Perhaps the sale of Lucas Neill and the wages saved will be used towards offering Saha a new contract?

It’s a tough one. I think Moyes would have liked to use the remainder of the season to assess how his fitness holds up between now and then, but he will no doubt be weighing up both the fact that he’s only started three consecutive games this season and the cash he could get now against the goal threat he possesses when he’s on form.

Unfortunately, if I recall correctly, in our desperation to get Heitinga on board we broke our wage structure for him, pushing the ceiling to £65,000 a week. Saha playing regularly is definitely worth it to us but his injury record makes it all such a gamble.

Ahhh isn’t it fun having to worry if we can hang onto one of our best performers. He may have troubles putting games together but he is still by far our best attacking option.

It's part of the fun of being an Evertonian. Everything we get we have to fight for. If only the people who have jumped onto the Chelsea and Man City bandwagons knew what they were missing.

Yes, without question. He is amongst the top scorers in the league. Torres, Bent, Defoe etc will all be on more than £60k. Who are you gonna replace him with? No one of his class would come even if we could afford them.

Yes!

We need to get in a habit of keeping our best players. I am a big believer in team chemistry. I think that when people play together for extended periods of time, they play better together. So I think it is more important to keep current players than to bring in new signings.

There are exceptions to this (does "£24 million" mean anything to anyone?) but Saha isn’t one of those exceptions. He is arguably our best player and, thanks to his injury background, we can’t get much for him. I would give up a couple transfers to give Saha what he wants and keep him here.

Its a quandary to be sure, but then Moyes and the Chairman are on how much a week, so should be able to handle these decisions. Yobo, Cahill, Arteta (and Joleon) were our previous top earners prior to Hettinger signing if reports are to believed. So I suppose Pienaar, Fellaini, Arteta and maybe Howard will also be wanting some sort of parity if Saha gets £3m a year. What will that do to our balance book? Even thinking about it gets me depressed as to what football is becoming.

As Lyndon says it’s a tough one. Reluctantly I’d say no as I can see us saddled with a £60k pw passenger if his, always just below the surface, injury problems kick off again.

I can just hear the anti Moyes brigade half way through the contract when Saha hasn’t kicked a ball for 3 months. "Why did we sign him for so long, stupid when we knew his injury record?" etc etc.

I think it might depend on what we get offered for him. If we get offered between £3-5m, I think the club will take it. There’s no money at the club and I think Moyes knows that he may well have to sell before he can buy this summer.

There are plenty of players that will be available on loan to fill the gap until the end of the season, as a lot of them will want to try and nail down a world cup place. Whether or not we could replace Saha’s quality is another story.

It’s a gamble either way but I think it will come down to finances.

The only thing that’s stopping Saha being worth the reported £60k a week is his injury record. Shandy van der Meyde became a bad drain on finances because he wasn’t playing and I know I couldn’t wait for his contract to end. We don’t want to end up in a similar boat should Saha end up with another bad injury which keeps him out.

If it was on quality alone then it’s a no brainer and my feeling is we’d give him somewhere close to what he was looking for. Goal scorers are hard to find and I’m sure David Moyes knows this but with our financial resources being so limited, he rightly doesn’t want to get stung again as per AVDM.

Should we give him what he reportedly wants right now? I genuinely don’t know where I stand on this one… it’s a very tough decision.

Sign him on a 2-3 year dear, then sell him in the summer while he’s still fit and scoring - cha ching!

Tough one. It’s a pity that all footballers’ contracts don’t have one foot in the real world. Saha is utter class, his movement, intelligence and shooting capability is quite superb. His game and movement is excessively easy on the eye. I like that.

It would be shocking for us to award him an irreversible big pay packet and then find he regresses. But I’m not sure that would happen. Several reasons.

Firstly, and this flies in the face of those who think our training methods have led to some of our long term injuries, but Saha is enjoying his fittest and deadliest period for many years. He’s in the zone and firing.

Secondly he comes across as a man with a sense of pride and fairness. His offer to join Everton without a salary until he’d proved his fitness is testimony to that.

I think we have two comparable scenarios of talented players joining us on loan/short term contracts, before proving themselves and securing longer and better terms. I don’t think anybody would argue with the contributions of Messrs Arteta and Pienaar to our achievements in the last few years.

I still believe that just about ALL premier league salaries are a fucking joke totally divorced from the real world. Seems to be the only "business" where wages go up in the biggest recession for 100 years and when supporters are feeling the pain.

Everton can’t realistically afford to pay anybody in excess of £30 - 35,000 per week. I know, it’s a pittance, a basic salary of at least £1.5m. How on earth do you make ends meet. But in the real world Everton would be seeking to run at least a little like a business, paying what it can afford out of its income and looking to post an operating profit. The operating profit is necessary for future stability and, funnily enough, to fund any necessary long term capital investments (erm, stadium).

