Klaassen reportedly rules out Turkey switch

No pace, little or no skill, didn't look like he had an eye for a goal, a great engine, or a clever player? Not in a Everton shirt. Klaassen never showed any quality or indicated that he had any strengths whilst in blue.

He never played many games in fairness but I was amazed he was signed – and for £23M – oh dear. Hope he can prove himself but he will have to be a completely different player from what he has shown.

There's a history of foreign players taking a season to bed in to the Premier League.

I for one hope Klaassen and Sandro get a chance under Silva. I don't really believe in writing players off just because they haven't wowed me initially.

Robert Pires was laughably bad when he first joined Arsenal. He was Player of the Year a season or two later.

No, I don't especially rate him either, but to say he has "little or no skill" is just silly... the one thing he did show was exceptional touch. And I respect his willingness to stick it out with us and keep working for his opportunity. Skipping off to Turkey would have been oh so easy.

Money issues aside I always find it sad that a player in his prime with talent is not playing football. The former Ajax captain who took them to a Europa League Final must be worth a punt to some club in Europe. I would be pleased for him if he could kickstart his career and pleased for us if we could move on from Koeman's transfer debacles.

If Silva got him playing like a motivated Croatian midfielder, and into a driving force for our journey into the top 6, Evertonians would be beside themselves with joy. It would be like the second coming. Miracles do happen and we are due a few.

I can think of only a brief handful of success stories (Fellaini, Pienaar, Yobo, Gravesen spring to mind)

I hope we don’t leave everything until the last 10 days, that’s another risk because most additions unless Premier League familiar, take much time settling in.

I also endorse that with optimism, as to date, his limited chances, have produced very little, but glimpses that there is a player in there somewhere, with a football brain.

I half expected him to play in the friendly at the weekend but along with other notable big names, was absent.

Let's face it, whether he stays or goes, we have grossly overpaid for him, and should it not work out, the Club would be lucky to recoup even half the initial Transfer fee.

“You must have strong positioning, ability to control the ball at speed and also have the technique to deal with the speed of it [in midfield]," said Cruyff in 2014.

"Xavi, Toni Kroos and Davy Klaassen can do it. All three have perfect anticipation and they can play it both left and right excellently.

"You watch, when Klaassen plays from that position for Ajax, the tempo increases immediately. Moreover, he rarely loses possession."

Let's see what Marco makes of him.

No new signings at this point. Again, I'm pleased we are not impulse-buying like last summer but, when players like Luke Shaw start turning you down, it becomes a little worrying.

And how did that conversation go?

Shaw's Agent: “Hey, Luke, Everton are interested. I've spoken to Mourinho and he would be pleased to let you go. He said you're unlikely to get any game time. He reckons you're overweight and lazy. Everton said you will get plenty of game time, you can restart your career, get your England place back, and prove to the doubters that you're not lazy. Shall I let them know your keen?”

Shaw: “Nah. I'll just run my contract down here and earn my $5M.”

I don't want him either, he has got an attitude problem. The smoking jacket and slippers have gone back on for another season. He will run his contract down then sign another huge one in the new year ready to milk the next mug club.

It was a big mistake when Kenwright gave Mirallas a big pay rise and a 3-year deal last season. He wasn't even in the team. Now nobody wants to match it.

If the likes of Klaassen, Williams, Mirallas, Besic, and Niasse are garbage (ToffeeWebbers' words – not mine) then why would another club take the risk on signing them – particularly with the ridiculous wages these players are on???

I don't know what these players earn, but I know they won't take a pay cut to move on. They are quite happy to hang around raking in their thousands.

Listen, I'm not saying these players are perfect – far from it, but it's not that easy to move players out. Like a few have said, let's see what they're like under the new manager?

If Niasse is deemed to be not needed for us, I would have thought there would have been some sort of interest as I believe that Palace nearly signed him last transfer deadline but fell through at the last minute.

