2019/20 Marcel Brands

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Looks okay other than as you say Delph but then we don't know how much input Silva had in that. I'm just a bit disappointed that he hasn't brought in some previously undiscovered gems from the continent where he plied his trade before. But then I thought Moshiri was going to be the dawn of a new era.

I agree it certainly hasn't been amazing work, but I don't think it is the disaster that some would think.

Also, shipping out Gueye, Lookman, Vlasic, Onyekuru, McCarthy for a combined £72mil is excellent work. Throw in Schneiderlin, Hornby and Dowell for around £8mil and he has got rid of some serious junk (sans Gueye) for £80mil.
 
Ferran Torres to City in addition to the below... again, Brands isn't "not doing anything". No one is doing anything.

Just for a little bit of perspective, aimed at shutting up those incessant whingebags saying he's on his holidays or he hasn't done any business yet. So far, across all 20 PL clubs for next season, there have been 16 incoming transfers, deducted those agreed in January (Ziyech) and those that were already on loan (Soucek, Lo Celso etc.) that leaves a grand total of 11 incoming transfers... some highlights from said 11 players?

- Nkounkou to us
- Wes Foderingham to Sheff Utd
- Matija Sarkic to Wolves

Clubs so far, excluding turning loans permanent which will have been worked on before the season ended, have spent ~£59m so far and ~£48m of that was on Werner and ~£10m spent on two random kids Man City will probably never play.

So no, Brands isn't on holiday, he's not being slow, he's not useless, the whole LEAGUE hasn't really started recruiting yet.
 
View attachment 96742


This is from an Athletic article today on our recruitment system (a very good read for those that subscribe).

Feel like the harsh criticism is a touch unfounded. Definitely a wait and see.

Richie and Digne brilliant business (would be worth combined £100m - practically double in value)

Mina good player

Bernard a free - so strong sell on value

Kean and JPG - can't make a call either way yet

Iwobi - looks at this point to be a poor pick up, but played out of position

Delph - bad move, but only £8mil.

Branthwaite - has the potential to be the Coleman deal of this decade

Hmmmm

I'm not sure. Genuinely not sure.

On one hand, yes he's brought in some decent players but on the other, too many of those haven't worked.

Lossl - a PL #1 who up sticks and left for the Championship within a few months. Wasn't this meant to be someone to challenge Pickford?

Iwobi - feels a good signing on paper. Good pedigree. Young. But 28m at the time felt alot and it's proven to be.

Delph - an inconsistently fit player. His record shows that.

Mina - he's had two seasons now and he doesn't look like the rock CB we bed wetted over taking so long to sign.

Gomes, Digne, Richy, Kean, Branthwaite, Bernard (provided we sell him and make a profit) are good deals for the club.

Gbamin who knows and despite what a few of our regular posters say, that's clearly no fault of Brands.
 
If that site published a transfer rumour it would understandably be taken with a pinch of salt.

Why would you suddenly trust them on stories about our internal management
Mate, I don't trust the stories our own internal management tell us nevermind from anybody else.

Even if it IS Everton we're talking about here, I just cannot believe that Ancelotti came aboard to work under basically the same remit as Moyes had 15yrs ago
I mean £11M a year buys a lot of - yes sir, no sir, how high sir. Smithers-esque loyalty.
But you don't get called up before Usmanov prior to starting those sort of jobs, you dont even get Mosh, you'd get the KGB guy on the board

But this IS Everton, so you just wouldn't know.

Any BS Carlo just walk mate, and shame them.

Edit; iirc, Brands has only 12mths left on his contract...hmmm.
 
View attachment 96742


This is from an Athletic article today on our recruitment system (a very good read for those that subscribe).

Feel like the harsh criticism is a touch unfounded. Definitely a wait and see.

Richie and Digne brilliant business (would be worth combined £100m - practically double in value)

Mina good player

Bernard a free - so strong sell on value

Kean and JPG - can't make a call either way yet

Iwobi - looks at this point to be a poor pick up, but played out of position

Delph - bad move, but only £8mil.

Branthwaite - has the potential to be the Coleman deal of this decade
Has anyone read this article?

Would anyone who has mind PMing me a 'link'?
 

Hmmmm

I'm not sure. Genuinely not sure.

On one hand, yes he's brought in some decent players but on the other, too many of those haven't worked.

Lossl - a PL #1 who up sticks and left for the Championship within a few months. Wasn't this meant to be someone to challenge Pickford?

Iwobi - feels a good signing on paper. Good pedigree. Young. But 28m at the time felt alot and it's proven to be.

Delph - an inconsistently fit player. His record shows that.

Mina - he's had two seasons now and he doesn't look like the rock CB we bed wetted over taking so long to sign.

Gomes, Digne, Richy, Kean, Branthwaite, Bernard (provided we sell him and make a profit) are good deals for the club.

Gbamin who knows and despite what a few of our regular posters say, that's clearly no fault of Brands.
Iwobi a good signing on paper?

Absolutely not.
 
View attachment 96742


This is from an Athletic article today on our recruitment system (a very good read for those that subscribe).

Feel like the harsh criticism is a touch unfounded. Definitely a wait and see.

Richie and Digne brilliant business (would be worth combined £100m - practically double in value)

Mina good player

Bernard a free - so strong sell on value

Kean and JPG - can't make a call either way yet

Iwobi - looks at this point to be a poor pick up, but played out of position

Delph - bad move, but only £8mil.

Branthwaite - has the potential to be the Coleman deal of this decade
Yeah

I really don't understand the calls for his head and the terrible criticism of his buys. The club have said often that we operate a policy whereby the DOF and Manager jointly agree on which players to buy/sell. It's the only policy that makes sense to me and I can't see why anybody would question it.

