of course I love my wife. She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, but so does every other man who’s had four kids to a woman? She’s given me four kids. She’s given me a reason to live and push myself to the limits that I’ve done. Without her and without my kids. I wouldn’t be alive, coming from where I’m from.
So did that come across on TV? Potentially. The world isn’t full of great and good men but I class myself as a good man. I was raised by good parents. So for that to be put out there and to be seen by the public, I think that’s why the public were endeared to me. When they see me the first thing they say is, I can’t believe you’re that big, I thought you were going to be smaller. And then the second thing they say is, you’re just like you were on the TV. And I’m like, f**ksake, it was me on the TV! That’s why I’m just like I was on TV. Do you want me to be one way on the TV and another way off it? I’m just me, that’s all as I can ever be. So you call me a celebrity, you’ll say I’m humble, but to me all I can be is myself. And the minute that I stop being me, you better give me a slap on the back of the neck! You’ve got my permission.
EsportsBets: Being separated from your wife and your kids must have been so hard. What was it like being reunited with them?
TB: When I was in the jungle, I didn’t expect to see her because I specifically told her not to go in. I don’t want to see you. I’m someone who if you watch me on Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins, I said to those, you guys can’t break me. It’s impossible. What I’ve gone through in life, you can’t break me. So no matter what you do, the only weakness I have in my life is them. And that’s my children and my wife. Now, if they’re not here, you guys are f**ked. You can’t do me. So they realized that after a week, we were on day seven or eight and they sent me into a room, covered my face and sat me down in front of the laptop. They took the hood off and I saw the picture of my family, so I just shut the laptop straight away and just walked out the room. There was nothing they could do. They couldn’t get to me.
But in the jungle what they did was, and I specifically told them muppets do not put my children and family in the firing line. Don’t do it. And I never expected it. I thought they’d just listened to me, they’d take it on board and I thought they would. I’m living the jungle life. Just don’t put my family in. I was supposed to be going on a trial. I thought for me, for the life of me, I’m going on a trial. So they did the usual thing. They put the hoodie on and they covered my face. And then they took the hoodie off and I saw my Mrs. I hadn’t seen her for three weeks. Now that’s not the problem here, and that’s not what made me upset. What made me upset was she was the last person in the world I was expecting to see. The last place I wanted her to see me was me the way I was and in this environment. And it just broke me because like, I don’t believe she should ever see me weak. I’m strong for them. Everything I do is for them. So for her to see me weak and I don’t like that. I don’t ever want to see me weak. Don’t get me wrong. She’s seen me upset all the years when we’ve lost people. We’ve gone through so much together. We’ve been together since we were 17, 18 years of age. We’ve known each other since the ages of nine and 10. But I try not to be weak around because if I’m strong for her and if I’m strong around her, then she’ll feel safe. The last thing a woman wants is a weak man, weeping and all. And I’m not saying men shouldn’t be weak and because men should speak. That’s the problem that we have with men, but try and do it maybe sometimes away from your wife or away from Mrs. Because if I’m strong for her, she can feel safe, she can be strong.
EsportsBets: How much do you stay in touch with Sam Thompson? I presume you still chat to him now and then?
TB: Of course we should stay in touch. He’s a lovely boy and I get on great with his best mate Pete Wicks, the handsome b**tard. I get on with them all, there’s a Whatsapp group between us all. I don’t really post in the group. I told everyone when I go in there, listen, I’m not here for new friends. I’m going to get on with everyone while I’m here and I love you all, but if you’ve got this big plan of we’re going to meet up every month, it’s not going to happen. I’ve got four children and a wife. All my time is spent with them. And if I ain’t with them, I’m working. And if I ain’t working, guess what? I’m trying my best to get better at golf. I want to work as much as I can as well, by the way. So I enjoy work and it’s something I’m really good at.
