No Sense Dwelling on Everton's Window of Missed Opportunity

As disappointing deadline day was, we have had a decent transfer window, and the squad is stronger for it.

We are in desperate need of a new striker, and could do with a top goalkeeper. It sounds like the club tried to make a few more signings but couldn't offer the attraction of champions league, and after the last 2 seasons finishes we probably don't look that attractive to some players.

Everyone has been saying the last 2 seasons that we've got a talented squad that has underachieved. If Koeman can get the best out of them, coupled with the new signings he's made, then I think we'll be ok until January when the window reopens.

But when the window does reopen in January, get the deals done on the first day and not the last.

There is a long way to go. RK mentioned 2 years. And Rome wasn't built in a day.

But for a first window with Koeman, Moshiri & Walsh, I'm pretty pleased!

Now there is a lot of time to plan targets & make sure they get over the line in January/next summer.

Now it's time to knuckle down & make sure we are in a decent enough position – so that players will want to join, when the time comes.

Ronald wanted three keepers, we've got two, he wanted support for Coleman, which we've not got, a genuine quality striker to support Lukaku, not got again.

Underwhelmed.

We've had a good window and the starting eleven is strong, Bolasie and Williams are good signings, Gana has been a revelation we have solved our goalkeeping problems.

The club needs modernising though in the way it conducts transfer business, are we stuck in the old ways? How can Levy make it happen far more quickly? It can't just be European football.

Is it Kenwright getting in the way?

Our starting lineup can go head to head with any team in the league so I'm not fussed at all.

I can't help thinking something is still rotten at Everton's core though and the stadium, and its promised inception will be under more scrutiny than ever.

So what if we bid for all those players, we never got any of them. It's the same as not bidding for them as the result is still the same.

Quite frankly, this supposed dream team of Koeman and Walsh have been shown up quite badly. As far as the club (boardroom) is concerned, it's par for the course. It's been like this for years.

All our eggs into one basket and then it went tits up. Again. Not good enough.

Valencia , the poor man's Niasse. Dream on if you think he's not as useless as everyone thinks he is.

I think you're cutting Koeman et al far too much slack. Don't even get me started on Walsh.

I think Koeman, Walsh and Moshiri have all gone down in the eyes of the fans for this cock-up.

The honeymoon is well and truly over.

There will be many on TW complaining about the antics of the final day and maybe a little annoyed, not that we missed out on Sissoko necessarily but in the manner in which we lost him to Spurs, making us look a little second-rate in some eyes.

However, for me this is a wake-up call – 11th-hour deals from now on must go out of the window and we must get our business done early.

I wonder what Mr Koeman is thinking this morning?

The stadium should help change things. Stand by for Moore dissapointment... hope I'm wrong.

A couple hours ahead here in Tanzania so went off to bed about an hour and half to go in the window. At that stage, to say I was already underwhelmed with the idea of panic buys for Valencia and Sissoko would be an understatement. I was not sold on Sissoko owing to one decent Euro and Valencia? Even Moyes would have been embarrassed to sign a player that couldn’t make the West Ham team.

Anyone who would recognize anything I write on here would say I have an optimistic slant hence why the window has shocked me as an embarrassment for the owner and management. Anything short of that is an assumption. An assumption that Koeman will deliver success, an assumption we will see the money, an assumption we will get our stadium. Let me remind you nothing has been delivered yet except promises.

Saying that I am as hopeful on all of that as anyone. But let’s look at this window.

It peaked with the signing of Koeman, even if de Boer was my first choice, I have become a convert to RK and believe he has what it takes.

We see some early movement with Stekelenburg on the 1st of July. Cool, we got ourselves a new reserve goalkeeper to back up our pending new number 1, so we thought. Then nothing until Walsh signed on the 21st of July, with all the credit for Leicester’s success. Moshiri had focused on and got the management in place first. Ok no problem with that. This would now start the ball rolling? No. More waiting. RK needed to see what he had first. I buy into that. I have my favourites too and maybe Koeman will see what I see and they will see more action.

Eventually we saw some action. On the 2nd August we bought Gueye, on the 9th of August we sold John Stones, the 10th brought in Williams and the 15th brought in Bolasie. Finally we get in Valencia.

Of those I’m sure none will dispute that Gueye has been a revelation. Based on his stats it was going to very interesting how it worked out as we learnt he bettered Kante in France whilst 2nd to him last season. He’s exceeded our expectations and has been a big contributor to our early wins. I for one was very happy to see a player taking over from McCarthy who I feel was everything wrong with the RM era.

Then we said good bye to Stones. I’m not bothered how many people want to believe he cant defend, history will prove you wrong. In my opinion we have lost a future England Captain and a player with vision and presence. He was 22. We replaced with a powerful leader in Williams with vastly more experience than Stones. He is 32. My point is in 3 years he is done (if not sooner), Stones wont even be at his peak yet. But good we have a short term player that can bring success now and provide much needed strength and leadership to the backline. I can buy into the approach as necessary to get momentum now for this under performing side.

Then Bolasie came in for an eye watering £25m plus. He is 27. Should be in his prime now. Yes we overpaid but isn’t everybody? Considering how few chances Lukaku had 2nd half of the season this could be an exciting purchase, even if slightly flawed itself with tales of inconsistency, which never showed itself against us whenever we faced him.

So Koeman had been building strength and resilience in the team from the back and was closing in on an area with one of the most telling gaps in the team – a creative attacking midfielder and another striker. These are the 2 areas that were voted most critical before the window even opened.

Then it all collapses in a heap with only a last minute signing of a West Ham discard.
The question is why?
• Are Everton not rich enough?
• Are we not attractive enough to good players?
• Were we just paying lip service to fans?
• Is Koeman not popular after public falling out with Saints players?
• Did we chase players we were never going to get for too long leaving us out of time for the next choice?
• Could Management not see they were being played by all those that signed new contracts or moved elsewhere?
• Are the caliber of player we tried this window just above our reach now?
• Did Walsh just get lucky at Leicester?
• Were we just unlucky?

I have many questions to what I consider very poor dealings this window. The biggest issue we have is the expectations. If we had this window under Moyes we wouldn’t have been overly happy but would have accepted it as we know we were selling to buy. Even Moyes generally did better than this window. Under Martinez he generally tried to move us forward by not only keeping his best but also adding a big name player in Lukaku and quality in Barry, Deulofeu etc. No before I’m branded a Roberto sympathizer know I wanted him gone before the start of the 3rd season.

I needed to get a lot off my chest here as normally I post as succinctly as possible while trying to get my message across. If I had to say why it was a failure simply it would be because we had 2 months to get in a quality striker to support Lukaku and a creative midfield talent to feed them. We did neither. Then on the last day we throw a gamble at Sissoko that gets gazumped and embarrass ourselves by taking a mid table sides discard striker. Whatever we thought our image might be out there, causing waves with the big sides, we blew it. We acted like plucky little Everton for another summer happy to feed off the scraps left behind, and even then Spurs decided to take those too.

And yes, we DO have to pay over the odds. We're not in the CL, we're not in the Europa League, we've won nothing for years. It's like being a short, weedy guy trying to compete with tall, strong guys for the hottest chicks; we need some kind of leveller.

City understood this back when they were trying to get going under new money, but so far we have not.

Net result so far?

We have failed to strengthen vital positions at a time when our rivals have - at our expense (Perez to Arsenal and the "crap" Sissoko to Spurs).

All that's left is either disgust and despair, or self-comforting rationalisations about dodging bullets and how wonderful or new manager is.

We have a much better squad that last season with a keeper that has shown he will be good enough for the full term if required. We will buy a striker or two in January and reinforce our defence so no need to panic.

The Geordies are laughing their heads off this morning and it's Tottenham who are the butt of their jokes!

Good article and I understand and appreciate the positive spin

BUT, the window was totally mishandled. Know the areas of the team you want to strengthen, select your targets (plan A B C D E and even F), ascribe sensible time plans by each and then work your way down

Bracket DE and F could be your more achievable signings and A B and C your more ambitious ones

Is it really that hard? No wonder no one wants to come - we sell people a dream and then back it up with nonsense

Will Rom be sitting there today thinking 'Everton ARE ambitious, I'm so glad I stayed'?

Will Koeman be thinking, 'great, I have a competent board that back me and get things down?'

NO!!!! Anyone of quality (Stones, Lescott, Arteta, Fellaini, Lukaku, Rooney) want to leave and no one of quality wants to come!!!

Why? Because we're small time, we act small time and we're inept

We have Rom, Valencia and Kone as our striking options. Ashley Williams must be thinking 'what the f is going on??? I was sold something different'

Truth is we NEEDED to pay over the top for a few players to get the ball rolling. We needed a Robinho (who served a purpose)

Fans saying 'oh I'm so glad we didn't waste our money' simply don't get it. Go and enjoy your fictional money chaps - enjoy spending it

Ghezzal just didn't ever seem keen on leaving the club he grew up a stone's throw from.

Napoli (notoriously hard to deal with, apparently) kept stalling over Gabbiadini because they needed a replacement. Don't forget he was an alternative to Lucas Perez who was hours away from signing for us after we'd put in a lot of groundwork and no padding of our bid would have made a difference because, like us, Arsenal had met his release clause.

Sissoko – assuming you'd have really wanted him as a last resort at £30m – jibbed us for Champions League football just weeks after declaring his undying love for Arsenal, his new club's arch enemy.

Brahimi was always going to be a bit of a punt at £35m let alone £45m-plus and as excited as I was about getting him, I think it's right that we drew a line in the sand and refused to cross it just to appease Porto and/or the company that owns the other half of his economic rights.

Koné... Moyes refused to sell and his board backed him.

You can go on but in almost every case there was little we could do except throw ridiculous money at the situation and even then it wouldn't have made a difference in some of the instances. Moshiri didn't become a billionaire by chucking his money away and if he applies the same principles at Everton (with the new stadium in mind) them I'm fine with it.

1. So what if we bid for all those players, we never got any of them. It's the same as not bidding for them as the result is still the same. – It's not the same. Bidding (and agreeing a fee with the other club) is evidence that we have money and ambition. It disproves those who say we only sell to buy. This is a total sea change from pre-Moshiri era. Yes I am disappointed none of these deals came off but you can't say nothing has changed at the club – all the evidence is that it has.

2. All our eggs into one basket and then it went tits up. Again. Not good enough – What are you talking about? We had multiple targets for key positions – the opposite of all the eggs in one basket. Valencia was a back up... which unfortunately we needed... but at least they had a plan B.

3. Valencia, the poor man's Niasse. Dream on if you think he's not as useless as everyone thinks he is He's a back up to Lukaku and is only on loan. I don't know anything about him but he adds cover in an important area. If he's not up to it we won't sign him and we will fix this issue in future windows. Are you suggesting that we should have got no one in and relied on Kone? We can only take real world options here – the choice was Valenica or nothing once the other deals fell through – it's the way the business world works.

4. I think Koeman, Walsh and Moshiri have all gone down in the eyes of the fans for this cock-up If true this may say more about the fans than Koeman, Walsh and Moshiri. Fortunately your views are not currently representative of the fans as a whole as evidenced by this thread (at least so far).

On one view, the club has had a good window – swapping John Stones for four first team players. But there are negatives out of this window too. A club relying on the availability week-in & week-out of the ageing Gareth Barry should not have indicated that James McCarthy was dispensable.

I hope Koeman has the inclination and ability to get James fully back in the fold.

We all watch this club every weekend. We've seen the progress Koeman has already made, but many of the top players in Europe clearly want to see results over the course of a few months before they jump on board.

Everton will be fine. I trust Koeman. He and Moshiri get us to where we need to be. No excuses though come January.

We have Ross (who has a tendency to go missing) and Lukaku (who also has a tendency to go missing). These 2 are effectively backed up by Koné and Valencia, who hardly inspire the fans. This is the crux of the problem.

I hope Barkley and Lukaku can stay fit and don't go missing, and I'm also hoping the likes of Gerry, Mirallas and Bolasie can weigh in with a few, otherwise we are going to be short of goals.

The bare facts are this.. we signed 3/4 less players than Koeman said he needed. Why that happened (apart from Sissoko) is conjecture.

I have a feeling this will have a ripple effect on this season and our progression will be minimal. The same people will be making the same excuses next window (nobody wants to come here, it's not our fault etc)

We are a pitiful club after yesterday's shambles. Let's hope Koeman can restore a bit of pride.. but I fear as soon as we don't get the rub of the green that things will get nasty. This window has set the stall out.

I would have liked another striker and a box to box midfielder, but all the way through the transfer window I've wanted us to keep what we have and add some depth. What we have done is add 4 starters, lost only one centre half found another, and acquired a striker that can either cover Lukaku or play off him. I'm okay with that.

Of the 4 starters Williams is better than Stones for what we need, Yannick is a beast of a player proven in the prem and much better than anything we have to run the problem left channel ,the Stek is impressing me already and Gana looks the best deal in the league.

All that and we still have £100m in the bank.

Elsewhere "The honeymoon is well and truly over"! Gotta laugh. Up to TDD we've had the positives, starting with Moshiri buying into the club, moving through Roberto gone, Koeman in, Williams, Bolashie, Ganna in; visible change in style and attitude on the pitch.

If a player eventually doesn't want to leave his club, suck it up. If a player doesn't want to come here, suck it up. If we're outbid, suck it up. If a club refuses to sell, suck it up.

A few months in and for some the honeymoon is over. And without knowing the ins and outs of negotiations. Gotta laugh.

You say we acted "small time" – what ever do you mean? We put in credible bids for many good quality players. We paid a lot for Williams and Bolasie. How could we have acted "big time" – spend £50m on Brahimi??? This is the way to disaster.

Lyndon – excellent work both OP and #20.

Let's draw a line under new transfers for now and move on to the next 3 points COYB

Paul,

Not proud of this, but I'm almost sure I offered a pound bet on another thread that this would happen-some time ago.

We live in a Catch-22 world until we can prove we are going to be in Europe more times than not with the money supply to match.

Hope we don't get a raft of injuries or suspensions or we will be relying on dross such as Cleverley, Gibson, McCarthy, Kone and Niasse to get results in a league that they are not capable of performing in.

All of the above are Championship players at best and to make top six Koeman will need to perform a miracle. Happy with our recent purchases but we needed more cover up front and in the middle of the park.

I understand players may prefer other clubs to us, however the negativity is because we leave it until the last minute time and time again. Identify targets, see if they are willing and available, agree price and terms,if not move to an alternative.

Is Valencia better than Bony?? Hope so but wouldn't bet any money.

This window seems like any other window, a case of sell to buy. We wont spend on January as the club will tell us players arent available or of they are they are too expensive. Next summer will be the same, the funds from Lukaku's sale will be reinvested.

