Confirmed Signing Abdoulaye Doucouré

[BlueToff]

We finished 12th because we’ve loaded our squad with wasters from the bottom half of the Premier League.

Pretty sure the only players we signed from a bottom-half club in the last few years (since 2017) were Gylfi and Richarlison? Off the top of my head at least.

One of those is our best player.

Bolasie and Gana in 2016 but obviously Gana was brilliant for us. Bolasie not so much, granted.

 

[Nymzee]

Pretty sure the only players we signed from a bottom-half club in the last few years were Gylfi and Richarlison? Off the top of my head at least.

One of those is our best player.

Gana

 

[BlueToff]

Gana

Yeah gone back and corrected my statement as to from 2017. Keane left Burnley after they'd finished 9th hadn't they?

Gana and Bolasie was 2016. Can't exactly say Gana was a poor signing (I know you're not saying that).

 

[MikeH72]

Pretty sure the only players we signed from a bottom-half club in the last few years (since 2017) were Gylfi and Richarlison? Off the top of my head at least.

One of those is our best player.

Bolasie and Gana in 2016 but obviously Gana was brilliant for us. Bolasie not so much, granted.

Bolasie, Keane, Pickford.

 

[BlueToff]

Bolasie, Keane, Pickford.

Burnley hadn't finished bottom half I don't believe? If they did fair enough.

Aye, Pickford obviously, glaring omission from me there.

Then again, he was very good in his first season. Dreadful last season.

But when we look at what we've spent on players from European clubs etc we can't say they've been definite successes either.

And for me, signing cast offs from top half clubs (Iwobi, Walcott, Delph) on big wages is much more of an issue than signing better players from clubs who finished lower.

 

[MikeH72]

Burnley hadn't finished bottom half I don't believe? If they did fair enough.

Aye, Pickford obviously, glaring omission from me there.

Then again, he was very good in his first season. Dreadful last season.

But when we look at what we've spent on players from European clubs etc we can't say they've been definite successes either.

And for me, signing cast offs from top half clubs (Iwobi, Walcott, Delph) on big wages is much more of an issue than signing better players from clubs who finished lower.

Burnley finished 16th that season. They finished 7th the year after we bought Keane.

 

[Bainesy's Left Peg]

Burnley finished 16th that season. They finished 7th the year after we bought Keane.

Oh right...so what you’re saying is Mick “clogger” Keane ain’t all that

 

[Barnfred 55]

Well yeah we all can and should have conviction with our views.

But in my opinion (see not hard to put that in there) there’s a difference between having conviction and posting your opinion as undoubted fact and dismissing anyone who doesn’t agree with you.

We all like to think we are right, but for me, you should never rule out the fact that you could also be wrong.

Anyway, it’s not just me who gets the vibe from the guy. He’s free to do what he wants tho and he doesn’t have to change his posting style just because we say so

It's a combination of manners and respecting the right of other people to hold a view different to your own. Some posters on here just don't have it.

I've had the poster in question on ignore for yonks. I made the mistake the other day of opening the ignored posts as I had an inkling he'd responded to one of mine. Sorry I did lol

 

[Philw]

The only thing that makes us stand out above the likes of Burnley, Southampton (or other teams which finished around us) really atm is our manager and the fact we can pay some decent wages.

Even considering our latest league position, and the fact we've won nothing since '95, we're still leagues ahead of the likes of Burnley and Southampton.

It's a combination of manners and respecting the right of other people to hold a view different to your own. Some posters on here just don't have it.

I've had the poster in question on ignore for yonks. I made the mistake the other day of opening the ignored posts as I had an inkling he'd responded to one of mine. Sorry I did lol

I don't believe in putting people on ignore, just take their posts with a pinch of salt. I do have one person on ignore, but having unhidden a bunch of his posts recently I can't fathom for the life of me why.

 

[Barnfred 55]

26 year old Gylfi Sigurdsson did not however

Don't think he even got relegated did he?

 

[Barnfred 55]

Even considering our latest league position, and the fact we've won nothing since '95, we're still leagues ahead of the likes of Burnley and Southampton.
I don't believe in putting people on ignore, just take their posts with a pinch of salt. I do have one person on ignore, but having unhidden a bunch of his posts recently I can't fathom for the life of me why.