Because of the poor buys, Silva and Brands now have the unenviable job of having to reduce the squad. But offloading these overpaid players will be nigh impossible, because of the exorbitant salaries these guys are on it makes it impossible for most of the clubs outside the top 6 in the Premier League to afford them. I expect most will sit tight and see out their contracts, unless we pay them and the buying clubs massive amounts of money to take them off our hands.

We are not talking 1 or 2 players to ship out we are looking at quite a few players, I see Klaassen has turned down a move to Besiktas, no surprise there, and it just highlights my point in how difficult it will be to move any of these players on.

The squad is far too big, and considering we have no European football then, other than the domestic cups, that just leaves 38 league games. So most of the ones we would like to ship out if they are still here next season will hardly get a game. So we will have 6/7 players on between £40-£70,000 a week just to train and spend the weekends at home.

They made their bed; now they must lie on it.

If only the club had actually scouted last year. If only they had watched the Europa League Final when Klaassen played an English team and hardly got a kick. If only they remember Lukaku rolling Michael Keane like a kid in a playground.

Surely any targets this season have got to be better.

The squad (wage bill) is too big and must be cut. Unfortunately, many of our players will only likely be moved on in the final stretch of the window when clubs start getting desperate.

Williams wouldn't be the first choice option for any team but, with the clock ticking, I'm sure clubs will get interested. Same for the likes of Mirallas, Niasse, and Bolasie.

Unfortunately for us, interest in the likes of Sandro and Klaassen will only, probably, come from abroad where the window is open for longer, meaning we will get them off the wage bill but not be able to sign anyone as a result.

I'm surprised at the lack of interest in Besic after a good spell at Boro; I had expected lower level Premier League teams to go for him.

He's on a long and massive contract, over £100k/week, so he's not going anywhere that will mean taking a big pay cut. I can't see even a loan covering his wages, never mind getting the £20m+ we paid for him back via a transfer.

We're going to take a real bath with this one. I'm also not really sure where he was supposed to play in a 4-2-3-1 set-up, given we went hell for leather getting Sigurdsson. Was he supposed to be one of the two defenssive midfielders? Terrible scouting.

Apparently, we are practically honour bound only to do our transfer business in the last two weeks of the window; we have a poor track record with recruitment from overseas; it's going to be virtually impossible to negotiate deals for some of our surplus players... so?

Are people trying to be realistic or fatalistic? I thought the idea of bringing in someone like Brands was so that we would become better at those sort of things?

Okay, so we got burned a bit by our early deals last year but it still has got to be generally better to get players in early if possible. Michu, Coutinho, Suarez... there are plenty of examples of why we should continue to gamble on players who haven't experience of the Premier League.

Maybe we will just have to write off money in the short term to address our player surfeit – cheap asking price / subbing their wages whilst they ply their trade elsewhere. The club will just have to decide which scenario is better overall – making space at Finch Farm or looking to recoup every last penny they can for the players we won't be using?

What I don't get about Klaassen is his total failure to get into the squad / team after his considerable achievements as the driving force on the pitch for Ajax? How can that be. Koeman must have wanted him but even under his management he hardly got a look in? (No point in even referring to Allardyce in any discussion regarding positive football.)

So what will Klaassen be able to give us? And Sandro? And Keane? If anything, because I don't believe in coincidences. Multiple good players don't all turn sour overnight. There must have been, and may still be some lingerings of a footy club completely at odds with itself which has wormed its way into the minds of the players, or some of them...

I would love to see Klassen, and others produce the goods, and then see where we get to.

A worry I see hanging around is the recent meeting with M&M and Kenwright. Soon after that we dropped out of the Teirney chase and Marco is making polite noises that we will get the players in that he wants... Is there a Mexican stand-off behind the scenes? Who knows?

As Steve Ferns recently wrote, if we don't get the new players in we will under good management survive; but will the M&M be committed enough to ride out the disappointment?

There might be more riding on Klaassen and Co than we appreciate.

Both I think could be capable playmakers with an eye for a goal but both are very slow and rely on having pace and movement all around them.