There is a WhatsApp group but I very, very rarely post in it. I’ll just post a little wave. I’ve got an emoji picture of my face with me waving but I don’t really have to say much. They’ve all got my number so if any of them need to speak to me, they know they can pick up the phone and they know I’m someone who’s always at the end of the phone and I’m someone who’ll listen. But ultimately I’ve got a busy life. I’ve met up with Sam a few times. I’ve met up with Marvin when I’ve done these types of shows with. Like I said, I didn’t really stay in touch with anyone. The only person who I stayed and remained really close friends with was Locky (Locksmith, the DJ from Rudimental). He’s my little brother. We have got a connection. We’ve had similar childhoods. We’ve grown up in similar environments. We both love football, even though he’s an Arsenal fan.
Now me and Sam got on absolutely fantastically. And we do speak not all the time, but we speak, you know, a few times a month. I know how busy he is and he knows how busy I am. And when we get together, it’s like we’ve never been apart. He’s still pissing me off and sending me round the f**king bend, but I do love him. The same with Marvin Humes. I love Marvin. But don’t be under this illusion that you come out as everyone’s best friend and we’re going to live together, and it’s going to be forever. That’s not reality. You are all put in an environment and you can build a friendship over the space of a week because in that week you would spend more time with someone than you would in two years in normal life. No other environment creates that, no other environment in the world. I spent more time in the jungle with some of the friends I’ve had for over a decade because I was living with them for three weeks. Everything gets ramped up 10 times the speed.
EsportsBets: If you had to pick three people to make it to the final from this year’s contestants, who’s your money on?
TB: I am going to go for Jack Osborne. I think he’s going to be a revelation there. And then I’m also going to point towards Alex Scott, and Aitch. I think those three will go down an absolute storm. Aitch’s younger fans aren’t going to be bothered with the jungle. You’re tapping into a completely different demographic in the jungle. You’re talking about the middle aged and the elderly. The people who have got time to sit and watch TV and unfortunately at my age, that happens very rarely.
EsportsBets: They’ve got a new rule this year where celebrities can’t do two bush tucker trials in a row. Do you think that’s a good idea?
TB: Yes. I really felt for Nella when we were in there. She’s a lovely girl Nella and she got dealt a harsh, harsh hand because she kept getting put on the trials and challenges. It broke her to be fair. I think the trials basically should be shared out between all of the celebs. Everyone should have to endure a horrific trial. I don’t care what your fear is, what you’re in there for, everybody should have at least one horrific trial, because some guys do get out unscathed and believe you me, I did not, unfortunately.
EsportsBets: Now for a bit of football…Where do Everton go after the International Break?
TB: They build. We just need to get goals on the tally now. That’s all we’re missing is goals. The lads up front, they’re trying. It’s not for the want of not trying, but we just need the boys to stick it in the goal up top. The likes of Iliman Ndiaye, Jack Grealish, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, James Garner, fantastic footballers. Great on the ball, possession, everything. Fancy play, build-up play. They’ve got everything. All of them. At the back where we’re solid. We are really good at the back. We’ve got one of the best goalkeepers in the world in Jordan Pickford, everything. So it’s just missing that front man. What I would give for Romelu Lukaku to come home. But at the same time, it could fall for Beto or Thierno Barry, the lads are gonna get the chances. They’ve just got to start taking them. And I feel for them because they’re giving it everything they’ve got. They really are. And I think the world of both of them. I’ve met them, I know them. They’re good footballers. I just think they’re struggling with confidence at the minute, and you can always see forwards when they’re struggling with confidence. It’s a hard place to be. Fingers crossed it changes.
EsportsBets: Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall is such a special player isn’t he?
TB: Kiernan is a fantastic footballer, very good on the ball, he does the work going backwards, which I was quietly surprised about. I was happy about that. I thought he was gonna be a nice footballer and didn’t like going backwards and tracking. But he does. He works really hard. He’s a box to box player. We’ve got Merlin Röhl as well, who’s coming in, the German boy. So there’s a few who we’ve got. I’m just so happy that the Gaffer is home. That’s the most important thing for me. David Moyse being back at Everton Football Club is the biggest and most important thing of all. He is the man. I know that he is the man to bring back to good times. To Goodison Park. I keep saying Goodison, to Bramley-Moore, to the Hill Dickinson.
EsportsBets: What’s the new ground like?
TB: It’s unbelievable.
EsportsBets: Is the atmosphere as good as Goodison was?
