The Mail Bag
Pass the source, darling
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During the summer frustration, there's a lot of speculation — some thrive on it, some throw up on it. Each to their own...
Throughout the season, because of the nature of speculation surrounding the future ownership, DK etc. there's also more and more speculation. Common to all of this is posters saying that they heard it from "someone in the know".
Usually met with three responses: - Plausible (without going all Mythbusters) - Crap. Name your sources - Bollox - my mates hairdresser's cat (really tedious now by the way).
A lot of people who post on this site, believe it or not, do work in sports (including football), journalism, or financial markets (mainly private equity) that consider investment in sports "projects". The reason they post their snippets is because they think fellow Blues may be interested in hearing it. For sure we all want to see the back page (feck it — give us a signing that makes front page!) on the Echo with the scarf held aloft at Goodison. But one question to the "name your source" brigade: You may have read about the case recently in Ireland, where a journo was spared jail because she said to declare her sources would a) go against her profession, and b) likely see her, and possibly her family, dead. I'm not suggesting b) would apply to the murky world of football, yet... But if my mate, who works for X, tells me snippet Y, and I post it on ToffeeWeb, then name my source — I think I'd be as likely to receive a Christmas card from him / her, as he / she would be likely to still be in a job.
If you don't want to hear speculation — tune out. But please don't demand that sources are named. It shows you up more than the original, genuine, poster.
And MJ's monkey told me that....
Matt Traynor, Posted 07/07/2009 at 10:22:33
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I could name names of people involved in football finance deals, but I won’t, because it is none of anyone’s business, plus the names would not mean anything to anyone anyway, unless you dealt in their circles.
Tony - I do agree with you, and one of the protagonists on here last year with Moutinho was based in Singapore, but I think he’s now moved to Europe. The truth is, we’ll never know the truth. I’d gladly bet a virtual pint or two that discussions were held, then when it came to financing, it all went a bit "Kings Dock".
That said, a couple of years ago, I got a whole list of transfers from someone inside the game - none of which involved Everton, but most of which surprised me to say the least. And fair play to the guy, about 8 out of 10 came through.
The sport (whilst it still masquerades as one) does employ an awful lot of people (and a lot of awful people) behind the scenes. Anyone who works in the right sectors, who is more than vaguely interested in football, will, from time to time pick up a nugget. Whether it’s fool’s gold, only time can tell.
So, pre-season started yesterday. Apart from another repeat loan signing, and Yakubu being like a new signing, who else have we got?
Anyone heard anything?
Obviously the problem is that anyone can post and therefore for the reader there is no way to discern between someone with reasonable sources and someone winding us all up.
I do agree that its silly to ask for sources.
One solution might be for TW to maintain a list of "in the know" types and grant them some type of designation or special colour on their names which would lend more weight to their information. Nobody would have to quote a source (and the info wouldn’t be taken as gospel — just as coming from someone whom TW has checked works in a field where they may have some type of semi-reliable info).
But some crap like my mate works at Everton and he says this guy is signing.... or my cousin’s dog is mates with Phil Neville’s cat and he says this guy is signing... it’s all a load of crap and winds me up!
Probably believe 5-10% of these sources.
We were linked to Moutinho, M’bia, Tiago, Stephen Hunt, Michael Bradley, Michael Owen, Alan Smith, Wagner Love, some winger from Valencia, Riquelme again probably, etc, etc, blahdy blah, yawn, yawn. We signed none of them or any of about 50 others we were supposed to be on the verge of buying.
We ended up with Saha, Fellaini, Castillo and Nash and almost Obinna. In all those cases there was no build up, no leak, no warning until the moment they happened.
So clearly either Everton FC are utterly incompetent at completing a deal if the media get wind of it or alternatively they may be very good at covering it up until the deal is done. Who knows?
Last Summer was an utter disappointment with a net spend of nothing after the sales of McFadden and Johnson are considered. VERY LITTLE HAS CHANGED for Everton’s finances since, so don’t expect much different this Summer. We’ve already got a loan in with Jo, a couple of youngsters signed in... and any hope we had of prices dropping because of the recession have been scuppered by the madmen of Madrid, not to mention Liverpool paying a ludicrous £17.5m for a dodgy right back.
