Koeman unmoved by Niasse's U23s form

There is something much more sinister about this one. A very odd affair.

Just let things settle down. Wait and see. I'm far from saying he will be a first team player but remember the old Latin phrase your mother used. 'Deus nobis haec otis fecit' – If you keep picking, it will never get better.

Niasse didn't want to go back to Russia and stayed to be with his family. Certainly can't blame him for that. He'd been away from them for long enough and was finally reunited. I'd have done the same thing.

Hopefully an offer will come in for him that allows him to stay with his family and play elsewhere. The problem is finding a team that will pay the wage he is on. Why would he leave for less?

Such is the gap between Under-23 level and the Premier League, it would require a major injury crisis before he would be considered. If he keeps scoring goals, perhaps a club will take a punt on him in January.

We'll probably never know, though, and we do need to get rid of him.

Everton, to our detriment, are analogous to a relatively small boat (relative to the ocean anyway), with an engine (Lukaku) vulnerable to the elements.

I don't dislike the guy, only seen a couple of pantomime performance highlights so can't really comment about his football ability, and without knowing the ins and outs, I actually feel a bit sorry for him (notwithstanding all the £40k a week sweetener and so on).

If he does keep banging in the goals and still gets the cold shoulder, you have to start wondering if that is all he has or quite what has gone on. The silence is deafening on this one and I guess something will surface sooner or later.

In the meantime, we have to keep our eyes and ears open for that Rom support/backup because a quick look at the all-season goals clips on YouTube, right now, shows how indispensable he is, particularly when you look at our current so-called back-up.

West Ham recently had a similar situation with Simone Zaza where they have to pay an installment after a certain number of games but he's been benched because he hasn't exactly hit the ground running. And of course we all remember what happened to Michael Ball at Rangers under similar circumstances...

Hopefully he can fluke a few more in the U23s and get a move where we recoup some kind of fee.

'I hope he scores a hat-trick every week in the under-23s...but the decision I took is not to change and it's between us.'

Isn't he admitting that any amount of footballing improvement will never be enough?

If a player says he's going to do all he can, work hard, is performing well, but the manager says there is absolutely no chance his mind will be changed, what example does that set for every other player?

I'm beginning to understand the concerns that were raised before he was hired, going back to his days at Valencia.

Koeman watched him play 45 mins on an Austrian hillside in a pre-pre-season kickabout (admittedly he was rubbish, but all of them were ring rusty and just looking for fitness) and wrote him off forever!

Someone had a word in his ear about Niasse. I still say there's mileage in him being a ringer and the Club don't want another 'George Weah's cousin' debacle that Southampton and Souness have never lived down. Either that or he's done something terrible off the pitch and somebody up top wants him gone.

You don't spend that sort of money on transfer and wages and then never play them! It's absurd.

Something definitely going on...

Strange choice of words!

Maybe there is a lot more to the assault charge against his wife than meets the eye.

Whatever the reason, it needs addressing with the way our supporting players to Lukaku are failing.

Could we have fared worse this season had Oumar been in the team?

Other than Lukaku, what other Everton player has earned goalscoring glory?

It cannot be for one pre-season performance, to say he's not a part of his plans when, other than Lukaku, we are struggling for goals and a striker.

Whatever it is, it is not football-related – that's for sure.

The only person who knows why he joined Everton is Martinez.