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Club Direction

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brieverton said:
We have to accept we have very limited pull, and we have to get the balance right with new signings.

Of course there is room for experienced players in their late 20s who will improve us immediately. And older if on a free.

That type of business though has to be limited.

There is enough time left, but we do need to compliment each expensive and older-profile type signing with one that could help turn a profit and balance the books a few years down the line. Ideally such younger players would not leave at all and be a mainstay in the side for a decade.

We can assume there is depth to the Allan and Doucouré links, but whilst Allan in particular seems an clear upgrade, I hope to be convinced in the next few weeks that we are taking a more strategic view on transfers. It's fine that Allan was Carlo's player, and Arias was Brands. They might think now that even Koeman is worth a call, for the next batch of Barca rejects.

I don't think we'll build a team that way. We can pitch for the best young players, under a world-class manager. Some of them may say Carlo who?. Come here, only for a few years if need be, get your game regularly, improve your game, and we won't stand in your way with career progression.

We need to look at Spurs, Atletico Madrid (although not recently for either) Lille, Borussia Dortmund, Atalanta, Leipzig. The niche is there for a Premiership club to develop along these lines. We have to maximise the cards we are dealt.
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I think the days of getting deals for Barca players have now gone, for the time being anyway. I believe Koeman can be a very petty and bitter man, and he deffo holds a grudge.

On to Real i guess...
 
Dymak said:
We should be aiming for success, not another repeat of the last 30 years. If disappointment happens then so be it, we will have to live with it like we have done for decades, but we shouldn't be setting being knocked out of the FA Cup as a target, or as a measure of success.

I went on a Watford forum the other day, and someone described us as the Middlesbrough of the North West. It's hard to argue, when you see numerous people, not just yourself, talk about finishing 8th and being knocked out of the FA Cup as a measure of success.
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I never said finishing 8th and getting knocked out of the cup would be a measure of success though. What I said was, we need to be patient a bit longer as fans whilst a rebuild is in progress to get our club to where we all want it to be. The cups and 8th place thing was me saying that I personally would feel more confident that we were on the right track and moving in the right direction. Then we can take stock (well, the powers that be can) and decide on what's needed to get us to the next stage of where we want to be.
 
Going nowhere at the moment. Could buy our way out but FFP now restricts. And i dont trust the recruitment anyway. Alex iwobi has knocked me for six that we dont even know what we're doing.
Nothing nore than fingers crossed something clicks this season.
 

chopper6 said:
couldn’t agree more. So sick of seeing posters whinge about player ages. It’s like we’ve just signed Gaza, Ginola etc.

Get a grip people
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I’m not concerned with the ages of prospective signings. I’m more concerned that some of our 20odd year olds sometimes look more like 50odds who hate their job. Is it the park end getting on their cases, or is something else going on?
 
Dymak said:
I don't subscribe to this idea of linear progression, I'm afraid. I don't think you need to finish 6th before you are allowed to finish in the top 4. I don't think Leicester, Wolves or Sheffield United subscribe to this idea either.
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I don't get your point then.

Obviously we all want Everton to win the league next year, but we have to be realistic, thats not going to happen.
 
Debunkology said:
It seems to be a lack of patience.

From our board and the fans.
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Dunno about that. 25 years without a trophy the size of Everton. Fan wise id say thats pretty patient.
Past 4 years is soley down to awful recruitment. Managers and players. I think the due diligence on players has been a shocker. No thought at all into character of players. Hence we have ended up with expensive players going through the motions. It makes me sick some of the players we have. Real gutless. Most have nothing about them. I can forgive if they're not good enough but the gutless rolling over is unacceptable.
 
Arteta10 said:
I don't get your point then.

Obviously we all want Everton to win the league next year, but we have to be realistic, thats not going to happen.
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My point is that we should be aiming to win the cup competitions, not to get knocked out of them, and that we should be aiming to progress beyond the mid-table purgatory of the last 20 years.

We should be properly aiming to qualify for the Champions League, not in a 'anything is possible' kind of way, but in an 'it's entirely possible and should be our expectation' kind of way.
 
Dymak said:
My point is that we should be aiming to win the cup competitions, not to get knocked out of them, and that we should be aiming to progress beyond the mid-table purgatory of the last 20 years.

We should be properly aiming to qualify for the Champions League, not in a 'anything is possible' kind of way, but in an 'it's entirely possible and should be our expectation' kind of way.
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But do you think it is possible with the squad we've currently got to finish top 4 next year?

Personally I dont think so.

But I do think it could be possible in 2 or 3 years if we make the right additions year on year, which is why i would be relatively happy with 8th place and a semi final appearance this year, we would be at least going in the right direction
 

Kever10 said:
Of course you are allowed an opinion. But if you want to get defensive, so is everyone and you regularly challenge other peoples.

You ask why I'm talking about the stadium, suggesting I'm then answering points you didn't make, because you and the OP were OBVIOUSLY talking about the team, and only the team. In a thread called "Club Direction", with the opening line of the thread being "I really can’t understand where this club is going at the moment."

