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"Take care, sir," cried Sancho. "Those over there are not giants but windmills."

Think we're all tilting at the wrong windmills right now to be honest. Whoever the club bring in next as DOF or manager is just going to try to do the same things that have no history of working. Walsh and Koeman both probably need to go, but unless they bring in someone with new ideas, we're...

Necessity is the mother of invention, and it all comes down to each sport's mechanics. We see these kinds of mini-revolutions occur on the field of play all the time, "Moneyball" just happened to be the one that also changed how we think about sports. If any sport is crying for a revolution...

Very interesting. Have I got it backwards?

I'd be very confused. The signings over the last three windows look like a club in two minds.

It looks like a combination of players Koeman wants and players Walsh wants. I'm sure there's some overlap, but I'd guess Walsh wants a smarter, slower build, while Koeman wants Champions League tomorrow. I feel very strongly that one is the correct approach and the other is not, but I suppose...

Yeah this is actually an easier explainer. Thanks to Cerberus for helping me get there. Moneyball = Using a radical strategy to make up for a lack of resources and talent. Doesn't often work well in practice. Analytics = The use of advanced, non-traditional statistics to aid in scouting. This...

Not quite. He bargain shopped, as most teams do. In baseball, the idea is to score more runs than your opponent. Oakland decided they'd instead just to try and not get out, figuring they'd eventually score runs that way due to the basic mechanics of the sport. There's no equivalent in...

Possibly helpful, somewhat accurate explainer that no one will read: ******* Moneyball started when people in baseball figured out that the things teams always thought were most important when building a team weren't as important as was once thought. Other, non-traditional stats predicted...

For my money, this is the only true way to game the system in football, particularly in England. The most undervalued, untapped resource in the sport are young players in England. Spurs spent £15m or so on their attacking troika of Kane, Eriksen and Alli. If Everton want to catch up, they need...

Yes/no. It's really an approach, not necessarily a defined system of rules. In baseball, which has a high concentration of luck, people realized you can game the odds in your favor in ways that everyone else had missed. You can't *really* do that in football, the outcome of which is more...

That is the exact opposite of Moneyball.

It was literally followed up by: "...but the other sides are spending money, too."

I'm still pro-Moshiri, but his lack of "CEO" skills is somewhat alarming. Koeman/Walsh/The Board are clearly not on the same page regarding transfers, £40m worth of agreed transfers fell apart at the deadline, his deadline day interview was poorly judged, and the Rooney situation is ugly. Just...

Werner would be the first Everton shirt I'd buy, but... -Playing in CL -Competing for a WC spot -Leipzig have no incentive to sell Yussuf Poulsen, on the other hand, could make some sense.

Really smart to get this done now. The market's shifting and teams may be less willing to sell top prospects before they're worth massive fees.

Not to be cliche, but it's a process. It's not about just making it into the top four, it's about staying in the top four. The club entered the window with only three players under 30 that they could count on going forward. That's almost inconceivable for a club in Everton's position. Now they...

I've been operating under the assumption that was exactly the plan. The squad was old and thin (still is), and the club needed to build a foundation for stability over the next 3-5+ years. They brought in players who maybe weren't good enough for the top 4, but were good enough to keep Everton...

I don't think that's unfair, but there's a difference between being fiscally responsible and being smart with investment. Even if Moshiri was willing to pay £80m for a striker and pay him £200k a week, there's still a lot of other things the club can do with that money. The powers that be would...

That's been my hunch too, and I'm not sure that's the worst thing in the world. The striker is a signing they need to get right, and if the right player isn't available, they shouldn't pay a fortune for a third or fourth tier option. They'll need to roll the dice eventually (probably no later...