Transfer Window Ratings

I'm quite a lot less enthusiastic about our window than you.

I know it's not a popular opinion but I like Dyche and want him to be given time as I think he deserves a lot of credit for keeping us up last season when a lot of the more winnable games had gone and the fact that we were without a recognised striker for most of the time.

Being positive, Beto looks a good signing but it is very early days and we've had forwards (Andy Johnson, Newell, Cottee, Jelavic, off the top of my head) who have started brilliantly but then faded. Danjuma on loan looks fairly astute but the lad seems wasteful and needs to learn to get his head up when in promising positions. I do like Harrison as a player and think he will be a better player than Iwobi was for us. The other transfers seem dubious. Chermiti looked really dreadful against Doncaster last week where he didn't even demonstrate the basics of holding the ball up and retaining possession. We look woefully weak at left back and right back and lack any sort of creativity in central midfield. I'd argue that Beto and Branthwaite look our two best players. Ashley Young was cheap and that's about it. I'd rate our window 4/10. We've cut some of the dross but we are massively short in most key areas and I feel it is going to be another long season that goes to the wire. I really hope I'm wrong.

Iwobi. It will be very interesting to see how Iwobi does at Fulham. I have to admit I’ve not been crying myself to sleep over his departure. Thelwell deserves credit for that deal alone at up to £22m. I wish him well , I thought the criticism of him was often over the top as he contributed a lot more than many players over that period .

Three big signings for next to nowt! The “I’m not a magician” comment is a yearly occurrence at EFC but Thelwell has pulled a rabbit out the hat here.

Abracadabra. Ali Thell-Bongo;

Danjuma is a positive player, I love players who just can’t help but being in the thick of it. There’s always something waiting to happen with this player, a very good signing for £3m, I can see us making that permanent.

I want to copy and paste those sentiments for Jack Harrison, but he’s got to show it on the pitch. I think he will, and too will be permanently signed.

Then the biggest Las Vegas worthy magic trick, signing Beto for nothing up front. How ? I don’t care! Well done Super Kev!

We’ve only had a couple of looks at him but he has made a massive difference. The lad is no one trick pony target man, he’s got a bit of everything in his locker. Sam, I think the 10-15 assessment is fair and on top of that the adds to the team with winning the ball up front holding it up feeding it wide or to midfield. More still ,he works hard, bounds back and tackles defenders winning the ball back or making them spill.

Long way to go and early days but I am delighted with Beto so far. He tired a bit in the last 20-30 understandably, but with DCL returning they will share duties and be an absolute full on nightmares over 90-100 minutes for defenders all season.

Chermiti, need to see more, but time is on his side, looks ok to me, strong and confident but needs a planned development.

Young is a decent quality cover. He shouldn’t be starting every game. Myko was very rusty against Doncaster first half but improved after the break. He’s a limited but honest player, but I think he’ll be given he nod if fully fit and Young will go back to his emergency cover day job.

It’s certainly obvious that Thelwell has been tasked to improve the squad enough for 17th or better and also reduce the wage bill and sell some players.

Moshiri trying to make the club look like a better proposition to widen the appeal to prospective purchasers?

Hopefully the plan works and we get sold to a wealthy and knowledgeable investor. Then we will get an opportunity to build the strong, comprehensive and well run Everton we all want to see.

Next year's budget has already been eaten into, so there won't be much to spend, unless the club can pull off the same magic trick which they did in this latest window. We will be possibly relying on the younger players already here, to replace those who leave, and that doesn't look likely either, not with Sean Dyche in charge.

The Esk tweeted this valuation earlier, hard to imagine anyone meeting this sum:

Conservatively a new owner needs to provide £300-350m to complete stadium, £200m to repay 3rd party debt, £100-150m to recapitalise/reinvest in squad.
That's £600-700m before paying Moshiri a penny. If Moshiri wants £0.5bn that's £1.1-1.2bn to buy/recover Everton football club

If Dyche makes Thelwell's signings productive, then we may have some destiny outside the pure influence of a takeover. If that is the case then all the more reason to give Dyche some space to make it work.

According to the link below, Forest's annual salary outgoing was circa £54M, Everton's was £83M. I don't know, to which point those salaries were calculated, probably before the latest summer window opened.

Salary Sport

Unless something miraculous happens (which can't be ruled out), I think we may be looking at that ground just never being completed. There's a big payment coming due, who's going to pay it?

If they don't get paid, off that site they go. At least we may survive in that scenario.

We have a record of hardly ever finding cheap unknowns who can play at a consistently high level, so the best we will get is good and bad day performances dependent on the vagaries of the wind, colour of socks etc etc.

Hopefully it will be enough to see us safe but such players can only ever be 5 or 6 out of 10 contributors.

Stephan Negru, young 21-year-old centre back-came over from Shelbourne, Ireland in January, been catching a lot of eyes playing at Oxford Utd who have rewarded him with a 2½-year contract.

So much so that Brighton have been scouting him a few times and considering a move and they are pretty shrewd judges in recent times. We must be aware of him especially with Stan Mills being monitored there on loan; I hope we've sent someone down there to watch him.

In Beto, we have got exactly the type of centre-forward we need. I am tipping he will act as a catalyst for an overall improvement in the team's performance – and Calvert-Lewin will benefit greatly from the competition also.

