Doucouré

[Dr. Sponge]

I'm hoping a midfield pair of Doucoure and Allan is to shore things up in order to allow us to take a punt on a younger creative type who can be subbed in or played at the right times.

If those two can shut up shop and we get a goal or two in front then let's see more of Kean and maybe another, young,  exciting player.

Yeah.

Allan
Doucoure
Gomes
Gbamin (fingers crossed)

It leaves us in good shape.

[Waltzer]

It's irrelevant. He's never getting a return on his investment.

We won't catch the top sides by buying all of the "known” (I can't emphasize the quotes here enough because I think this idea is a load of crap) quantities they don't want (which usually means they're older and/or not that good).

We won't make money to reinvest in the squad because we're signing players at the point of their declining usefulness.

As for Ancelotti... he's a great coach in a league with plenty of other great coaches. He's not the smartest guy in the room. Getting him the exact players he says he wants guarantees fuck all. Getting him quality players with room to grow should he enough. Clubs can build a winning culture with talented, ambitious players 25 and under.

I think there is such a void of leadership Carlo wants to install people he knows well and that will work and add this dimension.
I'm also not sure about this return on investment bit, for example if we could take 4 years off Allan do people think we'd still be negotiating a deal of around 25 or would it more likely be 45? I know its a bit of finger in the air, but I don't think the amount we will lose is as significant as people make out as there would be that natural depreciation anyway even if we got him at a better age. Yes, people can throw Sig at me saying we'll lose 45 on him, but that was simply down to the fact we massively overpaid in the first place.
I completely agree that our vision should be to pick up 17-21 year old that we can sale for massive profit, but we are miles off being in the position where we can really adopt that and expect any of them to flourish imo

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[Bob Sacamano]

The windows not shut yet.

Looks like Brands will sign pups like JB given the opportunity.

Looks like Brands will sign prime age pre-peak players like Digne given the chance.

Looks like Brands will sign peaking established players for decent wedge of their profile fits given the chance. (Question: wouldn’t this be really cool if you were a DoF with a great rep in Holland and got a big promotion to a big PL side? “Hey brands, great job with PSV. Come work with us within great riches of the PL - btw you’re still only allowed to sign 17yr olds from the 2nd tier in Chile for £750k”)

Looks like Brands gets pretty much the deal he wants and isn’t arsed about drawing out negotiations to get the best deal.

Looks like Brands respects the limited finances and either moves players on or finds them loans until they are released from their contract.

Granted he left us without a midfield for near 2yrs, which is really bad. But revamping an entire engine room with a CL and minimum EL pair for £50m is genuinely decent. It also coincides with a lot of contracts ending. The pre-Brands spending stopped us from having a midfield over the past 2yrs, not that he couldn’t identify the players and make the deals. Imo.

[GLewis]

All valid concerns.

I don’t get why people have to misinterpret the point some posters are trying to make.

We just want the club to be smarter with how they recruit players and this signing signals a return to mistakes of the past.

Nobody is saying our recruitment needs to be solely based around signing under 23 players for buttons.

We were sold a vision by Brands of investing the majority of our money on players 25 so we can continue to reinvest the money we spend and build a team for years to come.

It’s a solid recruitment strategy that has worked across the continent and on these shores for decades. We seem to be going against that in this window for whatever reason and that’s bound to raise some concerns.

Maybe it’s the way we need to go for the next twelve months. Get a base level back to the squad, sign players we know can slot in straight away to get us to where we need to be.

We invested heavily in three under 25 players last summer in gbamin, iwobi and kean and for various reasons we’re still waiting for them to contribute something meaningful.

In the short term that window probably set us back so to counter that we’re goings back to players for the now.

These signings need to be few and far between though. Get your engine room for the next two years for £50m, sound, but we shouldn’t deviate from investing the majority of our budget on younger players as that will always work out for a club in the long term.

All good points.

I think there’s what almost seems like a fundamentalism with regards to the age of players though.

Re previous mistakes, they were worse because we paid massive fees £28m for Bolasie at that time is about £50m now given how fees ballooned the year after. Same as Sig being £44m.

We’re not seemingly going anywhere near those relative numbers here and he seems to do what we actually need (lots of pressing etc in other half) unlike Bolasie who had never scored in his career and Sig who is a specific type of AM.

And I’d say that the reason why the majority of teams/ DoFs invest in younger players is out of economic necessity, not some idealistic trait.

If we’ve decided that we can afford some more fees that we don’t recoup then there’s nothing wrong with it.

I think that the age profile of the likely first XI is pretty mixed and would see big value in Richarlison, DCL and Holgate. Reasonable value in Digne; and potential value in Iwobi and more likely Kean.

However, all players will be worth more with a better team performance and them not looking so useless. 

[ajax_andy]

- Potential and being good enough to play first team football in the PL aren’t mutually exclusive. Richarlison was a good PL starter when we bought him and he’s gotten better. Every year, there’s a handful of players that move to the PL from leagues like Ligue 1 or the Championship, slide comfortably into starting roles, and go up a level with a year of regular PL games under their belt.

