Stones set to return for Bournemouth tie

Vardy has been playing for ages with his wrist strapped.

Hope this isn't a smokescreen.

Read more at http://www.crash.net/motogp/news/72807/1/barros-im-used-to-racing-with-broken-bones.html#t3YA6KKemHsKhOyg.99

And he is only one of many motorcycle racers that regularly race at speeds of 200 mph plus with broken bones. Puts it all into perspective.

I played most of a season in the IOM with a broken wrist in plaster. It seemed the harder I ran the more it hurt, but no way did I miss a game and I wasn't on any pay, never mind 50 thousand a week.

Yes, it smells a bit funny to me with Niasse, hope its not a hammy already.

Pele and others were fouled very heavily throughout that game without any action being taken. The referee was an absolute disgrace. As I recall there were heroics from the Evertonian goalkeeper late on

Howard has scored a goal so he might be at least as productive as who we have been playing there. Plus, as some on here claim, he likes to distribute the ball with short passes, he will fit right in, if he can learn to pass sideways and backwards.

Do you guys realise that we signed three new players in the January transfer window and none of them have played a single minute for us, indeed two of them won't play for us at all this season. We signed Foulds who is young and in the U-21s, a young Swiss player who was loaned back to his club for the rest of the season, and this new guy who seems to be ready but actually isn't.

Are we the only team in the Premier League who has signed players in the January window only to see all three yet to make any appearance for their new club? Only Everton could have this kind of transfer debacle surely.

Generally I've noticed when Rom plays well we usually look far better as an entire team, it rubs off on the rest to see the man most far forward looking fit and hungry moving about alot, when he starts trotting around not looking very interested then we start looking tired and pedestrian as a team.

Players today....pfsss

I remember Tony Cottee scoring a hat trick in his first game and he had no arse.

Stones will go in the summer, regardless of whether he was performing outstanding on a weekly basis or if he even plays again this season for us, the fact remains he's the flavour of the year this summer much like last, and it will no doubt be the usual long drawn out saga it was last August.

He will go, no doubt he'll go, he's had his head turned yes, which again is a shame because he seemed like such a level-headed decent lad last season.

Anything £40 million upwards then I think sadly we have to take it, he's not going to stay here and develop long term; I've accepted that.

All we must do as a club is get the very very best deal possible and take advantage of the fact the national media loves John Stones.

For me, I'll be sad to see him go but the loss of Wayne Rooney in 2004 initially hurt much more than I'll feel when Stones eventually packs up his Goodison bags.

You don't need to spend mega bucks on centre-halves, look what Huth has done at Leicester, free transfer too.

As for Stones, if we finish in a mid-table position like last season, I can't see the board refusing to sell him this time.

That said, I wish there could be some consistency among our medical reports. One minute he's raring to go, the next he's injured. EFC is a mysterious place.

If Martinez had any nouse, he would have sold him at the start of this season and brought in another centre-back, a new keeper and another striker. This could have helped avoid another wasted season.

Martinez and Everton received great plaudits for standing firm and not being bullied by Chelsea. I think we can now say this was fundamentally a bad decision. What benefit was it to EFC to keep Stones this season? None as far as I can see. We have just lost the opportunity to cash in on a young defender that is far from the finished article and then invest the money wisely on 3 or 4 additional quality players that could have improved our league performance.

The "Stones should stay for another season" argument has been proven to be a bad call. One of many in Martinez's tenure.

The bad decision by the board was appointing and then not sacking at the end of last season a completely hopeless manager that Stones will not develop under!!

I agree that Stones should be sold as I don't rate him as a center back. This is not a comment on his obvious quality on the ball and ability to play other positions.

That said, I applauded RM and Everton for making a decision and standing firm about not selling young players. If they stand firm on it and pass up the money (I hope they don't), then I will applaud them again for standing fast and, at least having some plan other than being contrarian. I will however, continue to complain about Stones not being a defender.

If they decide to sell him, I will applaud that too, as it makes good business sense if the money is used to buy players that are needed instead of disappearing into "Other Operating Costs".

I agree with the principal of standing firm but they need to pick their battles. Frankly the amount of money Chelsea were stupid enough to want pay for a 20-year-old centre-back was ridiculous. I would have taken it at least a month before the window ended and then invested it in new players that would have improved us for this season.

Standing firm is fine if there's good reason for it, such as we win stuff subsequently. All Martinez and the club did was achieve good PR at the time with some fans. Inevitably Stones will be sold in the next window, assuming the madness to pay stupid money hasn't waned, and we will, hopefully, do what we should have done at the beginning of this season.

Problem is, we are now also likely to lose Rom at the same time as a direct result of such a poor season. We could have been avoided this if Stones had been sold and a top keeper, centre-back and striker had been brought in 6 months ago and we had ended up qualifying for Europe.

Keeping Stones and turning down massive money to strengthen the whole squad was a gamble. Martinez likes rolling dice – problem is, he nearly always loses. His wife should keep him well away from Vegas!

I agree with you about Martinez though. Similarly I have been writing that he should never have become our manager from the first day of his appointment.

Based on your response, I have invited RM to my house for poker. If I win enough, I will ask for 6 weeks due diligence to put in a purchase bid on the Club.

I'm basing this on before we started the season, so, because of Stones's age, because of clearly how good he is, because I thought we were going to have a storming season, because the Euros are coming up at the end of the season and because Man City, Man Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea will be even more desperate for a centre back at the end of the season, and because he would suit Real Madrid's or Barcelona's style of play, we had to say No to £35 million (or whatever was bid) as you can probably add another £5-15 million in to his price tag in the summer if the above factors work out in our favour. If not, he will still be worth £30M+ if it all went pear-shaped, because of his age – and that is clearly what he's worth to us.

With regards to the manager, the only way I see us standing any chance of keeping Stones, Lukaku or Barkley if anyone comes in for them is if we get a really inspirational big-name manager in that would convince them we mean business and are starting to think big. My personal favourite, although a million-to-one shot, would be Mourinho but that will never happen. A slightly more realistic yet potentially huge statement would be Joachim Loew as I believe he's stepping down after the Euros. But it's that sort of "making a statement" signing that we need. The Premier League is awash with money, it's the place to be, we have a very good squad with a balance of youth and experience so why not attract the best name we can. Martinez is so painfully not up to the job, it's embarrassing!

Stones will be on the bench for the foreseeable future.