Jagielka to undergo surgery on damaged ankle

Get well soon Jags, hopefully we won't miss you too much and you can be at Wembley for us if we make it.

Important games coming up and after getting Miralles, Coleman and Gibson back we lose Jags. On top of that the RS can jump over us next week playing Spurs who will be coming off a hard game against Inter on Thursday with our next game not till the 16th against 'Moancini's City.

There should be no need to give Heitinga more chances... if this fucking board supported the manager properly we would have a stronger squad.

JH is not up to it against pace and strength and is a serious weakness at the back. As I've said before, if Duffy is not better than Heitinga then he should consider a career change.

Jags is a big miss for us and he was unlucky with injury the last time we made Wembley.

If we don't make Wembley this year I will never forgive this board for putting us in this dreadful position. Our bench is a mess and is the worst in the Premier League, there is no excuse for it.

He holds all the cards. If the board refused to back him he could have come out and told the truth. Every single fan would have been on his side.

Good luck Jags. Get well SOON!

Mucha was very static today and Howard's absence will hopefully be restricted to the one game. Worth noting that even QPR had a second choice goalie with some experience to come off the bench.

He absolutely is a Centre Back!

He's off form and I dread seeing him in the team at the moment...but there is absolutely no doubt that CB is his best position.

Also, you think Heitinga is slow? Wait till you see Duffy. I like the lad but his lack of pace and ball control is a real worry, even at U21 level.

If Moyes decides that Heitinga is the answer then, well, young players at Everton may as well look for a new club. The treatment of Barkley, Velios, Duffy and indeed most of the young players is indicative of the conservatism of the Moyes era.

Phil..I attach no blame to Moyes as transfers are down to the board, players are scouted and suggested but if the board do not come through then thats it.
Teams like Newcastle and Swansea have better squads than us and we cannot rely on the first eleven being fit throughout the season.
We continually give jobs to other teams cast offs and you always get what you pay for in the end.
We are supposed to be the 26th wealthiest club in the world so where is the transfer budget ??

If you have watched the U21's recently they you will have seen how poor Vellios' attitude has been. In a sense I don't blame him though. These young lads must be thinking, 'what's the point?'

So I agree with everything you say really. Although Duffy being the best CB at the club is of course laughable. Jags and Syl are without doubt better than him.

But I'm gonna raise a flag for JH. Sure, him and Jelly are this season's after last season's – we voted for him – mysteries... but I have a hunch, just a hunch, that both JH and Jelly might be getting better press here in a fortnight, just a hunch, like, I'm not sure, fingers crossed.

Several times yesterday he didn't even challenge for an aerial ball - just backed off instead. He got away with it.

Criticise the board for running the business side of the club poorly, but they can't be faulted for the problems with our squad. Moyes has more control over the runnings at this club than virtually any other manager. He was the one who decided not to give pienaar his wage rise, which resulted in him going to spurs, fucking up our season then having to be brought back at significant cost because Moyes then realized the team had fuck all creativity.

Moyes has had free hand over the youth setup that has generated a couple of promising youngsters who've been given virtually ZERO opportunity to develop. Who's he brought through in 11 years? Osman who was 24 before he was allowed a regular start and Anichebe.

Moyes decides who we approach to sign. Its Moyes decisions over which players are kept at the squad and on what salaries that largely determine the financial health of the club and our ability to go out there and buy players.

You look at the Fer transfer. Personally I think the guys knees were of concern and the club was right to pull out of spending £8.5M on a player we weren't sure of. That cant be blamed on the board.

The fact we are operating on the edge of our financial ability makes each deal more complex. We can't just offer cash. We have to have staged payments, we might have to borrow against next years TV money or season tickets which takes time to arrange.

If Moyes was a proper manager who MANAGED, then he'd be actively out there selling on our more profitable players or ones who are past it(fellaini/neville/heitinga), and using that money to spend on younger, hungrier, cheaper players with more potential. But he wants to keep all the players he has AND buy more (expensive) players. He can't have it both ways.

He's been entrusted with a budget of £60M and I expect him to work within that, not keep bitching for more and more money to send the club into administration just so he can walk away with his fat £4M / year salary and say "I tried my best". He can piss off if this club is not good enough for him.

Obviously if you want to believe the board and not back DM then thats up to you. I played the game professionally and can tell you that EVERY player shows up injuries when scanned. A doctor will ALWAYS give some negatives in a medical to cover his arse and show that he is doing his job.

Feer is playing regularly for his club. Can that be said of Gibson or others we signed because they were cheap? Give me the reasons why we wait until the end of the transfer window every year, perhaps its so that we can get away with doing no business!!! How is it that loaning players IN is so difficult (eg, Ofoe) and loaning OUT so easy???

