January 2019 Transfer Window

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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...nues-to-undermine-evertons-progress-gcmdm506l

Marcel Brands, the Everton director of football, never leaves his seat at half-time during matches. While all the other directors and high rollers head inside for refreshments and chit-chat, the Dutchman remains steadfastly in position.

So against Bournemouth last Sunday after an insipid 45 minutes which would belatedly pick up for the hosts, he stood alone and watched an Everton supporter from Ireland try the crossbar challenge.

Miss, miss, miss. No change there then.

With the final week of the transfer window approaching, it might have been a good time to offer Brands a penny for this thoughts because he will be hoping to be busy.

Not necessarily on incomings, despite the desperate need for a striker and a midfielder, but on chopping back some more of the deadwood that continues to block the way forward for Everton.


The departure of Oumar Niasse to Cardiff City on loan, which was announced this morning, has begun the purge of around £100 million worth of talent that remains available in the last vestiges of the January sales. Morgan Schneiderlin and Cenk Tosun find themselves on the fringes of Marco Silva’s plans, while Yannick Bolasie, Sandro Ramírez, Kevin Mirallas, Cuco Martina and Nikola Vlasic are among those on loan (Ashley Williams is, too, but his contract expires in the summer).

As for that £100 million figure above, remember that that is the amount Everton lavished on recruiting players, who have quickly found themselves surplus to requirements, rather than the amount the club would expect to recoup if there is to be some serious bloodletting.

And that is an issue for Brands and therefore Silva, who said yesterday that he has been informed by the board the “financial conditions” are not right to go into the market.

That could refer to there being little value in incoming deals in January and that the summer is the time when Everton will be shopping. Brands has suggested that is a strategy he favours.

But Silva’s comments also allude to a situation where the club must sell to buy. One (or two) out, one in.

None of the above mentioned players have added value to their price tags and if Everton rake in around £60 million for that cluster of players, Brands will be deserving of more than just a place on the Goodison Park board.

Even then, £60 million will probably only just cover the cost of keeping two key players — Kurt Zouma and André Gomes — at a team tenth in the table beyond their season-long loans.

If that proves possible. Zouma, who will make his 100th Premier League appearance when he faces Southampton tomorrow, has already stated he hopes to return to Chelsea and prove himself there.

There are three ways in which clubs can overhaul squads in order to develop.

Firstly, sell to buy which, as outlined, does not really work in this case unless Everton start offloading players who have not been pushed on to the periphery.

But £40 million Gylfi Sigurdsson, and £20 million Theo Walcott, have disappointed and not added to their value either. The idea is to build around Richarlison, not hawk him elsewhere inside 12 months.

Replenishing from within can be a second method, but it does not appear there is a posse of youngsters ready to emerge from the academy and demand Silva picks them.

The third way is to get the begging bowl out to a benevolent owner, although the billionaire Farhad Moshiri was hoping the club would be rather more self-sustainable having already pumped in £250 million of his fortune.

The sharper the scrutiny on how that money was spent, the more it can be said the excesses of Brands’ predecessor, Steve Walsh, and managers Ronald Koeman and Sam Allardyce did not just undermine progress at the time but continue to do so.

The legacy of waste is appalling with Davy Klaassen, bought for £24 million and sold to Werder Bremen for £12 million within 12 months after three Premier League starts, a prime example of reckless spending.

It is no wonder that, at last week’s general meeting of shareholders, there was a desire from the top table to simply gloss over that period and focus on the future.

Everton must be mindful of Financial Fair Play rules, but it is hard to see how Moshiri does not have to rummage around deep pockets at some point once again even with a £500 million Bramley Moore Dock stadium project running in the background.

Recruitment, bringing in the right talent, is the most difficult aspect of any business and in those quiet moments during the interval Brands will doubtless reflect on that.

Of this summer’s permanent signings, Lucas Digne has done well, Richarlison, too. Yerry Mina and Bernard less so but it is early days.

Everton want Brands to be “smarter” than the rest, and the reputation he forged in the Netherlands with AZ Alkmaar and then PSV Eindhoven is glowing. But there is no magic wand.

Across Stanley Park, Liverpool wanted the same of their recruitment team before eventually realising the merit of also spending £75 million on Virgil van Dijk and £65 million on Alisson.

Liverpool, too, sold and bought, but only players who pushed to leave (Luis Suárez, Raheem Sterling and Philippe Coutinho) and/or had added to their value. They invested the proceeds well, helped by the club’s status.

