Southampton — Lesson to Learn?

A stadium for 50-60 mill. If we had that cash or even a portion of it, just where would you put this new Boys pen Bill Bowl. No I don't think that will happen.

Sell Barkley, to raise the cash, not going to happen, even if it does there are other calls on the cash before spunking it all on the Kenwrightdome.

The ground can be rebuilt one side at a time and to do this we have to get lucky on the field / invest this window, have a decent run in the CL and do it again next season.

If we don't do at least half of that then the chance will have passed us by

These next 2 seasons are shit or bust. Martinez won't stay ( or be allowed to stay ) 11 yrs. He will jump or be pulled if in 4 yrs or so, if he sees he is flogging a dead horse and who could blame him. He'll be 44-5 in his prime.

As for Southampton, they have a decent team but all the angst Re the ground you seem to think is coming from them is just sour grapes If they'd won they would've been full of how good it was coming to a 'traditional stadium' and winning.

We might have problems, but they would swop in an instant, their new ground, go back to the Dell if it meant being were we are today.

No disrespect to them but they and others are called yoyo team for a reason. If you looked in the dictionary for yoyo team if the picture wasn't of them it would be somebody similar.

Our problems are many, but we have to generate the money via on field success, there will be no white knight, no Russian with snow on his boots, no sons of the desert. We have our own stan and Ollie sitting up in the directors box and there is the real problem.

I don't have a solution other than hope that Martinez can work a miracle and buy us via on field success some cash and time to spend it...wisely

I would also add both clubs histories are entirely different. Southampton are not expected to be successful, there is no pressure there for them to be challenging for a European place, if they finish tenth no one will bat an eyelid..

BUT, the owners have forked out over £70m in two seasons, they will soon want to start seeing a return on their investment or these players you have mentioned will be sold and where will Soton be then?

Jags has commented about the monkey on our back. The Red Shite must have a gorilla on theirs, look at the money they have spent and for what?. They now pay a striker £225k a week.... To be fifth. It will just get harder for them. Their fans talk of the late 70s and 80s like it was yesterday. It's all gone.

There are many "smaller" EPL clubs who have invested heavily on pitch personnel these past 3/5 years without reward, where will they be in another 5?.

A lot of us commented on here regarding the money these clubs spent in the summer, where are they in relation to us?.

As for Goodison, well, I go to watch the team play, the customer retail offer is secondary but i'll say this. In 30yrs of going on my own, I've never failed to buy a brew or food when the mood takes me and I've never been in a position where I couldn't watch the action.

Mike, Derek is right. They'd swap places with us in a heart beat.

Our crowd cannot spend as much as easily. Few want to pay for those awful obstructed seats bringing our true working capacity down to 34-36,000? True, fans who are less fanatical will not attend when times are bad or tend to travel as much to away games so perhaps we have a more solid fan base that has held administration at bay but we need those types of fans too.

Goodison Park is holding us back in financial terms. It has been at the bottom of the 'quality of experience' league tables for a long time now. It is an interesting historical curiosity for most visiting fans but clearly not a very pleasant experience for most.

Fanatical fans will move to wherever the club goes, monied fans want to see some comfort for their money (for their guests as well as themselves) as well as good footy. The brutal truth is that Kirkby is/was about what we can afford and a risk we must take sooner rather than later.

According to the Prems own fans survey taken about 5-6 years ago, Everton were the club, from what we might call the "Big Clubs" , with the largest percentage of fans who either walked to the ground or at least travelled the shortest distance. Moving to a new ground on the outskirts would damage the attendances.

A new ground is something that may be desirable but can't be some soulless bowl on a retail development. Boro, Portsmouth, Reading, Derby, Bolton, Wigan and Birmingham were the only clubs with supporters travelling less than us and every one of those would swap places with us now and four of those gained little lasting benefit from new grounds.

