Nick Hammond takes up the recruitment reins at Everton

One would hope there is plenty going on behind the scenes.

But spot the deliberate mistake @4.

Who's interested outside of the participating clubs and whoever gets the TV money?

If we agree a deal before 30th June, we just don’t make the first payment until the day after for next season’s accounts. We could still agree it and announce it.

If we agree a deal in the ‘boarded up’ window, the player just isn’t officially ours until a bit later and can’t play for us. Well seeing as we’re not even training, let alone playing, it won’t make a difference.

I genuinely worry that some of us fans have put more thought into who we need to sign than the club have.

We’re 11 short of a squad, 10 if the plan is for Harry Tyrer to be one of the back up keepers, but more if Patterson really isn’t good enough to play ahead of Coleman and Young.

Less than three weeks to stay clear of any PSR issues. Nothing to be concerned about.

We should definitely offer them £30M for Ferguson, he's definitely not in their plans.

Most players, managers, agents will be on holiday.

Deary me!

Christy@13, I reckon Ferguson might go for nearer £20M these days. Had two disappointing seasons and some questions over injuries. A bargain to be had potentially if he's surplus at Brighton?

Here's hoping they get those hires done fast.

Serious question, honest.

The spirit of Kenwright still lingers.

I would just point out that we've already made our first signing.

Martin # 18, Brighton have a much, much bigger and better squad than Everton - and, in terms of strikers, have spent €46.7M on Rutter, €26.5M on Tzimas and €34.2M on Joao Pedro in just the past 2 seasons.

We have a much, much greater need for depth in forward positions than they do. I wouldn't be turning my nose up just because players can't get in their starting line-up – like Enciso and possibly O'Riley whom we're also linked with. If Ferguson is over his injuries, he could be an excellent signing.

Yes, he is, Michael.

He could be a bargain but he could also be useless/spent/a player that’s been figured out/injuries have already stifled his burgeoning career.

Given our need for goals and limited transfer funds versus the huge job required…..can we really afford to gamble?

Id take him on loan, and he'd need to prove himself.

Otherwise, I am not sure how we ever find a striker who is better than the likes of Beto and DCL. Since we can't afford ready made quality like Ekitike or Gyokeres, it leaves us with:

- players with talent but poor goals record (e.g. like Cunha until this last season)

- players of talent with injury issues (e.g. like Broja and Ferguson)

- mid-priced players (eg around the £40m to £65m mark) who may already have peaked (e.g. like Solanke, Evanilson and Thiago)

- players from cheaper but weaker leagues - like Patson Daka and Paul Onuachu previously - who may not be up to Premier League standard

The alternative is to be really patient with players like Chermiti and Graham - and indeed buy a much higher volume of players of this kind (since if only 1 in 4 works out, that really starts to pay off over time - and your failures are cheap - e.g. when Brighton offloaded the underwhelming Gyokeres to Coventry).

A number of those listed were those £15-30m types not so long ago. Solanke Liverpool, Gyokeres Coventry, Cunha Athletico, Ekitite Psg, Delap City, Retegui Genoa etc etc.

We might have missed the boat on those, but there will be others that are emerging. If that means looking in big team reserves, weaker leagues etc, bring it on.

Ive said before, we can offer good wages, regular football, time to grow and put in a sensible release clause if they want use us a stepping stone until we can match bigger clubs in wages, honours etc.

There's a gamble, and there's looking at a playing profile, age etc like Brighton, Atalanta etc, that cuts the odds of success or failure.

We will be a work in progress for a few seasons yet.

Woltemade, Barry, Guessand, Bony, Kalimuendo and Roberts favourite Castro might all be in the £20-35m range potentially, and all could offer something to us both immediately and in the future.

Walker-Peters at right-back (whom we've already spoken to, allegedly).

Goalkeepers: Olsen (already knows the club), Woodman (we were after him when he was still at Newcastle).

Exactly what I said on the Barry thread.

We all admire what Brighton and Brentford have done in their transfer dealings but they took a gamble and it paid off, albeit with more money than we've had available.

I read we could be in for Jadon Sancho, whoever he is? Roma also apparently.

This new recruitment team structure is going to have to hit the ground running, as we don't want to be hanging around.

You would think that there have been background discussions already, but who knows? I hope the club has targets lined up based on advice from the scouts, as we have little time and their is now no-one to scout.

The important thing for me, is that we identify targets against a strategy to build a team. Not go out and buy a collection of individuals. As many of us have said time and again, the core of a decent team is there, we just have to fill in the gaps with better quality and depth.

