Barcelona confirm re-signing Gerard Deulofeu

He did bring some magic moments, which will stay with us. I can only wish him all the best, and hope he manages to break into the Barça team.

Apart from all that I really wanted to see him succeed and enjoyed a small handful of brilliance РI also give him 12 months before Bar̤a flog him to Milan.

his is a player who has almost certainly been rejected because he failed to meet some kind of artificial data requirement. Who cares if he tracks back to work as a defender? You can bet Barça won't.

I'm afraid that's nonsense mate. If you score 50 goals a season, then maybe Barça will overlook your back-tracking. Geri hasn't done that and I don't think he ever will.

Nice lad and a good player... just very lightweight and not good enough at protecting the ball. Wish him luck.

Rubbish. The most unfit professional footballer I think I have ever seen. 5 mins of activity was generally followed by 10 mins of blowing and pointing for the ball to go elsewhere. No excuse for a professional not to be fit enough in my book, it is the easiest thing to fix. Lots of skill but little application made him ineffective for me.

Sad, but see ya, Geri, I actually do hope things work out for you.

In fact, he had a golden opportunity to establish himself at the start of last season, when others were hurt, still recovering from the Euros, etc... and, frustratingly, he did almost nothing to take advantage of it.

Flair and creativity are precious qualities... but they don't help much if they exist in theory more than execution.

So a few games this year as I don't believe he can hold down a regular spot. Maybe they could sell him for 㿀M tops. Everton apparently get something like 50% of the sell on fee. Barça will just about break even. It all seems a bit pointless to me.

I guess you can't blame Geri for going. Biggest team in the world and the team he's always loved. Doesn't seem all that smart a career move though.

Always blowing for tugs after a burst of exertion and as for who cared if he didn't track back? Well, I'd say Coleman most of all and everyone else marginally behind him. Ahead of all would be Koeman so that nailed it.

Seems a nice lad, all the best.

Always respectful to the club though and often seen him on the bench celebrating goals with others beside him stonefaced for being omitted from the team.

Can't imagine Barcelona would've agreed to a 50% sell on clause coming Everton's way either.

No problems with the misdirected early passes occurred or there were too many step-overs. We don't expect very single one to be successful. Okay, we'd like them to be but we are Everton and we're not so stupid as to think they'll all be brilliant.

But, Geri is a work-in-progress. Hopefully, for him, the end result will be really good but, think do I (a little Jedi saying. Sorry :).), just now, Everton can't wait for him to develop. We need to get on wiz zee business!

So, good luck Geri in your future 'cos, as has been stated a number of times on here, you seem to be a nice lad!

In Sandro I think you will find we have the best deal, I am really excited and think he will be sensational, and for 90 minutes!

Off subject but a great article
Particularly his thoughts on our neighbours.

Wonderful skills and great to watch at his most direct. I think he may have fared better if he'd been encouraged to cut inside more often rather than out wide. He may have had more success.

Drew (#12) – Martinez quote when we signed him “If they take him back they can't sell him for a season, so he has to stay in the first-team squad for a season. At the end of that if they decide to sell him we have got first rights of getting him back or we have got a big percentage of that deal. There is nothing we can do if they activate it. That was the deal and the only way we could access the player in the terms that we wanted. I'm delighted with the deal.”

Deulofeu Nice lad lots of talent but did not have the lungs or the attitude to excel in the Premier League. I would imagine he could do well in Spain, Italy or France where the tempo is slower and waving your arms about while moaning is more accepted.

Overall, he cost Everton ٢.3 Million but we got some back sending him out on loan. Where this 㾶 million figure comes from is hard to know.

We paid ٢.3M for him initially.

Here ya go, read this:

Deulofeu's development is being closely monitored by Barcelona and it has been suggested that, even if the player does not feature in Luis Enrique's first-team plans, the Spanish champions could re-sign him with a view to selling on at a profit.

But Martínez explained: “They can't do that. There are certain things in the deal. They can't take him back in the winter so they can't take him back in January. It can only be at the end of the season. It is €9M for the first year and €12M in the second year. [That's 2017.]

“If they take him back they can't sell him for a season, so he has to stay in the first-team squad for a season. At the end of that if they decide to sell him we have got first rights of getting him back or we have got a big percentage of that deal. There is nothing we can do if they activate it. That was the deal and the only way we could access the player in the terms that we wanted. I'm delighted with the deal.”

I still think he's got too much talent to fall away completely.

He could also be absolutely abysmal. The Goodison derby in the sun a couple of years back, Rodgers's last game(?), he was embarrassingly poor. I understand how it can go with players who have to take risks, they don't always come off and it can look bad. And then, when things aren't coming off, sometimes the more they try to make amends the worse it gets. All flair player will have had days when nothing goes right, especially in their younger days.

But the acid test with players like this is that they gradually minimise these errors, the immaturity and the mistakes, and develop other areas of their game. The aim of the game for someone like Deulofeu is to try to be like Robben. Obviously, he cant be as good as him. But he should aim to be a player of that ilk. That provides that cutting edge, consistency, reliability, chances and goals, perhaps wide in a 4-3-3. A player who's decision making is generally spot on.