Well, the 2 are inextricably linked. As I mentioned, 1 of our biggest obstacles into achieving the growth we need is our ability to legally finance it. The stadium and its increased revenue with help with that in the long run. But for the time being, we are hamstrung.

The stadium, along with the appointment of Ancelotti, also both point towards the general ambition of the board, which is important in terms of measuring or assessing any supposed direction we are headed in.

You both claim a lack of direction in our signings, even though we haven't yet made any, but I questioned the logic of questioning the potential introduction of experienced players in favour of young talent. My reasoning being that there needs to be a balance of getting the team ready and able to compete, or at least improve in the short term, to give us a platform to introduce younger players further down the line. We could go and sign 4 or 5 '18-22' year old players with potential, but naturally, we would need to give them time to settle in and grow. They may have maybe 100 games worth of experience each, and we would expect them to not only instantly improve us, but give much needed experience to the promising young players we already have?

If you ask anyone where the current strengths of this team are, they would all, to a man, name 7 or 8 of the same players, all of whom are 23 or under. Ask the same question of what we lack, and other than Pickford, it's midfield mobility, experience, leadership, drive, and upgrades to positions where we have older players who are deemed past it or not good enough. It appears to me as though all of the players we are being linked with, address these very issues.

In terms of my bizzare statement on your guesswork, I am referring to the fact that you make assumptions on both immediate and long term improvement based on the quality of players we are signing. I'm assuming this has more to do Doucoure and less about Allan, given their respective teams and reputations. You may say its being realistic, and maybe 7th or 8th is a realistic step. But it's the overall negativity surrounding it which is what irks me. It would be realistic to want and to expect to achieve a gradual improvement. It is negative to suggest that gradual improvement is not good enough or fast enough. It is unrealistic to expect that we should be competing straight away. So while you may try and dress it as realism, it's genuinely not.

I'm not a happy clapper, I have been and can be as cynical as any when it comes to Everton. But I'm trying to offer some perspective to those who's heads are falling off because we haven't gone and signed 5 of the best players in the world in 1 fell swoop and turned us into title contenders that we deserve to be.

I'm wanting us to get behind Ancelotti, as genuinely 1 of, if not THE BIGGEST appointment we could have made, and indeed, have made in decades. There are signs for optimism, you just have to choose to see them.
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I have no issue with people challenging my opinion, the issue is that you appear to have completely misrepresented what my opinion actually is. You can play semantics if you want but neither the OP that I referenced or my post mentioned anything other than the team. If you want to pretend that just because the title of the thread says club we must have been talking about the stadium etc as well then you're welcome to, but it would be a bit weird.

You've responded twice as if I made a scathing attack on the club and said everything was terrible, but I didn't at all, because that's not what I think. You're going on about ambition as if i've claimed we don't have any. When did i say that? I have no doubt at all that the club has ambition, my issue is that i'm not sure we have a clear idea on how to fulfil it.

I have not made negative assumptions about where the players will take us. I specifically said you never know what will happen, they could take us to the title for all I know. I'm just giving my personal opinion on their level of ability, anybody is more than welcome to disagree with me. That's why it's bizarre to say it's just guesswork, of course it is what else could it ever be from a fan? Personally I don't think the top 4 will be looking at the three players I mentioned and thinking we're going to be hot on their tails. It doesn't mean we can't overperform and catch them, but realistically I think they're players who would just make a better version of what we currently are, rather than completely revolutionising the side. I called you a happy clapper because you appear to be making out like anyone who isn't saying everything is wonderful and we should all be thrilled is just being negative and their 'heads are falling off'. How you can come to the conclusion my head was falling off from my post I really don't know. I basically just said I think it's fair to ask what our plan is. You're welcome to think there is one, I very much hope you're right but I can't see what it is myself, and you haven't even come close to explaining it to me, unless it's 'Carlo is boss and everything will work out because of that'.

Somebody said today on another thread that it seems like every time we hit a bump in the road we rip the whole thing up and start again, and that's kind of what I was getting at. Brands came in when we'd finished 7th and 8th in the previous 2 seasons, and it was widely accepted that we were underperforming. We're now in a situation where people are saying it would be good to finish 8th again, after spending another £250m. Forgive me if that doesn't seem like evidence of a clear plan coming to fruition.
 
Eggsyblueskin said:
We need experience but we can only attract 2nd rate.
We need quality so we have to take a chance on buying and developing young players .
To gain success we will have to somehow square this particular circle.
It isn’t easy or straightforward.
And it certainly won’t happen within this season,
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The greatest Midfield we ever had consisted of a 23 year old and two 24 year olds when they won the league. One played in an FA cup final aged 17 and another won a World Cup medal aged 21, one won an FA cup aged 22. We had this old striker of 29 in the 80’s who won an FA cup, League Title and Cup Winners Cup.

I don’t care how old any player is. I only care about what they bring to the team and the pitch and have a winning mentality.....
 

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