Even Rooney wasn’t chomping at the bit to be transfered.

Bill will see an excuse to get some cash into his Kirkby pot and I’m convinced Lescott will be sold. We won’t be told the truth, of course. Bill finds that sort of thing inconvenient and "boring".

Mediocrity — got to love it.

Rooney was chomping at the bit? I am sure he put in a transfer request and then kissed his Utd badge every time he scored against us. As for Lescott, if the price is right, I think he will go; City can offer him more money and that's that, but Kenwright has a lot to answer for and is not blameless in these situations we need rid of him asap.

Mark - Rooney was desparate to get away, reportedly pleading on the ’phone to BK to let him go.

Whether the lad was badly advised or just needed to get out of the City, what with everything that was going on, there’s little doubt he was pushing hard to go.

I agree though, I think Lescott will go, we just have to take City for as much as possible.

Fair points Bill, and I hope he stays. But now here’s a reason why he will go: a reported £80,000 a week salary. And in all honesty I can hardly blame him.

Given ’Middle East’ link Lescott might want to wait around for a while and get a massive payrise at a good club like Everton.

Why Lescott will go.

£90,000 a week deal.

Say no more.

I (obviously) like Lescott, but if we get a good price (£25m+) then I would take it. We have cover there and I have faith in Moyes to unearth another gem.The annoying thing tho is people banging on about BK and how we won't get ’the truth’.

Well just in case Lescott goes, here is the truth behind it: he will be paid more, and the club will get a wedge of cash. No club in the world can avoid selling their best players sometimes. It happens. It does not mean BK is up to any mischief at all.

I don’t want Joleon to go but I have a feeling he could be on his way. I’m not sure what we paid for him (£4M I think) but, if we did let him go for £25-30M, it's not a bad return on our investment.

Tony - good job you’re here!

I, like Rob, am also fucken naive.

To save my blushes also, please let me in on the real reason Lescott would be sold?

Catch 22... now that the ... er ... baseless rumours of the UAE have been quashed.

Lescott goes... Kenwright gets another ’Rooney’ type ’get out of jail free card’... we lose a very good player — but Moyes (hopefully) makes major improvements to our first team.

Lescott stays and we keep a very good player but are still playing hoofball for the majority of next season with a badly balance midfield which lacks creativity.

Anybody who has a go at Lescott by stating that any player who is turned by money "is not the type of player we want at Everton" really should engage their brains.

Bill,
This is silly season. Therefore Lescott will (unfortunately) go. He will then do a "Gareth Barry" and try and justify something that is simply non-justifiable.

He will say things like "I am moving so that I have a better chance of getting in the world cup squad” I say “Bollox – it is Moyes and Everton that have already put you in the world cup squad.”

He will say, I want to go and play with better players”.I say “Bollox – Man Shitty don’t have one single player that has proven over a sustained period like a whole season that they are capable of performing at a higher standard than Everton players are doing.”

He will say,”Man Shitty” are going places and have a better chance of breaking into the SKY four. I say “Bollox – absolutely no proof of that whatsoever. Everton need just one or two more quality players added to what we have and then it will be us who will provide an even greater threat to the SKY four”

He will say, “The manager has a good track record, look at what he’s achieved in his career so far”. I say B O L L O X !!! Don’t insult my intelligence and tell me that Sparky has a better track record than DM.”

He will say “ I don’t have any more shitty excuses to give you anymore coz really I just wanna go for the money” and I’ll say “Joleon, why didn’t you say so in the first place and stop wasting everybodys time lad! Because now we’ve run out of time to get a replacement before the start of the season”

Money talks, it’s a horrible fact of life, especially in football. The very thing that makes this game so great will end up destroying it.

PS: Sorry if I’m doing a Victor Meldrew but today I feel really shitty, depressed, angry and fukin well pissed off over the Kyle Norton affair. Now I know how JC felt in that garden of his. Anything with the words “Sheffield”, “Tottenham” or “Redknapp” gonna get decked today.

Kyle Naughton………. Alan Smith……….Scott Parker…….Sissoko……..the list goes on.

Matthew

To cheer you up; Sissoko — where is he now having turned down Everton? Scott Parker — where is he now having turned down Everton? Alan Smith — where is he now having turned down Everton?