The other key factor is that, ever since he has been here, Brands has been hamstrung by the very poor acquisitions and high salaries handed out by the previous regime. FFP has hampered his operation. Offloading poor players on high wages has proved extremely difficult, and there was a time when we had I think 15 players out on loan.

On top of this we have been badly affected by injuries, especially with some of the players purchased under Brands. Gomes has shown that, fully fit, he can be a special talent if he has a quality DM alongside him. I'm pretty sure our season would have panned out entirely different had we had him and Gbamin available for most of it.

When you look at the acquisitions, the only one I would seriously question would be Iwobi, as this stinks of a deadline day panic buy. He actually could still come good for us because he has talent and is still young. Iwobi playing in a confident team winning games could be a very different player to the one we saw last season. The other acquisition that I personally questioned was Delph, and that was because he had a history of injuries. But many on here were seemingly very happy when we bought him and even spoke of him becoming captain.

Since Brands has been here he has spent £100m net on the squad. I ask myself if that squad is £100m better than it was before he came, and I think it is. I'm pleased that we have players like Richarlison, Kean, Digne, Bernard, Mina and Gbamin on board, and the only player I'm sad to see leave is Gana. Yes there is still work to be done. We really need to strengthen with at least 1 new centre midfielder, a right winger and a right back. Plus we need to offload at least 5/6 players on big wages who don't contribute. It would be good if we could sell them, along with a number of the U23 squad, to bring in much needed funds but loans for the likes of Besic, Sandro and Bolasie will suffice if need be given their contracts expire at the end of next season.

Like everybody else I'd like to have seen more activity in the current transfer window, but apart from Chelsea, there isn't really anybody, doing much at the moment. Everything's up in the air with covid, changes to seasons timetables and of course transfer windows. For a lot of clubs across Europe the current season hasn't even ended FFS. Probably more than most clubs, our incomings will be determined by our outgoings to a large extent. I'm not saying we don't have ANY funds available, but the amount we can spend will no doubt be determined by what we bring in from sales and how much wages we are able to offload. So I think it is inevitable that most of our business will be done late in the transfer window rather than earlier, and I think we all need to steel ourselves for that. And that isn't in any way Brands fault. It is a legacy of the situation he took over when he joined the club.

Having said that, it would be nice if we did spend whatever net budget we do have on a Richarlison type acquisition within the next week or so. Feelings are running high in the transfer thread and it may just calm a few down if we were able to unveil a Gabriel, Sarr or a Benrahma.
 
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Iwobi a good signing on paper?

Absolutely not.

Played a number of games in the PL
A good age (23)
International player
European experience including a finalist in the EL
Cup winning experience (FA Cup)

It absolutely was a good signing on paper when we had Silva who only had Sigurdssen to play at 10 and Bernard playing left (I think i'm right in saying Richy was playing either RW or ST for us by the time the start of this season came around).
 
The concerns for me arent with Gbamin or Kean.

Delph: Surely someone who met him or asked for references would have realised the bloke was poison.

Gomes: I wasnt bothered either way if we signed him...surprised we went over £18mil though...i mean £22mil was 'ok' if we were signing real quality and he would be a rotation player.

Iwobi: I listened to others who used stats to show he was good. Seemed ok in the 10 role but not exactly Zidane or even a djorjaeff...

£57mil for those 3 players...incl Gbamin circa £80mil.

I think i would have done a better job of spending £80mil tbh.

See what you mean, but at this time we have to realize that we can not attract the players we all want, our fantasy players, because we are not seen as a European giant anymore and most PL clubs can pay what we pay for fees and wages.
 

Looks okay other than as you say Delph but then we don't know how much input Silva had in that. I'm just a bit disappointed that he hasn't brought in some previously undiscovered gems from the continent where he plied his trade before. But then I thought Moshiri was going to be the dawn of a new era.
I've just done quite a long post defending Brands against some of the harsher criticism he's been getting on here. But yeah, I agree with you. His performance in the transfer market has been OK rather than magical and i would have expected a few more under the radar raiding of the European leagues.

I also expected him to restructure the youth set up too with all the teams playing the same systems throughout the ages and bringing in new coaches to implement the plan. We've had far too much jobs for the old boys at Everton, which is good in some respects but not necessarily a footballing one.
 
I’ve always thought that, given time, Marcel Brands would do a good job here, however, the signing of Alex Iwobi for a very inflated fee in last summer’s window has made me think.
Is Brands the man to lead us as DOF on a long term basis? Anybody can get a signing wrong, but, Iwobi, massively over priced, Delph, made of glass and a malevolent influence around the place, Gbamin, well who knows? He’s been here a year and played twice or three times.
Brands did not cover himself in glory last time around, let’s hope he gets it right this time. P.S. I don’t like his stubborn refusal to do business in the winter window either.
His opinion on the January window is a p#@$ take after buying Iwobi and the like in summer isn't it, very arrogant, i wouldn't trust this fella to do my weekly shopping.
 
See what you mean, but at this time we have to realize that we can not attract the players we all want, our fantasy players, because we are not seen as a European giant anymore and most PL clubs can pay what we pay for fees and wages.

Thats fine. Theres plenty of players who would love to join.

Delph + Iwobi + Gbamin + Gomes

£80mil ?
 
Played a number of games in the PL
A good age (23)
International player
European experience including a finalist in the EL
Cup winning experience (FA Cup)

It absolutely was a good signing on paper when we had Silva who only had Sigurdssen to play at 10 and Bernard playing left (I think i'm right in saying Richy was playing either RW or ST for us by the time the start of this season came around).
Pretty much zero goals and assists in all of those appearances despite being an attacking player
 

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