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Back to a David Moyes team

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Zatara

Player Valuation: £100m
I'm feeling quite miserable after seeing Ronald Koeman effectively tell us that Barkley is going. The fourth player classed not long ago as one of our jewels along with Stones, Lukaku and Deulofeu.

John Stones was classed by an enormous amount of people as a potentially 'world class' player and recognised as one of the jewels in our team. Sure, we can look at a variety of negatives and also the large transfer fee but in the end we lost Stones to Man City and arguably the top manager around.

The recent bids for Swansea midfielder Gylfi Sigurdsson are eerily similar to 12 months ago when we signed a 31 year old Ashley Williams to replace Stones. He had performed well for Swansea and also internationally for Wales and most people thought he would make a good stop-gap and perhaps a mentor for a truly top foreign defender last summer (who we of course never signed).

Fast forward until today and we have signed Englands long term keeper in Jordan Pickford and a man mountain and England international Michael Keane. It seems to me that the ideal partner to Keane on paper would have been John Stones.

Everton would then have, three long term English internationals and would be able to maximise on this not only on the pitch but through marketing and exposure to show young English players what they can achieve. The global marketing into Asia and other regions would be very lucrative also.

Instead of this we lost our 'jewel' and have Ashley Williams (who will turn 33 in August) and haven't brought in any 'star' centre back or any 'potential' John Stones type star.


Back to Sigurdsson, he's a great player. When he was at Reading he was always in the media and also at Swansea he's always been their top player. He'd have been a great signing for us to play with Barkley and Rooney all linking up and getting the ball to Lukaku. However, we've lost Lukaku and we're going to lose Barkley. So instead of imagining something which looks interesting on paper, we instead have the prospect of spending 50mil on a transfer fee and probably something similar on wages/bonuses for someone whose not even close to a 'Star' player or 'Potential' star player. Looks like another short-term signing to me.

A lot of people have been clamouring for Giroud. This is another Ashley Williams, he could be solid for a season, maybe even for two seasons when he turns 33. Is Giroud a 'star' player like Lukaku or a 'potential world class player...nope. So why sign him?

I'm just wondering if, as an Evertonian, I should in some way be excited by the reality of losing 4 'jewels' and replacing them with short term stopgaps Williams, Sigurdsson, Rooney and perhaps Giroud.


Looking at our squad, if we discount both the young players and the more experienced players and solely focus on the age group from 22- 29 who do we have without any 'ifs' or 'buts' about them this season and in the mid-long term?

Pickford -- Potentially the long term Everton and England number 1.
Keane -- Man Mountain and looks a solid defender who should also be a rock for England
Schneiderlin -- Our Sami Khedira who keeps us ticking along
Gana -- Energetic tackling machine

These are all top 'supporting cast' members and with Bolasie and Coleman (unknown recoveries) as well as the adaptation of Klaassen and Sandro we seen to have a collection of 'supporting cast members' and no 'stars'.

Are we becoming another 'David Moyes' side with a team aiming to be greater than the sum of its parts?

Have we recycled the squad players and our 'jewels' to go back to a workmanlike Moyes style team?

I suggest that the next few signings will show us if we're going for 'stars', potential 'stars' or players to fit into a particular system.

Other than Leicester I don't think this approach has worked for anyone so I hope any new signings surprise us in a good way and they and the u21s provide the 'star' quality we seem to be missing to break into the top 4.
 

Why do so many heads fall off when Stones - a player that hands in a transfer request - leaves for £50m?

Why do so many more heads fall off when Lukaku - a player who openly said he was going - leaves for £90m?

Why do so many heads fall off and sheets get soaked when Deulofeu - a player that wasn't good enough - leaves after having a buyback activated?

Why do so many heads again fall off when Barkley - a player who openly rejects a contract with a year to go - leaves for £xm?



This is football; these are all inevitable situations and there is nothing the club could do about them that was a better option than taking the masses of money on offer. United sold Ronaldo, Liverpool sold Suarez, Barcelona sold fat Ronaldo, AC Milan sold Kaka - teams sell.
 
Any "stars" we will have all look to get off sharpish and we can't beat the CL clubs to sign existing ones. We're going to have to rely on the "supporting cast" to bring us to a level when they might want to stay.

When was the last time an English club without CL signed a "star" player in your opinion @Zatara?
 

What do you mean by going back to a David Moyes team? This is a Koeman team. And even going back to a Moyes team is better than having a Martinez team. Not to mention Stones and Barkley were not even signed by the previous regime. I don't get the negativity. You want to have a team filled with 20 years old but this isn't a ps4 game.
 
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Thought that was a good read Zatmonster
I would say though you are forgetting those four were

- a youngster not trusted by his club (and we spent a monster amount of money on)
- a young lad from Barnsley who nearly ended up at Wigan
- a youth team product
- a player who Messi didn't rate and encouraged his club to sell

All started somewhere is what I mean.

Keane is young but proven, Pickford is young but rated across the game, Onyekuru could be anything and is getting two years experience at a champions league side, and we've just bought Sandro who wasn't rated at his first club, sold and then ripped up La Liga.

So we've signed four youngsters.... again
 

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