Atleast we have Koeman for this season and perhaps next. I wouldn't be surprised if he is not at Everton and moves on after the second season ends.

However it won't stop most of us feeling bitterly disappointed this morning and wondering what or who exactly is to blame for this fiasco.

I have to admit that in all honesty I didn't see this coming. I expected us to demonstrate a ruthless and clinical efficiency in getting our hands on 2 or 3 top quality players to complete the great start we had made.

I expected it to be reminiscent of the John Moore's era when we struck without warning and delivered! Instead, and notwithstanding the 3 very good (one of whom is outstandingly good) additions we have already made this looks like a pretty shambolic and almost bungling effort left until the last minute for whatever reason.

No matter how bad most of us feel I'll bet no one is more annoyed than our manager right now.

It's not a pass mark. Here's a list of players that moved to non Champions League clubs that would have been less embarrassing than a West Ham cast-off:

Wilshere – Bournemouth
Defour – Burnley
Remy – Palace
Valdes – Borough
Negredo – Borough
Boufal – Saints
Bony – Stoke
Januzaj – Sunderland
Llorente – Swansea
Zaza – West Ham

Yes, the club is better off than it was last year... so is every other club! I don't just want my club to improve, I want it to outstrip those around and and close the gap to the top. We better pray Lukaku stays fit and Barkley learns how to play the cute passes accurately.

Denver, I didn't say I was "happy with yesterday"? I said I was happy with what had happened up to yesterday (not including) in terms of what we've been doing all round since Moshiri came.

And yesterday, we found we couldn't get certain players for a number of reasons, some of which we seem to know about and are reasonable (player didn't want to leave club, or join us or etc etc as above).

Last night was embarrassing and humiliating and even worse, worrying as nothing seems to have changed at the top.

Had we brought in any on your list ahead of our reported targets of Brahami; Perez; Kone; Gabbadiani; etc you would have been complaining that we didn't set our sights high enough.

This is our first window under the new management structure and I am sure they are as disappointed as we fans – but we have to cut them some slack and hope they have learned lessons from this particular window and put them right for the next one.

Thomas (#31),

We don't have to rely on TDD – we purchased Stekelenburg; Gana; Williams and Bolasie without having to resort to the final few minutes on the final day of the window. It is possible – even for EFC – to conclude business early.

I repeat, Lyndon's article is spot on - we now need to take stock and get ourselves firmly up that table to make sure we are a more attractive proposition to some players come the next window of opportunity.

We are not that attractive an option to players at the moment unless they want to work with Koeman. It's that simple. True, we could offer silly money to both club an player to convince people to join, but then you're left with a massive disparity in wages between different players and that leads to a shitty team spirit. If you were Coleman on say £60k a week how would you feel if we spent silly money on a new striker that was earning £180k?

I have faith that under RK we've done enough strengthening to get some form of European football next season. Couple that with these supposed new stadium plans and I think next Summer will be when you really start to see us attract the next level up of players. We still won't be getting the Messi or Pogba class of player though so people on here will still have a moan I'm sure.

The selling club has no time to replace the player so is reluctant to sell and if they turn you down, well then you end up with Valencia.

We've all been down this road before. I just thought that under the new regime we'd have learnt from past mistakes.

I guarantee you, if we'd tried for those players 2 weeks ago, we may not have gotten them, but we would have gotten someone else in the stead (not Valencia).

Stekelenburg - Decent start, but there is a reason why Southampton were able to bring him in as a third choice emergency injury cover last season. Jury is out.

Williiams - Good solid premiership pro who will strengthen us up at the back. But, he's 32 and circumstances mean he is a direct replacement for a 22 year old who was top of Pep's shopping list and has walked straight into probably the best team in the league. So not really progress for Everton.

Gueye - Early days but looks the business. Hope we can keep hold of him if he carries his early form through the season.

Bolasie - The master of inconsistency at Palace. Is he really a major improvement on the likes of Mirallas?

Valencia - This has deadline day last minute desperation written all over it and probably offers nothing more than Kone. In fact over the last 2 seasons his scoring record is worse.

Lukaku is now out only frontline striker who let's be honest wants out and was probably made promises by the club over the summer that haven't happened and is likely to sulk until he finally gets his move.

Have we improved? Have we improved as much as the clubs around us?

Would've liked three more (keeper, right back, top striker) but as usual we leave it till the last minute and look silly.

The sooner the club rids itself of this incompetence and embarrassment the better. Surely Moshiri must have realised by now what a millstone they are.

It galls me that yet again the Dark Side have out-performed us (and some) on the business side of the game. Pisses me off.

Last time we had a *good* deadline day would be two seasons ago. And guess what, we had a great season too. All other times we have had terrible deadline days (Atsu... ARGH) and terrible seasons.

Otherwise, we appear to have a top-class goalkeeper on the cheap, we have a centre-half who can defend, lead and organise, we have £47½m for a CH who couldn't defend and takes himself off when it gets tough, we have a midfielder who can run and tackle, we didn't need to replace Lukaku because he is staying, we signed one of the best attacking youngsters around from under MU noses and Bolassie with some discipline will provide all the spark we need.

Koeman is no fool and throwing money around is a fool's game.

In my opinion we've brought in very good players who can get better, we have very good players who will under RK, get better. We now have (after all the street marching and Kenwright knocking) a billionaire who wants to spend his money on players and a new stadium.

These are exciting times, very exciting times for us. So let's enjoy it. Lap it up and roll with it. Give it time and the players will come. And let's not forget what a great bunch of youth players we have to come through. Things are rosy. COYB's.

The only one I can see that we really missed was Kone from Sunderland as Moyes couldn't or wouldn't get cover in (plus why should he, they had not long signed the player anyway). In a sellers market, we are competing with many other clubs. The fact that we aren't in London, or haven't won anything for years will have an effect on our ability to attract the big names.

Koeman's job is to improve those tactics and the attitude, on that he will ultimately be judged.

I'd prefer to see at the moment the money, if there are vast sums swirling around, going on a new stadium. For me that development will be Moshiri's acid test.

If I made this many excuses for not doing my job I can tell you I wouldn't have one. Our DOF has one job... If anyone can say our window matched their expectations then you have very low expectations.

If I was Moshiri and I'd been shown up like that I'd never let the old queen near the place ever again. God knows what Koeman is thinking probably wants to walk. Needed 3/4 signings, possibly 1/2 ... gets a fucking West Ham reject IN ON LOAN.

The Kenwright defenders need to wake the fuck up and feel some of the shame this man brings upon Everton Football Club.

The mythical dominoe effect that was appear toy going to happen once Man Utd. or Chelsea made their big moves didn't happen and hardly ever does. So why leave it so late to buy a creative midfielder to a forward. The players we attempted to buy were not caught up in some complicated chain.

If we'd have bid earlier surely the selling clubs reluctant to sell would have time to buy replacements. Unless there are really good reasons for delaying things until the last minute what's the point particularly if your 'well-oiled negotiating machinery' is under the direction of bungling Bill Kenwright.

Even Bill's best mate dour Davey proved to be nothing more than vindictive in dealing his former club by banning Kone from training and the allowing him apparently to leave the country until the transfer window closed.

Our last day flounderings are, quite frankly, a huge embarrassment to all of us and to the club itself. Even more so for a club supposedly starting a new era of efficiency and achievement. This farce should not be allowed to happen again or I'll be sending back the gold medal (which arrived with my season ticket) awarded for witnessing 10 years of no achievement, much heartache and a good deal of unmitigated boredom!

We are a better looking club after this summer and we haven't wasted truckloads of cash in this over inflated window. We live to fight again and hopefully, by January we will look a more attractive destination.

We do need to learn from the behaviour of some of the foreign clubs who now see us as cash cows waiting to be milked for every last drop.

Hopefully Mr Walsh will identify some hungry young lads like Gueye , who will actually want to play for us!

Last night saw the end of Moshiri, Koeman & Walsh's first transfer window together and I think we all learnt what we already knew – money talks, but so does status.

During the window many have been happy with what they've done in a very short period of time but they have also been damned for paying over the odds when going in early (Bolasie and Williams), for not bidding enough (Brahimi), for buying cheap (Gueye and Stekelenburg – until they turned out to be extremely astute signings, as may Valencia) and for not being able to get players in due to reasons out of their hands (no European football, not in the capital, being held to ransom, being gazumped etc.)

They tried. In a good deal of their activity they were successful and, on reflection, bar a top quality attacking addition I'm happy who we've brought in. Also – despite my criticism of him, Thank God we've kept hold of Lukaku.

I believe we have more money and are willing to use it than ever – but in reason. I think we have a top drawer manager in Koeman, an owner who knows his business in Moshiri and a scout who will pay huge dividends once he's got his feet under the table. We are in a better position moving forward than we have been in decades but we need European Football to make the difference and until we have that we have to go about our business quietly, intelligently, diligently and persevere; which is exactly what we did in this window.

A swallow does not a summer make – we have 16 league games until January and then we can go again with a better idea of what we need and who might come. Koeman will also probably come out with a statement later about if all and I'm sure the majority will say “fair enough”.

I believe he will also get us there by doing our talking on the pitch, Moshiri will get us there by backing him and delivering a new dockland stadium and Walsh will show that we don't have to get involved in the top level bun fight if we don't want to by bringing in players off the radar.

We are on the move – and bit by bit, they will come.

The biggest disappointment for me is not being able to secure decent cover for Lukaku. Crystal Palace ended up with Benteke and Remi. Stoke got Bony. Surely we could've competed with these clubs for one of these players.

Any of those strikers would've been better than Gabbiadini, as they all have PL experience and good goal scoring records. It seems like we put all our eggs in one basket for an Italian striker with a mediocre goal scoring record.

When that fell through, we ended up with Valencia FFS! We are now soley relying on Lukaku – a striker that has spells of bad form and we will be right in the shit if he gets injured!

Nevertheless, the cleaners will still be busy picking up all the toys that are being chucked out of prams. So many silly things being said its impossible to pick up on all of them, and Lyndon's OP has dealt with most of the issues anyway.

Bottom line is we have a good squad full of good players with the ability to do well this season. If we get back to the top six kind of level we're used to (and should reach, and should have been reaching for the last two years), players will want to come here. The money we'd have spent this window is less likely to 'disappear' than it has been in the past, and higher priority targets will become more available.

All we were really after yesterday is two specific types of player in attack. We were after a 'running' number 9, a Vardy type (Koeman used Shane Long for this at Southampton) and it looks like Valencia is the temporary solution, although like everyone else I'm underwhelmed by this. We wanted Lucas Perez, then moved on to Gabbiadini, but neither were ultimately available. We also seemed to want a 'marquee' 7/10/11 having gone for Ghezzal, Brahimi and Sissoko. We simply didn't get one, but have plenty of options in this positions. We've failed to upgrade, rather than actually being short in that position.

We've signed four good players this summer, all of whom will make us more likely to gain points than we were last season (forget 'Stekelenburg the Southampton reserve' and use the evidence of your own eyes, or if it helps, think of him as 'Stekelenburg the World Cup finalist'), we have a manager who understands the need to emphasise results by maximising marginal gains, and we have a squad of players who should have been finishing top 6 for the last two seasons but haven't because of poor management.

The reaction to deadline day can be a self-fulfilling prophecy; we're in a perfectly decent position, but if a sense of frustration and despondency takes over the fanbase that will have a bigger negative impact than some non-transfers.

The reality though is that players are not interested in coming to Everton and the clear example of this is Sissoko who snubbed Everton to go and play in the capital. The reality though is that, far from being stingy, the club was prepared to offer a ridiculous £30M for him.

I'm sure that the board are as disappointed as us that we didn't get the players we wanted but, for this season, I don't believe that it maters. What matters now is building a good side with the players we have and improving it bit by bit as better players become available.

We've seen the damage that mass panic buying can wreak (Newcastle, Liverpool, Spurs, etc); beneficial change will come only slowly and organically.

Yes, on paper we look stronger in some areas but woefully short in others... AGAIN. One of two teams with a negative net spend says it all.

Still, at least we now know what next season's transfer "war chest" looks like a year in advance to match expectations; whatever Lukaku is sold for... be that £50, £60 million.

We are in a better place than we were last May if you think about rationally.
Sideshow Bob was sacked and replaced by Koeman is a total result. If Bob had stayed we would be in big trouble and probably in a relegation battle . RK has already shown he has a Plan B and uses his subs well.

We have added a good no-nonsense CB to replace Stones (I was a big fan of his) who many blamed for us conceding too many. Plus Holgate is looking class.

Added a better DM in Gueye/ Gana than we have in McCarthy.

Calamity Tim has crossed the pond and even though it is early doors Stekelenburg looks solid and has saved us points against Spurs and WBA.

Bolasie has looked lively and we have added Valencia as well.

So while I am not jumping for joy and playing 'We Are The Champions' on a loop, I am not exactly kicking the cat either.

When will our motto relate the reality at our club, I had high hopes that the Moshiri era would bring it back, but no same shite different day.

The RS laughing at our meagre exploits again and actually making money in a transfer window.

Sickening.

Just look at Schweinsteiger, Balotelli, Niasse, Bony and Mangala as examples of the type of lunacy that panic buying results in.

We were, once again, trying to punch above our current weight. We did something similar under Moyes one summer after qualifying for the CL, chasing Moutinho for the entire window.

I am glad we didn't pay ridiculous money for Missoko and Brahimi as though I would have liked to see them at GP the money can surely be better spent. We need to focus on very good emerging talent such as Haller and Ziyech (Ghezal was obviously in this category).

If we had combined this level of player with a few solid loans eg Bony then we would not all be so bloody despondent today, and could come in for the superstars a couple of years down the line when we are back to where we should be in the pecking order.

This was the summer that Everton planted a flag again with the rest of the big players. Unfortunately that means paying over the odds to make that statement. Is Pogba worth the fee Man Utd paid for him? No, but it's the intangibles of that deal that will benefit them.

I had expected 2 players to come in yesterday: Brahimi and L Kone. Yes it would have cost money but the boost it would have given the team and supporters would have been priceless. Instead we end up with Valencia on loan.

We might have had a decent window but the expectation was so high for business to get done yesterday that all I feel today is deflated and demoralised.

Hopefully the team continue their excellent start to the season but unless a stadium is announced in the next few weeks it's going to take a lot to shake off this feeling...

Alot of us went into yesterday with high hopes, only to see the clock ticking away & nothing happening.

As this article says we are where we are, no point going over it.

Key to all this for me is the club identifies were the issues have been & puts things in place so hopefully this doesn't happen again.

Moshiri made a big thing of saying The Dear Leader was in charge of negotiations. That's about the only mistake Mosh has made so far and as he licks his wounds this morning it is hopefully one lesson learnt. I doubt Bullshit Billy will be leading come January.

