ToffeeWeb - Season 2008-09

The Mail Bag

Off the leash?

Seeing the piece on the OS where Moyes talks of the need for transfers, I was intrigued to read: 'My big concern is that anybody we bring in now probably won?t be ready to start the Premier League season. It?s now getting to the stage where you are wondering how long it takes for new players to settle, etc.'. Isn't that just about the first concession printed on Pravda, that the 'don't panic, transfers will come' and the 'the manager has the funds to bring in some new faces' was a smokescreen to cover problems to do with DK, Moyes' contract, Earl, Green and the lack of money (take your pick on these)?

Sure, there's no accounting for the behaviour of the Fulhams of the world, but short of the complete incompetence of our former CEO in thinking it's ok to start your transfer dealings in the third week in July isn't this finally hard evidence that something is rotten in the state of Everton rather than just Bully wanting to spend some more time with his family?

For the gaffer to come out on the OS and say what he has, sounds like he's been let off the leash to vent his frustrations. Maybe there's going to be some ping pong in the red tops with Bully telling his story (as expected) and him getting the blame from Kenwright and company elsewhere. Still, it'll deflect from Kirkby.
Mark Wynne, Bury St Edmunds Posted 04/08/2008 at 13:52:23

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Paul Chisholm
1 Posted 04/08/2008 at 14:27:19

Having just read the comments made by DM on the official website re: new signings, I am slightly disturbed to now see that the 5 or 6 new faces he originally wanted (which last week was reduced to 3 or 4), has now this week been slashed further, to just a few. At this rate, by next week it will be down to one, and week after none.

By the time the transfer window closes, we will have probably let a further 3 players leave. Hope I'm proved horribly wrong, but has anyone else got the feeling that things could get a whole lot worse before they begin to get better.

Dan O'Brien
2 Posted 04/08/2008 at 16:42:00

There is only word to describe this "shambles". Let's face it if our misses treated us like Everton we we would all be divorced
No communication.
No Respect

As for Alonso being at Finch Farm today and Moutinho boarding a flight to the UK.

GET A GRIP!

Richard Harris
3 Posted 04/08/2008 at 16:52:35

One quality signing is not enough, let alone a couple of uninspiring loan signings that will be the more likely outcome. Cue a senior player being quoted as "having (injured player name here) back is like having a new signing".....

Adam Carey
4 Posted 04/08/2008 at 16:59:54

Richard, if memory serves Pip has already said that about Cahill, Arteta and, (I think), Vaughan. That’s 3 already so we only need 1 more signing before deadline day!
Happy days.......

Paul Lenehan
5 Posted 04/08/2008 at 17:10:48

I thought the very thing Paul. the watering down of what is required is clear evidence that the 5 or 6 we really need will not be happening. A joke.

Jay Harris
6 Posted 04/08/2008 at 17:17:35

It’s even worse than that.

I thought this quote was even more telling:-

? I?m not going to say I am totally confident because you never know what happens. But I am hoping we will get a few in.?

Key words being "hoping and not totally confident".

Now posters get criticised for tearing people’s words apart to interpret them but I dont think there can be any doubt that Moyes is highly pissed off.

He was probably assured by BK on Thursday that he will work with him to get the players in and they both needed to issue statements to reassure the fans and now as always BK is putting a slightly different slant on things.

I hope I’m wrong but I can at least say I’ve never been naive.

Chris Briddon
7 Posted 04/08/2008 at 17:33:25

You guys really need to start reading all of interviews rather than just selective quotes you know otherwise you will get in a panic.

The ?I am hoping to get a few in? quote was relating to before the start of the season - not before the transfer deadline.

Moyes's concerns where that players need time to settle and he would have liked to have them there before they went to the States.

AT NO POINT does he suggest they won?t be coming at all, just they might not be sorted by the start of the season.

Gavin Ramejkis
8 Posted 04/08/2008 at 18:07:38

Chris Briddon by the time the transfer window closes we will have played three games and potentially pissed away nine points all through having too small a squad at the at the end of last season and even smaller now, but it?s ok because Billy Bullshitter says (again) that we will have new players before then?