But the whole system is polluted. The Sky money is mortgaged. Why? to pay for fucking players. Long term season ticket income is mortgaged. Why? To pay fucking players. EFC, like most EPL clubs, posts an operating loss every year (unless a marquee player is sold) and despite huge TV income. Why? Because we go to the edge, and a little bit more, to pay for fucking players.

Any pattern emerging?

And I’m sorry. The answer is NOT that everyone needs a billionaire so players can earn EVEN MORE income to buy even more Bentleys, giant diamond encrusted donut watches, mock tudor 29 telly mansions surrounded by razor wire.

The answer is that a salary cap is introduced and managed progressively downwards. This simple act would enable every club to exist in a world that closely marries reality. Sport needs competition, clubs need to survive (they owe it to their supporters of decades devotion), but players DO NOT need more money.

I say fuck ’em. There aren’t enough billionaire sheikhs to go around. They distort our sport. Platini and Uefa are bang on the button. Our sport has been polluted long enough. A nice heavy dose of reality is exactly what the doctor ordered. It might just ensure our sport survives.

Saha, £60k a week. In principle, no. Principles matter in most other walks of life. Time they were reintroduced to the prostituted and deranged world of football.

£60k a week is offensive but for his level of talent and what he brings to the team it represents comparative value - even accounting for the injury prospect. How much have Vaughan, Anichebe, Pienaar, Neville, Jags, Yak & Arteta cost us being laid off long term but nobody mentions it because there is not a precedent (Vaughan excepted bless him). Saha is in a great vein of form the fittest he has been for years. We would have to replace him if he went, of that there is no doubt.

Here is the crux. Anyone of his calibre would want at least that salary. They would be unlikely to join our club from a career perspective when they would be in the echelons of already more established successful clubs. Most important of all, They would cost us a very sizeable transfer fee that we simply do not have the funds for.

All that considered, I actually think it would represent sound business, even at £60k per week.

Hasn’t Saha been on a ’pay as you play’ deal up to now? If so we’ve probably saved a few quid off him already so I’d pay him £60k. If we have any aspirations about being a big club again we can’t let players of his obvious class go, someone else would snap him up.

ps: As for the argument that Arteta, Cahil, Howard, et al would be banging on Moyesie’s door wanting parity, as much as this is feasible, it does not seem to have happened since Heitinga joined us and for the financial reasons above could be argued against if they did so.

Give him the £60k... pay as you play.

Russ/Lee — It’s a fair enough argument on the relative front. But that’s only one side of it. What about affordability?

EFC do not make a profit. Think about it. Despite almost £50m from TV rights, supposedly "extra" money, we do not make a profit. So our club does not and cannot build up any financial reserves whatsoever, nor can it justify (as Arsenal did) borrowing anything to invest in useful capital projects, such as a stadium, because we have no spare money to pay for it.

This financial model is ridiculous. If it was the real world then someone would step in and sort it out, it just wouldn’t be manageable or allowed.

Yo may deem Saha to be "worth" £60k a week. But on what basis? It seems to me that there are only two options available to al but a few clubs to sustain such nonsense. Either a) they borrow money to buy and pay players (dangerous nonsense), or b) a sugar daddy drops in and gives them oodles of free money.

I’m not arguing about Saha’s relative worth. I think he’s a great player and I’d love him to stay with us. But I’d prefer my club, and all other clubs, to inhabit a world that at least touches upon reality. It’s a bit like my cleaner telling me she wants £75 an hour rather than £6 an hour, because she’s been touted for a cleaning job in Abu Dhabi and that’s the going rate. The going rate is irrelevant if you can’t, or won’t, pay it.

The sooner this utterly fanciful and rather offensive bollocks of players’ wages is sorted out the better. I’d cap every club at £50m a year total on salaries. Just to put that in perspective, Everton’s turnover is approx £80m. That would leave £30m to pay all other members of staff, all the operating costs of our premises, facilities etc etc, and of course tax. probably leaving a gross profit of no more than £10m.

One day the TV goose will have no more eggs to lay. We need to prepare for it. It seems like well run businesses are almost frowned upon in football. Like no other sport, footy is eating its own arse.

if he maintains his fitness?

Without a doubt.

A fit Saha on fire scoring 20+ a season.... Most definitely.

Alan - your point is without refute. However, we do not live in a Nirvana where everything is as it should be. If we set the bar, we risk being beaten with it and sinking further and further down the league simply because we wanted to be the club to ’do things the right way’. It’s a clear lose-lose situation and the whole of English football is blighted by it. We all dread the inevitable bursting of the bubble but what choice do we have until such time as it happens?

The fact is we had our greatest turnover in our history last year, have been in the Deloitte top 20 clubs in the entire world for turnover the last three consecutive years and yet we continue to make a loss year after year. Principally due to player wages and we don’t even pay the obscene rates many other clubs pay.

