Can we actually Compete? - Ergh No

Something is rotten in the corridors of Goodison when a quality young forward can go to play in front of 25,000 crowds at Bolton, when he could have played in front of 36,000± every home game, but we have no funds to take him.

Arsenal ? £893 ? £1,825
Spurs ? £650 ? £1,175
Chelsea ? £550 ? £1,210
West Ham ? £585 ? £830
Fulham ? £369 ? £899
Everton ? £443 ? £631

Matchday tickets:

Everton Ticket Prices: Cat A (£34 - £40) / Cat B (£30 - £36)
Tottenham Hotspur Ticket Prices: Cat A (£42 - £73) / Cat B (£32 - £52) / Cat C (£27 - £42)

Hope that clears it up. It has little to do with 'acumen' from the Spurs board. They simply get much more revenue than Everton do.

Howard, Baines, Fellaini, Cahill, Arteta, Distin, Saha and probably Jags when fit can play if they want to. Heitinga has already voiced his feelings about leaving and Bily regrettably has not played up to the standard his price warranted. Rodwell is still an unknown quantity as is Coleman and I think that they may well be on their bike sooner rather than later.

Our fans have a very inflated view of the merits/values of our team and the likes of Cahill, Neville, Arteta, Osman, Hibbert, Yak, Yobo, Anichebe, Vaughan and Mucha will not command good fees due to age in some cases and lack of ability in others. Unless a decent injection of cash and new blood is introduced quickly, I can see deterioration rather than improvement in the offing. Sorry, but that's my honest opinion and I truly hope to God that I am totally wrong!!

Cheers, Bill... just £15 million on two or three players may have brought us millions, and raised our stature to a wider audience.

purs and Arsenal have very good business people in charge and have had for decades, Spurs had a share rights issue within the last decade and raised a significant wad for team building, what have Everton done besides blowing more than we got for Pienaar on Desperation Kirkby?

Tickets and bums on seats isn't what the EPL is about anymore, it hasn't been for a good few years with Commercial Sponsorship deals and Broadcasting rights putting ticket sales into a lesser requirement. The club should look at using the buildings it has to host corporate events, training sites, business meetings, conferences...

It sounded harebrained the other week when I mentioned it but say there is a concert at the Echo Arena which is sold out, how about a deal with the venue and promoter that we host a live televised link up to the arena and sell cheaper tickets at Goodison which is sat there like a spare part earning nothing? The promoter gets more tickets sold and the club earns a few quid it wouldn't have by doing nothing, the punters get a stadium feel to the gig but cheaper and on a big screen... Christ, we could even make a profit on refreshments too.

He isn't in the Spanish squad because there are way better players than him in the pecking order. There's two top international sides that won't take him, and I'd also think it would be the same for much of the rest of the top teams.

We love him at Goodison but, like as been said, we have an over-inflated view of our own players... the fact Arteta can't get into the Spanish side, or even try to convince the FA he is the right choice for them, bares the facts. It's sad but it's also true. His age and his relative ability do put him behind some of the better players in the position he plays... he struggles mightily to get the ball over the first player at the best of times.

If you want to blame someone for something, there is a whole boardroom full of staff at Everton... but don't blame the supporters for having to continuously put up with the same lies, deceit and inability to buy the players we need to progress. We have gone completely backwards not forwards... no amount of support is going to change the fact we are well and truly up the river without a paddle or shit creek.

I would settle for a ground improvement plan, to generate additional income, an improved commercial side, a robust transfer ethos that allows the manager to utilise his playing assets to improve the quality of his squad. If we have no money then let's see plans to generate income. Isn't there a TV show that can help people out over their money problems? Let's apply to go on that, at least it's trying to do something!

Calling supporters negative for wanting the best for their club and not accepting stagnation ? we may be fans, but Evertonians are not sheep, not in these times when people are fighting for every penny.

We are losing the game in other areas:

Spurs Gate Receipts: £26.85M
Ours (which includes Programme Sales): £19.2M

There is £7.5M before you have even started, even though we have an average attendance figure which is almost the same (EFC: 35,851; Spurs: 35,820). This is the equivalent of having three more £50k-a-week players on our books.

Commercially, I expect us to do better next year as the new shop in Liverpool 1 will have made some extra revenue. And once the new facility opens, we should be better off in terms of corporate hospitality, a point where Spurs are light years ahead of us. But this won't help regarding exec boxes.