The trouble for Klaassen is that I'm not sure we (or Silva) can carry two slow playmakers and Sigurdsson is better suited and adapted to the Premier League. Plus he offers great set piece delivery.

I think if you put Klaassen as an attacking central midfielder with Walcott and Lookman our wide and a mobile and technical box to box player (Loftus-Cheek?) then he could do pretty well. Don't think he'll get the opportunity though.

We all know the last game was a farce, but that was our first game, getting the fitness levels up, and following out tactics, personally it has added confidence to one or two players, Tosun must have thought it was Christmas the support he was getting in attack.

Some tougher tests to come, but however bad the opponents, what I liked was we did not stop playing, even up to the final whistle, we were attacking for more goals, taking in mind it was the very first 90 minute run out, and granted we used a few subs, those coming on continued following out Silva instructions.

I would see out another couple of friendlies, see how the fringe players do, I am sure after that, Silva will know where we need to bring players in.

Let’s not forget, a lot of these players were playing well for their previous clubs, let’s see if Silva can work his magic and get them playing, starting with playing them in their correct positions, and getting players supporting them further up, instead of a tight midfield defending just in front of the defence.

Clive (#18), I don't think we can yet say that Brands and Silva have failed to offload these players – we don't know if they've even tried.

I was concerned when he didn't feature in Austria, and wonder why?

Nobody is going to rush in to buy our so-called players surplus to requirements. They will sit on the fence and wait for the clock to wind down before making a move for a fee far lower than would normally be acceptable. Should we have publicly declared that we need to sell before we buy?

One thing I would like to see is a statement, stating that Lookman is not for sale, or is there more to this than meets the eye?

Mirallas will promise the earth to Silva and prove his worth for the first 5 or 6 games, then slide back to his old ways. Such a waste of a talent.

Who in their right mind will take Williams off our hands? So he will probably be a squad player we couldn't offload!!

Nobody seems keen on taking Sandro off our hands. I would like to see him given a chance under Silva, you never know!

Although the silence from within is deafening, I prefer the silence to the idle misinformed gossip from the media.

It's a game, but it's all rather boring, but it sells newspapers, and that's how it is.

If nobody bought a newspaper for 3 days, most would go bust. Having hypocritically said that, I continue to buy a paper 6 days a week!

However, with all the recent talk of the new Manager’s plans and which players should stay or go (there’s a song there somewhere….), one of the players who seems to be attacked well over the top is Davy Klaassen.

I have lived in The Netherlands for a few years now and follow Ajax as my Dutch team so I watched Davy come through the ranks. Now, I am not for one second saying he is world class, but some of the vitriol aimed at him seems to be well over the top to say the least.

The poor lad was signed by his compatriot who, I think we can now say in hindsight, had no real recruitment plan and ended up buying a lot of players for the same position, and thank god was soon booted. Then came Big Sam, who would not be able to identify a player with a creative streak if they bit him on his rather large behind, and Davy was left to rot in the reserves (I realize I am missing the few Rhino games here but I won’t count them based on the chances given to the ‘youth’ players in that time).

Again, I am not saying that, in his very limited playing time, he set the world on fire, but hearing such phrases as ‘coward’ and ‘waste of space’ seems to be very unfair. Unlike The French so-and-so and Kevin Mirallas, nothing was ever read of him complaining and giving up in training; he got his head down and when given a couple of minutes here and there was ready to go.

So, my question, why the intense dislike for him? I really can’t fathom it? Let's not forget a couple of years ago he was being linked with Man Utd et al, and some guy called Johan Cruyff seemed to rate him pretty highly.

‘According to Cruyff, he shared similarities to the best around, as he wrote in Voetbal International:

“You must have strong positioning, ability to control the ball at speed and also have the technique to deal with the speed of it. Xavi, Toni Kroos and Davy Klaassen can do it. All three have perfect anticipation and they can play it both left and right excellently.

