I would just like to officially extend an offer to Shandy to take him to the airport the minute his contract is up. Has it really been just 4 years? It seems like so much longer.

If Van der Meyde is indeed off at the end of the season, no hard feelings fella! You've had your fair share of on/off the field problems but all the best mate, have a good one.

It was the news that we all knew was coming. Some, I know, couldn't care less... However, I for one have very mixed feelings when it comes to Andy.

Perhaps the best winger we have had since Kanchelskis, misfortune and stupidity clouded his time with us. That - couple with Moyes outright refusal to give the guy a break even when he was fit and begging for an opportunity.

The news also follows on from his being left out of the squad over the last couple of weeks when you might of thought that Moyes could of thrown him a bone the way he did to Lars and Casti. I wish him luck. I guess he might end up at one of our local rivals with his daughter being ill.

Others will say good riddance... but I have a soft spot for him. Some of the things he can do with a ball are unreal OH WELL!! (let the bashing commence)

Ped, give the guy a break!!!!!!! And when was he ever fit? Yes he had a bit of trouble with his little child but haven?t Neville, Carsley and a few others too?

The man was an out and out cheat end of, when he did turn up for training he was ALWAYS the first to leave.

Moyes has to take the blame as his history was before him before we signed him, but instead of thanking Moyes for not sacking him on numerous occasions he has slated him numerous times. He has never been fit to play Sunday league football nevermind the Premier League.

I will always remember a coach going to Boro on New Years day, a couple of lads came straight from a party, guess who was still at the party?

Have watched Shandy at half-time with the ball boys & groundsman, he larks about with them in a friendly way, he really has got a mischievious side to him. However, the sort of money & contract EFC gave him should have meant that he focused more on his game & fitness.

Sadly he?s also had a few problems on his domestic front with his child, therefore, as some people have said, I have mixed feelings about him going. The biggest is what he may have been capable of contributing to EFC had things been different!

Thank Feck he’s leaving, should of been paid off at least a year ago. If i turned up to work late whet home early maybe got pissed couple nights a week etc etc brought my personal problems into the workplace, i wud probably have been paid off - why cant footballers be treated the same? Shame on you Andy.....

He seems to spend more time in Cricket than at Finch Farm...spending all his hard earned wages

He should sign a 2 year contract for free...

£6m in wages for 20 appearances = £300k an appearance. Would like to break this down to minutes on the pitch as don’t know how many were the full 90, but not many I reckon. Even if they he played a full 90 minutes in every appearance he’d be on £3,333 a minute.

Nice work if you can get it.

Players should get a decent flat rate wage to live on (£5k a week sounds more than reasonable) and then get the mega-money for the shift they put in on the pitch. That way the ever presents like Tim Cahill, Howard, Lescott, Jags, Neville, Pienaar etc get the rewards they deserve and the others have to fight for their place to get into the first team. Those in the first team will also play their guts out not to get dropped. It also means the money we are saving on the also rans can be used to make the first team wages much higher than they are now, attracting real talent who at the moment wont touch us with a barge pole.

I know you’ll say - "with that system they wont come in case they get dropped". Tough, if they think they’re good enough, let them prove it.

We want winners, not spongers.

Like you said "The alarm bells should have been ringing when he only managed to complete 12 games in two years for Inter, prior to us signing him." He was obviously a slacker before he joined us, so dont blame AVDM, blame the person who decided to give him a 4 year contract! The worst decision since giving Alex Nyarko a 5 year contract when he only had a 4 year work permit!!

@ Mike Green

I totally agree with your proposals, the only thing is it would have to be adopted on a worldwide scale for it to work, otherwise all the decent players would bugger off somewhere else. If such a system was ever put into place the competetiveness would go up 100% and mercenaries would become a thing of the past. And even if you get injured 5K a week is more than enough to get by.

John - point taken and to be honest you’re right.

However, if we’re paying out say £100k an appearance you’d hope we’d attract a mustard first 11 week in week out. If we do that we should win games, be successful and start winning big. Trophies attract the best as much as money and we’ll be offering both. Could it work? Imagine the pride they’d have winning that first team place? Imagine the buzz it’d give a youth team player when he made it through?