For those disappointed that we were outdone by LFC in the transfer market again – you live in a fantasy world where Everton compete on an equal footing with a club with a very large trophy cabinet even in world football terms and 3x the turnover and wage budget. Yes their supporters will rub that in as ever in increasingly irritating (often infuriatingly brain dead) ways but we are men and we were chosen to suffer in this way for a reason.

Over to Mr Moshiri to put in place what is needed to initiate a step change in our income over the next 5 years – and that is an optimistic estimate. To speed this up a shirt/stadium sponsor along the same scale of the Etihad deal (£400 million in 2011) would be very helpful.

Is that right? Bill was in charge of negotiations?

Agents are making transfer windows murkier and harder than ever. I feel like our club got used and abused to make many clubs bid higher or offer better contracts. They're absolute scum.

Take your pick

There is no excuse for taking the bait like that and Moshiri, Walsh, Koeman, Kenwright, the Contract Signing Bloke or whoever it was has to learn from this.

Walsh was operating at Leicester where no one really took any notice until they started to cream the league last year, now he's with us and his reputation is far higher than before, everyone watches him and he has to learn from this, it was embarrassing and obvious as hell to everyone watching proceedings yesterday that Spurs would do what they did.

Learn these lessons well EFC or suffer the same embarrassment in January.

Spurs dropped their pants big style at the death last night because they thought we were going to get Sissoko, Palace and Swansea only sold when they got offers they couldn't refuse.

Take it as a compliment – as we should the exorbitant fees the continentals think we're able / willing to pay now.

Anyway, we can pick over this shambles until we're blue in the face... Let's hope Koeman is the manager we think he is – because if Lukaku or Barkley get injured we're going to need him to work miracles.

However, we ended up selling a young 'crown jewel', and using that sale to finance several 'solid' squad purchases, and have invested nothing additionally. That's the SAME model we've been using for years. (accept last year, when we actually kept the jewel)

We've had plenty of press speculation, a leaked stadium hint (48hrs before window closed funnily enough), and a sky reporter re-uttering those immortal words of "watch this space" from an insider at Everton. Call me cynical, but isn't that the SAME as always too?

The worry for me now is that nothing has changed. That it is still the SAME as before. That bullshit Billy is still doing what bullshit Billy does best; looking after his toy set and giving out bullshit to anyone who listens. Is Moshiri really just the latest part of his bullshit?

My gut says NO, that the guy is real (if Martinez was still here I may think different). I still believe that we have a plan, that things will NEVER BE THE SAME. That this is a project, and that it will be done right, no matter how long 'right' takes, and how painful 'right' might be in the short term.

However, after years of Bullshit Bill, my faith will not last forever. In the next 12 months we need to see change both on and off the pitch, and we need to be communicated too honestly and respectfully. Things simply cannot remain the SAME for any longer.

West Ham brought in 13 players. Can you imagine Bungling Fckwit Kenwright doing that? Never. Not a chance. Remember Martinez saying he wanted 6/7 in? Think he got nothing. Money or no money its time to get rid of him, the millstone around the clubs neck. I can only imagine the fume Koeman is feeling.

Absolute rank amateurs

He has very little left in the way of shares and should be little more than a figurehead so it's all very confusing when you read he's running the show still.

The sooner Kenwright and that other thundercvnt, Elstone are gone the better for us all.

Let Koeman work with the players he's got. We've got a good squad that is harmonious and has been together a while. We've thrown four new lads into the mix, which is a nice bit of fresh blood. I think we've had a really good transfer window. Let's see what happens!

At the same time, social media fume over us signing Valencia was reaching its zenith! Quality that!

All rational fans will be disappointed but not in the lunatic and tearful way you and a couple of others seem to be and none will be throwing themselves off bridges.

Just stop crying now, the window is over and we still have a fantastic season ahead with a fantastic new management structure with the finance to develop a stadium and buy any player where value is demonstrated. Lyndon is correct in that there is no point in dwelling on any perceived loss of opportunity as there were none. The bitter Blues are, as always, on the wrong side of the debate.

Can you show me a credible link or evidence that indicates that Bill is still 'running the show'? I find it highly unlikely.

However, my one concern is Walsh and his role. I can't see what he has brought to the club at this time. Hope I'm wrong, but if Steve Walsh calls, most people in football may say "Who?" or "OK"; if, for example, Marc Overmars calls, most people in football answer the call.

I feel like I have to explain this patiently every year, but stability and continuity beats flux and panic every year.

Some people really do miss the point. Its this lack of scepticism, apologetic, happy to be second best, medi-fucking-ocrity that has sunk us to this level.

Bringing in a competitor's reject ON LOAN, in the last hour of the transfer window, when all summer long we know we've needed another striker. Koeman is very ambitious and won't put up with this shite. Nailed on.

Kieran (#95) – whatever you're smoking, I want some.

Nick, I get your point but just because you can doesn't mean you should.

I was hoping for better because I, and many other Evertonians, had been led to believe that, before this window closed, and after the purchases from the Stones sale, there would be up to four additions (Koeman's words that we need three or four players). Subsequently, Koeman had said that there could be one or two additions.

Okay, being pedantic, we did get two in, the young lad from Sheffield Utd and Valencia on loan. But if Valencia is viewed as a like-for-like for Lukaku, then something's gone terribly wrong surely.

Moshiri's own words didn't help the hope either. He was "desperate" to invest further in the squad. Needless to say, what we got wasn't what anyone had in mind.

Now if Moshiri or somebody from the club had made noises of us not going big after the initial signings, then hopes wouldn't have been so high and disappointment wouldn't have been so great.But Moshiri DID build up our hopes and those hopes have been dashed to be honest.

We may well have been in for Kone, Brahimi, Gabbiadini et al... on the other hand, we may not. We'll never know.

The truth of the transition from last season to this season are as follows:

We have a significantly better manager than we had last year.

We have got rid of a lot of deadwood/ageing players:
Howard
Pienaar
Osman
Hibbert

We have got big money for a player who has largely been a liability for us for the last two years – Stones. The so-called 'new Bobby Moore' 'the future England captain', etc etc... but a fella who in reality isn't actually a very good defender. A fella who has little positional awareness and who is constantly out-jumped on corners and crosses which led directly to goals on numerous occasions.

We have brought in 4 first team players for the now. Not 3 years down the line or with 'potential' but blokes who can actually make a difference to us in the present and who are making a difference – eg,our best start to a season in years. And we are making progress on a new stadium if the Mayor and reports are to be believed.

My glass is half-full and I'm looking forward to the rest of the season ahead and thinking we are in a much stronger position and better place than we were just 4 months ago.

It seems plain that we had no timely plan behind Perez and I am not sure how that can be excused – especially when we only learned that Lukaku wanted to stay very recently.

'Emotionally challenged'?

What..because they refuse to enter the 'feel my anger competition'?

Because they won't hop around Basil Fawlty-style, waving their fists at thin air and shouting "youuuuu BASTARDS!!"

They're emotionally challenged?

Imo anyone who feels the need to continually publicly vent, whine and moan when the world doesn't turn the way they demand it should, is a fucking five year-old.

And anyone who refers to those who don't see things exactly the way they do as 'morons' (specially when they've misspelt 'your') is a nob-head.

"I'm entitled to to say I'm disappoin.." - true, but being fucked off because others won't dance to your particular disappointment tune is fucking ludicrous.

The early sixties and the early eighties illustrated how it takes at least three years to transform a team. In this window we have managed to halt the decline which would have taken us into a relegation battle and made the squad strong enough to finish in the top half of the table. We can build on that in January and next summer.

Imagine if Lukaku had pushed for a move. We just couldn't possibly have spent the money because of Kenwright. I'm embarrassed this morning; it's shameful.

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/moshiri-keen-more-everton-transfers-11753439

Ciaran (#84), option (c) – we all must be.

Well, I now know why nothing has changed.

As I said in a previous post: same shit, different day.

Player sale revenue is classed as income so we had £40m to show FFP and therefore could go out and buy players and increase the wage bill (which is what FFP actually controls, it's got nothing to do with buying players).

Therefore selling Stones is a good move as he is not as good as and will not be as good as people believe, he cannot actually defend (a big problem for a defender) but Williams can so I see that as a step up.

Of course we are well aware that Koeman was appointed a month too late and the so-called Director of Football is no more than a super-scout. But so many players have been linked to our club that they cannot be 'just rumour' as some on here like to hold. Forget apportioning blame because the truth is, that one way and another, Everton FC have made a royal bollocks of this window – just as they did (for different reasons) with the last one.

It appears that the real targets were too 'last minute' and that the Club's officers are completely incapable of dragging a deal over the line. OK, many of us thought Sissoko was a poor deal at the price but, be that as it may, Mr Levy completely outplayed them. Even with the money to spend we could not close the deal!

So, we look forward to the next balls-up – shortly after Christmas – but, at least, some of the youngsters may benefit from the paucity of cover in the positions Koeman has identified.

More excuses to follow, no doubt!

As to our transfer "negotiators", yes, we did sign Stekelenburg, Gueye, Williams and Bolasie; however, other than some very late and lukewarm reported interest from WHU* in Gueye, all those purchases were unopposed. As soon as there was opposition from other clubs for our targets, our negotiators let us down by failing abysmally on every one. Heads (notably BSB) must roll.

[* It would be unusual if WHU did NOT show an interest given their dealings this summer!]

"Okay this is what we have, you are here because I believe you are the right players for this great club. I don't concern myself with those who don't want to be here, it is for them to have regrets.

"We will now be a team that others will have to be at their ultimate best to beat us, we will defend every situation with our lives on that pitch. We will adapt formation to beat our opponents. Every week we will be better.

"We are currently in the top four, I intend for us to stay there, you as players shall determine what order that will be."

Something like that anyway.

COYB...

I hope it isn't the case when I hear about plans for the stadium.

You just have to look at some of the other players signed across Europe by non-Champions League clubs to see what we could have had.

Once again, I feel seriously let down by Everton.

Let's not forget the Sam Byrom fiasco in January when we were set to announce him as ours only for West Ham to nick him. As I said previously, we are still not a draw for players when other Premier League clubs rival us for their signature.

Levy didn't completely outplay anyone, he was made to pay over the odds – by us and a Championship side – for someone he wanted, who also wanted him – even with the lure of Champions League, the capital and a new stadium on the go. Had Arsenal come in, he would have lost that beauty contest completely.

I do however like a bit of rationalisation when I encounter a disappointment. Here is how I did it this time:

Laurie (asks self) — if you could choose from the following two scenarios at the end of this transfer window which would you take?

1). Martinez as manager and new signings – Sissoko, Brahami, Perez, Kone, Slimani, and Foster... OR

2). Koeman as manager and new signings – Stekelenburg, Gueye, Williams, Bolasie, and Valencia.

Works for me – and I've still got:

A squad that is miles fitter than last season. A 19-year-old replacement for John Stones

Life goes on. Up the Blues!

Not too fussed on Sissoko. Yes, he'd have added something – but more energy and strength to,our midfield, but he isn't exactly the type of player we need. Doesn't score many, nor create.

Gana needs a deep lying, creative midfielder next to him. We need the new Xavi. Sissoko certainly ain't that, so I'm happy that maybe Davies will get more chances.

Brahimi, well the club set their fee and we walked away. Fair dos. Just wish they had set their fee earlier (a snide attempt to get more due to our lack of alternatives). But up front we have Mirallas, Bolasie, Deulofeu that should do us fine.

Valencia as back up to Lukaku doesn't set the pulse rating but he is a decent player.

We have 7 points and some winnable games coming up. Finally, we can focus on the real football at hand (once these pesky internationals are done with).

He kept us a float in the '90s but there is no room for sentimental loyalty in business (just ask Hibbo).

It's time to move on.

But – ah, there's a but!! I actually think that your post and response to a couple of particularly fed-up posters misses the key point in all this, which is professional, effective, strategy. We have behaved as in windows from the last decade or more where frankly every club in the top league knew we were broke, expected Bill to leave it desperately late in the often forlorn hope of a bargain or two in the frantic last-minute sales.

But everything's changed. We have money, sadly so do all the others and the amount of leverage it brings has dramatically reduced – it's just so Everton, that. Suddenly, the Champions League thing has become the only factor apparently, though quite why remains a mystery to me. It's often a dull competition, with way too many dead rubbers, and often simply means that many of those in the CL Groups have dire domestic seasons, a la Europa League for example. Still, it attracts players, and we ain't in it, so, on top of everyone being rich, we don't have that lever.

So, to compete, you have to deliver an effective strategy, which this year surely translates into: Identify your top targets early, agree a cut-off line say a week from deadline day, and if no joy, accept things, albeit reluctantly, and immediately move to decent but yes, second-level targets which, for a club like EFC in its present stage of new era development, is not a bad place to be. Which in turn meant Hart, Bony, and Indi.

If there's anyone reading this who, with a few days to the death, one doesn't believe that those three would not have improved and actually very much strengthened the squad, then we have to agree to disagree. The truth is we had to have a cut-off line... even last Friday would have done, and then look at the market and make a firm decision. Instead, we chased shadows or made desperate last minute bids.

I hear Koeman on Hart but frankly find it bizarre that his previous No 2 keeper is suddenly beyond competition? The guy's made a brilliant start to the season but that's short term and Hart was a step up, on loan even, with idiots Man City paying a decent proportion of his absurd wages.

Bony is simply an amazing miss. Forget his Man City showing, he went for a pay day and like many before him struggled. But look at his finishing in the Premier League for Swansea, a team which went through some very tough spells. We must surely have been able to counter Stoke City's overall "offer"? On loan, £2 million, with again Man City probably paying some of his salary and the prospect of strong cover for Rom or even a front two at times. Absolutely crazy to miss out on him because we were chasing dream iconic signatures etc. Indi is a similar miss for me: ideal defensive addition, much admired centre-back, lowish fee.

Lyndon, I'm afraid I can't see many positives. Gueye is a find I'm sure and amazing value. Williams will give us two top years. Bolasie I feel is not quite the saviour on the wing some suggest and at that price, a gamble – don't get me wrong, I think he will have great moments, but just not enough of them, though I hope like hell I'm wrong.

Why didn't we offer Man Utd £30m for Mata? If that little shit Sissoko was worth it, so was Mata... and we need his flair and attacking creativity more than another box-to-box fella.

Kone and Moyes? Would the Sunderland Board have backed Moyes if we'd offered £25m? Kone is a beast of a defender, great in the air, right-sided, giving us balance to Williams's preferred side, and has shown he can defend in a three or a traditional two. He was the one we should have not given up on despite Moyes's stubbornness and McCarthy was surely an attractive makeweight?

