Steve_E

 

I think lately the pecking order for attacking midfield/wing attackers was:

 

1. Eden Hazard and Kevin De Bruyne (guaranteed)

3. Dries Mertens

4. Yannick Carrasco

 

(at this point Wilmots would rather throw in Origi on the wing or change system)

 

5. Nacer Chadli (former darling of Wilmots, not sure what happened cause he's better now than he used to be)

6. Kevin Mirallas

7. Adnan Januzaj

Unless Hazard, De Bruyne, Mertens, Carrasco and Origi are injured, they are all but guaranteed to be above Mirallas in the pecking order in the future as well imo. While there's a possibility of Mirallas having a better season than Chadli (due to Chadli having stronger competition for a starting spot at his club), I think Chadli is a better player than Mirallas as well. And if they do need to add another winger to the squad, I think it's becoming more likely that they'd give Musonda a chance rather than recall Mirallas.

reminds me of the distin transfer - he was a few months older than Williams when he signed for us. 7 years on for £7m more? great value.

Distin being a freak of nature doesn't mean everyone is.

Gutted to see him go. Only player at the club with world class potential.

 

Well that's not true:

 

Van Dijk

Clasie

Martina

Cedric

Redmond

Tadic

Austin

Pelle

Romeu

Mane

Forster

Juanmi

Djuricic (loan, never signed)

Elia (loan, never signed)

Stekkers (loan, never signed)

Caulker (loan, never signed)

Alderweireld (loan, never signed)

 

Of those signed basically during the Koeman era, only Austin and Redmond had played in the premier league before. Loan's don't count, since if you are paying high price for a loan, you don't have time to develop them. You need immediate proven cover. Of the signings Redmond isn't exactly experienced premier league, he's still young. So basically Austin is our only proven premier league signing.

He seems to have it now (that he can afford them).

SSN reporting the £12m fee agreed now, and that he'll have his medical thus afternoon and sign a 2 year deal.

6m plus wages a year. He better utterly transform that defense while he's here.

 

Not a bad tactic though. At least you know what you're getting and you know they wont need time to 'bed in'.

Hasn't worked out for Liverpool in recent years. And why did we have to wait until we got a director of football and then pay a tonne of money for one, only for the club to then go on to pay a shit tonne of money to players someone who occasionally watches MOTD could have identified?

Apparently there'll be an option to buy Galloway in the contract.

He seems to have a thing for experienced Premier League players.

(It will of course be interesting to see what happens with the national team!)

Don't think he'd stand much of a chance of making the team, regardless of who's manager.

Bit drastic mate! He's only 23 and we've given plenty of others a chance to recover and prove themselves.

We bought him two years ago and he hasn't been able to establish himself. Now he might miss the best part of his third season and who knows how he recovers from that. I'm not saying we're going to sell him (in part because it's also going to be difficult, given what I've just said), but I doubt he's going to have an impact on the Everton team in the future (similar to Gibson, I don't think he's ever going to have an impact on an Everton team again).

I don't agree at all with the controversial ones. I've defended McCarthy multiple times and also accepted that he's been poor more recently, but he could still be a good player, especially if we're playing a pressing game (finally). Based on his recent performances of the last 18 months, due to a mix of poor management, injuries, team morale and confidence, etc. I wouldn't say he's a starter anymore but he is certainly a solid squadie at the very least and, if used correctly, could be an ideal player in RKs new style and vision.

 

As for Mo, the lad could be a star if he stays fit. Considering the time afforded to Oviedo, I don't seem him going anywhere any time soon and rightly so.

 

Koné, Niasse, McGeady is already nearly 150k a week of the bill and the only ones that deserve mentioning. Calls for Barry, Lennon, Garbutt, etc are bemusing!

I wouldn't sell him (yet) as we do indeed need squad players, but it seems like standing off is in his genes.

That could be the end of his Everton career imo.

Based on the amount of goals he seems to have scored with his head, he could be a great partner for Deulofeu.

Hope it's not true. We're not paying Steve Walsh to sign players someone watching MOTD could have 'scouted' (seeing as we're also after Ashley Williams, Scott Dann and José Fonte for the centre back position), are we?

Yes, please!

So it looks like Holgate has passed Galloway in the eyes of the coaching staff based on preseason playing time?

 

Yes, yes it does.

England's done with experts, hadn't you heard?

Used the search function, couldn't find anything for him.

 

He's really impressing in Pre-season and is for the most part, being played out of position.

 

There's reports claiming he'll be getting a new contract shortly. Koeman VERY impressed with him.

He hasn't particularly impressed since being played in midfield though. I'm very excited about him, but he's not ready yet.

 

He'll be good for another 4 years.

There's no way of knowing that. And he's never been all that special anyway imo. Jagielka in his prime was better and we should have upgraded on him last summer or the year before if we wanted to keep on challenging for Europe.

Would be an absolute top bit of business from us to sign a defender in his prime at 10 million. The lads hasn't missed many games in the past 4 seasons and is fit as a fiddle. One of the best centre half's in the league and a leader we've been lacking on the field since Neville left.

He's turning 32 in three weeks. He isn't in his prime, he's nearing the end of his career.

well, that answers a lot of my questions having been away for a bit...

 

Edit: who's the midfielder? Can't find anything on the OS

Nothing official yet, but looks like Idrissa Gueye from Villa is close to a deal.

They're doing what we should have done with Jagielka two seasons ago.

Better than Jagielka though.

Will Williams still be a starting quality player a year from now, or two years from now? Why not invest the money into someone who will be? I would find this very strange and good business for Swansea.

Midtable player imo.

Remember that Anderlecht players are typically expensive. It's the only Belgian team where you hardly ever get a good deal. Genk, Club Brugge and Standard are typically better quality for price. Kevin De Bruyne, Thibault Courtois, Carlos Bacca, Axel Witsel, Junior Malanda (God rest his soul), Ivan Perisic and so on were all sold for very little (all under 10 million) and grew to be top class or world class footballers, either way, they all at least tripled their transfer fees in their next transfers (Malanda would have easily done so and for Courtois it's more as a figure of speech).

 

Anderlecht is a different case though. They successfully profiled themselves at the "elite" of Belgium (in reality, the top teams in Belgium are usually pretty equal). So be weary. Mbodj is not the kind of prolific top talent that belongs in that little list of mine up here. Kabasele (now at Watford since this summer) and Engels are considered better, more solid central defenders from the Belgian competition. But who knows, Mbodj is by no means a bad player, he's Anderlecht's best CD.

Napoli bought Kalidou Koulibaly from Genk for 6.5m as well and he was better than Mbodj.