Who has finished 4th, 5th, 5th and 6th in 4 of the last 5 seasons without Sissoko, Parker, Smith and would we be any better with them? So Everton — where are we now without Smith, Sissoko and Parker

KYLE — your career comes to NAUGHT without EverTON.

Phil,

You’re right - fuck ’em.... fuck ’em all.

"....NAUGHT without EverTON" I like it!

Why would he want to go to a club based in a thriving city, run by some of the world's wealthiest people who are hellbent on attracting the best players on the planet and want to pay him wages beyond his wildest dreams? ... When he can stay at a club run by a little man who can't pay him what he’s worth and whose main ambition is to take the club out of a thriving city to a retail park in the middle of nowhere... Beats the fuck out of me!

Hey up!!... just read this on FansFc.com…

Onuoha not joining Everton
02:48 PM 23 July, 2009

Manchester City boss Mark Hughes wants Nedum Onuoha to stay put.

The England Under-21 star has been strongly linked with Everton, mainly because City apparently offered Onouha plus cash for Joleon Lescott.

But City chief Hughes told the Manchester Evening News: "Nedum is one of our finest young players.

"He was outstanding for us last season, and I am not looking to move one of our prize assets away from City."

I hope Everton’s response to Hughes is take some of your own advice!!!

So, Dave Wilson, you have had it beaten out of you.

Quiet night then for your wife or partner or girlfriend and she can get some sleep.

Ciarán, of course players heads are turned by money but surely it should only be up to a point. If Joleon stays at Everton, he will retire with he and his family financially secure for life. If he goes to City, he’ll do the same.

His decision should be based on where he will achieve most success and where he will be happy. Unfortunately, I feel that we need to sell him to move forward. Richards plus cash to strengthen would do just fine.

Andy — has it occured to you that Man City may have said to him, "money aside, we think you’ve got a greater chance of success with us and we’d hope we can make the rest of your career, home life etc the best it can be....." And mean it? And possibly deliver it too?

Besides — same job, same area of the country, £40k a week extra.... Are you going to tell me that all at Man City are devils incarnant and within a week he’ll be speaking in tongues just like them? Don't do it Joleon, don’t sacrifice yourself.....!!!!!!!

Bottom line is Man City are a club using their financial resources to try and attain the greatest amount of success possible. Isn’t that... erm... what everyone does just on lower budgets.......?

THEY ARE SO OUT OF ORDER!!!!

Andy, I’m not goin to get into the age old argument of ’how much money is enough money’ but I dispair at the selective use of logic by some of our fans.

Apparently, our players are all blessed with integrity in all matters financial even though they obviously left clubs who could’ve provided them with enough money to survive... but as soon as Everton are the stepping stone in exactly the same circumstantial move, they suddenly become ’not our type’ or ..’money grabbing bastards’...

It’s illogical nonsense... If Lescott chooses to go — then it should be seen as nothing more than another footballer trying to improve his lot.

Ciarán, I could not agree more.

We also need to remember that £20M to £30M is a massive amount of money to receive for Lescott!

We shouldn't reject it out of spite just because it's City. Let them pay over the odds... it's insane. No way is Lescott worth that much, I don’t care who says he is! Just because you have played for your country does not mean you are worth ten times more than before! Crazy money.

Ciaran - spot on. Otherwise he’d still be at Wolves wouldn’t he? Can anyone argue against that? Well can they......?

Or is that just asking for trouble.....

I’d like to commend Everton for trying it on with City by apparently sounding out one of their best young talents, Onhua. It seems City don’t like it when other clubs disrupt their players.

It won't be only money why Lescott leaves... We are better than city right now but they are seriously investing in players in an attempt to create a CL side, while we every season struggle to find any money to buy players. Other clubs are showing ambition while we can't sign players.

Under Kenwright, we have gone as far as we can because as soon as we get players doing well richer clubs paying more money and offering a brighter future will come swooping. While we’ll make all the usual noises about building a team and not selling but the players are not stupid. How can we expect to get a top 4 place without signing players to improve us.

Some sense some nonsense being posted here:

1) Lescott is paid to play for us and has had considerable success, Man City are willing to pay him more and hope to offer him more success; personally, if I where him I’d give it another season at Everton and see what happens at both clubs.

