I agree. People digging in on their position when what we should be doing is burying the hatchet and starting with a fresh slate. He's still our player, probably our highest paid player and arguably our most talented player. The best thing for Everton Football Club is to try and make the most out of having that player fit and contributing to the team/squad.
The club have had an absolute mare in it's public handling of James. It started off playing down the costs of his arrival, how it was a free transfer with the player taking a 50% reduction in wages and how it was only costing Everton anywhere between £90k to £140k (depending on which website you believe). Now we have a different manager that doesn't want him, it had to reverse all that had gone before and justify it's decision to sell him, by putting out revised information about his earnings and being purposely opaque as regards his position within the squad. The consequence of that, whether intended or not, is that it turned more than half our supporters against the player (going by this forum anyway). Now he's staying it's caused an issue for the club and the fans, mainly of it's own making. James has not been innocent in all this of course but the club/manager are at least as culpable.
Bottom line here is that the club is trying to control the fans emotions/feelings by releasing incorrect information to them which is wrong. Maybe I've been naive in believing most of what the club releases via it's conduits but I won't trust anything from them in future. I think, as a supporter, that's a terrible relationship to have with the club you support.