We have 11 boxes seating 8 people. They have 32 boxes seating 12-18 people. These also pick up the London premium, which is significantly higher than what you would get for the same facilities in our area of Liverpool.

A new stadium seems to be the only way to get back on track, but this new investment in the retail building suggests we will not be moving for the foreseeable future. Kitbag are not going to put that building up without some assurances that we will stay at Goodison for a period of time.

Don't forget, they also sold Berbatov and Keane for £50million, and we secured several players after selling Rooney to Utd, notably Neville, Howard for example. Spurs did the same with Defoe and Crouch, they were owed money from transfers so, instead of paying out lots of money, they just took the players back and paid smaller amounts ? these things need to be taken into consideration when weighing up the argument

The shop in L1 has been there since the very end of the Capital of Culture and takings will be whatever margin we have left after Kitbag take their slice, we won't be increasing sales with a tiny squad and poor league finishing so that's unlikely to change anytime soon.

Building a new stadium won't attract corporates just like that ? they want something to be connected to and that's a successful team, a Catch-22 which you can't get unless you invest in the team ? which you can't do without money. The London weighting part isn't really relevant in all cases, see Villa as a prime example ? well outside London yet still in Deloitte's top twenty rich list; it's down to how the club is run and revenue streams are found and used.

When you say value for money what exactly do you mean? I mean when you are going for a meeting, you're only paying for access to the lounge etc, the rest of the experience is surely down to the company whose seminar / meeting your attending?

I appreciate we are all very passionate about how the club is run and all have varying opinions about what is best for the club, but in my opinion on this topic you seem to be simply criticising the club for the sake of it.

A tier of boxes could be provided above the Upper Bullens for a fraction of the cost of a whole new stadium. The boxes could actually be more numerous and better situated too. Maybe the Lower Bullens could be given the box treatment with internal steelwork preserved as a feature. In fact the shelf at WHL's East stand is precisely this type of conversion, and a Leitch stand too... Can't say I like it so much though!!

There is also potential to suspend an exec tier beneath the current Top Balcony....Not to mention corner towers as seen at several clubs. The fact that these type of conversions/additions have not been explored fully, only adds to the list of boardroom deficiencies and mistakes people have highlighted.

Again, I apologise in advance for my ignorance. But looking at the photos, I can't for the life of me imagine how hanging 10 ft boxes will not affect those seats behind. Look at the 2 boxes already perched on the main stand at the Park End side, and imagine those continuing all the way down the main stand. And add another 6ft to the end wall along the Bullens Road side for the boxes you suggested. I really don't see how these boxes could physically be put in place, without affecting current seating.

Interesting that you also add that Randy Lerner pumped £50m of his own into Villa, remind us all again how much any of the shareholders including BK have put into the club again beyond shares????? They don't even pay for tickets or refreshments and you can bet your bottom dollar when they travel it'll be on the club's tab too.

And your suggestion that 37-year-old Robert Pires is a 'replacement' for the 25-year-old 2010 PFA Young Player of the Year, James Milner, then quite frankly I think you are talking shite.

But thank you for acknowledging the fact that Villa are also a selling club, in that the chairman sold the manager's two best players to balance the books. Thankfully, we don't have that kind of behaviour at Goodison Park. For all of Kenwright's faults, at least he leaves the first team choices down to the manager.

Of course the Main stand side could then be a sweep back from the pitch side seats, after removing the sheds. Unfortunately, what is missing is the willingness to do anything. I am sure you could get a company to do the Bullens Road corporate changes for nothing with their name displayed as a reward, the advertising in lieu of their fee.

When you look round the ground, you can see many areas that could be improved to increase capacity, it is still basically as it was before the all-seating came in, a stadium suited for standing rather than seating.

As regards the Lower Bullens, my personal preference would be to re-profile the current Lower Bullens into the Paddock as one unified tier which stops at the second row of columns. This would get rid of the back 5-8 rows, freeing up space for circulation and toilets at its rear etc. The loss there would be more than gained upstairs. This would be a terrace stand, and priced accordingly. The result would be a preserved historic stand.

The alternative of course is to replace this stand..... and contrary to the previous propaganda, one new stand at GP will never cost anywhere near as much as 4 at Kirkby . Basically, I was just trying to show that there are some quite tidy solutions to the problem of limited exec/corporate provision...... on top of that these could create the unique, and something that would cost absolute fortunes to replicate elsewhere.