davek
Player Valuation: £150m
Yeah, lacking in star quality.
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Paul Rideout
Player Valuation: £35m
even Real Madrid don’t have a team of stars.
meagher94
Player Valuation: £35m
You’re kidding yourself if you believe that mate, Moshiri loves him and having Brands there means he doesn’t have to be as involved himself which is what he wants. Brands is here for the long game.
BlueStevie35
Player Valuation: £70m
Journeymen are players who’ve been at multiple clubs over their careers. Jermaine Defoe and Peter Crouch are two examples
Iwobi and Kean came through the youth ranks at Arsenal and Juve respectively
Gbamin had only played for 2 clubs, Gomes only 3, Bernard only 2
Iwobi and Kean came through the youth ranks at Arsenal and Juve respectively
Gbamin had only played for 2 clubs, Gomes only 3, Bernard only 2
brieverton
Player Valuation: £40m
Perhaps we might be emerging into a good example of what the proper delineation of duties between Manager / DOF should be.
The DOF, by virtue of his overall responsibility for scouting, the academy, and squad groups outside the first-team, focuses on emerging talent that we can bring in cheaply and at low-risk. These have a staggered progression so if first-team ready inside 1-2 seasons that is considered a bonus.
The manager then, actually controls the big spending within the budget he is given. We needed a midfield re-fit, Ancelotti picked up the phone and delivered it. We couldn't afford in a footballing sense, nor financially, to have these signings fail, and that is where the manager, most particularly when of Ancelotti's calibre, takes the lead and does the work of identifying and attracting the players to the club.
That power shift can vary depending on the personalities involved and the experience they bring. You can't argue though that it isn't massively preferable for Ancelotti to be "controlling" transfers with his CV, whilst Brands can get on with refining a process that attracts amongst the best young prospects to come here.
He is to be given qualified credit for unearthing Branthwaite and Nkounkou, and it's Ancelotti's work that is the foundation of our promising start.
The DOF, by virtue of his overall responsibility for scouting, the academy, and squad groups outside the first-team, focuses on emerging talent that we can bring in cheaply and at low-risk. These have a staggered progression so if first-team ready inside 1-2 seasons that is considered a bonus.
The manager then, actually controls the big spending within the budget he is given. We needed a midfield re-fit, Ancelotti picked up the phone and delivered it. We couldn't afford in a footballing sense, nor financially, to have these signings fail, and that is where the manager, most particularly when of Ancelotti's calibre, takes the lead and does the work of identifying and attracting the players to the club.
That power shift can vary depending on the personalities involved and the experience they bring. You can't argue though that it isn't massively preferable for Ancelotti to be "controlling" transfers with his CV, whilst Brands can get on with refining a process that attracts amongst the best young prospects to come here.
He is to be given qualified credit for unearthing Branthwaite and Nkounkou, and it's Ancelotti's work that is the foundation of our promising start.
JLW
Player Valuation: £60m
No chance
Brands is here for years until we reach the summit of the PL
Have it very good authority that contract talks are well under way.
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
Pedant alert but that isn't actually true, it's a common misconception. A journeyman is basically someone who is average at their job, it has nothing to do with how much they've travelled.
Bluebonic
Player Valuation: £35m
Everton transfer trick repeated as Nkounkou deal shows Brands at his best
This week's Royal Blue looks at why Niels Nkounkou shows how Marcel Brands can change the club
Everton transfer trick repeated as Niels Nkounkou deal shows Marcel Brands at his best
Carlo Ancelotti was surprised. Marcel Brands and his recruitment team will not have been.
Just as they weren't during last season's re-start, when the manager had his famous eye-brow raised.
"I have to say that our scouting department did a fantastic job finding him in a lower division," he said.
Ancelotti was talking about Jarrad Branthwaite, following his fine display in the win over Sheffield United, but he could easily have said the same thing about the signing of Niels Nkounkou too.
It is very early days in the Everton careers of Branthwaite and Nkounkou, they have only seven senior appearances between them and sterner tests have to be overcome before we can properly judge or confidently predict what the future has in store at Goodison - but the defenders have made encouraging starts.
Ancelotti, like many of us, has been taken aback with how well they have done.
