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This investment 12 months earlier would mean One or two of Payet, Shaqiri and Yarmolenko would be Everton players.
Farhad Moshiri sold 15% of Arsenal on Friday, confirmed a deal for 49.9% of Everton on Saturday, has yet to receive Premier League approval for his latest acquisition and has not got down to the nitty‑gritty of how much Roberto Martínez will have to spend during face‑to‑face talks with the club’s manager. The outline facts may indicate Bill Kenwright’s decade-long search for new investment ended overnight but the truth of the British-Iranian billionaire’s arrival at Goodison Park is quite different. The “new era” that Martínez has proclaimed will not be launched from a standing start.
Everton’s manager does not have a figure for this summer’s transfer budget but he does know that, once the 60-year-old is installed as major shareholder, the days of being outmuscled financially by the likes of West Ham United for Dimitri Payet, as he was last summer, will be over.
The club’s wage cap will be demolished this summer and the first impact will be to convince Ross Barkley, John Stones and Romelu Lukaku to remain the team’s core on long-term contracts. Some will be easier to convince than others. Martínez may prefer to buy young players with rich potential rather than the finished article but it would be out of choice, not necessity, and he can have the pick of both markets. He also accepts that an owner with resources to match Everton’s ambition means greater pressure on his own position. “We want that expectancy and with it the pressure of having to deliver,” he said. “But, remember, there is always pressure.”
A resolution to Everton’s stadium saga is also on Moshiri’s agenda for the summer. The Monaco-based businessman, who retains shares in the Russian mining and steel manufacturing company Metalloinvest, in which long‑time business partner Alisher Usmanov holds the controlling stake, plans to reach a decision on the stadium move in the close season. The options have been explored during the investment process. A redevelopment of Goodison has not been discounted but, after two failed stadium projects on Kenwright’s watch,Everton retain hope of relocating to Walton Hall Park but want backing from Liverpool City Council to do so. The city’s mayor, Joe Anderson, was informed of the imminent investment by Kenwright in London last week.
Robert Elstone, Everton’s chief executive, told the club’s annual general meeting in November that several parties had approached Kenwright. They were Moshiri, the American investors John Jay Moores and Charles Noell plus a consortium from the Middle East. Everton’s chairman, who has always liked to draw comparisons between the club of his childhood and Arsenal, is understood to have favoured a single investor with a long-term vision. The initial deal was a complicated process with Moshiri’s 49.9% representing a purchase of Robert Earl’s 23% stake plus shares diluted from Kenwright’s 26% holding and Jon Woods’s 19%. After an interim period of working alongside the Everton chairman, Moshiri has an agreement to become majority shareholder. The financial landscape at Goodison, however, will change as soon as the billionaire receives Premier League approval. “Of course it will help us keep our best players,” Martínez said before the game at Aston Villa on Tuesday night. “In our structure you’re always going to have some sort of limitations from a financial point of view. That’s where we are as a football club. Now, with a new investor this is a new beginning, it’s a new start for Everton. If we’re here, now we can go here [points up] internally in terms of budgets, in terms of facilities, in terms of wage bill. The new TV deal helps you up to a point. What we’re talking about here is a completely different approach.”
Martínez does not expect Everton to be transformed into Champions League contenders overnight. He admits the likes of Stones and Lukaku will have to buy into Moshiri’s plan to resist overtures from other Premier League and European admirers this summer.
“We need to create a football club that the player wants to be part of,” he explained. “It is no good us saying: ‘Yes, we will keep such and such.’ If they don’t want to stay it will be the wrong investment. But if ‘such and such’ want to stay, can we make them stay? The answer now is yes. It is as simple as that. Every case is an individual case. Ross Barkley, for example, is an Evertonian. He can get at Everton anything he could get at another club. And it is his club. So that’s that answer. Everyone else, we don’t know what their aims are and what they want to do but we will never lose a player now because we are unable to give him what he deserves, put it that way.”
Martínez has held talks with Moshiri – he also met Moores and Noell during their due diligence on Everton’s books – but insists the budget at his disposal, and it is not unrealistic to claim it will be the biggest in the club’s history this summer, is for another day. The Everton manager said: “We haven’t had that sort of detailed discussion yet. Everything still needs to be confirmed by the Premier League and then we’ll sit down and I’ll have to make him aware of where we are in football terms and what we need. I think it’s more about the type of person we are getting at the club.
http://www.theguardian.com/football...erto-martinez-farhad-moshiri?CMP=share_btn_tw
Martinez will most certainly have been kept in the loop.Already wondering if he'd of bought Niasse if he'd known about the takeover. My gut says no.
I'm quite happy we didnt sign Shaqiri.....think he's been gash most times ive seen him.This investment 12 months earlier would mean One or two of Payet, Shaqiri and Yarmolenko would be Everton players.
Just realised something - I no longer have to worry about a player having resale value when we sign them.
What a strange feeling.
Why would that change? It's good business practice.Just realised something - I no longer have to worry about a player having resale value when we sign them.
What a strange feeling.
Just had a similar thought about Stones and Lukaku. The feeling that if they go, we'll never get another player like them has left me. It's weird and scary.
I would hope they would both stay. I do not want to see an influx of new fancy names and faces. Just keep the squad together and strengthen the weak points which are obvious. We need younger quality versions of Pienaar/Osman, competition at RB, a quality keeper and possibly a left wing/striker. But we do not need to go crazy as team spirit has always been a strength.
This investment 12 months earlier would mean One or two of Payet, Shaqiri and Yarmolenko would be Everton players.
We don't need that many keepers chiefLooks like we will be increasing the contract length of a few players now (Oviedo/Besic) and then will most likely see Martinez sit down with Stones, Barkley and Lukaku once Moshiri purchase has been passed.
At that point i imagine Moshiri /Kenwright will have already sat down with Martinez and gone over budgets and positions to be filled so Elstone can get on the case.
We need the following positions strengthened:
GK -- Rico/Leno/Pickford/Butland/Horn/Karius/Ter Stegen
CM -- Neves/B.Silva/O.Torres/Niguez/Tielemans
LW -- Yarmolenko
One of the CMs above would be competing with Besic. I'd ideally like to also see a second one signed as well who could take over from Barry and be the new "pivot" in the team...a new "Busquets" type.
Some of the names above may be impossible but i'd hope for that profile of player who are open to a move (Yarmolenko/Torres) or could be attainable (Neves/Pickford) for the right money.
So, 3 perhaps 4 players. Keep the squad small after removing the out of contract players and push for top 4 next season knowing the team/squad will continue to improve with massive potential.