The reality is Brands might struggle to be consistently smarter than the clubs Everton want to perceive as their rivals, especially when the club also talks about wanting to keep wages in check.

Being better than what went before is an altogether easier task.

What a 'kin shambles of a situation.

An utter disgrace that carpetbagger has spent our windfall and left us in this state.
 
Brand was bought in to stream line the squad, he spent the money bringing in a load of players, but only loaned out several players instead of selling them.

The problem occurs in the summer when this players return and the squad is huge again. when we need to sell and teams low ball us for there transfer fees
 
I'm sorry but that article sucks. Anyone can see the points they got right, but I'm 100% sure we didn't buy siggurdsson and Walcott to raise their value and sell for a profit, that's utter nonsense.

"does not appear to be a posse of youngsters" haha eff me, half of our team are youngsters who are only going to improve, we're top of the u23 league and top of the u18 league, there'll be a few squad players and sales to come from that lot. I bet this reporter is the type to say "man City have a great future because of foden".

I think we'll have a good budget again in the summer, this article is making it sound like if we get £60m from those players.... That will be our budget.

We don't have great young players. We have a lot of good championship players. We produce that level of player all the time. Unsworth has provided no top level players.
 
People talk about us only being able to loan out our crap players because nobody will buy them, I think Chelsea are in the same situation with Batshuayi, only he is so crap that teams are sending him back half way through his loan.
 

Who’s gonna pay actual money for Bolasie? For Sandro? For Kev? For Ash Williams? Loaning was the only option to free up wages.

Guarantee we’d sell Bolasie eventually for £5m and Dave will complain it’s not enough dosh.
From £30M spent to £5M? Everyone should complain at that. It's basically giving him away at a time when even Championship players and SPL players are fetching good money.
 
Brand was bought in to stream line the squad, he spent the money bringing in a load of players, but only loaned out several players instead of selling them.

The problem occurs in the summer when this players return and the squad is huge again. when we need to sell and teams low ball us for there transfer fees

Criminal that he has to do this because of the failings of others. If only he had the money we wasted over the years. I'm sure he'll sign a few duds himself but not on the scale of the other amateurs.
 
From £30M spent to £5M? Everyone should complain at that. It's basically giving him away at a time when even Championship players and SPL players are fetching good money.

But no one wants to pay up for him - that's the point. We have to get the wages shifted one way or another. You can't just assume there's a team out there willing to shell £15m on him can you.
 
I often thought that Davek is a wum used by the site to drum up debate and get people positing.
And the fact he is allowed to take over threads and go completely off topic kinda confirms it..
Code:
It's annoying me that Everton are now sell to buy, have a DoF completely unsuited to that new reality, and I'll try and undermine anyone pointing that out to me and others by calling them a WUM
 
Why would you sell players when you can loan them out and their value increases? Was loaning out Vlasic a bad idea? Onyenkuru? Dowell? Holgate? Heck, no.

For others, we weren't getting a fee. Williams, Martina, Mirallas, etc.

Incidentally, from a FFP standpoint, a loan deal is smart even for those with minimal value. One more year to amortize the transfer fee.
It entirely depends on the player and circumstances. We bought Lukaku on the basis of 2 good loan seasons at a profit of £18m for Chelsea. They may well, if the valuation is met, do similar with Batshuayi after loan spells.
 

But no one wants to pay up for him - that's the point. We have to get the wages shifted one way or another. You can't just assume there's a team out there willing to shell £15m on him can you.
It's the PL in 2019 mate. Dis you think Solanke to Bournemouth for £19M was possible?
 
When were we not 'sell to buy?' and for that matter, which clubs outside of those funded by oil money aren't?
Excuse me, I correct myself: we're now "sell two to buy one" according to reports this morning. Brands has to give away a couple to get 10 bob back, such is his extraordinary talent in offloading players.
 
From £30M spent to £5M? Everyone should complain at that. It's basically giving him away at a time when even Championship players and SPL players are fetching good money.

...you keep bringing this up. It’s not only finding clubs who are prepared to buy our unwanted players, it’s also convincing them to give up lucrative, long-term contracts. I’m really not sure how we can shift some of them, other than accepting free transfers and giving them millions to leave.

It’s Everton’s fault that we bought these individuals but it’s not Everton’s fault we can’t sell them on permanent deals.
 

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