Laying all the blame on the Friedkins is just plain wrong

Whilst I don't want to be the only guy on ToffeeWeb defending the owners, I do think there's some fundamental flaws in the arguments being made here and that laying all the blame for the transfer debacle on the Friedkins is just plain wrong.

My honest belief is that our owners are not Everton fans in the slightest, they are probably not football fans at all in fact. They are hard-nosed professional businessmen who view this club, and their wider sports network, as an asset.

As such, I think their plan is to make the business more valuable and return a profit to them and their investors. That may not be what fans would like, but it's the reality of most football clubs these days. This doesn't mean they want to 'gut' the club either; in order for the asset to have value, it needs to be in the Premier League and ideally in Europe.

In the past, we've had 'real' fans as chairmen and owners: Kenwright was a True Blue... but I don't recall him getting a lot of love on these channels. We've also had owners who were football fans and just hurled money blindly at the club, as many fans seem to call for, eg, Moshiri, who spent an absolute fortune, making us the 5th biggest spenders in the Premier League under his reign.

How did that work out? I don't remember a lot of lingering love for him either, even though he did what everyone supposedly wanted, saved us from financial meltdown and bequeathed us an amazing new stadium. Of course, his reign also exposed us to more financial problems and Premier League penalties through sloppy management and saw us vying with relegation for several seasons.

And now the new guys, who have again effectively bailed us out, albeit largely to Moshiri's cost, and decided to run the club on a sound, sustainable financial footing. They are, of course, the new villains.

For some here, the Friedkins seem to be Schrödinger's bosses, who are simultaneously aloof and disinterested in the club, yet at the same time, interfering in every part of day-to-day business and transfer decisions. Honestly, I don't believe that is the case.

I think what they did this summer is read the SCR rules, and Uefa's even tighter versions of 'financial fair play' [irony intended] and set out a clear budget of spending and player sales that the Everton hierarchy needed to follow in the summer to fit within this framework.
 
I think the club's top team then planned out what they would do in the summer, and did this on the basis that they were 100% going to sell Iliman Ndiaye for £65M-£75M, as the offers, if not the deal, were already in process.

Accordingly, they went out and bought Hackney (a great young signing), Norgaard (experience that could be invaluable... if he's fit), as well as finalising Rohl (a great young flexible player), and George (another great young talent) early in the window. The net result was an outlay of around €74M, not 'nothing' as many posters on ToffeeWeb have suggested.

Clearly there were plenty of other deals in discussion, a lot of time spent on the likes of Doue and Munoz for instance, as well as rumours of striker and winger options, etc. But when Ndiaye's team pulled out of the Al-Hilal deal, that basically left a big hole in the plan and put the brakes on further signings.

We did great business trading pacy Brennan Johnson for the unfancied wantaway Dwight McNeil, but there was no cash needed there, and still there was a hole. And this is 100% why the Armstrong situation arose. An offer for a young homegrown player? Profit that would go straight to the bottom line. 

I really don't think the Everton hierarchy wanted to sell specifically, but ultimately every player has a price, and they needed to sell to balance the books, so this was a likely unexpected opportunity. 

I'm not arguing that we should sell our best prospects and it's entirely possible Armstrong is the next Rooney, and could be worth two or three times as much in a few years... or even be the captain and core of future Everton teams. But it is, of course,  as or more likely that doesn't happen, and he goes the way of many young prospects, having a solid but unexceptional career. Naturally, I hope for the former.

Had we sold him, I think there was a chance we could have held on to Ndiaye, or at least been in the driving seat for pricing him and getting replacements. Obviously, that didn't happen... the fans had their say and won the day, but the club was then getting more desperate. 

This is when the Spurs deal came along, potentially solving two issues in one, albeit with less financial return than we may have hoped. I personally would've been happy with Richarlison coming back... if the financial requirements were sorted by that deal, and maybe selling off Beto, which I think was inevitable.

Obviously we couldn't match Richarlison's contract needs, and then Man City came in over the top with an offer for Ndiaye that was better for us... which then did promise to open up the taps. But only if the sale actually went through (and considering two deals had already dropped off, then they couldn't take it for granted). And that deal didn't happen till very late on Deadline Day.

In the meantime, Doue had decided he wanted to go to Germany, also snubbing PSG, and Forest had gazumped us on Munoz, who I think we could've had if the Ndiaye cash had been ready earlier.

There was also the Tete deal, which had been agreed, but fell through due to Fulham not getting their man, and we ended up in the desperate search that took us to Maitland-Niles.

All of which set up the ridiculous last 48 hours of the window, and particularly the most stupid last 12 hours on Deadline Day.

Honestly speaking, I don't think anyone on here would've been that sad if we'd got the current squad plus we had swapped Beto for Balogun.  But that deal didn't happen... because either there really was some huge medical issue, or we messed the player around, or more likely a mixture of both.

Whatever the reality, the failure to close that deal, to understand the medical issues earlier, or to have a proper Plan B waiting in the wings, is really not something that can be put down to the owners. 

Yes, I'm sure they, or their representatives, were consulted constantly, but I just don't buy the idea that they were holding back; it makes zero sense.

Also, once the Ndiaye deal was done, the money to buy Balogun, or another striker, clearly was on the table; we signed the deal sheet, and it was the player who pulled out.

I also don't really buy the idea that the owners would have interfered to make us focus on buying midfielders earlier in the window, rather than addressing the full-back or striker situation — surely that's down to the recruitment team? 

To be clear, I don't think the purchases we made were bad; although I loved Ndiaye, I genuinely think the first team is actually stronger than when we ended last season, and I don't think people can be too upset that Patterson, Beto,  McNeil or Iroegbunam moved on. They weren't awful players, but nor were they top-notch... and clearly they were not trusted by the management.

However, the lack of squad depth, especially at striker and full-back, is clearly a problem, and I really don't think you can lay all that at the feet of the Friedkins.

The one positive thing I'd say, which again will doubtless be unpopular amongst many ToffeeWeb readers, is we have a manager (maybe the leading manager in the Premier League) who has proven time and again to be able to succeed against adversity, uniting and getting the best of a small squad.

I guess we'll see if he's managed to harness an 'us vs the world' mentality this weekend!

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