I accept Holgate has amazed with the speed of his progress, but he's so young and still learning that you just know there will be blips, with limited cover as strangely we were charitable and let Galloway leave for a season, which for me now looks like another poor decision on top of Tarashaj being allowed the same spell away

It's left us at the mercy of "luck", because as you say yourself, should Rom get injured, it's a real mess up front, with Niasse and Arouna the only "recognised" reserve strikers, or using wingers out of position.

The whole mess hasn't just been dumb luck for us; it's a failure of planning and the crucial judgement about when to stop chasing and go for realistic but still decent quality targets. I accept that some will shout "Ah but you wouldn't have been saying that if we'd got all four and spent £125m would you?" Nope, I wouldn't, we didn't, and that's the thin line between success and a massive let down.

But managing the risk of that let down is where the club has been undone and I cannot understand how Koeman didn't insist on shifting to more obtainable targets five or so days ago, unless he was given assurances of success, which would have been very unwise, with hindsight.

I am not disappointed in the slightest and totally reject your a, b, c assumptions. I would have been disappointed if we had signed Sissoko for £30m or Brahimi for €50m.

I think back to four months ago and we have made huge progress. I trust in Koeman and Walsh and believe that they will build us an excellent side given some time.

The 'disappointed' feeling you refer to is born out of impatience. We have made some quality additions and we have a lot of talent in the squad already. A top 6 finish this season is a realistic proposition and I can genuinely see us pushing on from there next season and beyond.

Blowing money on average players at over-inflated prices is not the solution but it seems that's what most people on here want.

The word I used was 'disappointed'... I'm neither thrashing my car with a birch tree, nor expecting anybody else to do so.

This is football, its about emotions.

I'm glad you're so fucking rounded (and dead good at spelling).

Is it really that hard?"

So you have your lists, handily split up into 'ambitious' mega moves and 'meh,you'll do's, and start from the top?

What if your number one 'priority' target wants to take a while to assess his options and his idea of what amounts to a fair amount of mulling time is miles away from your own? You just fuck him off? You must have earmarked him as your main man for a reason, so surely you won't be willing to scream "well, just do one then" and flounce off to a name further down the list at the first hurdle? You must be willing to wait longer for the guy with a big 'A' in brackets after his name than you would for those allocated letters further along the alphabet?

What if that F fella from your alternative 'achievable' list, suddenly announces he'd absolutely cream his keks to come join you at Everton and is ready to put pen to paper as long as the deal is done "fucking yesterday"? (He can't hang about, like. He's got his own 'sensible time plan' slapped next to every club his agent is contacting). Do you sign him instead of the coveted target in the Captain America mask (Big A..with wings), even though he wasn't worth as lofty a letter when you were coming up with your 'Plan For The Summer and Flavours Of Pop I Like The Best (Fizzy. Not Cordial. That's a seperate list)' list?

What if you do decide to go for him instead, but then find out a deal isn't quite as 'achievable' as you first thought? You figured he'd cost about £18m but his club have demanded a figure closer to £50m and made it clear they're not going to fold like a quilt. Fork out or fuck off.

What if 'number 1 target' has since decided to sign a new contract and stay where he is because he heard you were sniffing around someone else and it seemed your interest had cooled?

How long is your list? What happens when you run out of names?

What if other clubs have a near identical list to your own and they're considered a more attractive option?

There are so many hurdles, outside forces, unforeseen occurrence's, impediments and itchy palmed money grabbing gobshites coming into play these days, that simply 'getting a list drawn up' isn't going to guarantee shit.

Just back from the gym / training & feeling optimistic... it's the endorphins.

Many of us are understandably upset / disappointed with the club but let's not dwell on the matter. Once we've vented your spleens, take a moment to remember that this is Everton, we are blessed to be Evertonians and that with any great love we forgive, move on and find greater strength in adversity.

Top post.

But overall it's been a positive transfer window. The team has been strengthened with some good players who are already imposing themselves on our games.

There is a long way to go. RK mentioned 2 years. And Rome wasn't built in a day.

There are other facts we have to consider. We never went into the transfer market proper until Stones was sold. Now, it's difficult to believe that our new owner couldn't at least guarantee the funds required. Was Moshiri happy to leave the old regime to get up to it's old tricks?

I thought it was a sensible move for Kenwright & Elstone to stay in position and handover the reins to Moshiri. If the new owner wants to keep them both in positions of power going forward, then I trust his judgement. Does anyone think Kenwright & Elstone will be here negotiating transfers this time next year? No, me neither. It's common knowledge BK & Elstone were conducting negotiations during the summer, unless Koeman & Moshiri have been telling lies to the press. They have both publicly stated the chairman & CEO were working tirelessly on this front.

I have read many a commentator making excuses, saying the club have been 'played' by agents & players alike. Well, I'm sorry, that doesn't wash. If you are paid vast sums of money as a CEO, informing your boss you have been duped at every turn only lets me know there are only two idiots in that scenario – the fella that's fell for all the bullshit in the first instance, and the guy who pays him hundreds of thousands to do his job.

I still have 100% faith that the new owner will turn things around and surround himself with ruthless professionals once the penny drops – I'm also convinced he will be as distraught as most fans this morning after trusting those who have dealt with our transfers in the past.

I said before yesterday I was happy to forego signing more players after Bolasie if it meant our new waterfront stadium became a reality in 2016. I still stand by that.

Predictable kneejerkers out in force trying to shout down alternate views instead of considering the points raised.

A couple of additions from me:

"RS laughing at us" Well yeah except that they pretty much broke even themselves, without even counting the loss made from shipping out the embarrassing Balotelli for free just to get him off their books. Maybe they are "skint" as well. Keeping quiet and slipping under the radar would be my description.

"West Ham brought in 13 players" Someone needs to show me a few examples of where that many changes actually makes a positive difference to a team's performance and where they are all success. I can reel off plenty of example where the exact opposite happens. Many from that same club under Appy Arry.

The Niasse fiasco is a great example of how we came out of a window feeling pretty pleased with our business. But then we saw him play. The opposite scenario for Gana Gueye and let's see how Valencia shapes up for us before we write him off as a "Disaster" please. I feel much better getting really good players for a steal, however much money sits in the bank, and possibly the assessment and emergence of Holgate who can play in a few positions, and possibly Davies, revised the opinions of Koeman and Walsh of the number of players we needed to add.

We come out of the window stronger thanks went in. We are feeling more disappointed only because our expectations were higher than previous years.

We football fans are also very fickle beings. Beat Sunderland 2-0 next week with a goal or assist from Valencia and the apparent chaos and hysteria of last night (created in the main by ourselves and the media - not the manager or the club) will all be a very distant memory.

I'll dwell on the positives tomorrow. Today, the club needs some serious introspection.

He had a couple of decent showings at the Euros and that sent his valuation way up but no way £30million. Funny thing is that it was only a few weeks ago Pochettino was lambasting other clubs for their big summer signing and he has made 4 big ones himself now in Wanyama, Sissoko, Nkoudu and Jannsen. What a hypocrite!

I like the kid Valencia who is just what we need to boost the offence but would have liked another addition to the attacking midfield.

Quite. And that's why I can feel a tad disappointed but not dissatisfied with TDD.

The big question is what could Everton financially actually bring in?

It seems that in reality they could only afford to make one last big signing with the finance available. As they jumped from target to target once each one had been exhausted. I can understand if it is a player in the same position.

Could Everton have signed:
Brahimi
Sissoko
Gabbidini
Kone
(All players in different positions)

Or were they restricted to 1-2 of the targets.

It seems that they couldn't actively offer to complete 2 deals with selling clubs at the same time. This seems the main issue.

I personally am glad we didn't fork out silly money on last-minute deals; we have a decent squad for now, except for the obvious – a striker to help out Lukaku.

Having said that, he is the one to blame for our inactivity – he should have been honest from the beggining and stated whether he was going or staying. How could the Manager work out his future strategy with one arm tied behind his back?

We knew Stones wanted to leave and made provision for that, but when you have the main spearhead undecided about his future till the last minute, it is simply not good enough.

Anyway, let's see how quickly we can reach 40-something points, start afresh in the January window and see where we go from there.

Keoman is still getting to know the squad he inherited and this will provide an opportunity to the likes of McCarthy, Deulofeu and Mirallas to prove their worth & convince Koeman that he doesn't need to strengthen in their positions. The five we did get in look like solid acquisitions.

I'm just hoping Valencia will have the same surprise impact that Gana has.

https://twitter.com/JimWhite/status/771310450340265984/photo/1

Question is, why didn't anyone else, where was the orderly queue being formed for these two top players?

There wasn't one.

Bony wanted guaranteed football, Remy has had as many loan clubs as the one's he's actually signed for and for £80k a week and a 1/3 goal return should really have played more than 74 games in three years... I wonder why not?

Yes, let's get Remy in but frown on Leicester's Ulloa, a player with an equal scoring record and arguably more of a team player...

Sunderland, desperate for a striker to help Defoe didn't offer for either even though they made a play for Hart.

Sissoko? I'd rather keep McCarthy thanks. A desperate Spurs signing because Dembele is injured and Pochettino knows that this has to be his year or Levy will sack him, the barcodes knew it and lifted his skirt accordingly...

Yes we have money, yes we have targets but two 11th place finishes mean we are not attractive, bear in mind that Lukaku signed AFTER we finished 5th and how many on TW complain about him after the club shelled out £28m. At least he has an EPL history and is classed as a home based player due to his age when he signed for Chelsea...

How would the 28 year old unknown & untried Slimani have been treated if the club had spent the £30m on him and he didn't achieve 20+ goals a season?

I wonder how toxic it would be if the club had actually forked out the money for Brahimi & Sissoko, close on £80m, and they didn't live up to certain exacting standards? The knives are probably being sharpened by some for Bolasie already...

And most important a new STADIUM PLEASE.

CLEARLY what I took issue with was your use of 'morons' to describe those who have the nerve not to agree with you.

And I pointed out your spelling mistake because I thought it rich you were calling others morons.

Give stick, get stick - stop whining.

One thing I cant let go on here anymore as much as I've tried, is this perception we managed our funds well and didn't spend on players through panic buys etc etc.

The only reason we didn't spunk away stupid money on panic purchases is because the player didn't come. We tried our best to blow £30m on Sissoko and the same on Gabbi, who has been the backup striker for 3 seasons now. Let's not fool ourselves on this point.

Anyway, the circus is over.

This window had been over inflated and as such the next will be where the value is because we're the only ones with our kitty still intact.

As long as our main targets, namely; Brahimi, Gabiadinni and Kone, haven't gone elsewhere, we will be able to bomb anyone else out of the water next window.

Perhaps that's a little generous but I have to believe Everton have a strategy around this as a multi-million pound business with a captain of finance at the helm.

I'm more ready to believe that than some of the 'typical Bill' whiners anyway.

McCarthy can still do a decent job especially as Besic is injured and Barry is getting older.

I think Everton will hold their own at least until January when they can make more moves if necessary.

There was nothing CLEAR about it. You exaggerated my point to fit into your nice little narrative much like I did.

Heal thyself (or 'stop whining' to quote a wise man).

Perhaps the players he wanted just wasn't available and he didn't want to potentially waste money on players who wouldn't fit?

We seriously got our fingers burnt with Niasse on the last deadline day. Do we really need another panic signing along those lines?

Had we got players in yesterday and they turned out shite, the same fans would be saying 'why did we them, they are crap, why didn't we buy blah blah blah' etc etc.

I'm usually a 'glass half empty' sort of fan, but we are stronger than at the end of last season, and have a much better manager so I'm prepared to give this new regime time and won't act like a spoilt brat just because we haven't bought a load of exotically named foreigners.

We needed a goalkeeper, so we bought Stekelenburg.

We needed a centre half, so we bought Williams.

We needed a defensive midfielder, so we bought Gana.

We needed an attacking forward player with pace, power, and guile, so we bought Bolasie.

We needed a forward that would be happy to be backup and to put pressure on Rom, so we bought Valencia.

As far as I can tell we've done exactly what was needed, and not spent too much money doing it.

When we paid £30m for Bolasie, the same people on here were complaining that we were spending too much money on him. Yesterday we spent £1.5m on Calvert-Lewin and people are complaining that we haven't spent enough money on unknown quantities in Gabbiadini, and Brahimi – players most of us had never even heard of until you were all whipped into a frenzy by the media!

And that's the crux of all of this in my view. Yesterday wasn't a 'disaster' as the OP states, it feels like that because Sky sports had every wetting themselves over spending as much money as possible in 24 hours. It's all bullshit.

We did what we needed to do weeks ago (remember when you were all complaining about getting our deals done before the 1st game of the season?), yet you still all wanted us to buy even more players yesterday just to satiate your frenzied state, rather than looking at it objectively.

Our squad is healthy in every position, we have options and competition for places, a proper manager who piece by piece, is putting together a team/squad that will compete at the higher echelons of the Premier League, unlike his predecessor who left us in a dreadful state – some people have short memories it seems.

Are we stronger now than last year? I believe we're stronger now than we've been since about 1995, when we last made any sort of statement by actually winning something.

Valencia might be a bit of a panic-loan, but we don't have to buy him and the pre-arranged figure is not silly-money, if he does well. It's only a million more than we wasted on Niasse and it's £10 million less than Chelsea paid for a back-up left back who was okay for Sunderland last season.

The rest of the incomings have filled holes and not broken the bank. Bolasie and Gana look like adding real value. We haven't set ourselves up as a club with more money than sense for future windows.

We appear to have found a ready-made replacement for Stones in Holgate (he may even be better) and we have a serious manager and a serious owner.

Yesterday might have been as deflating as a New England Patriot's ball-boy, but as the dust settles – things are rosy at Goodison!

I'm not sure the collective knashing of teeth is simply about deadline day... well, not for me anyway.

It's about recognising the repetition of conduct which we thought was a thing of the past, following the arrival of a new shareholder.That for me is the biggest issue here – not that we didn't get instant gratification from signing some fancy Dan yesterday.

When Moshiri made the public statement that our Chairman was 'busy' conducting the transfers, and was then quoted as using the famous Kenwright line of 'Watch this space'... the writing was on the wall.

Anybody who is not disappointed by this is either a) on valium b) emotionally challenged c) a moron or d) an extremely well rounded individual, full of the joys of life, glass half-full, kite enthusiast... blah, blah blah...

I've tried searching in all possible locations and there isn't anything. So no source. The evidence makes little to no logical sense, and doesn't fit in with any of the vocabulary Moshiri has used previously.

I'd never get away with this crap in my student paper newsroom. Notice how no major newspaper has picked up on this.

Jim White clearly thinks he's some kind of gods gift to sports journalism, and he's not afraid of making shit up. Wondering what it would take for Moshiri to respond to this nonsense.

We had a good team before yesterday and a good team today. 7 points on the board after 3 games. Nobody was going to jump at the chance for signing for us and people are disillusioned if they thought it would all change over night. We need to build things up gradually. The ship looks like it's been steadied by the looks of it up to now by the signings we've made and we need to at least hope to be pushing for a Europa League finish next year. That's when we start to look more appealing to the better players. Then hopefully champions league after that.