I believe Moyes is honest and just as frustrated as me and other fans. I believe he will walk and it's a shame because he assembled the best first eleven we have had for years and this miserly board have not supported his efforts financially.

Personally, as a fan I want to see a return to the title winning days but there is not a snowballs chance in hell of that happening while this board hold the purse strings. If virtually every club in the division does some business to bolster their squads during the transfer window, why don't we? We sell our best players and loan out our youngsters far more readily than we bring fresh faces in.

Hitzlsperger, Hahnemann, McFadden and Naismith would never have been signed by any club with ambition.

This Jags business has knocked the shine off everything. When Heitinga recently replaced Distin Moyes said it was a smooth transition. One experienced player for another. Duffy and "future England CB" Stones will not be considered. It's all quite sickening, especially when you see lower league centre backs with much more ability than the 2013 Heitinga who will be targeted by Martinez. Our only hope is to bang in 3 or 4 at the other end.

Every team we play look at our players one by one and Heitinga will definitely be seen as a weakness... he cannot cope with strong, pacey strikers.

If anyone was responsible it was Victor Anichebe for his half arsed efforts at tracking back and not pressuring the crosser. After the goal went in you could see the face on Anichebe, because he knew he was going to get a bollocking.

And Trevor, "I do not see his distribution being any better than anyone else." I think you should have gone to Specsavers, whilst he isn't perfect, Heitinga is the only defender at the club who can pass. We played our best, and most effective football in years, with him pulling strings at the back last season while Jagielka was injured.

The club have put their usual slant on things and you are right, all players show up injuries on medicals. But this 'injury' had jack shit to do with that deal breaking down. Everton could not make the repayments within the timeframe that FC Twente stipulated, it got down to a case of put up or shut up so Everton had to shut up.

Remember, doing business the Everton way?

JH did ok yesterday but Kone will be a different proposition. I'm worried about that one.

Directors of companies are not there to "invest" their own money into the companies. They're there to run the companies as well as possible so those companies grow, are profitable and remain a going-concern in the long term.

Its probably natural to be jealous of Newcastle, Chelsea etc, but its not reasonable to expect BK and the other directors to subsidise the club, like some owners do. Would be great if they did, but if they don't thats up to them. It does piss me off that they've sold everything that isn't nailed down and borrowed money at silly interest rates, and lied to the fanbase and let Goodison become run-down, but I'm not going to start blaming them for stuff they've not done just because I don't like them.

DM doesn't take shit from anyone and he is as straightforward as they come. Do you really think if the club was deliberately scuppering transfer dealings or lieing to him he'd still be here? Moyes still talks highly of BK and I don't think he would do or even entertain thoughts of a new contract if BK had screwed him over like that. He would've been gone long ago

Regarding Fer; the reason we do our business late in the window is often the same reasons why virtually all deals are done late in the transfer window. Or am I dreaming that there is generally a lot of transfer activity on the last or two of the window compared to the preceeding 29 days? Is that just activity involving Everton and no other clubs??

Give me a manager any day who'll take the squad as it is, sell the players who've become too big-headed or are beyond their usefulness and reinvest that money in new players.

Gerard, Shane Duffy can't get a start, because Moyes does not have any faith in young players. Despite being one of our best players last time we saw him in the premier league (last season), Moyes will probably insist that another 2-3 years in the reserves is what he needs to develop.

There was some talk a while ago about Moyes being good with young players. I'm not sure where that came from. Unfortunately we're not in the financial position where we can ignore our youth team.

He is not a sweeper either and I can't recall him ever playing there.

The guy is as much a Centre Back as Jagielka or Distin...he just happens to be bloody terrible at the moment.

It just goes to show you how one player playing below par affects our season when he is guaranteed a game by David Moyes. Remember the Saha, Cahill debacle of last year and David Moyes stuck with them till he was blue in the face...

I think even Count Stracqular would have struggled to miss some of those!

We did no business at all !!!!

During January we loaned OUT four players to compound the shortage of our squad.
Some of the players loaned OUT make up our squad and two are regular bench warmers.

If you want to continue to make excuses for the poor management of our board then I cannot agree with you.
Luckily most fans can see the situation as it is and don't make excuses for the board.

The board must INVEST or we will struggle to do as well as we have.

Every business needs money for assets to sell and the players are the assets of the club.

Its no wonder this board can continue to fiddle around with people like you who make excuses for them.

Play Hietinga, who is slow, cannot tackle and cannot beat anyone in the air... Or play Duffy, who is slow and gives the ball away a lot but is not bad in the air.

I am glad I don't have to pick the team. Over to you Davey.