He is still only 23. The next couple of years are very important and he does have some great qualities. However,I personally don't see Del having enough to develop into that kind of player. I think he will end up spending the second half of his career at low/mid-table Spanish level. He doesn't have the power. And I don't think he will ever score enough goals. He is still a pretty average finisher. To justify some of the more erratic elements of his game you need more, as Koeman likes to say, productivity.

As it stands, Del doesn't bring anywhere near enough of it. He may have been handy to keep as an impact sub, at the very best. Lookman will be well better than him.

We got Sandro on a buyout clause, so the fact Barcelona paid twice that is immaterial. Do you really think that a guy that couldn't get in our squad, never mind team, for 6 months last season, can turn it around and be a starter for one of the best teams in the world?

It's a pure money move, he'll be in Italy in 12 months. I like the guy, and was rooting for him, but he couldn't get in last season's team, how's he supposed to get in this season's team?

All the best, Geri.

He could spend a season on the bench mind.

Whatever happened to skill and numerous other attributes that this lad has? Whatever happened to the School of Science? Whatever happened to the skill of coaching a 23-year-old with abundant skills to become better at what he does?

The common denominator between these two lads isn't skill or potential but heart, or lack of, and that's something that can't be coached.

He won't thrive at Barça if he doesn't work hard. As for AC wanting him, they had him for half a season then let him go without trying to buy, hardly a shining endorsement.

People castigating Koeman for wanting a team to work hard is just making excuses for bone idle individuals who can't be arsed to be able to play a full 90 minutes in the name of team work.

Any successful team has to work hard to win the ball and earn the right to play, something that Barkley, Deulofeu and the likes just don't understand. Shaun Wilson (#37) has it spot on: no heart.

This lad is more or less the same age as Ross, 24 next up. To hope that they'll now somehow develop, "if only the right coaching is finally provided", into the players we'd all like to see is in my view bordering delusional.

Can anyone remember a previous 24+ year-old who played consistently in the Champions League having spent the first five years of their career squandering a multitude of opportunities under a variety of coaches? I can't.

What does mystify me though, is, will Barcelona be willing to effectively "waste" one seat on the bench for a whole season, just to gain a few million at the end of next season, if they then sell Gerard on?

It seems a strange, convoluted strategy, but, having said that, everything about the whole deal to bring Gerry to us in the first place, seemed strange and convoluted.

So are you one of these " intelligent Evertonians" that you speak of or am I too stupid to understand that?

Excuse me if I'm wrong but aren't wingers supposed to be "pacey and super fit" and the fact that you're suggesting that anyone in the Premier League who is both of those is mediocre, "most intelligent Evertonians" would disagree with you, in my humble, yet apparently dumb, opinion.

You should maybe re-read my post and answer the questions instead of waxing lyrical about how skillful Deulofeu is. I never questioned his skill in my post, I asked if you thought he could make either first team; instead, you insult my intellect.

You maybe shouldn't post your opinions if you don't like anybody that disagrees with them.

Add the AC Milan manager and staff to those who are missing it too.

It is about something transient and ephemeral that defies definition but is instantly recognizable.

So it's about something short lived, fleeting, momentary? That doesn't make much sense to me. Guess like Shaun I'm one of the dumbo's eh?

It's actually about effectiveness in my simple opinion. It's no use having these skills if you can't use them "effectively" and regularly.

Deulofeu had bags of talent...............

Nobody would disagree with that I reckon but he just didn't utilize that talent "effectively" on a regular basis. When he did the things he's able to do, well, it was a joy to watch. But he didn't do them often enough and actually caused us problems on occasions by losing the ball when a simple pass was what was actually required.

In my view ,you can only afford a luxury player like Geri when you have ten world beaters around you, and we didn't and haven't.

Some of Deulofeu's passing was so far astray that it was difficult to guess who the pass was intended for.

I think we would be angrier if we lost him if he was playing amazing, leaving a huge gap in the team. It hasn't worked out for him here and we've made a decent profit on a player who was on the fringes of the squad. Barça's buy back clause was basically a glorified loan, in which we actually came out of it better financially.

Yep, if he'd have set the place on fire here, we'd still have got the agreed €12M.

Barcelona will have to come down with a bout of the shites before he dislodges that forward line.

He's not a kid now, he's either going to have to raise his level, surrounded by quality players, or he is unlikely to progress. It's down to the lad, if he can see what is missing from his game and attitude and works on that he'll get better, otherwise he will perform as well as my typing.

Geri is an enigma. As Joe (#10), pointed out, he always looked a bit unfit in games and I found this really baffling and concerning. Possibly he was short on match fitness as many of his appearances were less than 90 minutes.

His eye for a pass and the execution was exceptional at times. If he develops this aspect of his game, he could well be a future Iniesta under the right circumstances.