The impatience of some fans makes me feel like stopping using TW again and it was the same impatience and negativity that seemed to effect the players at home last season, obviously petrified into make a mistake.

Keep up the good start to the season Everton and I hope all the fans that aren't disillusioned drown out the voices of the others.

Your insulting post (84) is there for all to see and it's message is clear (as a fucking bell) – 'if you don't see things my way, you're a moron.'

Everything you post now denying this, simply makes you look more desperate (and coincidentally, a moron).

If that was true then I would be surprised if Koeman and or Walsh would take such a failure to support them in the transfer market lying down and secondly I'm sure Sissoko and his representatives would be out there today putting the record straight given the criticism they've had for not taking Koeman's phone calls.

Well isn't that just fab.

Hurrah for you!

Personally I prefer your long allegorical put downs...but I guess I'll just have to put it with second best...hmmm, familiar this.

The key thing this window is that EFC made it very clear that they were willing to pay even silly money for players so they showed very much that in this case they didn't need to or want to sell to buy.

To claim that Everton didn't buy players because they wanted to balance that with sales is just nonsense.

We have our squad, it's a good squad. I believe in our manager, and his ability to get the best out of the players we have.

Brahimi – who? Gabbiadini? No great loss from what I can tell, and Napoli didn't want to sell him anyway = not Everton's fault.

Bony couldn't get a game at Man City – if we bought him, guess what? He wouldn't get a game because he'd be second fiddle to Lukaku – so he went to Stoke where he's top dog, numero uno. Makes sense if you ask me.

I can't see any reasonable arguments from those who are upset we didn't blow our wad on someone they only heard of a few weeks ago.

Now that many of us have had a night's sleep to digest yesterday's drama, I would imagine majority would agree that by Everton's standard, it has been a decent window overall – especially when you take into account the addition of Koeman and Walsh. By the same token, yesterday was a mare but not entirely surprising given the fact we decided to leave the chase of targets until the very last minute. Doing so in this ridiculous market with European clubs trying to extract every single possible cent from English clubs in order to stay afloat themselves was always going to be a perilous endeavour.

I am not arsed about the Sissoko snub. Panic buy that wouldn't have addressed our needs. Added bonus that we forced that prick Levy into ponying up more money than he wanted to spend. While I think Brahimi would have been a very good addition, Porto were acting like a team facing administration and in the end a swerve was the fiscally prudent thing to do.

Frustration is understandable. We have some glaring weaknesses that have not been addressed. None moreso than that in the striker position. Given Lu has been firing blanks for some time, we not only need adequate cover but also someone who will push him or even replace him if he continues to falter. Will Valencia be that player? Will see. However, as you say, I'm not sure where the goals will come from this year.

I think we are going to see many matches similar to the one we saw against the Potters last week – predominantly defensive affairs trying to grind out results with minimal flare. Will that lead us to Europe next season which many believe to be a key to unlocking some of the better talent available in the market? Time will tell. As always with Everton – time will tell.

With you all the way today. Squad has been strengthened, mainly by the quality of the coaching, but also with the signings that have been made.

Net spend profit? Well grand. Not for the want of trying. Spunking a shit load of cash on relatively unknown quantities is not the way forward.

A bit of a wake-up call though. Before we were going for player the bigger teams were not interested in, lower value players generally from team who were happy to make a decent buck off a players sale. Now all and sundry know there is money available and want a piece of it! Where before Everton were going for players surplus to requirements at Man Utd or Chelsea, or taking the better players from lower-division teams, they were going for higher grade players.

As a side thought, can you remember the last time Everton signed a player from a premier league rival that the other club actually fought to keep prior to this season?

If Jim White is making this up, then surely he should be reprimanded for this.

"I've loved Arsenal all my life... all I've ever wanted is to play for them. What's that, Spurs offered how much? ...Fuck yeah, I'll take that"

Expectations were raised and duly dashed, but who really would you have wanted in? Sissoko, when we have Gana, Barry, Gibson, Cleverley, McCarthy and Besic in that position? An attacking midfielder/forward when we have Barkley, Delofeu, Mirallas, Lennon and Bolasie.

We'd have needed real quality to improve on what we've got - better than Sissoko IMO. We have players with good passing range, decent defensive ability, pace and trickery.

At the back, I would have liked to see additions but Holgate has made a bid for a spot in the squad and appears to be adequate cover. A decent CB would have been a good signing, especially with Williams and Jags the wrong side of 30. A top striker would also have been good to have, in case of Lukaku getting injured or disappearing.

Stek has done well so far, but I reserve judgement for a few months yet.

We're stronger than this time last year and spent wisely. We have a better manager who should get the players to perform considerably better.

We all hoped for more and are naturally disappointed, but let's assume for one minute that RK is actually relatively happy with his squad and didn't have the right quality of player available for sensible money to improve us.

If the statements and quotes form Jim White are made up... why is Moshiri allowing him to repeatedly broadcast made-up quotes on the biggest sports station on the planet?

It's all very strange.

We expected the good signings to date to be followed with the bigger headline acts. One cannot draw many postives from the meagre return of a loan deal.

So Moshiri, Walsh et al certainly need a look at how they do their business, especially with foreign clubs. But ultimately we've covered a few cracks and looked foolish trying to secure higher profile players in the public glare.

Nobody died, got injured or contracted an incurable disease.

You're ranting like a brat who never got the bike he wanted for Xmas. So we didn't sign the players "you" thought we should have got, so fucking what. It is what it is and we'll re-group, get on with it and finish where we finish.

Remember this, we where a mess when Martinez left and it will take more than one transfer window to get us back on track. Take a deep breath fella and rejoice in the fact that it could be worse.

“Sissoko is a great player. But when I bought into Everton, I made it clear I was proud to join a family. And we don't turn our backs on our own. Keeping James McCarthy was a priority and ultimately we could not proceed with a deal what would jeopardise his place at Everton.

“We wish Sissoko the best.”

https://youtu.be/o54znZ9RSHw

Love the part when he asked how many Leicester players would have got onto Everton squad. Okay, that was January 2016, he probably sounds a bit silly now, with hindsight, but he certainly thought very highly of Everton.

You could argue that we were disciplined rather than incompetent, that we went into negotiations with a maximum value for each target which we felt was realistic.

We missed our targets because the selling clubs over-valued their players and we were not prepared to exceed our pre-agreed budget. Maybe we aimed too high but, if you look at our targets, that does not seem likely.

Witsel – fell apart over image and commercial rights that we were not prepared to compensate him for. Basic personal terms and the fee between the clubs was all agreed.

Brahimi – again, all seemed agreed but Porto put up the price at the last minute and we walked away (quite rightly in my opinion).

Gabiadini – Naples agreed a fee and we agreed personal terms but it was all subject to Naples getting a replacement. Which they didn't. (Who knows how hard they tried?)

Others preferred Arsenal and Spurs allegedly because of Champions League and almost certainly the lure of the capital.

As for the ones who did come in – they are eminently sensible signings, one of which broke our transfer record and another who will hugely improve our defensive capabilities in the medium term, and two who right now look like amazing bargains. Valencia's record isn't awful, in fact his international record stands up really well and he is excellent back up.

So before we start the usual TW mud-slinging and histrionics, I think we should consider the overall. If in 12 months we still don't have a new stadium site and we again have a neutral transfer spend then by all means we can ask serious questions about the owner's intentions and the DOF's ability and purpose, but until then let's be grateful that we are better off than this time last year, we have a manager who has given us our best start in 10 years and who is, in my opinion, the best signing we made this summer.

RK has to evaluate the squad and decide how to build the team over a period of seasons. He is doing that. He has looked at some of the youngsters and they have performed well. So now, young players will get a chance to compete and play for Everton like Davies and Holgate. Good. If they turn out then they are good signings.

Honestly, I think it a better transfer window than most and do not hold it against Moshiri, RK, or BK that a player decided at the last minute to go to Spurs, that a historically troublesome team to deal with once again proved so in getting a deal over the line, or that a manager and team refused to let a player under contract go.(Seems we did that last season too didn't we?)

I think the value of this summer is in getting rid of much of the aged and non-productive players, and yes, I know, Niasse is still here. The squad is better as on the whole it has been improved and moved upward. There are legitimate contenders for every spot, except maybe GK and striker, but even those have some cover to get us through to January.

Now I will put on my helmet and start digging my foxhole a lot deeper. You may fire when ready.

What we decided to do is not be held over a barrel my players or clubs on TDD. Fair enough, because any club prepared to pay £30 million for Sissoko would be certifiable in my book – step forward Levy and Spurs. Pure desperation – name one great performance Sissoko has put in for Newcastle in the last two years.

Moshiri has not put a foot wrong up to yesterday. Even though today I am disappointed we didn't bring more players, I still think we should remember not to look at Moshiri through the lens of our past disappointments with Kenwright.

I'm happy enough to calm down. It will eventually happen.

Christ, all that matters is what happens on the field and so far so good. Moshiri can say whatever the hell he likes to who he likes – you & I have no say in the matter!

How dare the man investing millions of his own money say things like that!!! Jesus. Rant, rant, rant ... pffffffft!

If the Moshiri tweet is genuine I couldn't care less to be honest. Sissoko appears to have royally pissed us around last night and if thats Moshiri's (albeit a bit hamfisted) way of saying "fuck you" then he has my full support. Maybe he should've done what I would've done and just said "fuck you" instead, far simpler. That would be my only criticism.

This window was not "Groundhog Day"; people are boiling it all down to a final hour – and besides wasn't it us that walked into Spurs attempt to buy a player yesterday, not the other way around? Not 100% but I think it was. Imagine if the boot was on the other foot? We'd be going mental!

Also, if people want to grab pitchforks, light torches and stand at Moshiri's gates baying to know where the Stones money is (as opposed to the Rooney or Arteta or Fellaini money perhaps...?) then this time they will get the following answer:

"There. There. There. There and There."

There there.

I remember Bobby Moore and at some time before him Billy Wright and the current incumbent but I'm buggered if I can think of more. I've probably made a noose for myself here but, offhand, how many can you think of since 1966?

"Whoah. Got to take a momentary break from my 'Merse' vomit mopping. Moshi's on the blower again. Second time since midnight. This just in 'Girl in the 24 hour garage is gagging for it. Offered me a £2 drink for only a £1 with me sarnie and salt and vinegar crips'."

I doubt Jim White would've made this up which would suggest it's either a) true or b) the result of someone pretending to be Farhad Moshiri and having him over.

Either way, ignoring it and pretending it will go away won't work.

I was actually suspended from here for calling someone a moron so you are doing well or standards have dropped.

Your postings seem to show a lack of class and respect, which someone on here said about Koeman after his comments about Niasse. I am not sure who that was, could you help?

ps: I've been called a moron in return for posting it... I'm happy to take it. We're all big boys and girls here.

Despite all the positive spin anyone wants to try to put on this transfer window, Koeman said himself that he needed more players. He wanted 3-4 more, we ended up with a loan for a cast-off forward from West Ham, who has hardly scored any goals in his time in England.

John Daley - 208 - well just John Daley, very funny.

We, as a club, are not Billy Big Bollox who can click their fingers and get what they want, very few clubs are.

Just take a step back, read and accept some other points on this thread then go and have a Guiness and relax. Or take some Valium. If you can't see that we are in better place than after the 12 May 2016 then I do genuinely feel sorry for you.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/may/12/Roberto-Martinez-sacked-Everton

For now, let's just support the owners, board, management, players and each other. We're all on the same side and we all want the same things, i.e. a new stadium on the docks, a bit of silverware, respect from the medium and a better known name at home and overseas, and of course more and more game winning and preferably existing players.

NSNO COYB

You appear to be directing me to read other posts on the matter, yet you don't appear to have read mine. The question of whether we are in a better position now (in terms of playing staff) than after the end of the season is simply not relevant to the point I am making.

However, to answer that entirely different question.. I think we are - by quite some way.

It was a merely a playful poke at Ciaran's earlier 'anybody who is not disappointed by this transfer window is either (a), (b), or (c)' posts.

I have no idea if Jim White is furiously ruffling his 'Fraggle Rock' to regular authentic text messages from his 'mate' Farhad, or simply working himself up into a frenzy over fakes sent by some guy in a nappy scoffing Frosties for supper. Not a clue.

That one of the alleged messages repeated, word for word, Kenwright's well known cringe cracker, "Watch this space", suggests it could simply be someone on a wind up though.

i would just say that yesterday was not defeatist or showed lack of ambition on behalf our club. We just didn't get our targets, Napoli refused to sell and Porto tried to rip us off.

As being annoyed by the club, well there have been worse days.

Take care, Ciarán, and chill out, mate.

The issue is that Everton were not able to afford 2/3 more big value signings. It is clear that they never placed a fee that could be accepted for 2 players at the same time. So in effect they hopped from player to player when they finally hit a dead end on a particular signing.

Could they have bought Gabbiadini and Sissoko? Or Sissoko and Brahimi? No. One, probably yes.

Unfortunately the reality right now is that because of the Martinez fiasco we are once again destined IMO to another season of mediocrity despite a good start in the new campaign with only a couple of quality signings in Stekelenberg and Gueye. The so called Premier League elite will probably end up with the top honours again as we continue to play catch up.

If we hope to compete in any capacity the players who can make a difference Mirallas, Deulofeu, Coleman Barkley and Jags etc have to avoid injuries, I don't include Lukaku as he has demonstrated his desire to move on several times and his recent performances indicate his inability to come anywhere near his own opinion of himself as a future world beater.

I dearly hope that the so called 'naysayers' are proved wrong and we can do a Leicester, or at least come close, as we move into a brand new season of hope and expectation for good times to come.

Quite right Martin. Bill would have absolutely smashed his face saving text about the failed Sissoko bid if Moshiri had let him send one in his stead:

"Sissoko is a great player and he was very close to coming here. His veins were plump and primed and just about ready for the blue blood injection. Then, I suddenly remembered last Christmas Eve when little James McCarthy called round with a card he'd spent hours making himself with superglue, glitter and red, white and green Crayolas.

He handed it to me. I took it from him. Then we both began to cry. We hugged and... without saying a word... adjourned to the sitting room to watch 'Highway To Heaven', starring a good mate of mine, Michael Landon.

Ahhh, Mullety Michael. The probationary angel. Proper Evertonian that man but, then again, I like to believe all angels are Evertonians (proper or probationary) and all Evertonians are angels (proper, but possibly not probationary. Depends what they were banged up for originally).

All this went unsaid between James and I, but an unbreakable blue bond was forged that boring as fuck festive afternoon and it can never be torn asunder by a better player in his position becoming available. Oh no, no, no.

