Salomon Rondon agrees to terminate his contract

I figured this one would be a champagne popper. Decent move, 2 years of wages cleared.

Circumstances have shown that a quality back-up or challenger to the main striker is an essential player; this one was bought with no diligence at all other than Benitez's whim because of distant form. I hope some lessons are learned.

Absolutely stole a living out of professional football. My god, we've bought some shite down the years but this signing was up there with the worst.

No pace, couldn't strike a ball with either foot, and for such a big lad couldn't even get his arse off the floor to jump. Terrible Terrible player.

And speaks volume about the clown who brought him here. Another drain off the wage bill.

Hang on, this season that's regarded as prolific.

I remember the day Walter Smith signed Kevin Campbell and Scott Gemmill on loan and he was at an Everton function that night. (The very first and probably the most legendary Hall of Fame night, in the Adelphi)

"How come you have signed those two?" I asked. "Because I had to do fucking something, son," was his reply.

Salomon was another one of those signings, and I think if I asked Frank Lampard, he would probably say the same about Maupay? This makes me think that lessons are not really being learned at all…

Pat #3, correct, he was never going to be helpful. At his very best, he scored a goal every four games, and that was before he went to China and fattened up on xiao long bao.

Dale #16, not a doubt in my mind. I'm quite sure that Frank and Kevin had higher priorities for their first window, and they filled them. Now is the time to get goals, and they will.

Thanks for your service, Salomon.

I swear I will do my nut if someone says he's not ready yet, needs to go out on loan... has anyone taken a good look at our goal-scoring this season???

If we get a couple of strikers in, then fair enough, but Cannon must not be allowed to go out on loan until we land those targeted players; otherwise, we are up shit creek, praying Calvert-Lewin or Maupay when returning, can go a full second half of the season.

A whole thread on the completely unfit-for-purpose Rondon, with this and other threads going on and on about players totally untested for Premier League. The likes of Cannon, Simms, Dobbin, Broadhead, Kean, Jerry Yates, Brereton-Diaz, Kuhna, Costa, Foster, Gloucester and God only knows who else touted as allegedly viable improved replacements.

Call me a grinch, or worse, but it's stark staringly obvious to me that so chronically has the hierarchy destroyed our club's financial situation for seasons to come, regardless who the next owner(s) might be, that we'll be needing managers for a while yet who can pluck from obscurity a genuine forward threat from the likes of Cannon, Simms, Dobbin, Broadhead, Kean, Jerry Yates, Brereton-Diaz, Kuhna, Costa, Foster, Gloucester et al. (I respect the credibility of Paul the Esk by the way, rather than seek to demean him on the basis of self-confessed ignorance of the corporate machinations upon which he comments.)

Meanwhile of course every realistically successful, professionally-led Premier League club shops elsewhere, with many tens of £millions available for already accomplished strikers.

A whole Salomon Rondon thread. How low have we sunk?

Jeezuz H Kerriced!

Still, beggars cannot choose and any penny saved is a good penny to be re-invested on someone else in a few weeks.

Just a pity that we signed him 5 seasons too late.

And hey, Don! Less negative is positive. The key there is that this is a signal, a strong signal, that we will get someone vastly more productive up front.

Have a drink, stay focused on Kenwright.

Sadly, we have sunk very low indeed. We are not going to buy Ivan Toney or Wilfried Zaha etc. There will be no proven Premier League talent incoming because we can't afford it. So the young, the old, the broken and the unproven it will be. Fingers crossed.

Brian # 26,

If we were a properly run club, we should be looking to manage Cannon's development with a loan. He probably is miles off Premier League level right now (and is much more Jevons than Jeffers, I'd have said too, unfortunately).

However, unless we get some real quality in, I agree we must keep him and use him too for the 2nd half of the season.

Shocking how much money Everton have burned, on duffs, with various reasons for not being fit for purpose.

History and time, but Evertonians and the club can't wait for deliverance till the end of time. This season can yet provide further twists in a positive mould.

