Jack Grealish likely to miss the rest of the season, confirms David Moyes

It's depressing watching what could be a great opportunity slip through our fingers because of the owners' total lack of ambition. Kinnear can blow smoke at us, but anyone with a brain has been able to see we've needed full-backs on both sides for three years, at least.

We missed the James Rodriguez season because of that damn lockdown and we have another genuine top class player on a season long loan which is effectively done halfway through.

We are playing with fire now thinking it was ok to let this month pass without any reinforcements, all we need is another injury to someone like Ndiaye and we'll be scraping the barrel.

I was thinking the same. We were 4th around Christmas then James pretty much missed most of the rest of the season. But this is the gamble when you invest a lot of wages on one big name 31 year old. Moyes saying it’s “far too early” to talk about him staying indicates it’s not on the horizon based on the existing agreement with City. If anything I imagine we will wait and see if lack of interest causes City to drop the asking price plus I’d imagine Jack needing to take a hefty pay cut.

What is your educated guess on how much the owners will spend in summer?

I imagine you know more than me on PSR in asking that question.

Maybe I'm a hopeless optimist and a fool but yes, I think with a small number of canny incomings we COULD compete for top 4/5 next season.

Pickford, Branthwaite, O'Brien, Garner, KDH and Ndiaye are top quality players and IF (I know, IF) Barry, Dibling, Armstrong, Alcaraz and Rohl develop as we hope they will we wont be far away from a top 6 eleven at least.

Two quality full backs (maybe Aznou could join that list above) and a decent striker would not make it such a quantum leap, in my blue tinted vision.

A lot depends on the coach, as well, naturally, but I'm not going there.

I just think we have the makings of a very god side.

My main thoughts is will they spend all revenue generated ?

Or will they slot some for themselves as in the case of the recent sales.

Time will tell I suppose.

We can spend upto 85% of our revenue on player cost I understand.

So the higher the revenue the more we can spend. Hence the importance of the new stadium and commercial revenues.

We will still be dwarfed in revenue terms by the bigger clubs. Though clubs in European competitions have a 70% SCR.

Different way of assessing financial stability, but doesn’t seem to level the playing field a great deal.

I’m sure someone will correct me if I have this wrong.

Kidding, of course…I think.

But you're right about the tilted playing field. The RS, City, Arsenal and United all generate almost 4X the revenues of Everton and thus can spend that much more. There's not much we can do about that except bag some big US sponsorship deals and maybe book a whole lot of concerts at Hill-Dickenson. (And sell some shirts in the US!)

John #9, I would expect TFG to spend up to the regulatory limits IF they find what they consider to be good investments. When they took over at Roma, then a Europa League team, they spent about €120 million on Tammy Abraham and three other players to try to get into the CL. Abraham had a spectacular season with 27 goals, but the other three were busts, and the team never got any better -- they finished 6th again, and then again, and then again. TFG spent much more conservatively then. Now Roma is finally a genuine CL contender, and TFG just brought in two new attackers to help.

Murph #8, agreed we have quality players and promising youth. IMO we just need a whole lot more to compete for and in Europe. I don't believe a "small number" will do it.

For a moment. Only a moment. Then reason returned.

surely if we're not far from a top five side 12 months after facing relegation then some credit needs to go to the manager who as well as overseeing the canter up the table, has the final say on all recruitment?

It’s starts off the whole shebang again.

I’ve taken a little bit of a backseat and have actually started seeing the funny side of some of the things people actually quote as fact, so it makes me smile when I remember that old adage about if people say it often enough, then it suddenly becomes true!

Keep going anyway Kevin, because although I agree that some of the arguments can become monotonous, at least we agree about Angus Kinnear!

It might just be my sceptical mind, but is it easier (cheaper) to get a CL qualified team in the Italian league compared to the PL ?

We spent roughly the same 120m this summer, will it even be enough to get top 10 ?

To get to be genuinely challenging for CL in the PL, £120m doesn't really cut it does it ?

Not when teams are paying that for a single player. The rewards in PL are greater, but the risk & investment needed is equally greater.

It has to be a sustained, continuous investment over several seasons.

We will see come the summer if they go again at the same or greater levels to improve the squad.

For us over the past decade, the profit on selling has been minimum (Onana, Iwobi…hard to think of others where we actually made much money..Moise Kean), our big buys have often been terrible, and our revenue is middle of the pack. If we were buying low, selling high à la Brighton and Bournemouth, plus a £120 million investment with an already well established squad, that might take us over the top. Another £120 million now gives us a shot at the top 6 only if all the buys are on point, but even then we’ll struggle with depth.

Given how threadbare we were last summer, we now still need a good mix of buying development and established players, and we can’t afford to spunk it all on £50 million players. What will be interesting is to see what we do this summer when the big clubs come calling for Ndiaye and Branthwaite.

Those you mentioned plus Gordon, Richie, don't think we made a profit on iwobi.

I'd take 5 x 20m gambles on players like rohl, aznou & Barry over 1x 100m player at their peak on massive wages every time.

I suspect we we have already seen the maximum TFG would be willing to spend on Dibbling,

Long term, loads of scope to improve, to develop and increase in value.

0 a week would you have him?

One of their interests, Everton, are, or should be, on the look out for a striker while another of their interests, Roma, have just sold a striker to a Turkish club to whom he was on loan for 11M and without playing another game was sold on to Aston Villa for 18M.

Still, would want to foul the European competition waters, eh.

Well how about having a more concerted attempt to make a European place in a season when the door is half open.

And if the ‘must have Europe’ sentiment is true then why do you think our best players, the likes of Ndiaye, Branthwaite etc won’t want to seek Europe elsewhere in the Summer because of our lack of ambition.

The 3 or 4 TFG cheerleaders on here need to answer that.

A tiny minority on here and half are yanksbask in a culture foreign to born and bred Evertonians. Like Saint Dan the Absent or their Puget Sound toad, they do not understand us.

It's a possibility, but I don't see us beating other teams to a European berth this season. But the prospect alone should be enough to keep the players earnest.

This has been enabled by that Villa result. Four from the last six available was pretty much a best case scenario. A point today would keep things ticking along.

If we're lucky with injuries, we could well be in or around the mix for Europe, even if it is the Europa Conference League.

Moyes usually has strong finishes to seasons. Weird how anyone doesn't want to see that.

I expect big money due to increased capacity and other events being held at the stadium, Scottish game will be a sell out and I expect other games will be announced as well.

Sports PSR counts for fuck all really.