His card had felt reindeer with blue noses and everything. Money can't buy that sort of committed player and it certainly can't buy a replacement for a probationary angel. Which is what James McCarthy is... minus the mullet."

Mr Moshiri – you're a clever successful businessman who must get someone else to speak to the press if this is your best work. Honestly, we love you ace, you're part of the family now. But please don't do this again, okay?

No, I'm none of them lad.

I just don't go spitting dummies out.

You're just like a brat at Christmas who didn't get all he wanted stamping his foot screaming I WANTED MORE!!!

However, everything I have seen so far is that Moshiri will do things properly and with some reason and logic behind it. Holding out for Koeman took time but he was the number one target after some deliberation and we got him. Similar with Walsh – it made sense to find the right guy for the change in structure and to get the man. Compensation for both men was significant but there were no issues about paying it.

Now while those appointments took time and almost certainly affected summer transfer planning, I would not have rushed those decisions and potentially missed either or gone for the wrong appointments. The logic is there – get the right men in to make the decisions and then action them so it was not surprise to see nothing much happen until they came in and evaluated the squad.

The biggest fault of scouts and recruiters in football is not fully understanding the quality of your own team and players before signing new players. You need the context of your own team so it is no surprise it has taken Koeman and Walsh time.

Then we come to the decisions of signing players and paying the fees. I have zero issue with losing out on Sissoko or Brahimi and/or refusing to pay the money. Sissoko is not worth that money. Now, in this day and age, we can argue every deal that way it would seem, but these fees were ridiculous. Could we have gotten Sissoko or Perez rather than them going to Champions League teams? Possibly if we'd have paid silly salaries, but I suspect we were not willing to do that.

Man City came in when they came into their cash and overpaid for everything and everybody. They made loads of mistakes and still do. The % they are paying of salaries for players that have gone out on loan is insane.

Everything I have seen so far since Moshiri took control is that there will be reason and logic behind all/most decisions and I cannot fault that regardless of the transfer frenzy and desire to see the best players come to the club.

However there is not a single supporter who could claim that we are not in a much better place than we were a year ago with a third division manager and backup staff, disillusioned and divided fan base, lack of harmony in the dressing room and no money.

Yet here we are today with one of the top managers in the world, a harmonious dressing room, a much stronger, more organised and fitter squad and the prospect of a historic waterfront stadium on the horizon with proper money on board.

All we need now is for the fans to unite behind the club and believe we are going back to the top.

In this country you are innocent until proven guilty. It seems that a number of contributors are willing to jump to conclusions and lambast Messrs Moshiri, Koeman and Walsh, and particularly the former, without knowing all the facts. It's one matter to have a difference of opinion, and to be very disappointed, as we all are. But, the way in which some people talk about Senior figures who have hardly been at the club for 5 minutes, shows a complete lack of respect.

Everyone is entitled to their view. A few of the above contributors should re-read the original article, which illustrates well, how you can get valid points across without being so objectionable.

I am surprised how many can gloss over the debacle of the last few weeks. Let's be clear, no-one (virtually) is upset that we bought or sold the players we did, or that we didn't pay over the odds for Sissoko. I'm not even bothered that we have a positive net spend.

It was about buying the right players, having a clear strategy and showing professionalism in the dealings that have failed us year on year.

It started well enough with the quick signing of Koeman and then Walsh a month later. Very few expected immediate action and were happy to see how it unfolded. So well done Moshiri for professionally getting the management team in place.

Yes, we would have loved Mata and other big names, but realistically I was quite happy to see the Moneyball approach and it appeared they knew exactly who would be best.. and I think they made damn good selections in who came in until and including Bolasie...

Then it changed. It fell apart and in the end we panicked more than I have seen from us in years. We knew we had egg on our faces and tried to buy our way out of it – only to look more foolish.

That is where disappointment turned in anger for me. We allowed ourselves to look small and inconsequential. Remember the article explaining why we were a bigger club than the Saints and people shouldn't be surprised Koeman came to us... felt proud to see people taking notice, proud to see Everton seen as relevant again.

Just for a moment, we had lifted our heads and looked like we wanted to join the party... only for the bullies to so easily swat us away with no regard. We did it to ourselves. I don't sit and blame the past or factors not in my control. I look at what I could have done better and try learn from it.

I know what people might say to that: "It only matters what happens on the pitch etc –who cares what people think".. true. I've never cared if we are last on MotD, or Sky favours Champions League clubs.. couldn't care less. You won't find one post in the 13 years I've posted on TW caring one iota. As long as we did the best we could with what we had I was proud. This time, we let ourselves down.

I have no doubt there is deep embarrassment by the owner all the way to the assistant manager in how it ended up. Let me be clear... I am not referring to the squad we finished with but the clear lack of ability shown in closing deals and the ridiculous manner we behaved on the final day and even last 2 weeks.

This is not spitting dummies or whatever other condescending terms have been thrown around. Tomorrow, I will forget this and focus on what we have and the team again. There is a lot to be positive about.

We got money when everyone else did. We have, in my opinion, a better squad and a better coach. I believe that signing Sissoko would not have been a statement of intent (a fucking awful phrase) but a sign of utter desperation.

We have got a new striker, let's hope he doesn't read this site because some of the comments about him have been shameful.

Hey Ho, the good news is Niasse is back in the fold and is about to take the league by storm. He'll be like a new signing won't he, Chairman Bill?

We've made like for like replacements, even improvements. But, in my opinion, havn't really added where we needed to. Someone as a decent back-up for Lukaku. And a playmaker type player to unlock packed defences when teams park the bus.

Sure, the club tried their best, and significant sums were offered, but as has happened in the past, due to leaving it so late, we left ourselves no room for error.

I think some on here just feel if we'd gone in earlier we would at least have had time to seek alternatives should the deals not go through.

And because this has happened so often in the past, it makes it so infuriating.

The fact is that we on here are the amateurs in what all clubs have been doing this transfer window and we have no right to class the people who take all of the risks while we take none as the same. We made what looked like several very good buys and correctly didn't fall into the trap of overpaying for ability. A great professional job as I see it.

The problem, as always, is the totally irrational expectations of some fans who should really temper their fevered imaginations of what the club will achieve with a rational target for what they can realistically expect to achieve. I'm not calling many on here, most are very rational, just a small group of screamers who suffer very badly from the Dunning Kruger Syndrome.

From my eyes the future could be golden for Everton but we will have to work for everything. The club will need the support of all of us and they have mine.

You could feel it at the Stoke game that we'd recovered proper feeling for our club and I don't think that can be stopped now.

My frustration was born out of a belief that I think we now have a real player as an owner, a class act as a manager and someone who knows what they are doing scouting players but still we come up against obstacles which we just don't seem to be able to conquer.

I think it was Ian Dennis on 5Live last night who was gleefully doing a lap of honour outside of the glass with his shirt over his head when it was announced Spurs had got Sissoko which he'd "predicted" for an hour or two that really jarred with me.

a) it wasn't exactly predicting Leicester would win the league

b) It's his job to be able to call that sort of thing more often than not - it was a 50-fucking-50 call in the end after all and he's got contacts at the fucking clubs! I bet he still gets more shit wrong than right though.

But mainly

c) it was the whole fucking joy they took out of the whole situation.

My only issue with last night is, no matter how hard we try – and I think we did our genuine best throughout the window – at the end, when it came to the crunch other clubs, players, agents, the media found it all to easy to dismiss us and walk away pissing their pants because they still run the show, and we're still on the outside looking in.

Which has got to change. We need to get a siege mentality at Everton – it needs to be us against the world until we get to the stage where the media and the rest have to sit up and listen.

And I genuinely think we'll do it too, last night will only help in the long run to get us there.

A lot of people are basing their arguments on assumptions about the motives of others. Furthermore, none of us were a party to the negotiations, nor are we fully aware of the difficulties and constraints faced by those in charge. Moreover, the frustrations they must have had with factors that were completely out of their control.

There may have been mistakes along the way. Who knows? Okay then, will the perfect people who have never made a mistake please stand up and carry on criticising.

Until yesterday, many were most happy with events so far. One or two key appointment's would have been the icing on the cake. But it wasn't to be. Leicester did well without so-called marquee signings and I'm pretty sure Everton could too.

I know that the future is, and will be, far better than it looked, for us all, only a few months ago. Everton are not a small or inconsequential club. We are a great club with a fantastic history. There are other clubs which, for the time being, will hold a bigger draw than ours. But only a handful can match the Everton pedigree.

And I have no doubt, mark my words, that, we will once again taste those glory days in the not too distant future. (I think Mr Koeman mentioned 2 years to get the squad he wants).

In the meantime, we are already playing much better (I almost hated watching us play last season – so depressing), a new stadium is on the cards, and there is a tangible atmosphere of excitement and expectation around the club.

I see both the Manchester clubs had their buying done weeks ago, and used the deadline to get rid of their deadwood.

Apart from leaving some deals late, we met the release clause for Perez and agreed wages. Yet, according to the press, Wenger had rejected making an offer for him till Everton had agreed everything. The same with Sissoko met Newcastle's asking price and agreed wages with the players agent, yet he chose Spurs.

So, although you can be critical of some aspects of our transfer business, I don't think in either the Perez or Sissoko transfers, Everton could have done more.

So much for all the grandiose plans, and the players we were going to sign. I wonder how Koeman is feeling right now? My guess is pissed off and let down after the promises he probably got!

Whatever, we can still put out a decent side who will be a match for most of the League on a good day. I'm guessing 8th to 10th is where we'll finish, it could be worse.

Give more of the young players a go, oh I forgot – we've loaned the best one in Galloway, out to West Brom.

And he didn't even predict it! All he said was it wasn't over yet and then he and his mates made out he was fucking Nostradamus and they'd been party to a minor miracle when it happened!

Wankers!

BK is reviled because he made promises he didn't keep not because he actually did anything wrong. He raised expectations, fans believed him as gospel and then he didn't deliver; the ultimate sin.

This is the type of player I want to support.

Kone tried to force a move from a club he had only just signed for. Sissoko wanted more than we could offer. Witsel played us in an attempt to engineer a move to someone else. The list goes on.

When a "deal" falls through it can be frustrating for fans who want a competitive side, but if we signed every player we targeted might actually be worse off as both a club and as fans that want players to earn their shirts.

Well put. Add Mata, whom we all thought would be for sale since the man who drove him away was now going to be his coach again. However, who would have predicted that Jose would not only keep Mata but play him as a starter? Why would he leave Man Utd then?

If it turns out as I suspect, that Mata is a stop-gap until Jose gets his real 11 set up, then we can get him in January and he should be glad to come. I cannot worry about the players we don't have at Everton, as the ones we do have should be our concern and deserving of our support.

Personally, I'm more than happy to see TDD over and done with and I couldn't give two shits what we did in the last 24 hours. I think the transfer window left our squad a lot stronger than it started. It's key that all the players we bought in had EPL experience too.

Come December and next April, ultimately we'll be able to judge if this was a fucked-up apocolypse or not. Until then, I'm remaining positive.

I was trying not to dwell on it but then once again on Sky Sports News tonight they once again quote Everton's majority shareholder: "I bought into a family, couldn't let McCarthy go," blah blah.

WTF is happening at our club??

"I wish Sissoko the best". It is bizarre in the extreme!

No, instead I think we're naive. It's horrible to be on a receiving end of it and it smacks of a lack of class, but when was the last time we publically tried to unsettle a player? It was done to us with Rooney, Lescott, Fellaini and others. We need to get street-smart and find a nasty streak in the boardroom.

And that's just part of it. I don't know who is actually involved in the negotiation stages – I expect Elstone and his staff, but they seriously need a kick up the arse. They have a poor track record and if you can't do your job, you shouldn't be in it.

Solid common sense!

Enough said.

Keep the faith.

Early in the window, EFC made an offer to Zenit St Petersburg which was ACCEPTED. We offered the player terms, which were ACCEPTED by his agent. The player asked for time to think about it. It was a fairly open secret, that he wanted to go to Juve.

He stalls, and stalls and stalls. Finally, on deadline day, he flies to Turin, and spends 13 hours in Turin airport, but DOESN'T sign for Juventus; because, apparently, they offered about one third less than ZSP had agreed with Everton.

No doubt, Witsel feels an absolute tool this morning, and would now gladly come to EFC, as he has got the one thing he didn't want another season in Russia.

So, what did Everton do wrong in all this? Answer; nothing. We made a 'knockout' bid early; we offered top level terms.

The sad truth is, that AT THE MOMENT, we are not a destination of choice for the top level of player. Under Moshiri and Koeman, I think we WILL be, and quite soon; but Koeman is probably right, that it will take 2 years to change the existing perception.

In the meantime, we have to do well in the League, and get into Europe. I have no doubt that we will.

Disappointed a bit, but need to look to his next 3 transfer windows, not just the first.

I think he is a class player, but he obviously wants to be playing regularly, something he wouldn't get with the way RK looks like he wants us set up.

In microcosm, the sort of problems we are up against.

Yes, we have strengthened; yes, we have made a good start... but where will we be at the end of the season and will there be any trophies? That is what counts and ultimately what Koeman will be judged on.

Personally I will always be suspicious of our actions etc whilst Bullshit Billy remains on the board.

For one I'm happy to finally see the back of the transfer window and pretty eager to see how RK is going to set us up going forward...

Who knows we may even go two up top with Valencia now joining the ranks but looking at the example starting XI below things could be worse!

Link

I would have liked to have seen a couple of players brought in as backup for some positions, but the obscene prices quoted for back up players was not worth the money.

I am keeping my views of the management team as a plus and see what they do in the January window when we will have a better idea of our weaknesses. Seems to me clubs were asking Mercedes prices for a Ford. Let's remember just because we are now financially better off this season, it is no reason to waste it to satisfy greedy clubs and agents.

Gueye and Barry have looked better and better each game and Jags has got a real centre half next to him now. We will concede less this year and score more than last season IMO. Mirallas has looked twice the player busy full of running and confident.

Stekelenburg has saved us points already and we've got a top manager who is brave enough and bright enough to make changes in the first half (always a good sign). Seems we have kept the famous team spirit too. Whats not to like?

We're in a CL spot after 3 games with a couple more 'easier' matches coming up, unbeaten and only one club has conceded less goals. The defence compared to last season is unrecognisable (John who?) and once our strikers start firing again, we could be a match for anyone...

So stuff the transfer circus and look forward to a bright future, not the nightmares of the recent past.

It is in a word 'realistic'. Lyndon said that he was very disappointed by the last window day and by inference, if nothing else, the window.

I agree.

But now, LL says, we need to move on, take stock. We could have done better, we could have done worse.