- Using the language “under 23s” is deliberately misrepresenting my point. There are plenty of available players 25 and under who have played enough first team football to demonstrate their quality. Some will be looking to make a set up (Richarlison), others will be looking for regular games after a failed big move (Digne, Mina). I’m not talking about only signing the most promising academy players, which is a daft strategy for a PL club (a handful of these is alright, e.g. DCL, Holgate).

- Every player in our squad worth a fuck was acquired at age 25 or earlier.

- We’ve tanked hundreds of millions on players with precious PL experience who can “do a job right away.” Some are gone but most are making a huge wage while contributing fuck all.

- As a bonus point... we even made money on some of the younger acquisitions that didn’t work out for us (Lookman, Vlasic).

The others were bought by Sam Allardcye and Koeman though... I trust Ancelloti with what he needs 1000 over those two.

I'm not arsed we've spent between £40 & £50m (if we get Allen) on a ready to go midfield partnership because if it clicks it's excellent value for money.

You mentioned Richarlison and he cost £40m, that's nearly what we've paid for two players who will instantly improve us.  Relatively speaking it shows we've done decent business here.

If we signed.a.29 year old right back for £20m.and a 28 year old right mid / winger for £25m too then I'm jumping on your ship totally because I don't see the logic in that.  This though I 100% do.

[Juanito]

Midfield combo of Allan and Doucouré, exactly what we need in the middle of the park, same cost more or less of Sigurdsson - Progress

[brap2]

All good points.

I think there’s what almost seems like a fundamentalism with regards to the age of players though.

Re previous mistakes, they were worse because we paid massive fees £28m for Bolasie at that time is about £50m now given how fees ballooned the year after. Same as Sig being £44m.

We’re not seemingly going anywhere near those relative numbers here and he seems to do what we actually need (lots of pressing etc in other half) unlike Bolasie who had never scored in his career and Sig who is a specific type of AM.

And I’d say that the reason why the majority of teams/ DoFs invest in younger players is out of economic necessity, not some idealistic trait.

If we’ve decided that we can afford some more fees that we don’t recoup then there’s nothing wrong with it.

I think that the age profile of the likely first XI is pretty mixed and would see big value in Richarlison, DCL and Holgate. Reasonable value in Digne; and potential value in Iwobi and more likely Kean.

However, all players will be worth more with a better team performance and them not looking so useless. 

Also length of contract to be fair. We hopefully won't be saddled with unplayables should it go tits up.

[GLewis]

Also length of contract to be fair. We hopefully won't be saddled with unplayables should it go tits up.

Also with attacking players, like Bolasie or Sandro etc people aren’t going to take them on if there’s no chance of them producing outputs in line with their wage.

[wepull]

Well we have been changing managers at almost 1/year rate so one of the reasons might be that Ancelloti would be more thinking about saving his job than think about building a future for the club.

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[Hawkandro]

Try this:

https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2018/12/25/do-xmas-marcel-brands-xi-the-everton-chiefs-best-signings-make-a/

Can see why we have been linked with Romero, Mertens and Arias now.

[YankeeBlue214]

So are you gonna always makes veiled digs about the fanbase every time there's reasonable questioning or debate about the direction the team is taking? Just wondering, so I can prepare for it.

It's just an observation, BD, not a dig - veiled or otherwise - at anyone. I made the same observations re: Silva as well, and he really did stink! Sorry if you thought I was directing the comment at you, but I wasn't. It was more an agreement with Andy about trusting our manager.

[GrantyBoy78]

I’m not even going to post the link, but TalkSport reckon we’ve had a £15m bid rejected and Fulham and Wolves are now in the race.


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[Evertonian in NC]

I won't sign old players (with VERY few exceptions) even with Pretend Man City money.  "Old" being over 25, I prefer to buy around 17-19.

[TheRam]

It's just an observation, BD, not a dig - veiled or otherwise - at anyone. I made the same observations re: Silva as well, and he really did stink! Sorry if you thought I was directing the comment at you, but I wasn't. It was more an agreement with Andy about trusting our manager.

We can trust the manager whilst also having concerns.

Carlo has only been here a few months. We've been supporting the club for years, sometimes a fanbase can have a better understanding at what is needed.

I mean, we were all told to trust Koeman because of his standing in the game and look how that turned out.

[Bluedylan]

It's just an observation, BD, not a dig - veiled or otherwise - at anyone. I made the same observations re: Silva as well, and he really did stink! Sorry if you thought I was directing the comment at you, but I wasn't. It was more an agreement with Andy about trusting our manager.

I didn't think you were aiming the comment at me. I think you were aiming it at the fanbase generally. You keep saying the same basic thing over and over again, which is that we won't give anyone a chance, even Ancelotti, and we'll be slaughtering him before too long.

I think on this forum it's mostly just a few people wondering how the 4-4-2 will work in the longterm and whether he can make it work here. Nothing more than that really.