Milan win race for Niang

Whilst not an Owen fan, getting someone who is a proven Premiership goal scorer in to boast the squad, for free sounds alright to me. If Jelavic was to get injured we'd struggle. Vellios is unproven, Anichebe has proven not to be at this level and I get the impression Mirallas has been brought in to play out wide.

I just hope we get another signing in and a couple of frees / loans yo bulk out the squad.

Without casting aspersions on Italian football, I wonder if perhaps a few extra Lira was passed under the table to the agent/father? ;-)

Also, I think at 17, unless he is an absolute wonder-kid, he's not going to be commanding substantial wages. Bear in mind that with differing tax laws between member states, you can end up having to pay a player almost double what he gets in Italy or Spain, to leave him with the same take home. Alex Song left Arsenal as he wanted a rise on his £55k a week, and now gets £80k a week at Barcelona - even if he'd got the £130k a week he was looking for at Arsenal, he's still done better.

There is a brief, one-season window here to challenge for top 4 before 5 things things inevitably happen:

1) the RS spend another £30-£40m Net improving their team
2) before Tottenham appoint a competetant manager, with money to spend.
3) Wenger is racks up another trophyless season, capitulates and spends big.
4) We liquidate more of our squad, probably one of our big saleable stars (Jella, Felli, Baines, or worse still, Moyes) - because in reality, the sale of Rodwell and Bankruptcy of Rangers. Depressingly its the same Board.
5) Key members of our squad age further (Neville, Distin, Osman, Howard, Pienaar) although all five have plenty of gas in the tank for now, and likely long careers, older players do tend to hit a tipping point of decline quite quickly.

Point 5 of course is the reason to sign young potential like Niang, but taken together, points 1-5 present a better case for conserving the cash and spending it on someone who can give us a boost while there is this brief window to compete for top 4......even if that was 2-3m to loan for the likes of Donovan (insert your favourite loan target here)....I'm thinking short team this year.

That's the kind of thinking that got Leeds United into League One.

Leeds spent £200million. Why do people feel the need to exagerate the 'doing a Leeds' paradigm?

Usually the ones we get we've never seen coming so lets all chill (myself included) and see what happens before the window closes.

Now I know it's only 2 games in but the EPL seems as usual like a very top heavy league with most of the teams being crap. We could yet pull off a swoop but probably more likely in January

Good luck to him. He picked the wrong club.

Maybe he IS thinking of his personal development rather than instant dosh. Milan seem to have promised him first-team involvement and the style of play in Serie A may suit him more than the hurly-burly of the EPL. He is young enough that, should he prove himself in Italy, he can get a big money move over here in a couple of years time when he is barely in his twenties.

Harsh to criticise the club on this. The lad and his father obviously had a plan to stoke up interest and draw offers so that they could pick from a few decent offers. Getting into a bidding war with Milan may only have drawn the saga out to the extent that we were unable to do any business after he had made his decision.

Good luck to the lad.

Clown!!!

What you chatting about mate? Some ppl will criticise the club over anything

Objectivity?! What does that mean again?

I'm afraid Everton just cant win with transfers.. even the Mirallas deal was called protacted.. I mean honestly?