I agree with everything you said but paying out 15 million pounds for a player considered to be one of the brighteset prospects in europe does sound like they are investing for the future. Granted I understand that buying one player doesnt really constitute as investing but still.
We sold Johnson for 11 million~ pounds Even going back we still theoretically had not spent the McFadden money ~5 million IIRC until Fellaini signed. That is roughly the amount we spent on Fellaini... Now where did the other money go to? Okay, yea sure, Saha might cost some money in the future, but if its a pay-by-play basis or goals scored, then this money will help us move up further in the table, thus= more money. I'm thinking also that the fee for Nash and the loan for Castillo cost us a small 6 figure sum, and then we also have the small matter of Pienaar's 2 million pound move here. Adding up everything, Everton spent 21.2 million euros on players this summer, while receiving 13.3 million. Then we can add the McFadden money and basically...: WE BROKE EVEN THIS SUMMER TRANSFER PERIOD!!!!! What happened to the Sky money? (Well over 25 million pounds) What happened to our Premiership finish money? (I don't know how much it is, but at least an around 8 figure sum in pounds) Not to mention ticket fees, etc. etc. I know this club has operating expenses and what not, but we weren't saving the money for Kirkby anymore... Kenwright has not said a word about what the money has gone out for, and that makes this summer even more frustrating. The worst news is the fact that Moyes HAS NOT SIGNED HIS CONTRACT!! That was priority #1 of the summer and I think Kenwright has a lot of the blame here (although Moyes is not infalliable either).
yeah the whole breaking even thing is going to piss people off, and rightly so with the information we have. If they have more debt going on and such they need to be honest with us and not give us false hope... the only other possible explanation is that the players they wanted just weren't let go by the clubs we were negotiating with, that the money was there. but honestly if that's the case, where's the rest of the deadline day back-up plans? Good analysis TOLH.
You're right. However you can have all the depth you want. You still start and play with eleven. So sure, just about every team in the league has better depth than we do. Of course I could have said that last year too and we finished 5th. In fact, I could probably say that about our squad over the past 5 years. But if anyone wants to tell me that our potential starting eleven this year isn't an improvement over last year's starting eleven, I'd love to take issue with that because it's patently not true. Spending money guarantees one thing and one thing only. That you've spent money. That's it. We've seen examples (Newcastle and Spurs immediately spring to mind) of clubs spending much much more than we have year in and year out and what has it gotten them? Not much really. But they do have the depth, I'll give you that. (EDIT: I agree with you that we need 5 or 6 quality new players. Problem is that 5 or 6 quality new players pretty much requires the transfer budgets of the big three, something Everton haven't had since I've been supporting them.)
I think they've definitely improved their starting XIs though. Lets look at this. Pompey added Crouch, Kaboul and Belhadj, all improvements over Kanu, Campbell and Hreidarsson Villa got Friedel, Guzan, Cuellar, Milner, Nicky Shorey, and Luke Young. They've at least matched their last years squad w/ Cuellar and Young and improved everywhere else. Everyone knows Man City's and Hotspurs' changes. They've improved significantly. You look at our side, and the only real improvement I see is Fellaini>Carsley. Carlo Nash and Wessels are a wash, their both disasters in my book. Lars Jacobsen might be better than Pip or Hibbo, but we don't know how he will adjust to the Premier League. Segundo Castillo might be a revelation...I actually think he will have a very good year for us and have a similar impact as Pienaar last year, but we just don't know for sure if thats going to happen. Louis Saha when fit is better than AJ and Faddy, but we really aren't sure are we? In January, if we get Vagner Love, I actually don't think he's an improvement at all to AJ either, because I think he's vastly overrated and does not have the Moyes' players commitment or drive. Having said this, everyone has improved not only depth-wise, but also their starting XI have changed so that they are real contenders to our 5th spot, if not the Champions League spots. We will have to work much more harder this year if we are to reach the same heights I'm afraid. Another thing I've noticed with our side and everyone competing with us is that we don't really have anyone with blazing pace any more. In fact, I think the fastest player on our side now is Yobo, and he's a center back! Arteta, Pienaar, Osman (especially Osman) are not exactly pacy players, and the addition of Fellaini and Castillo don't strike me as pace burners as well (Fellaini especially). Everyone else has pace to burn it seems.