You watch, when Klaassen plays from that position for Ajax, the tempo increases immediately. Moreover, he rarely loses possession.” )

Who is Davy Klaassen? The Ajax captain tipped to be a Manchester United success

Of course there's a rush to judgement but, based on his pathetic amount of gametime last season, it's not just the fans who were being mean to him. Three different managers, including the one who (we assume) persuaded him to join us... or was it Koeman's way of challenging the Rooney decision, only to have his hands tied by a ridiculous commitment to Rooney that he would start all home games?

Last season was an almighty clusterfuck and an unfair basis to truly judge a player who might have made a better transition to the Premier League under different circumstances. Maybe under Silva he now has that chance?

Who says we don’t need Klassen?

What do you base your comments on?

Tosun needs to be careful in respect of who he speaks too and what he says.

Could be viewed as tapping up, regardless of who it is!

We all know it goes on, but his comments should be unattributable, rather than exposing the shenanigans that actually go on behind the scenes.

Cenk stick to football and stop speaking to the media/press.

It is possible he has reverted to his previous life given the challenges he faced under Koeman, and Allardyce. The full horror show of the spend spend spend mentality will be haunting us for a long, long time. Just how any team manager could balance a squad with Gana, Schneiderlin, (DM's), Davies, (box to box) and Siggy, Rooney, Klassen, as defacto No. 10's? and not forgetting Ross who was still on the books! Bloody crazy and we all knew it except the guys making the decisions!

This is where Marco's man-management skills may bring about a huge benefit. The bottom line is someone has to make the decisions. A benefit of the M+M ticket is if they work well together, it shares the thinking load in addressing a real conundrum over organizing the right squad numbers and balance.

It has already been made clear that Moshiri's big recent splurge is not going to be repeated and by implication we have to sell before we buy. But we cannot sell.

It's disappointing but I suspect Silva will have to work largely and maybe even wholly with what he's got. At best, we might get a LB and CH but I suspect at least one of those won't happen. I hope Silva is the minor miracle worker that some claim him to be and he can somehow fashion a silk purse from our sow's ear of a squad.

If he hadn't been sacked, I fully expect Koeman would have attempted to reintegrate Klaassen into the lineup as he adjusted to the Premier League.

Unsworth, understandably, favored the players he was more familiar with in the short-term.

Allardyce was a complete moron.

If Silva concludes he doesn't make the grade, then fair enough. But until that happens, I choose to hold out hope that Klaassen can prove to be a worthwhile investment.

I want to see what a decent manager and some coaching could yield. Plus one year with us should have toughened him up. Hope to see more of him and that he proves his doubters wrong..

What did you really mean? Because it comes across as you trying to sow discord between fans and manager before anything significant has happened.

Where do you get your info from?

Perhaps your informed source could make a few more predictions?

If your info is genuine I applaud you, if not why post?

I seem to remember Bale was sold under Andre Villas-Boas, and replacements signed under he and Tim Sherwood failed to set the world alight - players like Christian Eriksen.

It wasn’t until the right manager, in Pochettino, was brought in that some of those signings started to make sense and perform on a regular basis.

Can we hope for our own underachievers to come good under Silva?

How do YOU know Klaassen isn't in Silva's plans?

Or are you just making it up?

I suppose it is also possible that, if the latter is the case, it was Brands' call without Silva being consulted or even being ignored, but I wouldn't have thought that likely.

So although it's not possible to state it as a fact, there is some reasonable evidence here that Klaasen wasn't in Silva's plans.

Though he might have to be now

It is important to remember what Klaassen is best at. That is moving the ball quickly, getting forwards quickly, and arriving late in the box to assist or score.

If Silva plays a 433 with a single pivot, ie the Sporting Formation, then Klaassen could play as one of the 2 CMs. I would have doubts over the defensive side of his game, but he could help the rapid counter attack by moving the ball with his exceptional one touch skills (as noted above by Cryuff, who watched him regularly for years). He is not as slow as made out, which is why he was able to effect and participate in swift counter-attacking goals for Ajax.