Keith Glazzard
9 Posted 04/08/2008 at 18:11:16

My paper quotes Moyes as saying that - to paraphrase - he isn’t going to buy any old crap, he wants high quality to take us on to winning things.

He does seem to have moved from quantity to quality over the last couple of weeks. This might be because of his judgment that the young lads are good enough. I hope he’s right, and I suspect that we will see quite a lot of Jose Baxter this season.

Brian Finnigan
10 Posted 04/08/2008 at 18:33:48

I would prefer to have seen several quality players signed weeks ago so that they could have been made Everton fit and ready to go for the opening game of the season. For whatever reasons, this has not happened and it looks as though we will be quite a few experienced bodies light to begin with. However, if the Manager is as good as £60,000 per week suggests then he will just have to galvanise the players at his disposal into a decent team through brave selections and courageous tactics.

It is in times of adversity that great Managers show their true worth. If Moyes has it in him to become a great Manager then he needs to concentrate his thoughts and efforts in one direction only. There is no point bleating about preferred options if they are just not going to made available. Alf Ramsey famously told Jack Charlton in 1966 that you don’t always pick the best players to create the best team. If Moyes could take this to heart, he will see that there is plenty of talent available within the Club if only he is brave enough to give some of the youngsters their chance. They might surprise us all!

Dan McKie
11 Posted 04/08/2008 at 19:01:26

What Moyes could mean is that he doesn't know what condition the players will be in when they arrive. The Premier League is a whole different ball game to some European leagues and he may be worried about the players' fitness levels and whether they can play as soon as they get here! Also, Moyes seems to want players to step up a level in their usual fitness when they come to Everton, as he showed with Yakubu and Jags last year!

David Marsden
12 Posted 04/08/2008 at 18:44:48

@ Gavin, read the article in full, then read it again, then again.. and slowly it might sink in what he is actually saying!

@ Keith, papers make up stuff to sell!! ie the Sun!

My nan always said a ?watched pot never boils?. I think people need to take a step back. Go out, go the pub, take the kids the park, visit your family anything but get away from watching the internet for news.

Vinny Bird
13 Posted 04/08/2008 at 19:16:21

I told everyone last week that AJ's transfer was not going through before it came out. Now here is another one: a certain midfielder of the Barcodes is going to sign for Everton. And maybe his ex-team mate from the title-winners to. Remember the name... Vinny, Vinny Bird.

Alan Clarke
14 Posted 04/08/2008 at 19:18:34

Moyes is really smelling of roses at the moment. Last year everyone was slating him calling him dithering Dave (I’m glad he did dither so we don’t have Smith, Richardson and Nugent in our squad). I am thinking there’s probably more than one person to blame for us not having players in yet: Kenwright for not having enough money, Wyness for not releasing the funds we do have, and Moyes refusing to pay over the odds. I’m not at all a fan of Kenwright but I think he’s being made a scapegoat for everything.

Anyway, having Johnson back will be like a new signing!

Brian Finnigan
15 Posted 04/08/2008 at 19:25:00

I’m getting quite excited now....Andy Johnson, Nicky Butt, Alan Smith..............................WOW!

Neil Scott
16 Posted 04/08/2008 at 20:23:00

Hmmm... it may be nothing but that would make a lot more sense as to why PN has just been given his new 4-year contract wouldn?t it... ie we?re that skint/short/desperate that we?re now looking to the Neville brothers to recruit their old team mates to Goodison!!

Thoughts?

Vinny Bird
17 Posted 04/08/2008 at 20:35:14

Expect a flurry of signings, some old, some new... something borrowed, something blue.

Keith Glazzard
18 Posted 04/08/2008 at 20:54:39

Dave Masden

- all media people make things up, but The Guardian’s Andy Hunter is usually reliable - as much of his stuff seems to be very much what we read on TW. I read the Sun once. Sorry, I didn’t. But I might have looked at the pictures.

Andy Crooks
19 Posted 04/08/2008 at 21:44:24

if this was a well run club we?d have at least three new signings out in the States with the rest of the squad. Two or three weeks ago, I was a glass half-full sort of guy. Now I think it?s just about empty.