Truth be told I really wanted us to go for him. Him and Skipp were key to everything Norwich did last season (and one of the main reasons they're struggling this year). He tore the Championship to shreds but has struggled to lift his game to a PL level. Had a decent performance this afternoon and could well benefit from Coutinho's arrival. In any event, I'd still prefer him over Ndombele, Lo Celso or Dele. In fact i'd prefer a kick in the arse to any of them so maybe that's not the most reliable yardstick..
I’d at least try to upgrade on those three with someone relatively decent though. We’d be swapping really crap for crap. Buendia seems a player who’ll excel in the Championship but only be able to turn up for about 6-7 games in the Prem. Now Coutinho on the other hand… he had the asterisk to his name due to lack of game time over the last 12-18 months but the quality is undeniable. Fun fact - Coutinho already has as many league goals for Villa as Lo Celso does for Spurs.
Pound for pound he's been a poorer signing than Ndombele but Ndombele is just a massive lazy prick that it amplifies his failure.
We are all agreed that our transfer business has been poor, but as rumours of an emergency board meeting at Everton tonight got me discussing at work as to whether they were even worse at buying players than we are. Now admittedly they have not paid as big a fee as we have for both our recent major flops. But the following players have all cost over £20m in the last 6 seasons Godfrey, Allan, Doucoure, Iwobi, Kean, Richarlison, Gbamin, Mina, Siggurdsson, Keane, Pickford, Klassen, Walcott, Tosun, Bolasie, Schneiderlin. There are a few successes amongst those but its not an inspiring list.
They’ve done worse, got significant investment from Moshiri but wasted it on duds. That said, I’d take Godfrey, Richarlison and Pickford (back up) at Spurs over some of the dross we have seen signed.
They're 100% worse than we are in the market, pound for pound the worst in the league I believe based on money spent and returns (league position/ net spend etc). It’s madness how bad their spending has been. Anyone that sanctioned spending £40m on Iwobi should be sent to a mental hospital. Even the successes in that list haven’t been revelations and very few would actually be sold for a profit if they left right now. The one guy that was a real success I’d say left for Villa the other day for about a £7m profit. I will credit them though in the sense that their horrific success rate hasn’t stopped them from trying to sign more players. I mean they’ll still likely be ****, but gotta admire their heart.
Everton are where West Ham were a few years back. Absurd turnover of managers and continuous panic buys as they tried desperately to punch above their weight. At the end of the day, as prehistoric as most Hammers fans are, it was the increasingly violent protests that got Gould, Sullivan and Cruella de Ville to leave cuckooland and actually pursue a realistic long term strategy paved with sensible decisions. It's reaching that point at Everton no question. Silva, Koeman, Ancelotti and Benitez were just bizarre appointments albeit for widely different reasons that all point to a lack of a coherent vision from the top. We're seeing similar here in all honesty.
One way to look at it is to look at their first team business in the two seasons either side of Farhad Moshiri showing up in early 2016 (basically to avoid taking punts on 18-20 years old that didn't pan out) 2013-15 Successes: James McCarthy, Joel Robles, Romelu Lukaku, Gareth Barry, Mo Besic, Mason Holgate, Romero Funes Mori, Aaron Lennon Failures: Aiden McGeady, Arouna Kone, Antolin Alcaraz, Brendan Galloway, Samuel Eto'o, Tom Cleverley, Gerard Delofeu, Leandro Rodriguez, Oumar Niasse 2016-18 Successes: Idrissa Gueye, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Jordan Pickford, Michael Keane, Wayne Rooney, Gylfi Sigurdsson*, Richarlison, Lucas Digne, Bernard Failures: Maarten Stekelenberg, Ashley Williams, Yannick Bolasie, Ademola Lookman, Morgan Schneiderlin, Davy Klaasen, Sandro Ramirez, Cuco Martina, Nikola Vlasic, Cenk Tosun, Theo Walcott, Yerry Mina There's a pretty clear difference there, as in the years before Moshiri showed up for every successful signing there was one that wasn't which is an acceptable batting average and Niasse is the only one on the list you can really call an expensive flop, but post-Moshiri the ratio of failures to successes has certainly skewed and also coincides with the increase in spend as they're paying increased fees yet experiencing an increase in the number of flops - and, frankly, the summer of 2018 where they signed Richarlison, Digne, Bernard and Mina is the only reason the ratio looks somewhat balanced It's also interesting a few of their flops were heavily linked with us first, off the top of my head Sandro Ramirez, Ademola Lookman and Cenk Tosun definitely were
Everton's main problem has been their impatience. When you're not qualifying for European competition, anybody that you spend £30m, £40m or £50m on, is likely to have an issue - they're either just having their first good season, often in a weaker league, or are close to being on the way down, or a punt, or have a reason why clubs enjoying more success, with more money, haven't bought them. The odd one or two will come good, but most are available to your club for a reason and buying a load of them, all at once, won't work. A club looking to rise up the table, outside the totally doped clubs - City or Chelsea and Newcastle (in the years ahead), need to put in the hard work to get into the EL, then look at capitalizing on a bad year to break into the CL. That takes a few years and building a unit of players and improving on them bit by bit. Having a decent sized core of British players wouldn't seem to be a bad idea, either. Even after winning the league, Leicester are doing this, so are Villa. It served us well. Knowing the financial implications of building a new stadium and Everton's lack of commercial income and sporting success, If I was a fan, I'd be a bit worried about the next few years.
Leeds have seven teenagers on the bench. Asked if they considered trying to postpone, Bielsa replied: "No, no. We don’t have any reasons to ask for it." Doesn't stop some people...
"Having a good season" West Ham level again against "having a bad season" Leeds (2-2 as I write). Leeds surely have more injuries than postponement artists Arsenal, they've even lost two more today, making their current onfield performance against Wet Spam pretty good. Perhaps Leeds should send some players to the ACON (it probably won't matter to the PL that they weren't requested for the tournament), or better still send out some on loan.
Raphina is such a good player. Proof that if you are able to look beyond the Ndombeles, NJies and Nkoudous of this world, Ligue 1 does have some talent up for grabs.
