Brands re-elected to Everton's Board

The EBM lads (Paul The Esk, Roger Armstrong, and John Blaine) had been requesting the appointment long before it happened. So, I'd like to hear more on this subject.

There is certainly an argument to suggest that a DoF being on the Board is a conflict of interests. He should be answerable to the Board, just like the manager in my opinion. That doesn’t appear to be the Professor’s argument though.

The shareholder says: “I think it’s inappropriate for the director of football to be on the board.

“The appointment of directors of football at this football club have been an unmitigated failure.

“Even if you move beyond the signings, I’d like to know what has happened to our scouting system. We used to be able to find people like Mikel Arteta and bring them through to the point within minute we were singing their songs.

“Remember those days when Tim Cahill would come on and terrify them? Where are those players now?

“We don’t seem to have a scouting system and frankly I question whether this approach should be on the board.”

Although he couldn't have foreseen injuries to recently signed players, there are a couple of areas that could be questioned, for example the exorbitant fee paid for Iwobi, who I still believe will be a decent player, but the price?

Not sure about Delph, who does seem to be in the Treatment Room more than he is on the pitch. Moise Kean, I desperately want the lad to come good for us, and hope his first goal will lead to many more.

Digne and Mina seem to be a bit hit and miss, but hopefully will settle down. I had hoped for a few unknown gems, instead of high priced every day names.

He was distinctly pro-Kirkby and most miffed when that got knocked back.

Haven't heard from him in years.

Does he still lecture at Liverpool Uni?

Only Richarlison worth the money

-500m and we have gone backwards

His ability to close the deal on the talent he pursues has been a refreshing change from previous deadline day horrors. For me, still too early to judge on the actual talent he's brought in.

I would venture to suggest that we haven't seen nearly the best of Bernard (who was free to acquire, albeit on big wages), André Gomes or Alex Iwobi, all three of whom could really thrive under Ancelotti's stewardship.

Then there's Jean-Philippe Gbamin who was just plain unfortunate but is also a good prospect.

On top of that, Brands has off-loaded Vlasic and Lookman for profit (Gueye also represented a big profit but it's debatable whether it was worth it given how big a loss he was) and got the likes of Mirallas off the books as well.

So, given how much better he has been than Walsh, I think Brands has earned some time to keep working on his long-term plan.

Our player of the year wasn't worth £18 million?

Mina's not worth it? Gomes isn't worth it? Sidibe won't be an absolute steal at £13 million?

And what about all the deadwood Brands has trimmed in just a year-and-a-half on the job?

I've said it before and I'll say it again -- our best signing since Moshiri took over has been Marcel Brands.

Digne might have been player of the year, but he’s still suspect defensively and goes missing in big games.

Mina has been outshone by Holgate.

Richarlison was Silva’s signing.

Bernard is hit and miss.

Sidibé was worth the gamble, but Is average for £13 million

Iwobi is in the same overpriced category as Schneiderlin and Sigurdsson

Kean is one for the future, but could really do with showing something soon.

Can’t comment on Gbamin.

Delph - £8million to argue with fans, tell everyone their shite and call Holgate (who has been 10 times the player he has, even in midfield) a little prick.

I like Gomes though.

Benard is in and out of a very average team. Digne has had a howler of a season. Mina has been benched twice recently (in favour of Keane). Gomes was dividing opinion long before his injury and Iwobi. . I think Arsenal definitely saw us coming. I would be amazed if he became a top player. He hasnt even learned to "expect the ball"

I sincerely hope the second intake is better

Bernard's only been in and out of the team because of the injury he suffered at Brighton, literally the next game after Silva twigged how to use him and Iwobi effectively in the same side.

I still have hopes for Iwobi and agree on the opinions of Gomes but, as I said, let's see them playing under a top-class manager before writing them off as bad signings!

For Brands to be worth his money, he should be scouting more like him that can develop. We’ve done it well in the past with DCL, Holgate, Stones, Cahill, Arteta, Lescott, Jagielka, Baines, Coleman etc. All bought relatively cheaply, hungry to improve and worth far more than what we’ve paid after a year or 2.

Even Walsh was trying it with Gibson, Adenerin, Bowler etc. They might or might not make it, but are worth the gamble if there is a route to the first team.

Buying cast offs from big clubs - anyone with a bit of knowledge can pick them out. Picking players up for peanuts who can develop, improve us or make us money - that’s where Brands should come in.