Expect little and you won’t be disappointed. Check Teletext once a day in the evening and ignore the rest of it. My only plea to Everton is that, whoever they sign this year, they get it done in the next 2 or 3 weeks so the new players can get a pre-season in and we hit the ground running — unlike last year, which was an utter farce.
When was the last time anybody was able to tell us in advance about a signing Everton have made?
It was me; I told you yesterday that Jo was coming back on a season-long loan. See... it’s right there in the Rumour Mill.
Do I get a prize?
And for years we’ve had another illiterate bloke shooting these one-liners about who we’re about to sign, who is about to buy us out "within 48 hours", or who is about to make it big from the reserves/academy. I don’t think he’s been right once, and I now delete all his mails, but someone feeds him lots of meaty stuff.
My question is this: do we actually NEED to have these rumours? I mean, if it’s going to happen, it then happens, in a day or a week. Can’t we wait that long??? Especially if we don’t actually know anything. We can then react to what actually happened, rather than getting sucked in by all the rumours, 99% of which are absolute shite.
Take last season as posted: the deals for the players we actually signed were done very quietly with the minimum (or total absence) of rumours. Surely that’s preferable isn’t it? The done deal. If you don’t like it, tough. There’s nowt any of us can do about it anyway.
I actually go on a bit of a downer now when a good player is rumoured to be coming to us because I know that usually means we’re not interested at all!
As Michael says:
the deals for the players we actually signed were done very quietly with the minimum (or total absence) of rumours. Surely that’s preferable isn’t it? The done deal. If you don’t like it, tough. There’s nowt any of us can do about it anyway
I like the rest of us am desperate to see players come in and I’m 100% impatient, which is why all the rumours start. It passes the time I suppose and theres no harm in it for those who wish to partake, but most of us have now been around long enough to know 99.999% of all ’rumours’ will end up being just rumours!
Transfer speculation, I agree one can wait.
However, that isn’t the be all end all of things people tend to be interested in.
A site I visit for another sport have a reasonably good relationship with the team and other sources so they will on occasion have good information which isn’t transfer related: one player is in the doghouse with the manager; a youth/reserve player is close to breaking through to the first team; a player is in trouble for ___ but the team is keeping it quiet but that’s why he didn’t play ... and on and on and on. There are lots of examples.
IF there were people with this type of information, it’d be nice to know which ones are semi-reliable and which are a stranger winding us up. However, I understand that’s a little difficult to manage.
For the Matt Traynor example, if you don’t know him (and maybe you email him and he can’t provide any reliable proof to you) then he doesn’t get a stamp. Someone may not want to reveal a source publicly but perhaps they’d be willing to inform TW (under an agreement to keep it quiet) so that people know it has some weight to it. IF there are these people wanting to share info it’s a rather small step which would go a long way to stopping everyone from responding with sarcastic "my best friend’s butcher’s dog’s cousin’s doorman heard ..." type mocking.
Mark Cassin, who I believe has now left Singapore and think works for AC or Inter Milan in some way shape or form, was your Moutinho / M’Bia / Love / etc. etc. man.
Not me mate. My ESPN stuff is sporadic, and purely voluntary.
And I didn’t name a source - mailbag’s passim this time last year will reveal Mark’s postings!
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1 Posted 07/07/2009 at 14:16:02
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The name that many of our fans seem to spit out on a daily basis is Mouthinio. WHY do they do it? There's no chance of getting him to come here. He plays CL footy every season with Sporting and has just re-signed for them for another 5 years.
As for Mouthinio's ability I don't rate him that much anyway as he is far too small but some of our lot think he would be the answer to all our prayers.
Good information does leak from within the club from time to time and little snippets of gossip don't do any harm but the non-stop barrage of name dropping is getting right on my tits..... Do as Bill tells you and "wait and see".