I think Iain Johnston makes good points with his post, and I would sooner us get more success on the pitch with team investment than a shiny new seat and more leg room. Stuff me, there is even a debate about standing at matches now.

Firstly, redeveloping GP is an option but the club would have to buy some of the land around the ground. Unfortunately, as the RS found out some years ago, all you need is one obstinate tenant, and that could take years.

The second option is a move away from GP to somewhere else in the city, but if there is objections from residents' groups, that would also take years.

The only other option is move to a green field site... DK anyone? IMHO (and just about everyone else) we missed the boat at the Kings' Dock (no pun intended), and I cannot think of a similar patch of land within the city that is suitable and that wouldn't be controversial.

When I look at the list of clubs with new stadia only the extremely tenuous example of City seems a winner and that's a rental!

According to Arsenal fans their increased t/o is of benefit only to board members lining their pockets.

The Southampton story appears a roll of the dice rather than any marvelous plan - (they went bust didn't they via this new stadium??)

If I remember correctly they had their own version of the "Venkys" before being baled out by the present owners.

Replacing GP has to be a world class operation (as kings Dock was) but it's not happening so surely a pillarless 50k GP is not beyond the wit of man at decent money.

The idea there is a billionaire in the shadows waiting to take over Everton FC has to be taken lightly. He/she would have to fork out quite a considerable amount of money to build a new stadium, but their money could keep Martinez happy buying the right type of players (and keeping them as well) and offering them the right salaries.

Then you have another two directors with a substantial holding - who knows what their plans or thoughts are on a sale?

Our finances and commercial deals are all tied in to long term contracts, which would all cost a fortune to be released from.

Add to the fact the asking price has allegedly got numerous conditions of sale attached to it, would you want to invest your hard earned clearing up the financial mess left by the current custodians?

I did laugh when Elstone said at the EGM they had identified a site within the City - but don't expect any movement on this for at least 5 years!!

I've told my missus I have a site in mind to build a new mansion on - she told me to stop dreaming.

Goodison is the main stumbling block for a potential buyer also... well, along with Kenwright and his astronomical price tag, whatever that is.

We could temporarily sell naming rights to the stadium. We could call it "Goodison Park at [Chang, Nike, Red Bull, etc.] Stadium." Contract it out for ~£10m per year. Each year, use that money to improve/rebuild a stand. The money could go some way toward offsetting the lack of bodies in seats during renovations and pay for the work itself.

Ticket prices could also be raised for however many years it takes with a promise to bring prices back down after the renovations are complete. I don't think the regular match goers would have an issue with that, provided the renovations are actually done.

As I said previous, we have a small window of opportunity for the Martinez revolution / miracle to kick in to give us this on-field success.

Regular CL money is the key, so invest as much as we safely can in the team, then do the ground up one end at a time. It might take 15 yrs. or more.

But do it.

Starting this window.

I could imagine there would've been a queue of buyers for that opportunity.

King's Waterfront remains the true chance the club had, and they blew it. The failure of the Kirkby plan to get planning permission will, in time, prove to be a blessing.

First, if we were for sale for £15 mn like Southampton there'd be plenty of buyers willing to invest, even selling the Club at the original purchase price.

If BK and his cronies, being the OWNERS of the Club, don't invest money then who else do you think should?

£50-£60mn spent on refurbishing GP will give us a greater capacity, and therefore more income, than a new 35,000 seater stadium. By the way did you figure in land costs into your new stadium calcs? Didn't think so, you're probably still expecting the 'free' land in Kirkby to materialise.

Can anyone make a case for one good reason why anyone would be mad not to go for Everton?

They may be below us in the table but have a lucrative stadium, strong financial backing and a team packed full of talented youngsters. Possibly their first team is worth more than ours ( not including loan players) and they have money to spend in the window.

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure Southampton went into administration twice in that period.

In fact, come to think of it, the Allianz Arena has a similar arrangement whereby Bayern Munich kindly put up with a local interloper whose identity is not worth mentioning.