Richarlison will be an absolute star, but he was Silva’s man. The rest of the recruitment is highly questionable for me.

Mina, Iwobi, Delph and Kean cost us over 100m and at present that does not look like good business.

Digne and Gomes are obvious success stories but I have been disappointed on the whole with the signings so far under Brands. He hasn’t really unearthed any unknown gems so far.

if there is any positives at all to be taken from the last few weeks, it's that we have got to a position where 3 more wins would take us to 37 points which would virtually guarantee top flight football next season.

With the pressure off (at least for this season) Ancelotti will be able to rotate and experiment to his hearts content. Maybe he will bring out the best of these players. We will find out soon enough.

If he makes a player out of Iwobi, I will spend the rest of the season posting from the foot of our stairs

‘ His ability to close the deal on the talent he pursues has been a refreshing change from previous deadline day horrors.’

Can’t disagree but that ‘ability’ is basically his access to deeper pockets.

The truth is, it is all speculation as far as we are concerned, for none of us know, for certain, who wanted which player and who asked who to get him etc.

For example, there is a rumour that we only bought Tosun because Moshri wanted him based on a recommendation from his son etc.

Richarlison might well have been requested by Silva - but on the other hand - perhaps the DoF suggested to Silva that he might be a useful addition and Silva agreed - or Richarlison might have said to his agent - try to get me a move to Everton because I'd like to work with Silva again.

We can speculate until the cows come home - but NONE of us KNOW.

It has often also been said that new players coming into the EPL will take at least 12 months to settle down and get used to the pace.

If that is true then Bernard, Digne, Mina, Gomes etc may well shock us all next year by the improvement in their form.

Hopefully, Kean and Gbamin too will shape up and with players like Holgate and DCL starting to find their feet at this level, I, for one, am hoping that next season will be a big and pleasant surprise for us all.

Inevitably progress will not be in a straight line. There will be setbacks along the way as we have seen this season with injuries to Gbamin and Gomes. It will also take younger players longer to settle into the club especially if they arrive from abroad.

A positive message I picked up from Brands’s presentation this evening was that having failed to sign Zouma in the summer they resisted the temptation to sign alternatives they deemed inadequate. In other words the club will wait for the right player to become available before purchasing. Another was that the club will not pay unaffordable fees for players, hence the reason why they did not pursue Zaha.

Tom Cannon lost me when he suggested Peter Reid and David France should be on the board. Reid was a great player for us, a successful manager in the nineties and now occasionally an entertaining pundit. I doubt at this stage of his life he would add value at Board level. There is no greater Evertonian on the planet than the estimable David France but I very much doubt he would welcome disrupting his retirement or risking his health in order to take a seat on the Board.

For a so-called "People's Club", and I for one still see genuine widespread affinity for Everton all across Merseyside, it's always mystified me how so many Toffee-born lads were signed up by THEM to our cost, for decades!

Glaringly obvious was not replacing Zouma and possibly not bringing in a box to box midfielder. Leaving us short in numbers for the season ahead. That is something which Brands should be answerable to.

Lundstram was let go by Everton because he was nowhere near good enough at the time. It was barely discussed here on TW, and not one person expressed any thought that it was a mistake. Lundstram then spent a couple years at Oxford United, hardly burning up League 1, and last year at Sheffield he lost his position within the first month and rarely even made the bench the rest of the season.

All credit to him for working his ass off and blossoming this season, but nobody... and I mean NOBODY... saw it coming or predicted it. And even now he is average, not remotely "one of the best."

Who has lauded Lundstram as one of the best midfielders in the league.

He is not even the best midfielder at Sheff United mate.

It is so easy to knock the club but lets be fair about it players are not let go because they are showing great potential. It is usually attitude or the potential to develop that flags up whether a kid is worth keeping.

There are 3 particular failings I would address to Brands:

1) Where are the up-and-coming gems that a Director of Football is supposed to source before they hit the big time? Brands buys all his players from Barcelona, Juve etc. We needed a centre half all summer, this culminated in a pursuit for a Chelsea defender (Zouma). When this was doomed, we put in a deadline day bid for a Man United reserve centre half (Rojo). This is hardly inspiring stuff from our much lauded Director of Football. Most people with a copy of Football Manager could have done better.

2) Why did you fail to bring in an experienced centre-forward? Marco Silva started last summer that we needed a proven striker. Brands brought in a 19-year-old kid from Italy who is still not up to speed. We have paid the price for this all season. I would say this was a massive dereliction of duty from Brands, we have needed a proven striker since Lukaku left. Why could our Director of Football not see this?

