In many ways, this end to the season is perfect. We've nothing to play for and weren't gonna get Europe but at least Carlo is finding out a lot about the team and the absolute urgency for buying a better midfield.
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Going to be an interesting window, definitely.
CM is an absolute necessity - 2 x starters if finance/scouting the right targets allows. Hopefully Kenny can do a job at RB (don't think Sidibe is good enough) and a CB would be nice, but if we can bring through a U23 CB then I think Holgate and Keane (under Carlo's tutelage) are starters, with Yerry and The Kid providing backup; not ideal but allows us to focus on this horrendous midfield.
Iwobi should probably be given chance to prove himself and I agree with whoever said keep Theo as backup but the rest of our wide players aren't worth a carrot (not including Gordon in that because I am not sure he'd be a wide player long-term).
My semi-realistic wish list would be:
OUT:
Gomes (soz, I know he's handsome and that but I can't see him getting any better) - Hopefully get £15m or so from a middling La Liga side
Davies - I want to say on loan because I want him to get better, but if not take £8m-£10m from a newly-promoted side or a naive German side trying to emulate the Dortmund model (get Jonjoe to put a word in)
Siggy - Surely we could get £15m-£20m from a Serie A club? His (lack of) pace suits that league to a tee
Tosun - Honestly I don't care. Someone in Turkey can have him for a bag of Skittles
Bernard - I desperately want to love him for what he CAN do, but his deficiencies are so glaring and I can't see him overcoming them. Maybe Villareal as a replacement for Cazorla?
Other than Kenny, the players on loan can all GTFO if we find buyers, and all. Obvs that means we're stuck with Sandro and Bolasie for another year...
IN:
CM destroyer - Would love Gbamin to get/stay fit and be a powerhouse, but what are the chances?
CM - The kind of player loads of you think Gomes is would be nice
LW - Assuming we're sticking with 4-4-2. Would be good to find a partner for Digne that would hark back to the Baines/Pienaar glory days. Someone who has the confidence to come inside, make room for the overlap and actually gets in the box and weighs in with 5-10 goals a season
RW - Someone with the Walcott pace (of old) and work ethic to get back and help out but with some semblance of an end product. Anything more than disastrous decision making would be a upgrade
ST - I haven't suggested dumping Kean because I continue to hope Carlo can get the lad under his wing and bring out his potential, but he probably won't. With the (lack of) funds at our disposal this will probably be a loan, or another punt on a promising youngster.
TL;DR: We're garbage.
CM is an absolute necessity - 2 x starters if finance/scouting the right targets allows. Hopefully Kenny can do a job at RB (don't think Sidibe is good enough) and a CB would be nice, but if we can bring through a U23 CB then I think Holgate and Keane (under Carlo's tutelage) are starters, with Yerry and The Kid providing backup; not ideal but allows us to focus on this horrendous midfield.
Iwobi should probably be given chance to prove himself and I agree with whoever said keep Theo as backup but the rest of our wide players aren't worth a carrot (not including Gordon in that because I am not sure he'd be a wide player long-term).
My semi-realistic wish list would be:
OUT:
Gomes (soz, I know he's handsome and that but I can't see him getting any better) - Hopefully get £15m or so from a middling La Liga side
Davies - I want to say on loan because I want him to get better, but if not take £8m-£10m from a newly-promoted side or a naive German side trying to emulate the Dortmund model (get Jonjoe to put a word in)
Siggy - Surely we could get £15m-£20m from a Serie A club? His (lack of) pace suits that league to a tee
Tosun - Honestly I don't care. Someone in Turkey can have him for a bag of Skittles
Bernard - I desperately want to love him for what he CAN do, but his deficiencies are so glaring and I can't see him overcoming them. Maybe Villareal as a replacement for Cazorla?
Other than Kenny, the players on loan can all GTFO if we find buyers, and all. Obvs that means we're stuck with Sandro and Bolasie for another year...
IN:
CM destroyer - Would love Gbamin to get/stay fit and be a powerhouse, but what are the chances?
CM - The kind of player loads of you think Gomes is would be nice
LW - Assuming we're sticking with 4-4-2. Would be good to find a partner for Digne that would hark back to the Baines/Pienaar glory days. Someone who has the confidence to come inside, make room for the overlap and actually gets in the box and weighs in with 5-10 goals a season
RW - Someone with the Walcott pace (of old) and work ethic to get back and help out but with some semblance of an end product. Anything more than disastrous decision making would be a upgrade
ST - I haven't suggested dumping Kean because I continue to hope Carlo can get the lad under his wing and bring out his potential, but he probably won't. With the (lack of) funds at our disposal this will probably be a loan, or another punt on a promising youngster.
TL;DR: We're garbage.
Look at it this way at least the wasters havent bothered putting in a few token performances to try and convince Carlo they are worth keeping. The board may now realise how much they need to back Carlo
Due to our failings in previous windows, we'll be under FFP scrutiny so can't write blank cheques this summer. We'll need to sell to buy to a degree.
tim cahill
Player Valuation: £50m
Gomes has been terrible recently but I wouldn't give up on him yet. We haven't got a DM and he obviously needs one next to him. He will improve when he's got a decent partner but I'm not sure the system is suiting him well either. If we sign one good defensive midfielder and Gbamin comes back we'll be a lot stronger there.
