Amen, brother! Still a few hours left... Interesting that there was no mention of the rumored injury issues with VDM.
The football365 article (http://www.football365.com/news/story_161711.shtml) does mention the injury, but with no real details: Van der Meyde came through a medical - despite arriving in England with a groin strain - as Everton beat the midnight transfer deadline. The groin injury could delay his debut but Everton are optimistic Van der Meyde will soon be available to boss David Moyes.
The Dutch wide man has been in talks with the Goodison Park outfit this week but the Merseysiders wanted a second opinion on his groin injury. Looks like the fee was 2million GBP and it will probably be 2 to 3 weeks before we see him play. Now lets get robbie keane tied up
So ... that's that, then. We addressed needs in the midfield (Neville, AVM) and at outside back (Ferrari, Valente), but nothing in the way of forwards. That leaves us with Beattie, Bent, Ferguson, McFadden and Vaughan to lead the line until the January window opens. Looks like we'll be relying on more goals from midfield....
I think that Vaughan will start to play a lot more. Why pay over the odds for Nugent or Keane if we have a nugent already in Vaughan? In Moyes we trust!
Excellent news about Van der Meyde. I'm not too worried about a striker. Yeah, we could handle a few more goals, but I think once the defense gets settled and healthy, we won't NEED to score as many goals to win. I'm slightly more optimistic about this season.
You're not worried about our strikers? Wow. We have one guy who's all hustle and little finishing (Bent), another who can't stay healthy (Beattie), one who has yet to prove he can hack it at this level (McFadden), one who's at the end of his rope (Ferguson) and the latest 17-year-old wunderkinde (Vaughan). We're supposed to make another run at Europe with that?
I have to say I'm pretty pissed off that we didn't add an extra striker. Although I heralded Beattie as the second coming last January, he has yet to settle in and we definitely cannot rely on the others to be real "take-two-touches-and-lash-one" strikers with killer instincts. I am optimistic about Vaughan, but I would have loved to have seen us grab a Nathan Ellington, Henri Camara, Darius Vassell, Darren Bent, or Jonathan Stead. Oh well - I'm definitely pleased with the depth we've added in the other areas.
More than anything, I just wanted to see us add a speed burner ... someone to complement all the size we're packing up top. As it is, we may have to rely on brute force alone to get us through the first half of the season.
We did pretty well last year with the strikers we have. I hope that Beattie can get his ass in gear and do what we all know he can do. I have no problems with Bent, despite the finishing problems and I don't count McFaddy as a striker since he can't hack it. Big Dunc will get us some key goals, as always and we'll see if Vaughan gets much first team action. Again, I think defense is key to us doing well this season, NOT offense. Yes, we need to score a few more goals. But really, we only need to score one more than the other team and if we can stop them from scoring, then one or two goals a game just might be enough to squeeze out a win.
Everton are going to sign Anderson Silva on January when he gets a EU permit. He's going to spend hte rest of the year on loan at Malaga? Don't know anything about the player but another midfield body is alright by me.