Reading that, he's the business advisor, will be told the budget and act as the conduit with the board. Scouting is key, he tells them their operating boundaries and they identify players, which is nothing new. The manager influences, and, I would imagine has the final go/no go say. Hammond then goes to the CEO (accountable to TFG) to get the rubber stamp and will conduct the contract and financial discussion with the players and agents.

I wouldn't call it a revolution, more encouraging and positive evolution and much needed restructuring.

I would think Moyes has already made a list of the players he wants and it's the top of this guy's in-tray.

The last thing we need is another Moshiri-Kenwright-Walsh-Koeman season, when they all went to different supermarkets without talking to each other about the shopping list.

I think Woltemade was making his first or second appearance for Germany, early days. I'd always rather judge a player by his club appearances than for the national team and he had a pretty good season for Stuttgart this year, though was no great shakes for Werder Bremen before that.

I think he looks an interesting player but he's not my top pick.

The scout team will be in for him if he’s good enough.
One crap first half won’t change that.

If we could get Evan Guessand and Dilane Bakwa from France for £50m combined then I think we'd have two of the best young players in France this year who could add to the squad straight away and be worth double in a few years.

Rumours today that we've bid for Thierno Barry who I also like.

I've hardly heard of most of the players often cited.

Maybe I'm too one-eyed. I tend to go off what I see, be that at the match or on a live televised match.

Lord knows how you guys get to watch all of these players, but credit where due, as I would never have heard of a lot of them.

I couldn't even tell you about the ones you've just mentioned Sam, and I think I know my football!!

It’s a very incomplete methodology to judge a player probably but luckily it’s a hobby rather than a job!

This is why by and large the same group of players are all linked to clubs of similar ish stature around Europe ( and sometimes the MLS and Saudi).

There’s so much footage and data on these players in the public domain - even very obscure ones.

Just for the record, your knowledge and insight is a mark of respect. It educates me. Genuinely.

I know Robert, I live in a world of data in my profession. Sometimes there is too much, so we prioritise.

Keep going and keep educating me and everyone else on here. It makes me look things up!!

There's a good 3 or 4 I wouldn't mind.

I tend to stay away from book clubs where all the members meet to talk about books they havent actually read.

And the clubs have get togethers around the world a couple of times a year to discuss player trading. I think Mike Gaynes posted the article about it a month ago?

It seems obvious to me that we are waiting to see how those players we are interested in perform in this so-called World Club Championship and that this new chap, Hammond, is taking a leaf out of Harry Catterick's book and the first we'll know is when whoever it is gets picked up from JLA or Lime Street.

Well, we can but dream, or is it all our yesterdays?
I'd like his first signing to be whoever runs City's Academy and its recruitment.

That's why you should avoid speaking for "everybody else"

Now who is distorting and twisting a comment, something you have labelled me with doing at you previously?

I'll just leave it. Not worth arguing about.

Final sentence post 50 -"Keep going and keep educating EVERYONE ELSE on here"

No distorting...None whatsoever That is exactly what you said.

Otherwise I would have worded it keep speaking for everyone else.

You are the one distorting now. I apologise if I offended and I wasn't speaking for you or anyone else.

I never do. Like you, I offer my own views and opinions.

Good day to you

It will be a landslide.

Definitely 8-10 players coming in. That will certainly be a mix of loan and bought players.

Exciting times ahead!!

I agree with all your obviously measured opinions on Moyes's return. Eric does have the same points.

There is the bigger context of over years of the club's under-performance and downright woeful management. We all over those years hoped for professional management throughout the club, a team that was challenging in all competitions, even winning them, and being soundly financially managed.

This was often the central theme of ToffeeWeb. It was identified that the culture had to change in the first instance.

Moyes has done well, but finally turning the corner after over 30 years, the expectations are rightly high and should be. So, whilst acknowledging the positives, we have to be aware of the negatives which stand in the way of the necessary culture change, a change in the consciousness of the club.

Danny is very consciously aware, as are our other long-term Evertonians. Though optimisation having no bounds has been a requirement over many years.

So how is this identified? As a country may appear to be run by politicians, it is in fact run by the Civil Service. Everton is run by its administration, both commercial and football. So culture change has to take place in these areas. Is that happening?

It appears that TFG have conducted analysis and instigated change in structures which has included recruitment. So how is that going?

Thelwell has gone and the structure has been changed and hopefully thinned down. Kinnear has been appointed Chief Executive Officer. What information do we have on recruitment?