Now that I think about it, we probably gained money. If I know Kenwright, he will pay probably installments of money (something like 3 million pound per each year of Fellaini's 5 year contract). So in reality, we probably paid 3 million this year for Fellaini...
Stephen Hunt of Reading says he wanted to come to Everton, but we wouldn't pay the 5 million up front to trigger his get-out clause. http://www.football365.com/story/0,17033,8652_4087679,00.html
I thought I'd throw some names out there, which were interesting Blackburn & West Ham- Bresciano currently at Palermo, or Holman at AZ Alkmaar. Bresc would've been a very good pick up at around 5 million and Holman at 2.5 million. Holman would've been a decent back up player, and Bresc would be good enough to start for most EPL clubs. Maybe Timmy C should've got in Moyes's ear a bit more?
I wouldn't really want Bresciano to be honest, if we were to buy a winger he'd have to have more pace than Bresciano. Isn't Holman a LB? We have enough LBs as is.
They've improved their clubs. To what degree is questionable. To the degree that they've overtaken Everton when comparing starting elevens? I don't think as much. I do agree that it will be harder than last year to get that 5th or 6th spot again (especially with the start we've had) but it's not out of the realm of possibility. I wish we had added a creative, attacking midfielder type during the window but it wasn't to be. If the Moutinho deal had gone through, oooh boy, look out. I guess we'll have to wait for January to see if we can ever get him wrapped up in Everton blue.
you can't just compare starting xi's though. it's a long season, and if everton make a run in the uefa cup, it'll be an even longer season. players get injured and get tired. without depth, it'll be tough to make runs in both league and cup. not to mention the fa cup, etc. everton's starting xi is strong, sure. but you can't expect to play the same players every game. you need depth.
we'll have depth... having the youngsters adds back up for the occasional game. we basically replaced all but 2/3 guys that didn't really play last year at all. Hopefully with the surgeries that were in off-season, several injuries are things of the past (i really hope cahill's foot doesn't get injured again, and arteta's ab problem etc) if we get a couple of knocks here and there down the road, I think that the new guys and the youngsters will have had enough time to play together, gain confidence and come together to play on. Have we, as a squad, gotten better? I think we might have... Fellaini is an upgrade from carsley by all accounts, and castillo is young but hasn't he been a star of his country's u-23 or such? saha sounds like an upgrade from AJ (as much as that pains me ) and with pienar, cahill, hibbo etc back from injuries soon our squad is in prime position to make a good run. giving guys with small knocks a rest for a week is also an option now (ie putting in baxter for vaughan for the majority of a game) 1 young'un with 10 first team ppl should be good. Time will tell if this works for us. but i'm really confident we can do just as well if not better than last year... I just hope we don't have a demoralising loss like fiorentina at home last year
Well since that was my response to Old Lady Hertha regarding starting elevens and supposed improvements in the other teams around us, my response regarding comparing ours to theirs was warranted. I'm not debating the issues of squad depth as anyone who's followed Everton for a certain length of time knows that we've never really had any. Yeah, if we get another bad run of injuries, we're in trouble, no two ways about it. But when it comes to the Spurs and Villas of the Premier League, I'll take our starting eleven over theirs every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
I was watching the UNAM - Dynamo game last night and the announcers were talking about something I hadn't heard yet. Rumor is that UNAM midfielder Efraín Juárez will be joining us in January or the summer. Anyone else watch the game or hear this?
That's interesting, I know for a fact he trained with us last year, I think it was, when he left Barca, think the deal couldn't go through cos he couldn't get a work permit so there might be something in it...
I didn't know he had trained with us...or I did but forgot when it fell through. He looked good in the game last night. Made a nice goal off a half volley that went perfectly into the side netting.
Yeah Barca wanted to loan him to us but he wanted to come permanently and Barca wouldn't let him. He left on a free eventually and we tried to sign him but the move fell through. Very highly rated so I hear, should have improved playing regularly as well. He is good friends with Vela and Giovani Dos Santos.