We are stronger today than we were twelve months ago. We will finish higher this season than last

That's not 'revisionism'.

ps: It's utterly ridiculous to lambast and lampoon Walsh for this window. Until 6 weeks or so ago, this window for him was Leicester. And in that tadpole time he will now turn Everton's window around!?

This time next year, I am confident that we will be singing his praises.

A new Manager, a new Owner, new personnel and more importantly for us fans, new hope.

There is barely a fan in the UK from any team that exits a window deliriously happy, it's the nature of the beast.

In my opinion we are where we are for three reasons:

1. We are not as attractive as we would like to believe we are. 11th is Palarse country. Let's be realistic.

2. Buying on day 1 is not possible, brinkmanship from agents and clubs alike ensure that.

3. In this new age of Murdoch's millions, we all agree asking prices are ridiculous. Consequently a cautious approach to the new world of ballistic transfer fees is good management. Haven't we all craved that ?

Have faith, gird your loins, Koeman is here, the future is bright.

TV money alone was worth buying into, etc. I certainly hope things progress and not stagnate because nothing was really achieved for my thinking and I know it's early days but still, only Stones's money was spent.

I'm trying to keep my glass half-full, trying...

As Ronald is getting paid twice as much as he was at Southampton, I think it's fair to say he will go for the first option and say, publicly, that he is more than happy with his squad. Of course the obligatory "we have a fantastic chairman" will have to be included in any statement.

He's good at selling his best players and moving the team forward he was known for this at Southampton.

We should have spent our time in the transfer window nailing down Mata and Bony instead of getting sucked into Sissoko's game plan and helping ramp up his price and, more importantly, doubling his agent's fee.

Now we have no playmaker and Niasse has his place back in case of injury to Lukaku.

My (entirely speculative) opinion is that Kenwright is used to doing late deals and getting the best deals that way from clubs who are keen to cash in on assets. Trouble is that, this year, there was so much cash being thrown around by almost all English clubs that, if anything, the transfer deadline prices were even more inflated. The likes of Porto and Napoli could smell our desperation and tried to squeeze ridiculous amounts out of us to which the board, quite rightly responded, with a 'naff off'.

Next year or window, I hope that we have identified our targets early and go in with solid bids and parameters early on. If there is genuine progress in negotiations, then great, but if not, then move on to the next target, swiftly. None of this waiting till the last minute and hoping it all comes good nonsense that I suspect Kenwright is the mastermind behind.

All-in-all its been a decent if unspectacular window. The first team does look stronger than it was and that is the main thing but we still look one or two game-changers short of a team able to challenge for top 5 or 6 to me. Much will rest on the manager and I'm pleased at least that the lack of additions might give the youngsters more opportunity (I see Tom Davies was goalscoring MotM for England yesterday).

Time will tell if we have enough in the squad but whatever happens I hope that Moshiri and the powers that be will work out why this window didn't quite go as well as we all hoped for. They must endeavour to improve the club in all areas, both on and off the pitch, from the last uninspiring regime.

If, at the start of the window, we knew the 4 players that were brought in plus Valencia on loan, then we would all be very happy. It is only the expectation through the media and the club having to deal with difficult clubs and absurd prices that have stopped us from buying further acquisitions.

We have players that many teams will be envious of. Also, I expect Ronald to improve the standard of play no end so there is no need to worry. We are work in progress so grow a bit of patience and stop whining!! Expect further business in January.

Why would Koeman feel blagged? He's been a professional footballer since the age of 17 and has played at the very highest level. He's seen players come and go and knows what moves them. Do you think what happened with Witsel and Sissoko is even remotely a surprise to him?

He'll be disappointed that we've been played, just like we all are. He'll be amused at Witsel kicking his heels in the dear old Rodina til winter and at Porto having to deal with a narky Brahimi around the place for 6 months though. Maybe their agents / clubs will learn from this and be more realistic next time round!

Either way, if us fans, apart from those that need to rant for psychological reasons or just can't quite get through a window without screaming at the dark lord Kenwright, can see that the club was at least trying to do the right things, it will be plainly transparent for him.

Williams, Gana, Bollasie and Valencia will all definitely improve the squad, giving us pace and grit. Add the Koeman factor, some great youngsters and that we already had some good players, then this season will be solid if perhaps not spectacular.

I for one am happy simply to be rid of Martinez and to have a top manager who talks sense. The players will respond to Koeman and will undoubtedly play better this season. Long way to go but 7 points from the first 3 games is already one of the best starts to a season we've for many years.

Things are on the up and Rome wasn't built in a day. Let's just enjoy seeing the side improve week by week under a proper manager.

The only difference this year was that Tottenham and Leicester now had champions league football and West Ham had Europa league football on offer. Making the competition fiercer than ever.

We're lucky to hold onto Lukaku to be honest and until we start finishing in the top 6 we can't expect big players to come to us. Two 11th placed finishes have put us right down the transfer destination pecking order

Was it a disappointing transfer window? Yes... but there was a lack of exciting transfer targets. We have more money than ever but we cannot afford to blow it like Man City and Chelsea who can shrug and send literally hundreds of millions of failed acquisitions out on loan.

£50 million for Brahimi? No way. £30 Million for one-good-game Sissoko? No way. Gabbiadini wasn't available this window unfortunately.

Better to keep the powder dry and do the research between now and Christmas or even next summer. We have done the bare minimum: Brought in a good manager and DoF, a solid goalkeeper, a solid defender, a solid defensive mid and a proper winger to provide options alongside Kev and Ger.

It's also an opportunity to give some of the exceptionally promising youth players a chance.

COYB

Did we really think after 2 seasons of hopeless under performance, in a matter of 1 window and 3 games we would overtake Spurs or Arsenal in being a more attractive destination for Sissoko and Perez?

The new regime has been a force for good. Kudos to them for submitting big bids and showing our ambitions.

The failure to land a big name targets this summer however has to be laid at the door of the previous regime/management. We regressed and the arguably small gap that existed between us and Spurs became even bigger.

Koeman knows to fulfill his project, he will have to engineer a revival of our on-the-field fortunes. That is why he spoke of a 2 year project. If he does so, then Moshiri has already shown he is prepared to spend big on wages and transfers.

Meanwhile, the addition of Walsh has meant we have been able to make shrewd less high profile but highly effective acquisitions such as Gana.

Martinez's legacy lives on. I for one have sympathy with Moshiri, Koeman and Walsh in trying to reverse it.

Whilst it wasn't the best window I don't necessarily think it was through lack of trying. Everton are not a big draw for potential new players as it became apparent. Our results over the last two seasons have been poor, we are not in Europe, we have an old stadium and London is where the draw is.

I think there was potentially the money there to be used, but the players were not there to be had.. We are a stronger side compared to last season but we must accept this is an on-going project and qualifying for CL this season is not on the cards.

Valencia did come across as a panic deal but lets hope in a new environment he can better himself.

Onwards and upwards to the next window

Really, really didn't want Sissoko – especially at £30mil

Really gutted when turned us down for Spurs

Really think we dodged a bullet with him.

Really confused with the statement from Mr Moshiri saying that we pulled the plug on Sissoko because we wanted to keep McCarthy.

January will be a waste of time, so let's hope next summer is better for us.

Shocking transfer business that reeks of all the old unfulfilled promises and takes us supporters for mugs. Again. Moshiri should put up or shut up, we have enough dreaming liars on the board already.

So it is official, I think. There is no change at Everton. New owner same as the old owner. And please do not say we're sitting 4th in the table. It's three games in for God's sake. Unless you think Hull and Boro will stay 5th and 6th. Hull by the way who have had a much more difficult start than us, playing Leicester City and Manchester United.

Just three fucking games into the first season under the new owner and you have decided to draw conclusions on his intentions.

You do that, and enjoy wanking over your Football Manager fantasies where you can click a button and computer generated versions of players join Everton.

Me, I will stick to the real world where on the one hand, our new regime bid and failed to attract a number of players due to the regression of the last 2 seasons.

I will also accept our new regime has taken a number of excellent measures which cost money – firing Martinez, hiring Koeman and Walsh and landing Gana at an absolute bargain.

In your world, unless we spent gazillions on over valued players such as Niasse that constitutes failures. In mine, the fact we only spent the Stones money may partly be down to the fact that Gana, Stekelenburg and Williams represent shrewd buys, and attempts to land Sissoko and the Spanish centre-forward were thwarted by Spurs and Arsenal who are viewed as more attractive, whilst Brahimi's asking price was outrageous.

The Palace chairman called transfer fees quoted to EPL clubs by European clubs a tax and I for one am glad we did not pay Brahimi's ludicrous price.

So carry on bashing your bishop on Football Manager, David, click click click and all that.

In this case do the figures you cling to include agents' fees? Do they cover bonuses and add-ons? Do they figure in sell-on clauses? Do they factor in manager settlement and replacement manager fees?

No. They don't. It's all money that has to be found. Doesn't just appear out of thin air. In our case, it comes from Moshiri or the TV money. It is also more than we got on for Stones.

So passing your maths test but failing basic reading comprehension. Shame that.

Which club worked under a negative (or minimal) net spend for years while still maintaining the status quo? Which club had a great manager whom they could trust to maintain said status while building a new status? Which club was, and is, envied by the footballing world for their genuine economic success? Oh, and where did the new bloke in charge pop up from?

I believe Moshiri is investing money where he thinks it counts, ie, the manager and scouting system, in order to bank £100M+ per season to sort out the stadium.

If Koeman can be knocking on the doors of the Champions League with all of his best players sold from under him, why can't he do it when only one star leaves each season?

If a stadium announcement doesn't come soon, then I'll become hyper Evertonian (aka 'cynical'). Until then, I'll just enjoy the better football on offer week to week.

I don't know what this Football Manager thing is, sorry. Totally unfamiliar with it, but apparently you understand it quite well so have fun with it. What I do know from watching this club for decades, and following this sport in general, is that it takes investment to move a club forward, and the new owner had all summer to put the money forward to get players in.

What I do know is that we have only one proven striker, and had to resort to taking a guy who can not score goals on loan from West Ham.

The fact that we had a negative spend isn't coming from me, it's been reported in the press. Read it for yourself. Even the manager had said he needed 3-4 more players. What he got was one loan signing from West Ham. If you come up 66-75% short of your stated goal, that is a failure.

I expected this new owner to change things. But what we got this summer is the same old thing we saw for a decade under Moyes. That will move you above 11th, maybe, but won't move you further than that. We sold to buy, and actually came out with a profit. For years it has been a running joke about the Arteta money vanishing, or the supposed big investment deals that had been lined up.

Well, here we are after the first summer with our new owner, a massive TV money influx, and we had a positive net spend. So the TV money, pocketed for now. Meanwhile those clubs we are expected to compete with have all strengthened, both those in the Champions League and outside of it.

As of right now, this squad will not compete over the course of an entire season with the following clubs: Man City, Chelsea, Man Utd, Arsenal, Spurs, Leicester, Liverpool. I would include West Ham in that, but they got hit with a massive injury crisis, so we probably should finish above them. So that leaves us 8th if all goes right. If Lukaku gets a serious injury, I shudder to think what will happen.

I know that they are not your figures but the Echo fails to mention the £7.5 million paid to Barnsley so that makes it a negative nett spend based on their figures?

We have improved our goalkeeper. Strengthened our defense with a proven leader. Much improved our midfield and brought in competition up front. Not to mention we have unloaded quite a bit of deadwood.

Personally, I think this side has a lot more dynamism and resilience than it's had for a long time.Now it may well be that we never managed to bring in some absurdly overpriced foreigner but you can't have everything.

We have been in the doldrums for a long time and, though we still have some prestige in England, our profile on the continent is lower than a snake's gonads. Until that situation changes our buying policy will have to be more subtle. The players we brought in are of proven quality at reasonable prices (Bolasie a little over the odds maybe). This is what we need to continue to do. Walsh was brought in for this very reason. To bring in good players like Gueye at proper prices.

What we need to do is get players BEFORE they cost an arm and a leg. Porto got Brahimi for €5 million . Deportivo got Gabbiadini for a measly €2 million. If they can do it, so should we. We did it with Stones. We may have done it with Holgate. For any rational, not to mention sane, transfer policy that's the way to go.

Remember that Man Utd broke through with their old/new youth team back in the '90s. After that, how many youths came through when they had to stay at the top???

I see we may have to go the same way eventually, but I still hope we can get the new ones blooded without loaning them out, or losing them...

The same goes for Brahimi... £50m?!?! Absolutely not. I would take an in-form and for the time being, mature Kevin Mirallas, over someone that probably might wobble on English soil. He was a gamble at even £20m!

The biggest loss for me was missing out on our top striker targets. Gabbiadini is an up and coming talent and would have been fine waiting for his chance while learning The English Game. I posted on another thread that Valencia is a good option, but he does have some opportunities for himself. I think Valencia is humble enough at this point that he could set out to prove himself with his work rate.

This was not a horrible window. We could have done much better but lets grind our teeth for the next few months and see what January brings. Like most, I am a bit disappointed but having been through many of these windows, I am used to the hype followed by the let down.

Let's face it! We ain't no rich kids (at least not yet). We grab our lunch pails and go break rocks for a living. Sometimes we bring back gold and other times, all we got is coal. I rather fit the system and work hard to improve it than be the weak link that shatters the philosophy. This group needs time but you can see a change is coming.

What exactly did you expect this summer?

We've changed manager, brought in 4 new first-teamers (not squad fillers) and promoted a couple from the youth. The team is a lot stronger than it was last season so progress has been made.

Did you expect Koeman to sign a whole new team in one window? Also just because we want a player doesn't mean we'll get him. Load of reasons for a transfer not happening and every other club missed out on players they wanted. Last season and the season before, defense was the main problem. The signings have gone a long way to sort that out. In January, we'll probably bring another one or two in.

I think a little perspective and patience is needed. We moving in the right direction.

Also the elephant is still in the room in the form of the stadium issue. The total cost of which will be in the hundreds of millions. Spending the stones money wisely and using most/all of the sky money for the stadium also makes sense (if that turns out to be the case).

Just enjoy the fact we're better and winning.

If the board don't meet Koeman's plan to go forward, then he may not see out his contract. Next summer will be interesting. This season is about changing the mentality of the players and style. I am enjoying having Koeman's honesty and work ethic mentality.

http://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/706691/Everton-news-Axel-Witsel-failed-transfer-Juventus-Zenit-latest

A. Absolutely!!!

Sometimes all you need to do is add a small brick to a wall to strengthen it. We are far from perfect but Koeman has changed the mentality of our players. Where we need the most improvement is finishing off the injured animal.

While it would have been nice to add to our already amazing team, consider our bench and reserves.