Rondon going, well did he really ever get a fair start, or was it he couldn't start a game? Ironies now but I'd say Everton brought him to Goodison at the wrong time of his career.

His form in our games: 31 games – 3 goals...

Was Denis Stracqualursi any better?

I watched Simms in his last game for Sunderland and he just wasn't in the game and his off-the-ball movement was awful.

It's a shame because he has the height and knows where the net is but he is not the answer currently.

I took my grandson to watch Sunderland earlier this year. Agree with your comments completely. Simms was awful, he doesn't have the pace to run the channels and won absolutely nothing in the air as an attacker.

Poor hold-up and not a very good first touch. I don't see him as an upgrade even over Rondon! Sunderland fans sitting close by us didn't seem to rate him very highly.

Five years ago Rondon was scoring 7 in 37 for West Brom. The year before that, 8 in 37. The year after that, 11 in 32 on loan at Barcodes.

He was never that good. Physically imposing, to the point of being unplayable at times, but never much of a finisher. In his absolute pomp for those four seasons, he scored a goal every 310 minutes on the pitch. That's not even as good as Maupay (302).

We missed nothing not getting him 5 years ago. Nothing.

It's a good point on Cannon. The Under-21s or even cup games against League Two B teams aren't comparable with the Premier League. There are lots of Phil Jevons types who've had good careers at that level but doing it against Van Dijk is a different story.

Thanks, Benitez

KENWRIGHT OUT

Thanks for the reminder, I had 'totally forgotten' about that memorable (not) night! :-)

If we'd've picked up Rondon after Lukaku left, we could have continued to play a similar system at least. And in and around double figures for a club at the wrong end if the table isn't bad.

Don (27),

I would suggest that it is not essential to spend money to get good players. Case in point: the new wonder-kid Khvicha (Kvaradona) at Napoli was purchased for about £9 million from the Georgian league, and he is already a potential superstar.

Our scouts need to spread their nets far and wide and also we need a good element of luck.

We don't need to spend a fortune. He always looked talented but strangely Kharavatskelia is now performing better in Serie A than he was for Rubin Kazan. What a bargain.

I generally think we should be paying no more than £20M for players and they should mostly be cheaper than that.

There is outstanding talent out there – but it's typically found in places we don't seem to shop like Brazil, Argentina, MLS, Scandinavia, Balkans etc etc.

We hardly even shop in the Championship, France, Belgium, Netherlands and Portugal either – which seems extraordinary given the reliable source of quality

The whole issue of goalscoring hasn't been addressed since Lampard arrived... which is baffling. Now if he can't sort out the lack of goals in this next window, he will be sacked, maybe even earlier if results go badly.

Now is the time for Frank to sign a Kevin Campbell type who can hit the ground running and score goals. He really needs to bring in two strikers in the hope that one will work out.

Cannon should be kept but on the bench to come on in the last 25 minutes if we need a goal – his rawness will not matter at that point but we must not leave ourselves with nothing as an option from the bench.

As others have said there has to be a striker in the lower leagues or overseas who can come in and score goals – we will soon see how good Thelwell and his scouting team are.

I have also been watching how Simms has been performing since coming back from injury and since his Blackpool days. There I thought he needed to work harder and put himself about more before he would be considered for the first team. His spells at Hearts and Sunderland have done nothing to change my mind. He hasn't progressed a bit and, if anything, now looks downright lazy.

I haven't seen Cannon play but what has really depressed me is the post saying that he was behind the likes of Simms when it came to the pecking order for the first team.

If that is true, we are in the shit as far as homegrown talent is concerned. Please someone tell me that it isn't true.

He looks more like a candidate for joining Unsie at Oldham next. Having said that, on reflection, I think Unsie would pass on that one.

However, this is symptomatic of a much larger and wider malaise. Benitez took the fans' wrath temporarily away from the real culprits: The board.

The board would have still had to sanction this signing. They could have said no. Done due diligence, got scouts involved, made a footballing decision. Based on data, not sentiment. But as usual, as has happened for decades, we make decisions on signings in the most unprofessional, chaotic manner imaginable.