3) Our new signings appear fundamentally flawed. They are either as timid as a mouse, or incapable of playing consistently well. As the Director of Football who has recruited lots of these players, what scouting checks do you have in place? Are they fit for purpose? How can you ensure that future recruits will have the desired character to improve our team consistently, and not go missing when we need them most?

Our best signing in recent seasons has been Richarlison, clearly a Marco Silva buy. Need I say more?!

Danny #36, what experienced centre forward would you have brought in who was available, willing to come and would have scored more goals than Calvert-Lewin? And, more importantly, how much would you have paid?

Looking back at the summer transfer window, in retrospect, I can see exactly one striker deal that I wish we could have pipped. One. Liverpool selling Danny Ings for £20m. Who would you have gone for? Rondon? Carroll? Maybe Charlie Austin for £5m? Who do you think we missed out on?

Brands is obviously Moshiri's man but who would Tom Cannon be affiliated to? It clearly wouldn't be Moshiri or he wouldn't object to a DoF on the Board. An appointment which was a strange one when it occurred and does appear to have a conflict of interest at its heart.

Marcel is Moshiri's best signing. A place on the Board is just fine with me, and having a football man on the Board is long overdue.

Good Lord. We have an owner who's bought the Liver Building, dumped now $350 million into the Club, and is building a new stadium. A DoF who's walked on water offloading a shedload of shit players, signed some damn good ones, and patently deserves a pass with two major signings getting injured. What in the hell do some people want? Christ Almighty, there's no pleasing some.

Speaking of injuries, has anyone taken a lead bar to Heung-min Son's shin yet?

We are hardly competing in a high-quality Premier League currently in my opinion. I concede that we are in a somewhat false position having been robbed of points against Brighton, Spurs, Arsenal, Liverpool and so on.

I personally have zero optimism that we will climb the league much more this year, given our injury issues. And I do not expect Spurs and Arsenal to remain in disaster mode under their new managers. I see Sheffield and Palace fading, but we won't catch anyone else. So 9th at best... UNLESS Brands and Ancelotti conspire to borrow us a world-class midfielder in the next couple of weeks.

It would be nice to be in a better position than we were before we allowed two DoF's to spend half a billion.

It would be nice if the new "great signings" could out-perform their predecessors - "The deadwood"

It would be good if we could see the occasional 90 minutes of passion.

I think everyone would prefer not to feel like they were made to feel last week.

I don't think any of us would object to the season not being over in January - in terms of chasing a trophy.

We'd like to be up there with clubs like Sheffield United.

This is not a tough crowd. Right now we'd celebrate a decent card trick.

What this crowd really, really want, is for the club to stop binding and gagging them. To stop destroying their dreams on an annual basis. A team we can be proud of. A little taste of success to justify decades of pain.

I get your question, Jamie lad, and looking at the responses on here, you could very easily be forgiven for thinking the majority of Evertonians are miserable arl bastards, but we were not born that way.

Many people on here have survived on a staple diet of "manana" for decades. The seemingly eternal banquet going on next door only serves to remind us of how far we have fallen.

I also get that many will want to support and applaud Brands's captures. Let's be fair, some may yet prove to be good signings, but we need better than good. Even the most optimistic Brands supporter must realise that this group of players ain't never going to win us anything.

If we are going to climb our way back up the ladder, we need another intake... and it has to be better than the last one.

I want it now
I want it now
Dont tell me that my ship is coming in
Nothing comes to those who wait

And remember the story of Shankly and Lawler, then compare it to Everton closing the Academy under Kendall to save money and it only being reopened at Joe Royle's insistence.

I think Tony Abrahams said he had spent some time as an Everton Junior so perhaps he and any others who may have could relate their experiences.

Sylvan Distan 5 million or Michael Keane 25 million? We also did very when Roberto first arrived, no DOF and Lukaku costing the Same as Cenk Tosun.

Don’t limit yourself to only the strikers that were transferred this summer. As an example, could we have had a crack at Morelos, who is banging them in left, right and centre for Rangers?

I could trot out the usual names likes Giroud etc, but surely a Director of Football should be able to come up with better targets than a striker not getting a game at Chelsea, or the ones you mentioned? That is entirely my point.

Thank Goodness DCL has stepped up to the plate this season, because we would have had precisely nothing up front if he hadn’t. A proven striker could also have played alongside DCL at times.

