New five-year deal for Stones

However I believe that with good additions over the next 3 windows we can challenge foe the league,

With Stones n hopefully Galloway to join the first team in the near future, Barkley, Besic, McCarthy and big Rom up front, the spine of a young team is in place. Hopefully we can add Hennen to that too shortly and the future will be bright and very much Royal Blue.

I am so so pleased with this news its made my day !

It is so rare that we bring a player through this critical final stage of their development into making them a Premier League player... Securing his contractual future in this day and age of player/agent power is definitely something worth celebrating.

[All the usual caveats about about future uncertainty notwithstanding!]

Is it me or are his team mates purposely testing him with 'hospital boards' on the edge of the area ?

I've counted three such situations in the pre season games where the lad had been put in possession with little hope of escape.

It's as though one or two of the 'old boys' are saying 'twinkle twinkle little star -get out of that !'

It makes such a pleasant change to have these young players signed to long-term deals and if Roberto can gradually remove some of the older and less useful players out of the squad in the following couple of years whilst continuing to promote youngsters to the first-team it could be very exciting time to be a Blue.

Great news though, and as Craig(6) says, we have a highly talented spine of the team forming from players who all have 10+ years at the top left in them.

I wonder which side of the bed each sleeps on ?

Roberto must be a very, very patient man if he can listen to Kenwright at 1:00 am, the boss bilious maker ever.

The only chance of keeping hold of such talent is winning something and then attracting investment and getting rid of BK.

If other clubs start sniffing round, as Roberto says it means the player(s) are doing something right, which hopefully also means the team are also doing things right. So for me it's a win win situation.

We'rv you been Phil lad ? Jagielka, Distin and Hibbo have been testing each other out for years, its like a never ending initiation ceremony.

As regards Stones, am I alone in finding him a promising player who is a few years away from being a top Premiership player and regular England international? After breaking on to the scene last season, he was hyped up out of all recognition by some of the press and tv men, but the truth is he's nowhere near being the finished article. I'm hope RM will let him develop at his own pace, because that's what he needs, not being praised to the rooftops.

Grow up FFS. A few names to jog your clearly remiss memory Fellani, Arteta, Lescott, Rodwell, Rooney

If the money is right they will be sold, same chairman, same strategy. The difference could be that Martinez could do the impossible and win something here then we might get the regime change needed at Everton. If not Martinez will move on to better things. I really like Martinez but I wonder how long he will swallow the empty promises of BK

I am grown up. Im 44. I want to win. Don't you. You don't like the Chairman. I get it. Enjoy your conspiracy theorising.

Quoting your age doesn't make you grown up! I am 52 and wish I could give up the drug called Everton. There is nothing that would please me more than winning a trophy. We haven't won one for nearly twenty years! My lad is 31 tomorrow he has been a season ticket holder since 1988 and has never seen us got even close to competing for the league, not good enough for Evertonians.

It is one thing to have a good manager and I believe we have one, but we have an incredibly inept chairman and supporting structure until they go I really believe talk of winning trophies is rather fanciful unless we get lucky in one of the domestic cups. It is not a conspiracy that he is inept if you are 44 you will have seen the many cock ups he has presided over. I won't list them

Ged if I am wallowing (hankering is a better adjective) it is the wish that Evertonians were not so easily pleased these days. Perhaps it is a generational issue, I don't know but the motto is meant to mean something isn't it?

I don't expect to win the league every season or play in a super stadium that hovers over the Mersey for gods sake. I do expect however to a leadership structure at the club that has the strategic nous to see what's happening in the wider context of global football and position the club accordingly, I don't believe we have that or have had that for many years and certainly not under BKs reign.

relax. Too much to read

I love the path we are on right now ... evolving nicely and a chance at challenging the moneyed brigade ...

I did read eventually.

Of course being 44 means im grown up. That is all.

You are far too easily pleased we haven't won anything for 19 years and with the exception of one or two seasons (definitely the last one I grant you that) have watched bloody sterile football at Goodison.

BK - inept Chairman. Whilst I'd like to see the club sold for a reasonable price (which, I'm not sure BK controls); he did hire Moyes which steadied the ship and RM when there was many on here who thought: Relegation.

Even if people canÂ’t give credit for that, it is hardly cause to criticise the man?