We will not succeed until the people who escaped their own ‘footballing review' move on.

You are employed on a 3-year fixed-term contract. You are being paid £80,000 a year. Your boss doesn't trust you and so just lets you sit there and do nothing.

Would you walk into your boss and say you do not deserve this salary because you are doing nothing so you would like to be released? Would you? Honestly?

Good luck to Rondon, he came into a very poisonous environment and helped to heap the blame on a man who wasn’t wanted, just like Si P, says.

Si@53, could not agree more, the main culprits sat there knowing full well Rafa would take them out of the firing line, they knew even had we landed Messi,turned into world beaters over night, as soon as a blip hit, they would get a free hit, while Rafa gets tore apart, The board must have thought it was Xmas with that appointment.

He took a gamble on a free transfer with Rondon, along with a free for Townsend and short change for Gray as well, two of those players I thought at the time did a decent job for the Manager, sadly Rondon proved a flop, apart from wages a free transfer flop.

The only thing I do know is after Rafa was appointed, the board informed him he had £2 Million to spend in the window, maybe that was the reason for Rondon being brought in on a free.

Will say it again, no dispute with fellow posters over Rafa, but every single Manager before and after his appointment, has had money to spend on players, have been allowed to bring their own players in and given time.

Even sams short stint, he got a bigger pot to spend big on Tosun and Walcott, so my point I guess is Rafa and his budget was set up to fail from the start, was only a matter of time before a few bad results would have the fans on his back, while the biggest culprits of well over two decades would be out of the firing line.

Even now a couple of poor results and it will be down to Frank, again giving the board a free pass, then the next Manager and so on and so on, if you get a slow puncture on your bike, you do not try to fix the brakes instead, the problem will still be there, and that’s what it is like at our club, leaving the real problems there, while every Manager, player, back room staff take the fall, for our wonderful Emperor sits in his front row seat, wielding his thumb down and saying next, while Denise feeds him some more grapes.

So yes we can have a go at a player, well past his sell by Date, brought in on a free, we can blame the Manager as well who brought him in on a very limited transfer budget, we can all agree on it certainly not working out, he was free Maupay was around £15 Million, that puts into perspective not only the budget for two different managers, but two forwards as well.

We are the worst-run football club in the world, more like a charity than a business and all accounts will have to be settled come May.

I should have said it would be a "3 pack series of videos"– 1 for each goal!

Absolutely nailed it.

Rondon – Not his fault, just a crap player when signed.

Benitez – His fault, persuading an incompetent Board to sign the player. Crap manager.

The Board – Totally their fault. Allowing a crap manager to sign a crap player. Not a clue how to run a football club nor any idea what a decent player looks like. Get them out.

You show me a decent centre-forward available on a free transfer at the time and within the budget the board allowed the crap manager to sign a crap player, and I will second your comment.

Should we be hearing rumours of potential forwards incoming or indeed any news about Calvert-Lewin who seems to be our only (slim) hope. When is he expected back into the fray? ... who knows?

I sincerely hope we do get some points on the board quickly, not just because of the need for them, but a poor start may see Lampard on his way out of the revolving door and that to my mind will just send us further down the plughole.

We need the points so we can stick with some continuity.

Regarding Simms and Dobbin, they, at present, have done absolutely nothing to give Lampard anything to think about other than binning them!

If there isn't a centre-forward available, then you don't sign a bad one because he's available. That is no excuse whatsoever to sign the worst player I have seen in a blue shirt and give him £60k per week and then compound the problem by giving him a 2-year contract!

I still have nightmares about that Norwich away game watching in disbelief how bad he was.

Why don't I want to read them? The very thought of some soft-arsed get wishing this man all the best for the future, or the old, "Once a blue always a blue"... well I would have to reply to the said soft get with outrage of wishing a millionaire footballer all the best.

Wake up, all you well wishers for these overpaid twats who couldn't give a toss about you or the club that's paying them millions. Save your best wishes for all the sick and poor – not for the rich ones like Rondon. Good riddance to one of the worst signings we have ever made.