Specifically, he was "surprised" not only by Branthwaite's talent but also his ability to not let a mistake affect him. As for Nkounkou, Ancelotti just said he was surprised at how far along he is.
Branthwaite, currently out injured, showed during the Premier League's re-start that he has the tools to handle the top flight, while Nkounkou has been electric in his two Carabao Cup games against lower league opposition.
He was man-of-the-match against Fleetwood Town on Wednesday but the biggest compliment you can pay the 19-year-old is that Everton now seem unlikely to dip into the market to try and find a replacement for the retired Leighton Baines because the French teenager looks like he can be it.
That not only solves a headache for Brands, head of recruitment Gretar Steinsson and their network of scouts, but acts as a timely reminder of the work they are doing.
The two players will end up costing Everton in the region of £1m in fees.
Brands, of course, has come in for a degree of criticism of late. A poor end to last season always places those at the top under greater scrutiny and with concerns and doubts over a number of last summer's signings - for differing reasons - the finger of blame had started to be pointed at him.
Add in the fact that two of the three senior additions to the squad in this window, so far, have been drawn to the club because of Ancelotti, and the question marks over the director of football, and his influence, have not gone away.
But much of the criticism has seemed unfair.
While Brands and his team may have brought different names to the table when organising targets with Ancelotti, ultimately their joint-decision making is about finding what is best for Everton.
The arrival of the ready-made Allan, James Rodriguez and Abdoulaye Doucoure has given the Blues a much-needed shot in the arm.
And the hope is that while some of those signings that have brought criticism onto Brands find their form - or fitness, more to the point - then Everton can still start progressing up the table with this injection of quality.
The 'project' needed a jump-start.
But as Brands told the club on day one, this will be no quick fix, and that he is here to implement a long-term recruitment strategy that moves the Blues away from the expensive splurging of 2016 and 2017 and brings lasting change.
This summer has, largely you feel, been about giving the manager what he needs for the here and now.
But the signings of Branthwaite and Nkounkou - though players with much still to learn and improve upon - are rewards of the changes Brands has brought in to the club's recruitment structure, now two years on from his appointment, and speak for the longer-term future of the club.
Branthwaite was tracked for several months, first seen by scout John Doolan, and the groundwork was laid so far under the radar that by the time there was a rush of clubs credited with being interested when the January window opened, Everton were already well down the road with his signing.
Nkounkou is a player the scouting department had been tracking for over a year.
These aren't impulse signings, they aren't players who can't be bought on a whim, they require months and months of scouting reports, analysis, background checks on character and family life and then convincing the target to make Everton their next move and not, in the case of Nkounkou, a host of European clubs including Juventus.
But that has always been part of Brands' appeal, hasn't it? And why there was a rush of excitement at his appointment. The belief that he would find these young talents and bring them to Everton. But it takes time, it requires getting the right people in place and allowing them to scout.
It also requires time for some to settle.
Branthwaite and Nkounkou have hit the ground running but it's been less straight-forward for Moise Kean but he not only plays in, arguably, one of the toughest positions on the pitch, but he is still just 20.
Jean-Philippe Gbamin spent last season injured so how can we even begin to know if he'll be a success for Brands and his team?
Not all signings will work out, of course, and perhaps it is inevitable that in the early throes of such significant change experienced by the club since 2018, then recruitment will take time to iron itself out and that mistakes will be made.
Because for every Richarlison and Lucas Digne, rightly hailed as successes, the counter argument could be the inconsistencies of Yerry Mina or the disappointment up to now of Fabian Delph, for example, or Alex Iwobi.
Every signing since Brands arrived may yet come good but it would be a rare in football for all players brought in to be a success.
Yet the point is that by giving younger players time, allowing a new structure to be put in place, giving the unheralded figures in scouting and data-analysis the hours, days, weeks and months to do their job, then Everton can reap the rewards.
Branthwaite and Nkounkou have a long way to go but they look like real finds.
A pleasant surprise? Not if you work in Everton's recruitment department.
Hello?
Sorry Dave is currently unavailable, as he’s too busy sulking and tucking into a big bowl of humble pie.
Marcel had a dream
To build a football team
To build a football team
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