"Angus Kinnear wants to bring Nicky Hammond and Gary Penrice to Goodison Park when he joins officially in June. The soon-to-be Everton chief executive is planning a restructure of the recruitment team, with Hammond wanted as an adviser.

"Meanwhile, Penrice is a highly-rated scout, so if the Leeds duo were to join, they'd be in charge of the transfers on Merseyside.

"Penrice was a former Everton scout. Moyes has his own ideas and wants Rob Newman and Mick Doherty, who worked closely with him at West Ham Utd. Newman and Doherty held important roles at West Ham and had a big say in recruitment during Moyes's reign. However, it's understood that Kinnear may have the final decision, which could cause some tension."

So Penrice has not got or taken the job and we have got Smith, another former Everton Scout, who was about to lose his job at Man City. In the context of cultural change is this good or bad?

This is what the long standing Evertonians are pondering and it is not personal as regards Moyes. Moyes, rather than bringing in his own team, has promoted within Finch Farm right from the start, which is a concern and his win rate against the traditional Top 6 has not changed.

More cultural change is necessary and needs to be progressing. There should now not be reasons standing in the way of this, but if there are, Evertonians need to be aware and highlight it.

Moyes, in his first day back, talked of his perceived glass ceiling — that perception originated on ToffeeWeb.

I agree with you. TFG are putting the structure in place and I like your analogy about politicians. They and their parties come and go. It is the departments behind them who actually run the country on a day-to-day basis.

This is what TFG are doing now. They won't be hands-on unless they have to be. That's why they have put a team in place to run the club. I am optimistic. I always am, but like anything in life, there is always a nagging doubt in the back of your mind.

The only time I didn't have that feeling was that period in the 80s, when it felt like we would win every time the team walked onto the pitch. If we didn't, it was a surprise.

We have been hurt for nearly 40 years. Now we push on and get us back to where we can be.

We have seen the hatred of a man and his team, who kept the club in the Premier League despite the odds. We have also seen what happens when someone waving pound notes around nearly brings the club to its knees.

There is a thin line between success and failure and you have to tread carefully, Let's hope it's success.

I took care with this post, writing it out and then pasting it into the thread in support of your posts on the Smith thread, but have posted it on the wrong thread.

With you as well as myself and other long serving Evertonians, it is not personal regarding Moyes. But we did experience his past record with Everton and are not prepared to allow the achievement of a comfort zone which is below the current capabilities of the cub.

Moyes is the longest-serving manager in the Premier League after Ferguson and Wenger. Fergusion won competitions, Wenger initially won competitions with I believe the old guard Arsenal background of George Graham and before. Once he lost that, he won little – though could always beat Everton.

Man Utd under Ferguson could always beat Arsenal. The legacy of that is haunting Arteta, who does not have answers after 8 years. Moyes has won one inaugural low threshold European Competition and still, while managing Everton, has not improved on a poor record against Liverpool, Arsenal, and Man Utd. To win any English competition, you have to be beating these teams.

Moyes did well to start with because he was Finch Farm's choice and they all pulled in behind him. When secure, they laid off, hence the barren spell.

Injuries to players who could play-make did not help. In the Premier League, you cannot lay off, because opposition clubs will learn and adapt for the next game. For a club in the Premier League to progress, it has to be innovative and able to adapt.

When it came the end of the season, again the effort was put in, because of the threat of change in the close season.

Whether Everton win competitions, progress up the table, develop competitive runs, or qualify for Europe, for years, those at Everton did well in the Premier League by staying in the Premier League.

Ambitions beyond that did not exist and were even avoided for fear of European FFP rules as PSR played out, as Ancelotti found out.

So this culture needs changing, but is Moyes the manager to do it? Is he the guardian of the old Finch Farm, or part of the necessary cultural change under the new regime?

I remember the 1970 League Championship season which was for me vaguely similar to the non plus Liverpool winning the Premier League this season. The FA Cup Final defeat to West Brom in 1968, Tony Brown playing a blinder really sickened me.

The intervening years were doldrums stuff till the 80s. I was at Arsenal at the start of the 1984 season when Everton lost to a dubious Charlie Nicholas penalty award. The attendance was 51,000, but you could sense that everyone knew that Everton were a special team. It did prove to be the case as they won the League that season.

But John is right – they did suffer financially after Heysel. Johnson did help, but Kenwright was in place and the rot was setting in and Johnson was isolated to face the fans.

TFG will be more professional, but they have to change the culture of the club.