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.
