ToffeeWeb - Season 2006-07

The Mail Bag

Fans Targets

Sitting at my desk in work, I, like most Evertonians regularly browse through all Everton-related websites. Since the season ended, I have come across a disturbing trend amongst fans discussing potential transfers, that is a lack of ambition regarding potential targets

Let's look at the facts: we have money to spend (rumoured to be around £10M to £15M depending on targets), we can offer European football, we are one of only 2 clubs (Tottenham being the other) who has the fanbase, team & manager to possibly break into top 4 (or more likely make it a top 5) yet a lot of our fans keep mentioning names that are so unsuitable for us it is borderline comical

Let me list the most common offenders & give you my view points on these players:-

Reo-Coker: He is a lazy footballer, captain of a poor team last year has an attitude that he thinks he is a top player when in fact he is a championship player at best, and on top of that I hear figures of £8M to 10M!!!! You must be joking.
Barton:-Now Joey is different altogether, he can be a good player on his day but the trouble that comes with this fella is not worth it for even £5.5 mil, talk about rocking the boat. When you have a squad that plays for each other week in, week out then a player like this can cause untold trouble. Avoid
Parker ? Had a chance to join us & chose Newcastle for trophies & success (more like £70k a week) missed the boat now Scotty you greedy bastard!
Harewood ? This was one of the worst!! He couldn?t get a game for West Ham, back the championship Marlon, you waste of space!
Wes Brown ? Admittedly he would keep our tradition of buying Man Utd players in last few years but he is not good enough. Prone to mistakes & lack of concentration.
Matty Taylor ? Just cos he scored a good goal against us?? Nah

The players the club seem to be after are more like it, Jagielka has been Sheff Utds' best player for 3 years & is ready for step up; Scharner always looked better than what surrounded him at Wigan; Nugent/D Bent are both young, talented & ready to move to next level of careers; and Fernandes I don?t need to explain. He is an outstandingly talented player and I have a feeling that if we do sign him we would have to fight hard to keep him within 2/3 years!! Basically we need to look at players that would guarantee improvement. Four things: Talent, Work Rate, personality & history of player. You're still taking a chance but at least you have a starting point.

John Lloyd, Liverpool Posted 06/06/2007 at 12:45:40

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Sean Rothwell
1 Posted 06/06/2007 at 18:13:14

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A brilliant post there, John - I agree with pretty much every point you make.
I hate the way some of our fans seem to believe that just because a certain player joins another Club it means we were outbid or have no ambition. I wish these people would just stop and realise that maybe, just maybe, David Moyes doesn’t want to sign crap players in the ilk of Reo-Coker, Parker, Harewood, etc. Maybe David Moyes has his own targets and doesn’t want to just buy ’names’ like Newcastle do every year and West Ham seemingly want to do now.
I will even go as far as to say there has not been one player transferred so far in this window (with the possible exception of Barton, whose move isn’t yet finalised) that I would have particularly coveted. Good things come to those who wait.

Eric Myles
2 Posted 07/06/2007 at 02:57:13

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Just 2 comments John.

Wes Brown - I thought you were describing Yobo?

Matt Taylor - Leading goalscoring defender last season and leading defender in assists the season before. Sounds like a good attacking full back to me. Don’t you reckon we could do with one of those?

Eric Myles
3 Posted 11/06/2007 at 02:31:31

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Oh, and Matt Taylor is a left sided player. I’m SURE we could do with one of those???