neonleon
Player Valuation: £35m
Moyes has said recently that this is the darkest time for him as Everton manager and he fears going back to the days of fighting in the other half of the league. Well, what the [Poor language removed] has happened with the transfer policy?
Seems like the last few seasons Moyes has been offloading the deadweights (naysmith), the older players (stubbs, weir), the flops (beattie), the stopgaps (marcus bent) and distilling an Everton without average players. In the last season for the first time since the 80's there wasn't a player I was really unhappy to see in an Everton shirt.
Of course not everyone is a Ronaldo or a Kaka, but every player had something to offer and was capable of changing a game or consistently giving positive contributions to matches.
Moyes equally seemed to have attributed our sluggish performances in the tail end of the season and vs. fiorentina as down to our limited squad numbers. Of course as we all know with Carsley moving down to Birmingham and loan signings Gravesen (well his knees were [Poor language removed] anyway) and Fernandes (what happened to the real fernandes of the season before?) departing we are even shorter on players. And then we sold AJ - which is coming out in the wash as more AJ wanted to go than we were cashing in on the Fulham money.
Moyes says we need 6 -7 players, but I reckon with some luck we could make do with 5, provided that two players from the youth set up can step up - whether that be Baxter, Irving, Rodwell, Gosling, Lukas or whoever.
Midfield as we all know is the chronic problem, especially if we are playing 4-4-1-1 again, as proved so successful last season.
We probably need minimum three players here if not more like four. With faddy and AJ gone we need another striker. I think Zigic on loan would be a great signing - Valencia paid a [Poor language removed] fortune for him, but I get the feeling the best players in the world would look like [Poor language removed] in Valencia at the moment (must be that Everton curse we all wished on them after they stole Manny of us). Not just an aerial threat as everyone supposes, he has touch and can place a shot as well.
We obviously have money to spend, but Moyes as ever parsimonious in nature, wont pay over the odds. Problem being our lack of squad numbers is over publicised, any club knows they can bump the price up at the moment as frankly there is a whiff of desperation hanging over the clubs transfer policy. Compounding this, is the higher echelon targets we are aiming for (little point replacing the departures with worse or similar players) are always going to be hard to sign - especially given Moyes' historic refusal to pay agents handsomely (cant say I blame him, their [Poor language removed]' parasites but this is how you sign world class players).
M'Bia, Moutinho are potential world class players - the kind of players United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Milan and Barcelona buy.
It was never gonna be a walk in the park to sign them, although the argument that we are just [Poor language removed] offering ridiculously low sums for players is I think erroneous as well. The clubs are overvaluing their players, primarily because they don’t want to sell them. It’s a bit like selling Arteta - we'd ask 20 million for him, because we don’t want to sell him. We have to weigh up whether they will break and sell for less, walk away or pay them the full 23 million.
I'm glad Moyes hasn't appeased the fans just by buying. Yes, all the clubs in the premiership (apart from maybe united) have bought players - but how many of them are any good? How many have potential to be world class? How many of them have just thrown money around, paying over the odds to agents, clubs, players - for dross, flops or journeyman players? Look at the money Sunderland have spent???Christ!!!
Moyes isn't Benitez. The benitez method is to buy twenty players every season - each costing about £2 - 6 million, and one or two really expensive signings (these are the ones that will be any good). He'll also let go twenty players from the season before that were all [Poor language removed]. Moyes is the laser beam not the scatter gun - he targets what he needs and pursues it.
Unfortunately there are not a great deal of potential world class players out there. His scouting network by the sound of it has identified a handful of players and there have been obstacles signing all of them (the olympics hasn't helped). We are coming of course to the crunch and hopefully there will be a 'plan B' if in the final days of the transfer window none of the 'plan A' players can be signed.
But I'd sooner wait and struggle vs. WBA and get beaten by Blackburn if the club are making an almighty effort to sign players that will be the future and heritage of Everton football club. And I believe that is the case, as I trust in the Chairman and I have total, total faith in David Moyes.
One Moutinho's got to be worth ten Jason Koumas's.