As much as your points are accepted I feel you have almost made my point for me. If we do not pay Saha, we need to replace him or jeapordise our already precarious position further. To replace him would cost at least as much PLUS a signing on fee so we must pay the rate.

The way to fund it would have to be at the cost of a squad player we may have planned on loaning for the season’s remainder. I’m not happy with it either but is there a viable and non-fanciful alternative?

No he ain't. Trust me — once the ink is dried he will suddenly lose his motivation to turn out week-in, week-out.

I am sick to death of players trying to bleed us dry. Good player — sometimes a great player — but not often enough for me.

Yes, we will need a replacement and this is costly but with the players we have coming back opportunities to score should become more frequent and perhaps a ’lesser mortal’ can do a job for us.

After the performance the Yak put in against Burnley, I am looking forward to him getting a run in the team anyway — forget the Afcon which is just a mid-season jolly for him.

Should we break our wage structure for him>
------------------------------------------------

What structure?

Oh - you must mean the "we can't afford it" structure...
ha

Thanks Louis

Your screwed up career is back on track through working with Everton and you have now found yourself in a position to make high demands.

The EPL is a mess due to greedy bastards like you so my answer is......fuck off and try somewhere else.

You are temporary and our club is for life.

Can’t we pay £30k + £30k more if you play? Split it 40-20? or 50-10? Put in big goal bonuses? I don’t see why its as simple as pay £60k or not unless Louis is being a bit of a dick about it. I wonder what goes on in these negotiations.

The obvious point many of you have made is that his goals are worth it, but if he doesn’t play he’s worth fuck all. The other thing I don’t get is whether or not footballers are genuinely that greedy, because it genuinely beggars belief. If I was in Louis’ position I would honestly rather stay at the club I was settled and doing well at for less money, rather than take the unnecessary risk of going somewhere else. Maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

In response to the question of why footballers make so much money: It’s not as detached from the real world as you might think. It’s a matter of supply and demand.

There aren’t many great footballers in the world. Clubs want them and supporters like us are willing to pay the club for tickets to a game, jerseys and apparel, etc.

I don’t think they need £60,000 a week but, for whatever reason, they feel like they need it to survive. Clubs are in a unique position because the employees (players) have more say in how much they make than their employers.

Do I think Saha needs £60,000 a week? No, but it is what it is, he is asking for that much and we have to give him something comparable in order for him to stay.

Basically, by asking for 60 grand a week that he knows we can’t afford, he’s asking for a transfer. He simply hasn’t got the bollocks to ask for it.

Who the fuck does he think he is to hold the club to ransom like this? If it was my decision, I'd set the precedent and tell him to fuck off.

Alan Kirwan is absolutely spot on. Until Plattini has got the bollocks to set a wage cap, football is fucked. For example, if Sky decided to pay everyone an extra £100m in the next deal, it wouldn’t make any fuckin difference because the greedy bastard players would want an extra £110m in their wages.

Once the red shite and Utd can’t compete anymore, I’m sure Uefa will quickly put things right again.

It’s a though one. I agree with an earlier post that some sort of salary cap could be the only solution. I lived in the States for a few years and really got into the basketball out there, watched it all the time. Not NBA but college, can you believe that, imagine watching college football here!!

But why not not, imagine this. No more youth teams at clubs, kids go on and all get an education and then there is a draft system. The weakest clubs will draft the strongest new guys leaving college or they would have the option of say approaching United and saying ok let me have your shit hot striker now for this amount of cash and our 1st round draft pick.

Probably way to much involved in setting it up but to me it would give clubs a fairer playing field.

Without doubt, our club faces a dilemma regarding Louis Saha. If reports are to be believed, salary figures of £60k a week are being bandied about; the simple truth is, we currently can't afford that.

Saha on his day is quite simply sublime. He possesses everything you would want to see in a top class striker: pace, power, can shoot with either foot, and an intelligence rarely seen in modern day footballers.

But we must let ourselves be kidded again. Perhaps the biggest bollock Moyes has ever dropped was giving AvdM a 4-year contract on £30k a week! Before he joined us, he played 12 games in two years for Inter Milan, he must have thought his fucking boat must have come in at Everton. We wasted £6m on an absolute useless piece of shite who made it clear he had no intention of moving on until his contract ended.

I'm not suggesting Saha has the same morals as that lowlife, but what if we give him his wish of a three year deal at £60k a week and he gets another 'serious' injury?

There goes another £9m quid down the drain. Sorry, we should just be prepared to let him walk if need be.

Pay him the fucking money. Do we always have to be miserly bastards when it comes to player wages... is it any wonder we fail to attract players of Saha’s class.

Answer to no.3. I’d take the risk on Victor Moses. He’s talented. Scored today as well. I don’t think he’s cuptied for the FA Cup either. With a better quality fo service than he’s getting now I think he’d surprise a few Premiership defenders. Palace need the money so he wouldn’t be expensive.