If we were successful other teams will follow suit. If Barca can pay a charity for the right to have them on their shirts why can’t we do something equally radical? A new model - lets face it everyone in football thinks its outrageous how much money is swishing around players pockets - even the players admit it but defend themselves by saying they’d be mad to turn it down. Fans dont mind if they play their hearts out do they, which they would if they were facing a £95k a week pay cut.

If Louis Saha can do it why cant they all?

Other problems are team morale... manager accused of favouritism... jealousy etc but at least the players would have no doubt on a Saturday what would be expected of them.

I wish Shandy and his sick child the best for the future. But I am not sad to see him go. He may do well elsewhere, but has no place at EFC.

The biggest disappointment about van der Meyde is that based on talent alone he is arguably the best player in the squad. In flashes he has shown real skill and genius: in his first season (05/06) it was his emergence into the first team that helped turn around our terrible start to the campaign. Later on that year, around March 06, I remember a home game vs Fulham (Beattie scored an outrageous chip and McFadden a volley in a 3-1 win I think), where Andy came off the bench (returning from injury again) with ten minutes to go and ripped Fulham to shreds in the number 10 position - the game almost looked too easy to him.

I also have been one of the ones calling for him to be involved more this season, as I know that he’s the only midfielder we have with the pace, trickery and directness to carry the ball over long distances and beat a man.

But, depsite all this, the decision is right and he has to go. His record with injuries is terrible and, despite the problems with his kid, his attitude has often been abysmal. But for me this is a massive shame as an Evertonian - I truly believe that he could have been an Everton great if only he had more luck and a more professional approach.

I wish him every luck in the future, but sorry Andy - this isn’t the football club for you: we need winners and players with the right attitude, not spongers and sicknotes.

Meyde has had his problems, I don’t know all the ins and outs of his tribulations, but I have been disappointed with his him ever since his arrival from Inter Milan.

Was supposed to be one of the big names of the European Championships with the Netherlands in Portugal, but never fulfilled his potential. Am I right in thinking he never scored a goal for the first team all the time he’s been here.

Was involved in the Daniel Gosling strike against the shite if memory serves but apart from that, nothing comes to mind.

It is difficult to write anything other then something trite about Van der Meyde but I didn?t know his child was sick and it?s possible he is too in relation to his inappropriate drinking patterns

Really it?s a story about wanton waste for both ourselves and him. I feel sure Moyes would have been aware of his problems beforehand but was given assurances that AvdM would be able to knuckle down and do a job. The fact he hasn?t will make the ever cautious Moyes more wary when recruiting in the future I?d hope.

Can?t finish without wishing Van der Meyde well in the future and to thank him for that peach of an assist in the Gosling derby, which all things considered, is much to be grateful for. We need a genuinely quick and able replacement as a matter of priority now.

We could probably now sign Jacobsen and Castillo up on a combined wage fee that equals what Van der Meyde was on. 30k a week is alot of money to be paying to someone that never plays, but our wage bill must be significantly lower than most other Premier league clubs, surely we must save a fortune for having such a small squad?

Expect him to go to Newcastle then

I recall some weeks ago reports by our coaches in regard to AVdM being in the gym working hard and getting into shape. Well, quelle surprise! Contract coming to an end and suddenly he deigns to start working out. The excuses about his personal life impinging upon his professional one suddenly seem to be disappearing. I am sorry, but he has shown no loyalty to Everton whatsoever, and the contract Everton signed in good faith. I cannot fathom how he was not in breach of contract.

Bit harsh Steve, after all the lapdancer Andy knocks about with has got a baby to feed now mate. Spare a thought for poor Shandy as £30k isnt that much when compared to the Auzzie parsasite from across the park Harry Spewell. Spewell was on over £100k a week for doing the same job as Shandy does for us.

In the Club shop before the Boro cup game with my daughter as she bought a shirt and got RODWELL on the back her new shirt. The lad in front of her got one of the hi viz yellow away shirt and got number 7 and Van der Meyde on the back. Everyone was laughing at him and then he said "he's my favourite player!!"