I have loads on ignore mate. Mostly the rude obnoxious ones and the people who are just negative 24/7.

I quite often come on here to take my mind off other issues and am not always up to heated debating. The ignore function is the easy option for me.

 

[Gilbert..]

Burnley hadn't finished bottom half I don't believe? If they did fair enough.

Aye, Pickford obviously, glaring omission from me there.

Then again, he was very good in his first season. Dreadful last season.

But when we look at what we've spent on players from European clubs etc we can't say they've been definite successes either.

And for me, signing cast offs from top half clubs (Iwobi, Walcott, Delph) on big wages is much more of an issue than signing better players from clubs who finished lower.

Doesnt matter where you sign them from. Its about their character. Players like cahill, andy johnston sylvian distin...could list a lot more came here and left it all on the pitch.
Difference now is money has changed football for clubs like Everton. We have been in that band for a while now where we cant beat 5 or 6 clubs to the signatures of good players. So we bought still pretty decent players but we had to get their character spot on. And we have done well with that.
Now money has been upped so much for even average players we in the past couple of years have bought in those who are happy to sit on huge money and give very little fight.
Its a horrible situation for a club like Everton who are an established prem club and bigger than all but 5 or 6. Some smaller clubs are getting more from their players right now because they still do the due diligance.
I bang on about alex iwobi because he is the absolute prime example of where Everton have got it massively wrong. Big transfer fee. Huge wages. He's got no hunger in him at all.
Its getting tougher now because money is rewarding bang average players on a scale we have never seen before.

 

[Lanolin]

Than who bud, Doucoure? Surely him AND Allan is a serious upgrade for our centre mid.
For me it seems really clear, Carlo is saying “I need better players than I’ve got in these positions now and I need leadership and fight”.
Once that’s sorted then the younger more glamorous players can come in, but adding them to what we’ve got currently simply won’t work

I can't speak for everyone obviously, but I think this is a bit of a common misconception about this deal. My concern isn't that i want 'younger, more glamorous players' (although that would be nice), it's that I want better players. Put simply, i've seen Doucoure play loads of times and generally haven't believed him to be a particularly good player. At the right price i'd think he was a useful if not inspiring addition, £25m is not that price.

 

[Bainesy's Left Peg]

I can't speak for everyone obviously, but I think this is a bit of a common misconception about this deal. My concern isn't that i want 'younger, more glamorous players' (although that would be nice), it's that I want better players. Put simply, i've seen Doucoure play loads of times and generally haven't believed him to be a particularly good player. At the right price i'd think he was a useful if not inspiring addition, £25m is not that price.

Point taken and fair enough.
I’m sticking to my analysis that Carlo has seen what he’s got in the middle and simply said “nah, that ain’t cutting it” or “nah, quello non è tagliarlo” if you will. Definitely not suggesting that there isn’t other, better options out there, but how much they’d cost, how attainable they are and whether they can come in and make an instant impact I don’t know

 

[Lanolin]

Point taken and fair enough.
I’m sticking to my analysis that Carlo has seen what he’s got in the middle and simply said “nah, that ain’t cutting it” or “nah, quello non è tagliarlo” if you will. Definitely not suggesting that there isn’t other, better options out there, but how much they’d cost, how attainable they are and whether they can come in and make an instant impact I don’t know

Yeah I agree. I don't think Doucoure is terrible, he'll be an improvement on what we have i'm sure. I just don't think he's that much of an improvement based on what i've seen. He's the type of player who I think gives us a functional midfield, which is more than we had last year, but for £25m at his age it seems a bit odd to me. If Allan and Doucoure both sign at the prices being mooted, we'll have signed 5 central midfielders in 12 months, all aged between 25-30, and at a total cost of around £110m. That's concerning for me, it suggests that we may already be replacing the people we paid a load of money for last year, and I can't help thinking that if we're going to push on we'd be doing the same with Doucoure soon enough. I don't know how sustainable it is to keep doing that.