TB: It’s louder. It’s been found already, it’s the loudest decibel that’s ever been made in Premier League history already. So when Jack scored that last minute winner against Palace the other week, that’s the loudest decibel noise in Premier League history. So the fans are fantastic, the atmosphere is fantastic. Our fans are amazing. We’re the best fans in the world. Listen, scousers are a very rare breed. We’re one-offs. And everyone knows we’re different from everyone else. And when we get in that stadium, it’s no different. There, we’re just different. The players that are enjoying it, which I know that personally because I’ve spoken to them. Jackie Boy’s doing absolutely fantastic.
EsportsBets: Do you think he’ll go to the World Cup?
TB: I hope he does because he deserves to. He brings something different than any other player. There’s not a player that from a dead ball situation, and when I say dead ball, I don’t mean a free kick. I mean the ball stood still on the sideline, he does ya. One step of the foot, one jig, one hand, he’s done, he leaves you for dead. And I don’t see many other players apart from maybe Cole Palmer doing that. Phil Foden’s a fantastic, phenomenal footballer, but they’re just different to Jack. Jack, he’s an anomaly. Jack’s a maverick.
EsportsBets: He really suits a team where he can stand out because – at Man City, he struggled to stand out because of the caliber players that they’ve got.
TB: Well listen, when the Gaffers gone to him, I want to be the superstar, go on, son. Go and be him. Just put him on the pitch. What he’s doing, the amount of assists he’s got, the goals, he’s got, he’s working hard. He’s a pleasure around the training ground. He’s fitted in perfectly. What I’d give to keep him to stay, but that’s gonna be very, very hard to do, with Jack’s position. But what I will say is, Jack has just sacrificed an awful lot to be at Evanton Football Club. He really has. And I don’t just wanna talk about financially because he’s sacrificed an awful lot from a financial perspective, but there’s other things he sacrificed as well. So we’re all grateful for him. We all absolutely adore him and love him. We just want to see him keep performing the way he is.
EsportsBets: Iliman Ndiaye, he’s gonna be going to AFCON in the new year – Do you think Everton need to bring somebody in? Maybe in January?
TB: Well, listen, we’re losing a couple in Idrissa Gueye and Iliman Ndiaye, both Senegalese. Big, big losses for us, big losses. You’ve gotta look at it, Idrissa in the middle of the park. He is just phenomenal. He’s legs, he’s everywhere. He really is. He’s nonstop. He’s relentless. He’s at you. But I said, you’ve got Iliman Ndiaye out on the right. I think he’ll end up being the most fouled player in the Premier League this season. He gets that many fouls. He’s not a player who’s looking for the fouls. You see players and they’re looking to get fouled. He just gets taken out every game. He must get taken out at least three to four times every game. He gets cleaned out and I’m just like, there’s been so many more red cards that have been missed. Some of the tackles I’ve seen on Iliman, it’s frightening, it really is. But he’s a fantastic footballer. He’s just as good in defense as he is in offense, which is remarkable to be honest. Going forward, he’s frightening, his turn of pace, his close ball control. His strength on the ball when people are trying to get him off the ball is phenomenal. And then ultimately, going backwards. The numbers he does, the XG he does, it’s frightening. He works so hard. So Iliman Ndiaye is just a remarkable footballer. He’s a manager’s dream. Because, you can rely on him going backwards, going forwards. He wants to be relied on. Great footballer. The Evanton fans love him. We love him.
EsportsBets: Where do Everton finish now?
TB: Top half. I think Everton finished top off. Within the top 10. I know it sounds like a big ask at the moment, but I just think it will click with one of these lads, with Beto or Thierno Barry. And when it does, that’s it. And the strange part is, I think when it clicks for one of the boys, whether it’s Beto or Barry, I think it’ll, it’ll incentivise the other one. Because they’re both gonna get time, they’re both gonna get minutes on the pitch and I just think it needs one of them to knock one in, get a couple, and that’s it. Beto had a little go last season where he was flying, he had that little period where he was really hot. And it’s just about confidence with forwards. Any striker, they need confidence, you just need a bit of confidence, a couple of goals behind them, and then that’s it. Then they’re flying. So fingers crossed and up the f*cking Toffees.