(we'll probs sign Koumas now that I've said that)
Keep the faith people,
The darkest hour is right before the dawn.
Seems like the last few seasons Moyes has been offloading the deadweights (naysmith), the older players (stubbs, weir), the flops (beattie), the stopgaps (marcus bent) and distilling an Everton without average players. In the last season for the first time since the 80's there wasn't a player I was really unhappy to see in an Everton shirt.
Of course not everyone is a Ronaldo or a Kaka, but every player had something to offer and was capable of changing a game or consistently giving positive contributions to matches.
Moyes equally seemed to have attributed our sluggish performances in the tail end of the season and vs. fiorentina as down to our limited squad numbers. Of course as we all know with Carsley moving down to Birmingham and loan signings Gravesen (well his knees were [Poor language removed] anyway) and Fernandes (what happened to the real fernandes of the season before?) departing we are even shorter on players. And then we sold AJ - which is coming out in the wash as more AJ wanted to go than we were cashing in on the Fulham money.
Moyes says we need 6 -7 players, but I reckon with some luck we could make do with 5, provided that two players from the youth set up can step up - whether that be Baxter, Irving, Rodwell, Gosling, Lukas or whoever.
Midfield as we all know is the chronic problem, especially if we are playing 4-4-1-1 again, as proved so successful last season.
We probably need minimum three players here if not more like four. With faddy and AJ gone we need another striker. I think Zigic on loan would be a great signing - Valencia paid a [Poor language removed] fortune for him, but I get the feeling the best players in the world would look like [Poor language removed] in Valencia at the moment (must be that Everton curse we all wished on them after they stole Manny of us). Not just an aerial threat as everyone supposes, he has touch and can place a shot as well.
We obviously have money to spend, but Moyes as ever parsimonious in nature, wont pay over the odds. Problem being our lack of squad numbers is over publicised, any club knows they can bump the price up at the moment as frankly there is a whiff of desperation hanging over the clubs transfer policy. Compounding this, is the higher echelon targets we are aiming for (little point replacing the departures with worse or similar players) are always going to be hard to sign - especially given Moyes' historic refusal to pay agents handsomely (cant say I blame him, their [Poor language removed]' parasites but this is how you sign world class players).
M'Bia, Moutinho are potential world class players - the kind of players United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Milan and Barcelona buy.
It was never gonna be a walk in the park to sign them, although the argument that we are just [Poor language removed] offering ridiculously low sums for players is I think erroneous as well. The clubs are overvaluing their players, primarily because they don’t want to sell them. It’s a bit like selling Arteta - we'd ask 20 million for him, because we don’t want to sell him. We have to weigh up whether they will break and sell for less, walk away or pay them the full 23 million.
I'm glad Moyes hasn't appeased the fans just by buying. Yes, all the clubs in the premiership (apart from maybe united) have bought players - but how many of them are any good? How many have potential to be world class? How many of them have just thrown money around, paying over the odds to agents, clubs, players - for dross, flops or journeyman players? Look at the money Sunderland have spent???Christ!!!
Moyes isn't Benitez. The benitez method is to buy twenty players every season - each costing about £2 - 6 million, and one or two really expensive signings (these are the ones that will be any good). He'll also let go twenty players from the season before that were all [Poor language removed]. Moyes is the laser beam not the scatter gun - he targets what he needs and pursues it.
Unfortunately there are not a great deal of potential world class players out there. His scouting network by the sound of it has identified a handful of players and there have been obstacles signing all of them (the olympics hasn't helped). We are coming of course to the crunch and hopefully there will be a 'plan B' if in the final days of the transfer window none of the 'plan A' players can be signed.
But I'd sooner wait and struggle vs. WBA and get beaten by Blackburn if the club are making an almighty effort to sign players that will be the future and heritage of Everton football club. And I believe that is the case, as I trust in the Chairman and I have total, total faith in David Moyes.
One Moutinho's got to be worth ten Jason Koumas's.
(we'll probs sign Koumas now that I've said that)
Keep the faith people,
The darkest hour is right before the dawn.
Hope those won't prove to be truthful 