There must be strikers in the European leagues that could have been brought in that would have been an upgrade on Niasse and Tosun. We’ve been let down massively by not bringing one in. We probably would have been in the top 6 (And still in the FA Cup!!) if we’d scored an extra 6/7 goals this year...

“ A DoF who's walked on water offloading a shedload of shit players...”

Err, that’s his job!!

I really don’t get this hyperbole where Marcel Brands is concerned. In the past, people have also come out with stuff like ‘in Marcel we trust’. The proof is in the pudding. We shouldn’t be blindly led because he came with a better reputation than the last fella. For me, he should be judged on buying and selling.

Has he sold well? He’s done ok. He sold Lookman for a good price, but he sold James McCarthy way too cheap. He got an ok price for Gueye. We’ve still got too many big earners that he hasn’t managed to ship out yet though. He’s done ok but no more than that.

Has he bought well? Again, the jury is out. A couple of his buys are injured so we will leave them out. Was it worth bringing in Lossl? Probably not. Sidibé? A good deal so I’ll give him that one. Digne too is a quality player in my opinion. But Mina? Does a lot of things well but he hasn’t hit the heights we hoped he would just yet, so the jury is still out. Bernard? Free transfer but £120,000 a week. Jury is still out again. Kean? Massive disappointment so far. Delph? He’s done ok at times, but doesn’t seem able to stay fit and is another one earning top dollar. Again, difficult to say he’s been a real success.

At best, the jury is out on Brands, he certainly doesn’t deserve hyperbole like “walking on water” to describe what he has achieved so far...

Really? I disagree. I think, like most football clubs, its a very tough crowd. Every summer I see a raft of posts expecting us to challenge the top 6 and clubs who have invested and pay considerable sums more than us. "Why can't we be the next Leicester?"

I can't remember the last time I felt that the majority on here were even content with our manager. Maybe when Moyes got us to 4th? When he reverted to 6th/7th it wasn't good enough, even though it was very much in line with where we were resources wise. Undeniably a tough crowd in my experiences.

We want to sign top players but we have on our books at present:
- Sigurdsson
- Schneiderlin
- Walcott
- Keane
- Tosun
- Bolasie
- Sandro Ramirez
All of the above are on big wages. Then there is also:
- Martina
- Niasse
Meantime Brands has got rid of:
- Mirallas
- Onyekuru
- McCarthy
- Vlasic
- Williams
- Klaassen
And no doubt he would have had some input on Rooney who left just days before he officially came in.

Whilst Everton are still paying big wages for players Steve Walsh signed, then Brands has one hand tied behind his back. Players like Pickford I will no longer class as a Walsh player as Brands has given him a new contract.

On John Lundstram, the lad was not good enough. There was a lot of noise about him as a kid, mainly because his sister was on that dreadful "Desperate Scousewives" program and tried to portray him as some kind of star. The reality was that the younger Ryan Ledson was considered to be better than him and to have more potential, then he in turn was released to make way for Tom Davies. Tom Davies is a better player than John Lundstram, regardless of age. Fair play to Lundstram for dragging himself all the way to the top, he clearly has the mental fortitude we lack, and if he was on our books then we'd certainly give him some game time with our injuries and mental fragility. He's not worth purchasing though.

He's bought younger and its still way too early to judge the success of this strategy as players like Kean, Iwobi and Gbamin have not played a huge amount and have their best years ahead of them.

I still think most players that Brands has bought would be worth as much if not more than he paid for them.

Digne- Would definitely sell for more than £18m even if he's not having his best patch he's still 2nd in the league for chances created by full backs (after TAA).

Richarlison- An excellent player, worth in excess of £60m i'd wager.

Gomes- Not my favourite but £22m was a decent price for a player of his ability and experience.

Mina- Probably our player of the year so far? Is excellent at international level and if Maguire is worth £70m then Mina (who has similar stats) is definitely worth more than the £27m he cost.

Bernard- Still to see the best of him but I think Ancelotti will change that. He was superb against Brighton and I hope to see more of that. No doubt we could sell him for £20-25m this summer if we wanted to.

Iwobi- Bit up and down but has been our most creative midfielder statistically and I think will be good when played centrally. He's only 23 and I'm hopeful that Ancelotti will get the best out of him. £28m was a good price for Arsenal but even if we were to sell him I'd expect to make at least £20m. I think he's capable of more.