That said, I don't think he has enough of a box to box game for Silva. Defensively he is lacking. So Silva may see him as a good option, a significant role to play in one formation, but that might not be his default formation. Therefore, Silva may think that if he has to get rid of so many players, and Klaassen is one of the high earners, then if the money is right he'd let him go. That is not the same as trying to offload him.

Karl is right about Klaassen's pace and strength, but he also cited a lack of skill, and that's just silly. I personally don't expect Davy to be an impact player, but if Silva and Brands aren't ready to give up on him, I'm fine with waiting to see.

Given his work rate, maybe he wouldn't be a defensive liability after all. I recall him triggering a goal against Split early last season with a very nice tackle and pass.

There is lot's to ponder and we all have our opinions but in the absence of any new faces it's hard to see much improvement, at least in the short term.

He might not be fast, but to say he has a lack of pace is overstating it. He is not slow. If he was so slow how does he get up the pitch so fast? Just because he lacks genuine pace does not make him slow, or more significantly, too slow to be part of a rapid counter attacking team.

He has played under one manager who just couldn't be arsed, the other was here for the money. Neither had a plan or wanted to stay. So it may be time to see what he can do with a manager that cares.

Agree 100%

I’m getting somewhat tired of the negative uninformed posts on this thread.

If you have nothing positive to contribute, hold off until you do!!!

Being an older Evertonian, I remember a certain Martin Keown getting hounded for a few years at Everton, we are talking about a player who plied his trade in the English league, it took Keown a few seasons to suddenly become a very decent defender, yet the guy who played in Holland and has played very few games has been judged and passed on the scrap heap.

Not for one minute am I saying he will be a top signing, neither will I write the guy off.

Truth be told, I have not seen enough of the guy to pass judgement just yet.

I love this site, but people talk their opinion up as though it's a fact.

When none of us really have a clue.

Silva plays high tempo counter attacking football. That’s more Klaassen’s style. Therefore, he might show what he can do.

Just like Sigurdsson. Not speedy, but always gets there.

He was bought as a so-called box-to box-midfielder who chips in with goals.

Whilst players can take time to settle they normally show some quality or improvement; Klaassen showed none imo and for £23M, I expect a lot more.

Silva will not be able to inject pace if it isn't already there, but he has to be better than Koeman and Allardyce. I expect to see a least a slight improvement in just about every player this season.

Will it be enough ? who knows, but you are right.

Its far wiser to judge a player in a team which is being encouraged to play the game, than judge him playing for a manager who forbids it.
This is where I expect the biggest improvement. Playing for Silva will be a joy for most of these players after playing for the last two.

Fresh starts and clean sheets all round

I have just celebrated my birthday and Everton have sent me an e-mail offering me a 15% discount on merchandise to help me celebrate the event.

I clicked on the link and am presented with a choice of replica shirts with players names and squad numbers entitled 18/19 "Heroes".

I flick through and find that I can buy a shirt with Funes Mori's name and number, but there is no mention of Lookman.

As ever, I despair of the Everton marketing department.

Clearly Funes Mori should no longer be there - but why isn't Lookman.

Do they know something we don't, about Lookman's future and that is why his shirt and squad number is not available?

Have we been misled over Funes Mori's sale and that is why his shirt and squad number are still available, or is it just another example of the lack of professionalism of Everton Football Club generally and the marketing department particularly?

I truly despair that in this day and age of easily updated databases and high tech websites, we cannot get even the simple things right.

I know we have had a recent "shake up" on the board and in the senior management ranks - but the changes need to be percolating downward at a far faster pace than they seem to be!

Good point 😀

But as noted above and many places elsewhere, wanting to sell the shite and actually selling them are two different things, especially if you want to avoid still paying some of the wages.

No, he's not a great tackler, but he's got a fast mind, with a footballing instinct! I'd like to see him in the team we see Silva aiming for, fast and pacey!

Oh, pacey... Curses! Well, there are more transfer windows! :D

Koeman signed him, wouldn't play him;

Unsworth wouldn't play him;

Allardyce wouldn't play him.

Silva seems prepared to let him go before he has taken charge of his first competitive game.