ToffeeWeb - Season 2007-08

The Mail Bag

Arteta & Cahill

A few weeks back when comments from the manager that there's going to be a number of new players players coming in this year, backing up comments from BK about money being available, Everton made two important 'signings', Cahil and Arteta.

Re-signing the players to long term contracts was a huge bonus, keeping our two most bankable players happy and keeping them at the club. Fast forward a couple of weeks, the mass of players haven't arrived which we we hoping for, just a solitary Mr Jagielka.

The tone has also changed coming from the club's direction. Comments about the inability to compete finacially and maybe affording only to bring in one more player, contradicts early expectations.

If their contracts wern't signed yet, would Mikky and Tim sign a new one now if they heard comments like the ones from the manager in the last couple days? An admittance of the inability to compete with the big boys. It's kinda funny how all this noise about moving forward and improving the squad quitened down soon after they re-signed.

How long can we keep hold of our top stars, with the manager saying its hard to compete with the other teams in the league. Also if they are being told that there's going to be an influx of new players this season and there's money to spend on them, how happy are they that these actions aren't going to happen?
Kyle Boyce, WA, USA Posted 14/07/2007 at 09:56:20

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Colm

It's all so typically Everton, I'm afraid. Vacuous comments promising the Earth, we're going to do this, we're going to do that and then, ultimately, in an attempt to ease the pain of raised expectations we get comments like those uttered this week.

Brian Waring
1 Posted 14/07/2007 at 12:01:02

K Boyce.Havn’t you stopped to think,that maybe the reason Cahill and Arteta both signed new deals,is not because they were told there would be great signings coming in.But,were offered mega-bucks a week to stay at the club,with get-out clauses inserted into their contracts?I don’t except all this,they stayed because they love the club.

Kieran Fitzgerald
2 Posted 14/07/2007 at 14:56:18

I can understand to a certain extent the need for putting money aside for the stadium move. It?s going to happen eventually, in one guise or another, and we need to be saving for it. I will not argue against that, and credit to the Board when it?s due. While we may not all agree with the options for a new stadium that the club has sourced to date, it is heartening to see them have a very substantial amount set aside.Whether or not the club has the brains or the balls to leave this money untouched, if not spending it on transfers,remains to be seen.

I do think though that more than the paltry 15m given could have been provided for transfers. With a very good season behind us, and the promise of European football, we had the edge over several clubs of equal or lesser status to us in the transfer market. Having that extra 1m or 2m to offer per player to back it up would have been an easy decision to make and provide for. Four or five purchases, even in the inflated market, could have come in for as little as an extra 8m added to the 15m provided. Given too that the players we lost out on would hardly have been on huge wages where they were, any wages cap the club has would not have been affected either. What wasn?t spent could have been left aside for the January window.

It would have been a P.R coup for the club to say that we promised players, we put our money where our mouth is and here are the new players as a result. Given the raised expectations amongst fans at the end of the season, expectations that a blind man would have seen, many fans would have presumed that the club now had the mindset and approach to match. The Board,after all the bad feeling towards it, would have gone a long way towards redeeming itself in fans? eyes. We have even put the unspent money aside for the January window, they could say, we?re planning ahead already and this window has only just closed. All this, and they could still say how they had put 20m odd away for the new stadium.

Still, the window?s not closed yet, time will tell.

Brian Waring
3 Posted 14/07/2007 at 15:56:18

Kieran,you say you are glad BK has put the money aside for the new stadium. do you know the reason we are not spending in the transfer window is due to setting this money aside? No-one has come out and told us this.Maybe, the facts are were skint!Maybe, we will have to borrow the stadium money from the banks and go into debt.What I am saying is that no-one from goodison has come out and told us anything,so up until they do we know fuck all.

Kieran Fitzgerald
4 Posted 14/07/2007 at 16:45:02

Brian, your right,I don?t know for sure.

There?s a general consensus at the moment that all the extra cash that came into the club from our good league finish,the extra t.v money and the improved Chang deal amounted to quite a sum. Estimates have put the figure for our share of the stadium at 30m. That is where many fans, myself included think that all that extra money has gone towards. It could very well on the other hand be gone down a black hole of never ending and badly handled debts. We just don?t know!

It would be nice to have an informative and transparent Board/club that kept us in the loop on stuff like this. Unfortunately we don?t, which means that we do have to second guess, presume and draw up our own conclusions as best we can.

Perhaps someone should put stuff like this up as a new post or article so that fans with an inside knowledge can provide info.