Everton Bench:

Coleman (returning soon)
Funes Mori (can play anywhere on the defense)
McCarthy (possibly injured; serviceable when fit)
Davies (interchangeable with Cleverley or Gibson)
Lennon
Deulofeu (starter or first person off the bench)
Kone/Valencia

**************

Everton Reserves:
Oviedo
Cleverly
Gibson
Dowell
Besic (Injured)
McGeady (currently loaned out)
Niasse
Kone
Valencia
Random U21 Cameo

Striker is the weak link on this team. Lukaku tends to disappear and his backup has been no better than a placeholder at times (except the Yeovil game where Kone did well). But, if we start draining goals, I think people will forget that we missed out on some of our targets.

For a business, we did well. I think desperate clubs around Europe about to lose players for nothing will be forced to sell in January. Possibly a centerpiece buy and a few fringe players for Unsworth to boss around.

We managed to hang onto Rom, lost Stones, but secured a seasoned excellent defender who is a natural-born leader in Williams. The big improvement in terms of strengthening the squad though has to be Gueye; he has been great for us in the first three games and is such an upgrade on the likes of McCarthy, Besic and Cleverley.

We did secure a back-up striker option in Valencia who has something to prove which should work in our favor. I would have been annoyed if our only options were Kone and now it appears Niasse.

I am glad we didn't pay £30 million pounds for Sissoko; he plays in fits and starts and really I see him playing a similar role to Bolasie.

What we did need and didn't get was a creative attacking midfielder as a back up to Ross. Hopefully Steve Walsh has his eye on a rough diamond and we can avoid splashing out stupid money for someone like Mata or an aging Silva.

What I would really like to see is Mason Holgate and Tom Davies consistently involved in first team action these two lads are super impressive and potentially could be anything in the game.

So far so good is my assessment. Plenty of managers would have come in and insisted on splashing cash on whomever was available. You can imagine a Redknapp for instance extreme short-term planning without out any real forward thinking applied. It seems Koeman is much more prudent with his thinking and as such we will benefit in the long term.

Onwards & Upwards

It reminds me of those Evertonians at matches, who barrack players for making mistakes, even our great players like Kendall. I wonder if such supporters would ever really be pleased about anything.

I'll reserve judgement on Everton until the team has had a chance to perform following the promising first few games. In other words, let's see how things go on the pitch. That's what matters at the end of the day.

It seems now we have only spent what we have got in. But looking at it now I agree we should see how the team pans out and strengthen in areas needed in January, like Ronald says, it's a two-year build.

Another thing to bear in mind is that the stadium is now a distinct possibility and money is needed for that so if Moshiri's prudence in the transfer market puts a sizeable chunk of the TV money towards the new build, well that's okay with me too.

Which I think translates as:- "I shouldn't have been so greedy in my demands and I am now stuck in this friigging backwater that makes Scottie Road in the '70s look like paradise."

But I may be wrong... :)

The 3 or 4 players that Koeman wanted in my view were:

Perez
Brahimi
Gabbiadini
Kone

This was reduced to the 1 or 2 as Moyes wouldn't sell, and Arsenal got Perez. This left:

Brahimi
Gabbiadini

Koeman knew both would be last-minute because of the negotiated price due to ownership issue (Brahimi) & replacement before sale (Gabbiadini). So looked at an option to loan a forward (Valencia) just in case. Other people have called this a panic buy. But in my view this was Plan B. Something which Everton have been accused of not having in the past.

And also this window, Everton had a Plan A. Which shows IMO the difference between past and current regime.

The club will be as disappointed as the fans are with the outcome. But at least they didn't panic buy; didn't allow themselves to get took to the cleaners with Brahimi; but still managed to get some cover up front.

Not brilliant. But nowhere near same old same old.

This is far from the first time we've been made promises that haven't been kept only unbelievably the promises this time round were on a bigger scale. It's not the first time we've sold a star player then only spent the money we received for him and no more.

It is the first time, however, that we had £100 million from the Premier League deal plus the money (£100 million allegedly) that Moshiri brought to the table. Moshiri in reality has brought nothing to the table other than about a £1.5 million profit from the transfer window and the Sky money disappeared!!

It's not the first time we have left ourselves short in key areas of the pitch It's not the first time we've brought in a handful of very average players to replace one top player. It's not the first time we've allegedly tried to sign top players only for it to mysteriously fall through.

It's the same old Everton, just with a BK stooge as the front man now instead of the King of Lies himself. And please don't try and throw Gueye, Bolasie & Stekelenburg at me as proof of moving forward. Average at best and I bet not on one Everton fan's wish list after last season.

Steve Walsh, who cares! It doesn't takes genius to spot a good footballer, how long was he at Leicester for before he got lucky with Vardy, Kante and Mahrez?!?

This whole post sums up how we aren't and probably never again will be up with the best. Our own fans swallow up mediocrity, lapping it up and clutching at every one of the thinnest straws to not admit to the fact that we are hoodwinked and conned by the board year after year, listing every little excuse they can to continue living in denial of what is blindingly obvious.

The board are content with Premier League survival to continue the influx of Premier League wealth into their pockets – no more and no less!!!

By January, some teams will be doing badly and we can swoop for players wanting to jump ship. And other players at the elite clubs in Europe will have seen plenty of bench time and will be easier to target. That's my opinion anyway.

My main concern is that Koeman doesn't do a Pulis/Bruce and leave us if he see's the board don't back him in January and next summer and that there is no money. But I have no reason to think that just now.

Koeman has been superb so far, I just wish I hadn't given my season ticket up. (Martinez was still in charge at the direct debit deadline.)

In this window, gentlemen, we have landed (I trust) the best manager, scout, and support team at no small cost. They alone are worth more than a statement signing.

Also, we have gained the services of Gana, Williams, Bolasie and Stekelenburg (and latterly Valencia). At the same time, there have been and will be many sideshows. Unfortunately we lost Besic through injury, but Barry looks like he is going to enjoy a swansong season. Ross looks like he is going to break through big time (just love the guy) and Mirallas looks focused.

The youngsters are coming through, Holgate especially, hopefully with Davies and Dowell and others to follow. Lukaku has stayed and he has a point to prove, in fact, many, after his trailed-off form from last season.

What if Valencia, under good tutelage performs in a way no-one expects (like Gana, Holgate, Stekelenburg, Mirallas etc)? What if he actually plays off Rom in a way that possibly Koeman and Walsh might be working towards? What if, what if...?

This is not a rant, it is just a request for patience and support. Tell the media and its screwed up values, and Redshite pundits, to bugger off and let our manager(s) and players do the business. We got rid of Roberto and that was an ABSOLUTE MUST to stave off the real risk of a relegation. Suddenly, the future is looking bright and blue.

If the new stadium is going to eat into the Sky money, and a selling strategy, then so be it. I really haven't got a clue if all will be delivered within the 2-year strategy plan that Koeman has talked about, but please let's just give the Club a break, step away from this buy now, now, now, now bullshit and watch with patience, hope and trust, and see how it pans out.

If it goes tits up . . . . . well I've been a supporter for nearly 60 years, I don't see any reason to change now. That doesn't mean I won't be as saddened as the next supporter, but I know I am grateful to be an Evertonian and not a Norwegian Redshite or a milionaire Mancunian.

I am appalled by the number of fans who are jumping to conclusions because we didn't go mental and commit huge amounts of money to bring in overpriced players.

Our salary expenditure is on the up, and we put big money into getting the new management team. Moshiri just wouldn't have bothered with securing Koeman and Walsh if he had no intention of matching Koeman's obvious ambition.

"Same old Everton, same old Kenwright, blah, blah." Kenwright has done himself no favours by spouting a lot of deluded bullshit as Everton chairman, but he was a big part of Moshiri coming in. They have finally given us hope the like of which I have not experienced in all my time as a fan.

Give Kenwright some credit, and give Moshiri time.

Any fool can panic buy, but we've avoided that circus. Most of the stuff written about potential transfers is just media tripe, and it amazes me how some folks can respond to it like they do, in a such a knee-jerk way.

Statements of intent are mainly bullshit, but if we do have any, then surely not needing to sell players (like Lukaku) and not needing to get too embroiled in the TDD crap are two of the strongest messages we can send out.

That post cannot be serious.

Firstly, we went into transfer deadline day needing 3 or 4 players, according to Mr Koeman.

Secondly we sold a £50 million player to the team that are likely going to win the league.

Now we've had time to calm down, those of us who were disappointed, will be a bit more stoic about it.

Equally, those who weren't disappointed should stop rewriting what actually happened.

Mark, is he our new spokesman?

If we had bought 10 players for £200 mill, I would still be looking at the gossip for the next window.

Most of the players we went for either did not want to come, or was down to the other club.

Porto upped their price; Gabbiadini was held back by his club, as was Kone; Sissoko chose Spurs. Normally I would be annoyed but at no point can Everton be blamed this time in the transfer market with the exception of Perez.

Everton were used to either get a player a better contract at his club, or used Everton as bait to get one of the big guns to take the bait.

Do not be too downhearted with this window; January's will be better, some of these targets we went for I have no doubt we will get, and at a much lower price, now they know we won't be held to ransom on inflated prices.

We kept hold of Lukaku, strengthened the squad, certain players are playing better, we have a decent squad, and a manager who knows tactics and strengths. Add to that a raft of youngsters and things are looking great.

Moshiri, so far, has brought nothing but Kenwright's shares – it's the same old same old. The only thing that will convince me of a brighter future for us fans is the announcement of the dockland stadium, or Stanley Park being handed over to the blue half of Merseyside. 'Listen to the gasps of horror from Liverpool city council.'

I'm sure that Koeman is as much pissed off as us over the transfer-window no-show of only spending the Stones cash, and if the bullshit continues, then I'm sure he will be off sooner than later.

All we can hope for is a resurgent squad firing us to a top seven finish at least, then add to that for next season.

Stekelenburg, 34, couldn't get in Fulham's reserves as a substitute;

Williams, 32, replacing Stones, 22, England international;

Gaya, done nothing for Villa while they struggled and were relegated;

Bolasie, on anyone's list here? I don't think so.

That leaves us with three of the worst under-performing strikers in football: Niasse – Koeman told him publicly to go, now he's got a squad number. Kone? enough already; and our new backup goalscorer, Valencia: 10 goals in 67 appearances, shoved out the door at West Ham, who have strikers out injured.

God help us if Lukaku gets an injury or continues to play like? Er.... like Kone, Niasse or that new guy we brought in from West Ham, you know, the one who...

Before the Euros, Williams would never have been touted as an Everton player. Sweinsteiger, same age, can't even get in the Man Utd squad and some think Williams is the nasty, snarling saviour we've been looking for.

Why players need to all be leaders and scream dog's abuse at their team mates had always seemed a little old-fashioned to me. Maybe I'm different but I respond to empowerment, not abuse.

All players? Well, yeah, that might be overkill. Too many cooks and all that. However, nobody has been asking for every player to be bellowing instructions or taking it upon themselves to organise others as a unit, have they? They've just been asking for one or two players of that ilk, instead of having the entire team running about acting like a mute disorganised rabble desperately trying to get away from gobshite gorillas on horseback in Planet Of The Apes.

As for responding better to 'empowerment', instead of someone barking out instructions? What if you can't possibly be aware of every single thing going on around you and there isn't time for someone to take you to one side, sit you down and express their faith in you to figure a solution out for yourself? Are you saying there is no situation in which a yell from someone else would ensure more immediate and impressive results?

Say you're stood outside a cave in the South American jungle, looking a bit shady but just minding your own business nonetheless, and suddenly Indiana Jones comes tearing out of there hell for leather (one hand holding his hat on his head, the other keeping the contents of his arse held in) and the ignorant archaeologist arsehole doesn't even acknowledge your presence.

Now, you've got about 6 seconds to assess the situation and react accordingly before a big fuck off boulder smashes into and over you and leaves you lying there like a burst johnny some right dirty bastard filled with Digestive biscuit remnants for 'belting...and resourceful' ribbed effect.

If only he'd shouted "MOOOOOOVVVVEEEE" as he came careening out of that cave, instead of 'empowering' you to use your own initiative and...err...end up as a formerly man shaped version of one of those fucking Muller Corner yoghurts with the crunchy crap mixed in.

Their past performances for other teams are captured by Koeman's & Walsh's assessment of them, leading to the decisions to purchase. I'm no expert, but it strikes me that they are very good buys.

It does not matter where the players came from, they are all doing a decent job, none more so than Gana who has been outstanding. So Paul, you might not be happy with the additions, that's your honest opinion, but I think the new additions have done well.

Stekelenburg and Valencia are here because they are cheap not because they are the best, McGeady will be back before January, Kone is still here and Niasse was told to go by Koeman then given a squad number.
Only the Stones cash has been spent on transfers, just the same as when Fellaini was sold, where has the Sky money gone?

Seems to me that Kenwright has been sprinkling some happy dust on to a few Everton supporters to believe his hype; if he announces a new stadium sometime this season and we finish top seven then I will say we are on the up – after all I'm an eternal pessimist and a life long blue... I'm not used to all this positiveness, but good on you for it.

Pogba? Nobody in their wildest dreams would expect him to be on our radar, which proves the point. Moshiri and Koeman, being the high profile changes, and to some extent Walsh, have a difficult job, and Moshiri and Walsh seem to be taking the blame. Their first task was to halt the downward momentum under Booby Martini. It must have been like Indiana Jones trying to stop that trolley in that mine shaft.

To have stopped the momentum and then started the slow climb upwards and to have come this far so quickly is unbelievable. I say back off, give the new regime a chance and get behind the team. I doubt that they'll get their fingers burnt again. Walsh especially now has time to unearth the next Mahrez, Kante and Vardi.

I am optimistic because I am patient. I have learnt to be. NSNO, not second-rate players for first rate money.

ps: Don't blame Valencia either. If he proves to not be as good a signing as Stekelenburg, Williams, Bolasie and Gana, then he will go back. COYB!

For me, Stekelenburg is better than the recent keepers we've had, Williams is the defensive leader we've patently lacked for years, Gana is the canny, energetic centre mid we hoped we had but now we know the difference, don't we?

I don't care how cheap they are or where they played. These are the players we'll have to unearth to get good enough to attract the 'marquee' players who won't touch us now.

I think Koeman looked at Mirallas and Deufelou and thought they were good, but lacked strength and physicality. So he bought Bolassie. Paid over the odds, but I'd rather he did that for Premier League experience than someone hyped up by the media. And of course all and sundry are queuing up to say he's too expensive!

If you want to be pessimistic, fine. We've strengthened the squad and got messed about by players and clubs who didn't want our business. It's down to Koeman to get the results for four months to make them take us more seriously in January.

Because I was under the assumption only the media were saying that amount. If so, feel free not to attack EFC for not spending a mythical amount that was dreamed up by some journo hack.

Also, it was a tough window. Moshiri seems like a free-spending kind of guy, but players need to want to come here. You can't blame the buyer if the seller refuses to sell.