2) BK — people slag him off... I say walk a mile in his shoes, remember he like us is a Blue.

3) Rooney, at the time I wouldn’t have wanted to play in our team, we were aging shit; selling him and using the money to improve the team as a whole put us on the road to where we are now.

4) If we had the money we would do a Chelski (decent side already just needed uprating)

5) Finally, All this loyalty talk - Hibbert is as loyal as they come, so why do we (me included) slag him off?

ps: I really really hope Spurs do shit again this year, Naughton doesn’t get a sniff of the 1st team and Man Shitty get relegated, I’d even give up 5th place for that to happen.

Matthew Mackey - perhaps if/when we sell Lescott to Manchester City, should anybody ask him the lad might simply say "Everton sold me." If we don’t want to sell we don’t have to accept their offer, if we do then it’s not the players fault, it’s just a business decision.

I think the argument about whether City are "better" than Everton or not is moot. Sure we’ve outperformed them since they got their millions, but it’s only a matter of time. I for one can’t remember the last time a team that didn’t splash the cash won the league. Blackburn and Chelsea have done it before them and now City are developing on the same model. They may take a year or two to bed the players in, but when you’re able to get the likes of Barry, Robinho, Tevez, Adebayor and Santa Cruz on your books, something’s going to go right for you eventually.

Even if Moyes is as good as some people here think, he’s only going to be able to keep Everton punching above their weight for so long. Being outbid on Championship players and patchworking your side with Bosman and loan players isn’t the way to progress.

We had our shot at the top four and keeping the status quo means we will only move backwards. Lescott will get sold and we’ll be told it was the player who forced the issue. Bill can’t see beyond the Kirkby dome and doesn’t want to listen to anyone who disagrees with him and seems alergic to the the truth.

The only way you can accept an offer for Lescott is if the amount is ridiculous. At the end of the day, if you get rid of him you not only lose possibly our best central defender but you also lose our only other left back option. Therefore the lad is, in my opinion, (until something drastically changes) irreplaceable. If City come back with the £30m then perhaps attitudes would change. If not and we accept anything less than this then we don’t simply have to replace one of the best central defenders in the country, perhaps even world, but we also have to replace our more than capable only other left back option.

I know the whole ethos at Everton is team spirit and I am positive that we would not have finished last season as "successfully" as we did had it not been for that magical concoction. However I would be loathed to release Lescott even if he did request a transfer. All one has to do is look at Barry to see how being kept behind for another season didn’t truly mess Villa up. Villa’s only problem lay with the fact that Barry was out of contract next season and therefore were running the risk of receiving pittance for their prized asset. As it was City payed £12-13m for him even with this information available to them, therefore to bid £15m for Lescott is an absolute joke.

Lescott wouldn’t put up near the fuss I don’t think and he would still have more than 2 years left on his contract as of next year if we did decide to ’cash in’ on him. I have to be honest that when I had my season ticket 2 years ago he was excellent every game I had the pleasure to watch him play and I would be gutted to see him leave, not least because of what that tells the rest of the team and our other competitors. What happens if City realise that we’re willing to sell and come in for Arteta, Baines, Rodwell, Pienaar, Yakubu etc, etc Is it not the same thing?

I’m normally quite the optimist but something has me slightly concerned with Everton this summer. In no small part this website has helped to dampen my mood over the past few weeks, but I’m starting to become fairly concerned with Everton and how we go about our business off the field. I know it is fairly early days but there just seems something not quite right this pre-season.

It’s raining continuously over here in Canada which is quite shocking really, yet I have to say I’m getting married next Friday, I’ve just got my first teaching job and I intend to teach my classes the proud history of EFC when I start next september (within reason). So I guess what I’m trying to say is that things are looking up for me and I hope that means things continue to look up for Everton as well. Here’s to keeping a glass half full!

COYBB!!

So we sell Lescott for £20M, buy Jô for £10M, give Wolves £5M, which leaves us with £5M to reinvest in a central defender of Lescott’s quality… anybody else here think this is TAKING THE PISS!

Lescott’s price will rocket next year as he will be playing the best football of his career to make South Africa 2010. If he plays in the World Cup a bidding war could even be on the cards. As I stated before we will have 1 year to focus on his replacement, Rodwell will come of age and Jagielka will be back.