I wanted to ask when he?d seen him play to make this informed judgement that Shandy was indeed his personal hero in the way Bob Latch and Big Nev were mine when I was a few years younger. Latch and Nev will always be welcome at Everton for the pleasure and service they both gave. VDM?.... goodbye and good riddance. Nothing short of theft of wages

He is an infuriating player but he did go some way to redeeming himself with that peach of a pass to Gosling against the Kopites.

He will make it on to an Everton DVD, bizarrely enough.

For the person asking how much AvdM played :-
05/06 - 7 starts - 3 Subs - 508 minutes
06/07 - 5 starts - 2 subs - 407 minutes
07/08 - 0 starts - 0 subs - 0 minutes
08/09 (to date) - 0 starts - 2 subs - 12 minutes

So in summary, started 12 matches and came on as a sub in 5 more. Reading at home in 06/07 was the only match which he started and finished, all other 11 he was taken off at some point. Total minutes on the pitch 927. So if he has earned 6m, that is £6472 per minute.

But let us not forget, he crossed for Super Danny Gosling to score again the other lot in the Cup. Is that not enough for forgiveness?

And to answer the other question - yes, as they say in cricket, he never troubled the scorers.

But did I mention he crossed for SDG to score the winner in extra time in the cup replay this year against Liverpool?

I honestly dont know who this pacey, tricky, mercurial winger you are all talking about is, but he sounds like a great free transfer. Shame he only looks like that when everyone else on the pitch has run nearly 10km! He has made 1 cross of significance during 4 years, what an outstanding winger. pack yer bags and piss(ed) off...

Whatever the truth is - and we will probably never know - the story is a football tragedy for a talented player and EFC’s wage bill.

As the fat lady hasn’t sung yet, there could still be another twist, but a very good cross to give Dan Gosling the chance to score such a fabulous goal should perhaps be how we remember him - before we forget all about him.

Everton have been paitent with him. He’s had hard luck with injuries and when hes came back, hes struggled to get back into the team. Hes hard luck. Best to put is time at Everton behind him and move on and hopefully he will find his form again. I expect Everton to let him go. Good luck to him where ever he goes.

He’ll play in the cup final... for it is written.

Bit harsh on Harry Kewell there, Tony. He was genuinely injured, and his off-field was nothing like VDM’s. And for us Australian-based Shite hating Blues, there was pleasure in seeing Harry, after months of working on it back at Anfield, finally overcoming whatever injury it was at the time just in time for him to hop on a plane, come down here or go off the World Cup, put his all in for the Socceroos (which, let me tell you, he does every time), and then, once he’d finished doing that, unfortunately get crocked again.

It is a shame really because I for 1 thought Andy was very talented and was hardly given a shot even prior to when these problems became public. And at the end of the day if Moyes really was aware he had problems before he signed then that is his fault. This was certainly a wasted oppurtunity.

Nick Entwistle - He?ll play in the cup final... for it is written.

Stranger things have happened Nick!!
(What a parting shot!)

Does anyone remember Moyes commenting publicly about Andy in the last four years? perhaps explaining his repeated absence from the squad, even when apparently match-fit? The presence in professional football of these high-earning invisible men has always baffled me, every prem club has had at least a couple over the years, I just find it staggering that there isn’t some sort of a clause in their contracts whereby they can be released with no pay-off if they can’t perform their duties to at least a basic standard.

Geeze fellas ? VdM can still do some damage. Moyes has burnt the bridge and is too stubborn to change his mind (yes, VdM has made his own bed). But FFS he has long since paid his penalty for his crimes. Time to let the past lie and get on with a new beginning.

Andy could have helped out much more this season and is still ? save Arteta ? the most technically gifted player at EFC. I would like to see him on a one-year pay-as-you-play deal and see if that would inject new life into him. Many of you are so hard on the fella. It?s not his fault he doesn?t get picked.

His salary is based on his pedigree and if you were on that much bob and didn?t ever get in the team (long after your indiscretions had evaporated) what would you do? ... You would pick splinters out of your ass like he does.