Gbamin- Gutted that he got injured. Think we've really missed his athleticism. Don't know how good he'll be post injury but he was very good in the Bundesliga last year and I was excited when we got him.

Kean- Probably the biggest risk at £25m. I've been disappointed in him but he's so young. Hopefully Ancelotti can get the best out of him. He's still highly thought of in Italy and even if we were to sell him back there this summer i'd think we could get somewhere between £15m-20m. Fingers crossed he gets that elusive first goal soon, he's been a tad unlucky.

Delph- Was brought in to add experience and leadership. Not sure he's really done that yet but difficult to know what he adds in the dressing room or in training. At £8m it wasn't a big investment though his injuries make it look like one of Brands' less wise purchases.

One thing that was made crystal clear to me last was that the more I see and hear Kenwright the more I believe in aliens, he isn’t an Earthling, and he is definitely not “ One of us”.

I’m not saying those expectations are wrong but they are not quite in line with our current reality.

Blame the players lack of quality or is it the manager failing to get the best out of them or a bit of both?

Either way, the DoF is supposed to help stabilise the club but if it is in fact they who are failing what happens, should the manager have input into the next DoF?

Sam #52, great post. As usual.

Darren #44: "This is not a tough crowd. Right now we'd celebrate a decent card trick."

That's maybe your best line ever. I actually bellowed loud enough to wake my wife (which isn't easy), and I'm still chortling. Beauty.

The job seems to require
a. create a 1st team squad of 23 players who will challenge the best in this league in conjunction with the team manager.
b. create a pipeline of players who will force their way into that 1st team squad from the junior ranks and be a cheaper option than buying ready made 1st team players or be sold off to raise funds to further build the pipeline or the purchase of ready made 1st team players.

There is no indication that it is a training and improvement role. That is the responsibility of the managers of each of the various teams. It also is restricted solely to the male teams (are we allowed to use that phrase these days? Perhaps Schneiderlin, Martina and Niasse could self-certify as female and try to get in the Ladies team. Now there is a thought! - but I digress).

So is he really "Director of Football"? No, he is director of "Player acquisition and disposal". But there again how much of his decision on who to buy and who to sell is actually solely in his remit?

For example - he discovers a player who he believes is worth £20m but has a release clause of only £7m. But the guy is 25 and not as good as the existing players in that position currently at Everton. Can he buy him and then try to re-sell him for a profit. Unlikely. Even though the £13m would be useful. He is told by the 1st team manager he would like x or y by the start of next season. His job at that point is to negotiate a deal which is acceptable or have to report he has failed due to wage demands or transfer fee. He has the opportunity to buy a 15 goal a season centre forward but the other club wants Holgate in exchange. Deal cancelled by 1st team manager who wants to keep Holgate.

His job is therefore
a. conduct negotiations for players required by 1st team manager
b. find teams to take people we no longer want due to ability or they do not fit into the plans of the 1st team manager
c. try to find players in lower leagues or abroad who can fill the pipeline.

I think the true nature of the role should be reflected in the job title and "Director of Football" is not it.

We have had a few Directors of Football in the past. Alan Ball and Peter Reid are two I can think of.

Tony @61, because what other choice has there been?

I contacted the club and asked for a small something to make Wayne smile. When they asked what they could do, I explained we were in our 40s so big Dunc was our hero as kids. She said she would ask Duncan to write a note/ card etc which I was made up with, knowing what it would mean to him.

2 days after I received an email. Duncan was asked to write the note and refused, on the grounds it wasn't sufficient for such a loss. My friend has now been invited to Finch Farm to spend the day with Dunc and have a look around.

It's nice to know we have good people at the club who know the importance of our club to its fans, no matter our age, and the difference they can make.

According to the scanty information available both denominations are rewarded royally !

Everybody else, jury still definitely out. I would also put above as good signings / not one singing since Moshiri stands out as fantastic (ie unlike Moyes’ buys of Jags, Coleman, Arteta, Baines, Martyn, Cahill, Stones etc). By the way not advocating Walsh or Moyes

And well done to you, sir, for reaching out the club as my friends here on TW did for me. As they used to say in Detroit, you did your mate a solid.

I hope your mate has a great time in terrible circumstances! Well done Dunc!

I don’t think I can like Dunc anymore than I do!

Tom Cannon wasn't saying we shouldn't have a D of F or that Brands was crap. What he was saying was a D of F shouldn't also be on the board so that he, effectively, answers to himself.