Fools rush in… For the benefit of our club Lescott MUST stay for at least another year… anything else is stupidity.

Matt Lavery... what the hell have you been drinking!!!?
"Lescott one of the best defenders in the world"

Scary! He is a liability! Personally I would bite their hand off at £15m because no other team would offer it except City! He is well behind Jagielka and Yobo for me.

I guess whatever it is James you too have been drinking it m’boy!... to claim Yobo is the better defender is in my opinion a bit daft, especially when you are basing your argument on the consideration that Lescott is a ’liability’. Yobo is by far and away the central defender that most Everton fans think of when they think of the word liability regarding our central defensive options.

Lescott wasn’t as commanding last year as the year before but there is no doubting that the lad often oozes class and talent. I would certainly say he’s one of the best defenders in the Premier League without doubt and therefore as the Premier League is the best league in the world...

Back in Dec 1971 - only 18 months after being crowned Champions - Everton received an offer of £220,000 for our captain and star player Alan Ball. The player didn’t want to go — and having read his book and various other accounts — he told Catterick he didn’t want to go. The reply was along the lines of " We’ve had an offer from Arsenal, the Chairman and the Board think it’s a good offer so you’re going .....end of story. In that case I think Chairman, Manager & Board deserved to be criticised — it was their decision.

Fast forward to 2009 — it’s a whole new ball game( pardon the pun) and the power is with the player. David Moyes and Bill Kenwright are totally powerless to stop Lescott moving to Man City. The decision is with the player — he has the power. Man City can offer him twice as much, maybe three or four times as much as Everton can in wages. In the face of that what can Moyes and Kenwright do ? Yes offer him an improved contract — which will still not match what City can offer. Turn down City’s offer — then Lescott will most probably put in a transfer request.

Turn down the transfer request — and then we have an unhappy player and his form may well suffer. For goodness sake — if Manchester United ( the original rich kids on the block) couldn’t hang on to Ronaldo in the face of the overtures of Real Madrid, then how can we hold on to Lescott once Man City start splashing the cash?

It’s called financial reality — when we were after Danny Gosling do you think Plymouth had much chance of keeping hold of him? Once it was known a Premier League team were interested there was little they could do.

I mentioned Manchester United — the other week Ferguson stated they weren’t going to sign any more players this summer. I doubt whether they have spent 25% of the money they received for Ronaldo. Arsenal have made more headlines for who they have sold rather than who they have bought. Financial reality hits every club eventually. It’s just a bit too easy to lay the blame for everything with Kenwright.

Ciaran, I think our midfield is fine when everyone's fit and at times they have played some excellant football.

Michael, I heard differently about Alan Ball, regardless what he said in his book. I heard he ran up a tremendous gambling debt and the only way he could resolve that was a transfer... Laugh, I think you will, but the person who told me has very close links with the club, but besides that, football is a buissness; everyone has a price.

Matt - Yobo has been a top class CB since the day he arrived and has played a hell of a lot more games for us than lescott. Personally i can recall Lescott and Jagielka making just as many mistakes as Yobo. All relative I suppose though.

Lescott had some shocking games last year which led to him even being dropped by moyes! He appears clumsy slow and does often does not inspire me with confidence. He has not performed well for england on any occasion (not that I care). Yet still commands a fee of £25M! I am sorry but the numbers just don't add up for me. Useful player, yes — due to his attacking threat/goals... but vital piece of the jigsaw? No way!

James - come on lad! Of course Yobo has played a helluva lot more than Lescott! Yobo was Moyes’ first signing, initially on loan from 2002-2003. Lescott on the other hand has been around since when - 2006? A fairly big difference in time. I know Yobo was out injured for a while last year but when fit did he get in to the team? I actually thought he was walking at the end of the season for a while there before Jagielka’s injury.

Not that i think Yobo is a bad player by any stretch of the imagination as he can be class... aside from his dodgy moments within a game. I honestly expect at least one dodgy moment per game from the lad, something i certainly don’t envisage when i think of Lescott and Jagielka at the beginning of every game - again not to say that they don’t make mistakes!

I don’t think anybody should be worth the money being bandied about for footballers nowadays, however that’s a fact of life and as pointed out in my earlier post - if Barry can go for what he did then how can Lescott only be worth a few more "quid"?

I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree James.