Bullet
Player Valuation: £10m
Esk and others regularly criticise our PR department and not without reason but I suspect there may well be at least one very well marketed concept relating to Everton, the great war chest. We regularly hear commentators and professionals within the game referring to our spending power. There’s just one thing, thus far, there’s been no sign of it.
I profoundly hope my suspicions are unfounded, and we’ll find out for sure this summer, but what if it’s largely just been a slick marketing campaign with the purpose of helping sell season tickets (worked), land the preferred manager (worked), raise the club’s profile (worked – Sky gave us a whole day), advance the new stadium prospects (worked), land a marquee signing (failed) and get our best players to extend (failed)?
We had headlines that RK was our number one target and would be given a £100m budget. Lying journalists? Perhaps. We’ve put a £100m price tag on Rom according to journalists. I believe we’ve strategically leaked that to establish our initial negotiating position. I think that’s how football works and I think we also leaked the promised RK budget to unsettle him. Mosh claimed we offered 60m for one player last summer. Do you know how many clubs have paid over even £50m? Eight. Ever.
Our official net spend for summer 2016 was -£1.19m. This is misleading because we tried to sign Sissoko on DD for £30m.
Our official net spend for January 2017 was £19.4m. This is also misleading because we tried to sell Del, Niasse and Clev but could only loan.
In a time of massive TV deals the above is hardly suggestive of anything other than a modest budget.
More time? Well it’s over a year and two transfer windows since Mosh’s arrival. It’s hardly jumping the gun to ask questions.
STCC rules? The mega profit sale of Stones afforded us the scope to massively increase wages. It didn’t happen. If Lu goes this summer the same will be true and STCC won’t even be a factor until summer 2018.
We can’t sign players who don’t want to come! True but somewhat misleading. The degree to which a player wants to sign is directly proportional to the size of the wages we offer. I think we did try to get one marquee like Witsel, Carvalho, Mata etc. last summer but ultimately didn’t offer the large wage premium necessary to succeed.
Don’t get me wrong I’m delighted Mosh is here. I don’t question his commitment to the club with his £80m loan and generous waiving of interest, helping to land RK and advance a new exciting stadium project. We’ve clearly benefited greatly. I’m only questioning the marketing of the great leap forward when it may well be we’re really trying to emulate a more gradual and economic model like Spurs. Not a bad template – CL on a budget and a shiny new stadium on the way but if it ultimately works, it’ll take time, a lot of luck and some inspired transfer dealing from SW.
But okay. Some predictions based upon the above theory.
Net spend this summer: Less than £40m if Rom stays and minimal if he goes.
Signings: We’ll sign Cuco Martina. We’ll officially sign Enner Valencia on a permanent in early July. We won’t sign Dolberg, VVD or Koulibaly.
We’ll do better this summer but we’ll still see most of our substantial purchasing activity happening after significant incomings. We’ll struggle to attract foreign based players, due to the demands of high wage premiums, so most of our signings will be domestically based. There’ll be some frustrated souls come September so Esk and others will construct the narrative that an inept BK & Elstone are to blame implying that they received a massive budget from Mosh but were too incompetent to spend it while avoiding the much more simple explanation, the budget was more modest than hoped.
Hope my suspicion is proven unfounded and we see a procession of quality signings with an impressive net investment. Nothing will make me happier than to be vaulted. We’ll see.
I profoundly hope my suspicions are unfounded, and we’ll find out for sure this summer, but what if it’s largely just been a slick marketing campaign with the purpose of helping sell season tickets (worked), land the preferred manager (worked), raise the club’s profile (worked – Sky gave us a whole day), advance the new stadium prospects (worked), land a marquee signing (failed) and get our best players to extend (failed)?
We had headlines that RK was our number one target and would be given a £100m budget. Lying journalists? Perhaps. We’ve put a £100m price tag on Rom according to journalists. I believe we’ve strategically leaked that to establish our initial negotiating position. I think that’s how football works and I think we also leaked the promised RK budget to unsettle him. Mosh claimed we offered 60m for one player last summer. Do you know how many clubs have paid over even £50m? Eight. Ever.
Our official net spend for summer 2016 was -£1.19m. This is misleading because we tried to sign Sissoko on DD for £30m.
Our official net spend for January 2017 was £19.4m. This is also misleading because we tried to sell Del, Niasse and Clev but could only loan.
In a time of massive TV deals the above is hardly suggestive of anything other than a modest budget.
More time? Well it’s over a year and two transfer windows since Mosh’s arrival. It’s hardly jumping the gun to ask questions.
STCC rules? The mega profit sale of Stones afforded us the scope to massively increase wages. It didn’t happen. If Lu goes this summer the same will be true and STCC won’t even be a factor until summer 2018.
We can’t sign players who don’t want to come! True but somewhat misleading. The degree to which a player wants to sign is directly proportional to the size of the wages we offer. I think we did try to get one marquee like Witsel, Carvalho, Mata etc. last summer but ultimately didn’t offer the large wage premium necessary to succeed.
Don’t get me wrong I’m delighted Mosh is here. I don’t question his commitment to the club with his £80m loan and generous waiving of interest, helping to land RK and advance a new exciting stadium project. We’ve clearly benefited greatly. I’m only questioning the marketing of the great leap forward when it may well be we’re really trying to emulate a more gradual and economic model like Spurs. Not a bad template – CL on a budget and a shiny new stadium on the way but if it ultimately works, it’ll take time, a lot of luck and some inspired transfer dealing from SW.
But okay. Some predictions based upon the above theory.
Net spend this summer: Less than £40m if Rom stays and minimal if he goes.
Signings: We’ll sign Cuco Martina. We’ll officially sign Enner Valencia on a permanent in early July. We won’t sign Dolberg, VVD or Koulibaly.
We’ll do better this summer but we’ll still see most of our substantial purchasing activity happening after significant incomings. We’ll struggle to attract foreign based players, due to the demands of high wage premiums, so most of our signings will be domestically based. There’ll be some frustrated souls come September so Esk and others will construct the narrative that an inept BK & Elstone are to blame implying that they received a massive budget from Mosh but were too incompetent to spend it while avoiding the much more simple explanation, the budget was more modest than hoped.
Hope my suspicion is proven unfounded and we see a procession of quality signings with an impressive net investment. Nothing will make me happier than to be vaulted. We’ll see.