We're doomed I say... We're doomed with this board - and I say that in all seriousness.

I was very impressed by the movie critic who once managed to summarise the plot of "Gone With the Wind" in seventeen words as follows:

"An egotistical Southern girl survives the Civil War only to lose the only man she cares for."

Notwithstanding, your beautifully distilled summary of the aforementioned player and the capabilities of his then manager is equally laudable.

"If there isn't a centre-forward available, then you don't sign a bad one because he's available."

No kidding and yet this is what we always do. It makes no sense. If you're buying a car and they don't have the one you want in stock, you don't just say "Well, I will pay about half what I'd pay for a new BMW and take that old 1979 Ford Cortina with the fury dice off your hands just so I can 'buy a car' today."

You would go home and come back when you can get what you want. We now have a whole squad of Ford Cortinas with tobacco brown vinyl roofs, dodgy exhausts, and windows permanently stuck in the open position.

Still, at £1m a year - what has he brought us? I always figure that a player's worth is a balance between on-pitch success and what broad commercial benefit they can bring to the club.

On that basis, Rondon's barely worth more than the Government minimum living wage. I mean like, how many shirts have been sold worldwide with 'Rondon' on the back?

● Rondon was on a 2-year contract (not 3 years), ending in June 2023
● Spotrac say that his contract was worth £2.1M, so £1.05M per year
● That turns out to be just over £20,000 per week

We're desperate for goals. If he was fully fit, which he appeared to be, I'd have pushed Rondon out there. At least give us some physical presence in the box. As opposed to Maupay. Whatever the set-up was at Brighton got him to a 1-in-4 goal-scorer, we're not even seeing that so far.

And looking at the money, Rondon was a low-wage free-transfer pick-up. Maupay will make more this season than Rondon would've if we picked up his option and kept him all 3 years.

And Maupay gets those wages for 2 more seasons after this. On top of which, a £15 million transfer fee.

So we got nothing from Rondon and more of the same from Maupay. Something to be said for consistency, I guess.

Games Started: 9
Sub Appearances: 17
Goals: 1
Sending Off: 1
Minutes: 888
Last Start: Forest (H), 20 August 2022
Last Use: Spurs (A), 15 October 22
Number of full matches: 5

Most interesting Statistic: He was the only 1st team player who was born on a day when Everton won – says it all.

Kieran, now your talking, I owned a coffee/beige one of exactly that description with the front seats replaced with big suede ones from a Ford Consul. It caught fire on the M57 one early 80s evening coming home from work. Smoke bellowing out from the hole from where the radio used to be before it was stolen.

The fire brigade came and put the fire out on the hard shoulder. Ten minutes later, I got into the Cortina, turned the key and it started up first time. The fireman asked, “Where are you going?” I said, “Home for my dinner, thanks. Bye!”

I do take issue with the "stealing a living" nonsense aimed at Fabian Delph. Sicknote, yes, but also the player who held together our Championship-level midfield during the run-in last season.

You mean like Olivier Giroud... 😉

Even now he's gone, you have James saying put him on for his presence — HE HAS NO PRESENCE!!!

It's like playing with a man short. He has no pace he can't head the ball he can't score etc... It is very difficult to get the ball off the opposition if you don't hunt in packs or as a team and he prevents this.

I have high hopes for Cannon. Hope he takes the opportunity if Dom is out.

Lol, my Dad had one. It basically fell apart on the motorway near Winchester.

How is it not blatantly obvious to those selecting who to bring in that some of these players are just deeply mediocre? This bloke was in the Brett Angell category, and I don't think Maupay is that much better.

Waiting for the next Rooney to emerge might take a while...

Have to disagree. If you need a car, you need a car. If you can't afford the BMW you really want, you don't save up for 5 years while taking 2 buses to and from work. You operate within your budget and get a second-hand Fiesta while saving up or earning the credit rating to buy your ideal.

Having said that, you'd make sure the Fiesta had a full MOT and a working engine.

It does seem that Rondon was also lacking a full set of wheels and a Sat Nav to find the goal.