Disgruntledgoat
Player Valuation: £50m
I think they knew that from the get go. Hence he's managing us. Unless he was tempted in by the prospect of working with Oumar Niasse.
You are assuming logic from that rabble?! Plenty of managers have been promised the earth and got FA
Disgruntledgoat
Player Valuation: £50m
I have no doubt that this summer and next he will be backed in the transfer market. I think we have to temper our expectations, however. We are not going to be challenging for honours next season, I don't think. This is a long term project.
Bullens Rd
Player Valuation: £35m
On the other side maybe the board were natively thinking these cowards we have in the squad would somehow turn around their performances under Carlo and it would mean they don't really need to dig deep to fund a new squad... could well turn out that they will him there isn't the money for a big building project and he needs to generate funds through sales. If that happens then he'll obviously tell the board where to go and join a proper football club.
considering he’s said we’re signing players and don’t need to sell our good ones
Carlito
Player Valuation: £40m
Those two on the left and right of a front three would be more than formidable.
Dymak
Player Valuation: £40m
Your aversion to older experienced professionals is well known Zat. But I'm sick and tired of buying very expensive 'potential' that turns out to be absolute cack that we can't get rid of.
There are serious doubts about Usmanov's level of involvement at Everton right now. And in fairness, there is also a concurrent 600 million pound new stadium project on the go. So maybe his assistance is going to be used there, rather than spending 25 million pound on players that need an ambulance each time that they kick a ball.
With that it mind, maybe it is time to return to the tactics of yesteryear. The transfer tactics that were seen under Moyes and Kenwright and were far more successful than what we have now. Or perhaps a mixture of the two.
1. PICK UP THE FREE TRANSFERS:
Willian walks into our team next season and the season afterwards. Maybe his quality will subside in the third year, but that's the cost of getting him on a free. Also, ANY player that enters the last year of their contract loses value. The net benefit is a big improvement on our RM for at least two years.
PSG are currently keeping hold of Thiago Silva because they will end up playing him in the Champions League final should they make it there. I really shouldn't have to explain why he would benefit us for a year or two.
Ryan Fraser. Oh how we laugh about how crap he is! And yet he's got some very decent stats and by all accounts is an aggressive Scottish dwarf! I'd much rather have an aggressive Scottish dwarf than some tiny Brazillian elf that brags about having panic attacks!
He must have a value of at least 15 million pound and he is available on a free. Go and pick him up! He would be an improvement on our awful left hand side brought in for free, at a time where we supposedly really need to be wary of FFP. If FFP is really such an issue, we'd be mad not to pick him up.
2. SELL THE CACK!
Maybe this should be done before the above, but we have an awful lot of cack to get rid of. We need to bin Bernard! He's our highest earner and he is crap! Again, if FFP is so important than selling him would be the best move we could do this summer. Get rid! Same applies to Iwobi.
Michael Keane should be sold before he reverts back to the player that he has been for the previous three years! Get 20 million plus for him and bring in one of these new highly rated defenders. Gabriel, or whoever.
If we were to sell Keane, it would only be bottom half clubs interested in him, so please don't do something daft like offering him a new contract until he's 30 or something. It's just keeping hold of bottom half players, and it would be so typical of us if we did that on the back of three weeks worth of decent form in empty stadiums. Please don't!
I don't need to go through everyone else who needs binning. You know who they are, and most of them play in central midfield. Delph, Davies, Sigurdsson, Gomes, none of them are anywhere near good enough. All of them will be on their way down to inferior teams should they somehow be sold .
BUY 3 NEW PLAYERS!
At least 2, hopefully 3. The first two should be CM's. Ancelotti rates Allan and he looks like the type of combative attacking midfielder that we need on the videos I've seen. Hojbjerg is 24 years old and in his final year at Southampton. Saints will want £30m, but they will end up getting £20m, unless they want to have a Barkley situation where he goes for 12m in January.
If we can afford a right back as well, then we should get one.
On the basis we can only afford three new players, we would then look like this.
Dodgy Pickford
Coleman Silva Gabriel Digne
Willian Hojbjerg Allan Fraser
DCL Richarlison
It may not be perfect but the midfield has been totally overhauled and much improved. The defence is at least as strong, and if we actually got Gabriel possibly even better, as he is supposedly creative as well.
I am certainly no FFP expert, as you know its very complex, but I do understand profit and loss a little and how FFP works to a degree.
A theory I've seen you post numerous times says that if we make a 50m worth of FFP on players that allows us to spend 250m on players.
But it really doesn't, cos 50m sales doesn't equal 250m to spend, the 250m has still got to be paid for the players, the business doesn't just magic 250m into it.
A few times you have said we would pay for the players over the term of their 5 year contracts, now yes you are indeed correct, according to FFP that's how its paid, but in reality, most players are bought in instalments, mostly over 2 years, not 5 years, so when you are making payments for those players, you are showing a massive loss in profit and loss, which in term impacts FFP.
Happy to help Zat.
ProZ
Player Valuation: £40m
Reminds me of the coin machine in Asda lob all the sweaty arl pennies from your roses tin and end up with a crisp note.
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