This is, of course, a flawed argument. Moshiri appoints people to the board and if he thought they weren't cutting the mustard I'm sure they'd soon be gone.

Tom's motion received no support, that I could see, but even if everyone had voted with him Brands would have been re-elected because Moshiri carries around 75% of the votes.

On

On Brands himself, I feel he's making a decent fist of offloading the deadwood with the caveat that the striker situation still hasn't really been addressed.

For Gueye, PSG was a dream move and at his age unlikely to come up again. These days, if a player wants a move they hold all the power and we made a decent mark up on the deal.

Christy; I agree Palace got McCarthy quite cheaply (probably because of his injury record) but at the start of the season he wasn't in the frame, at Everton. He, reportedly, wanted a move but if he'd have stayed he'd have probably got lots of game time given our midfield injury problems. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I really don't think we can blame Brands for that one!

Back to Tom Cannon; any respect I had for his football knowledge went, last night. His motion was ridiculous and seemed to be motivated by some personal agenda or just an attempt to get himself back on the media radar.

Brands has overseen how much spent on players? Yet we are going backwards and will need to overhaul the squad again just to give Ancellotti a chance.

Its January the seasons over for us apart from a possible relegation battle. As for making a profit on Lookman, Gueye and Vlasic thats the market and not Brands pulling a masterstroke.

So you think Brands should have GONE with Silva just because there isn’t one particular player at the club that we couldn’t live without?

What an odd argument.

Surely reliance on one player like that is something we should be looking to avoid.

Brands is charged with moving on players who we don’t need and bringing in some we do. I don’t know why you would choose to only judge him on incoming players. My verdict is that he’s done ok so far considering the mess he inherited.

It’s January, you’re right, we are 7 points off the relegation zone and 5 points off Europe. Despite a poor performance this week we are very much on an upward trajectory. Why would you choose to be so alarmist about our season when Europe is closer than going down?

I could be wrong. I wish I could have gone to ask him.

Now obviously, this hasn’t worked so far, but in my opinion we didn’t use the DoF position properly when Walsh was in charge. He was ludicrously out of his depth and we ended up signing whoever the manager wanted anyway. Remember, it was Koeman who wanted Scheiderlin so badly. Allardyce was the one who chose Walcott.

Can you really see Brands signing the likes of Tosun or Niasse?

We are purchasing younger players so they are likely to improve their value with added exposure. Equally many are viewing the sales of Lookman, Vlasic and Henry as great business but this is still too early to say and I still feel Lookman will come back to bite us.

For me Brands should be judged on strengthening the squad from season to season and this summer there is no evidence to say he has. Let's not compare him to Walsh standards as evidence of positivity.

The worrying aspect of Brands was that many of last seasons really good work came when himself and Silva seemed united on the players coming in. This summer he has spent 35 million net and the squad seems no better and indeed dismantled the spine of the team.

Clearly Silva wasn't happy with some of the players bought/not bought and none can be described as a clear success as yet. Buying two injury prone players in the same position was just total incompetence and Iwobi shows no sign of improvement from when he burst onto the scene and is a talented but equally frustrating player.

I am still hoping Kean, Gomes and Gbamin will be great players for us long term but this is perhaps wishful thinking from me and not based on current evidence, for this season it's been a disaster and the only hard luck story is the injury to JP.

While I find it hard to agree with anything anyone who thought moving to Kirkby was a good idea says, he's absolutely right about the conflict of interest with Brands. Who is he accountable to, himself?

For me, he's cleared out deadwood and purchased a new batch of deadwood. Our scouting system has become lamentable, it seems like sometimes we buy players based on newspaper ratings and rumours.

I've been saying for decades that we need a 10-man board, each with a responsibility for, say, scouting, coaching, publicity etc to underpin performance of the club on all levels.

Our publicity and media dealings are pathetic, with Everton being ragged from pillar to post by all concerned with absolutely no comeback or defence from the club. We've become such a soft touch no wonder we get constantly ripped by VAR because the "powers" that be know we'll just take it up the backside (again), unlike most other clubs who defend their corner (no pun intended on that bone of contention) viciously.

No other club in world football would have allowed the injustice that occurred after Heysel to happen, never mind with hardly a comment, and ruin their best ever team, one destined to win the European Cup, and, almost as bad, let it be forgotten so easily as if it never happened.

It's time for Everton FC to finally be run as the multi-billion pound institution it is, with full time, professional directors and not as the drifting, leave-it-to-chance hobby that has been failing miserably and laughably for years.