Danjuma is a player who can run at the opposition with the ball and has an end product.

In Harrison, it seems we have solved the problem of who plays infront of Patterson.

In Young, we have cover for both full-backs.

They were the four things I wanted from the window and the sale of Iwobi for £22M to make our books look better was the icing on the cake.

Sam and Kevin – here is a link to Farhad Moshiri's current net worth; I imagine Forbes is a reliable source.

Have a look at the graph on the bottom of the page - it appears his wealth has risen quite steadily since 2018 with a bit of a blip in 2022.

Link

How much of that is Everton FC? I don't know but, in the scheme of things, selling Everton at a bargain price isn't going to hurt him much. He will get it back somewhere else.

The key for him is to get the stadium finished and I am absolutely certain he will.

As mentioned before me, I also reckon the manager has a kitty for January to fill in positions that he feels are missing a player or two. If the team is performing better, the club might be more attractive to better players, so may be a positive in January.

Of course, depends on the recruitment team having a list ready for every position and type of player in January that Dyche has approved, so they can be ready to work on before the window in case he says: "Make it happen!"

In fact, Branthwaite is the only sure bet at the back if we want to go towards Europe long terms, so need to start finding at least 3 new centre-backs to develop who are 20 years old or less, I'm hoping. And a couple of attacking midfielders to develop like Chermiti.

Sam reckons it needs about £1.2 billion to reset Everton with new owners to purchase the stadium, settle debt and invest in players. I honestly don't think that's too great an investment for one of the top clubs in the Premier League.

Despite where we currently are in terms of almost everything bad, we still remain a club with a massive following, history and prestige. TalkSport where asking the question the other day, 'Can Everton still be considered a top club? One of the statistics that came out was that, despite our present predicament, we are still the seventh most popular club on social media with about three million followers. Their verdict was Yes!

If one Liverpool player can be valued at £200 million, a figure that would just about pay off the new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock, then it's hard to imagine that the Everton empire with all its potential can't be worth just six times more. I'd certainty invest if I had few billion!

Demo-economic analysis of player transfers (2014-2023)

If you scroll down to Figure 10, it lists the top 20 clubs in Europe and their negative spend, ie, what they spent minus what they recouped from transfers.

We are there but there are several Premier League teams with a worse position than ours.

I'd take 17th now – we've lost two home games we needed to win and, of the 17 remaining home fixtures, only two (Luton and Sheffield Utd) are comparable must wins. The rest are more challenging.

On the plus side, Sheffield Utd will have marked our visit down as a home win so that is a point gained. We need to target at least 38 points; realistically speaking, we are at least five down on where we should be relative to the target.

We lost to both Fulham and Wolves at home last season and the season before that and survived relegation both times. As such, we aren't necessarily 5 points down as there's a long way to go.

I expect results to improve as Beto beds in further, more goals from Danjuma, the return of McNeil, and then the integration of Harrison. All is not lost yet!

Most important was a striker who can play up alone. Beto is big, Maupay was not. Beto looks like a threat. Maupay was never a threat in our games.

But I would have hoped for a commandeering midfielder, with creativity. Gueye is not up to much any more. Perhaps if Onana steps up... In midfield, we need warriors. Not knights.

We should also have one more central defender. One who can also do trickery as a defensive midfielder.

Thanks for the article, Sam.

Ashley Young is let's be honest, not really a great option at left back but Mykolenko is equally average and that lad doesn't cross the halfway line. I still feel shortchanged at left back area to be honest.

I feel the Jack Harrison signing could well be the best piece of business as he's here on loan and I think he will offer something to the side we haven't got.

Danjuma and Beto should offer some kind of goal threat and I'd be disappointed if they don't both combine to score 16-20 goals between them, realistically that's not an unreasonable ask is it.

Still feel like we are lacking though in central defensive options and a lack of pace in wide areas too.

I think we did well to get the money we did for Iwobi and we have to take those opportunities when then arise. The model has to change, money should be spent on young, hungry players who we develop and sell.

This brings me to January, there may well be some money in the coffers, maybe a new owner too. We are bound by P&S Rules but no reason I think we can't go all in for Wharton to cover losing two midfielders to Afcon.

For this reason, I feel the current window can be bettered if we can ship Gomes to Saudi Arabia in the next week. We are unlikely to get a fee unless there are several interested but 100% of his wages off the books would certainly lighten the load.

I am always very cautious about making predictions on new players, but I will say Beto excites me a lot. Time will tell but he is big and aggressive and has pace and seems to know where the net is. When we learn more how to get the best out of him, that excites me.

I think we are left weak in defence and central midfield and we will really struggle if any injuries and suspensions occur.

Let’s see how we operate after the international break and some experienced players come back, although even now I worry that Danjuma will frustrate us more than please us, mind you if he carries on scoring as he started that might ease my worries!

When you watch Holgate, it's that whole demeanor he's had that thinks he's a million miles better than he actually is, and what you get it a pretty shockingly bad football player.

I honestly believe that he thought he was the next John Stones and believed the hype but he was nowhere near Stones level.

It's going to take at least two more summer windows to turn the squad around. Hopefully the squad is now stable enough to focus more attention on development players like Branthwaite in the past and Chermiti this window. Who knows, it might be your Stephan Negru, Tony – the Irish Moldavan I'd never heard of till you mentioned him.