I find with the issue with Everton journalists is that they currently don't want to ask questions of the club, or at least, not tough enough ones. Then you get Myers writing what he's been told (which he will have been told, btw, I have no doubt, not saying he's lying) by whichever person he still knows at the club, and you get sycophantic weirdos who are obsessed with every word he says.
Then when someone like Joyce etc writes an opinion piece, he got slated last year/the year before. Now, he did start coming across as a bit bitter, and I believe he was cut at least partially out of the loop, as were a few others who have, magically, come back very much into the loop this summer.
The one thing that really has ruined me this summer has been James' wages going up and up every week. Reputable journalists, and ones I thought would have more about them, have shown themselves up by contradicting their own reporting. Bascombe, O'Keefe, Kirkbride – they've all done this. And that has been from the club. No surprise at all that every time James was set to move or the club were looking for another avenue, his wage just miraculously went up. The 250k story from Bascombe the other day was so predictable.
As for Brands, I don't think anyone knows what he does now. He wasn't getting the final say on any transfers this summer, that's for sure, and the deals that did get done, well it looks very much like Benitez was the driving force to the extent that I don't even think we can be certain if Brands was involved in anything more than some salary negotiations.