Tom Fellows… Future Everton Star?

He was Man of the Match last week and followed that with a cracking goal at Plymouth on Saturday.

We need fast players; that has to be a prerequisite.

I agree with John. Armstrong impressed me in the few cameos we saw of him. Hopefully the loan will have benefited him and he can rejoin the Everton first team squad for next season. I'd like to see Dixon there too.

Mixed reports about Fellows having pace - and I can't comment particularly.

He does have excellent assist stats in a very strong league - and will be pretty cheap too by all accounts (under £20m). But if he really is lacking in pace he'll struggle to have an impact in the Premier League (as per Harrison).

As for Armstrong and Dixon, they need games. No point keeping them in the squad next season to play fewer than, say, 5 games (which might be 10 minutes here or there or cup games against crap opposition).

Much better for them to be on loan in the Championship or Eredivisie etc playing 38 or more games.

Unlike McNeil, he looks to be pretty ambidextrous which is useful and though mainly a right winger can do it on the left too which is useful.

I'd hope we might aim a little higher (Nuamah for example has higher potential in my opinion) but for around £15M Fellows's versatility and experience in English football could make him appealing to Moyes.

For some it doesn't work out either football wise or struggling to settle, but that could be said about any transfer. The plenty of examples of players coming from abroad who have been a success, as much as those who haven't been.

Look at the Swedish lad for Newcastle.

Bowen was always a player worth taking a punt on so maybe Fellows, is another? The player who really impressed me on Saturday was the number 14 - Kudos, another player who was heavily linked with Everton, after we ran out of money!

Kudus, Soucek, Paqueta and Bowen were good signings, but it looks like they all had a go at spending the Rice money...

Big signings cost £65m to £125m these days. These are out of reach.

This is Rich 6 territory plus Newcastle.

The richest 9 (which includes Newcastle, Villa and West Ham) have all been spending in the £40m to £65m bracket too.

If we attempted to sign players in this category, we would just end up with very overpriced average players - as we saw in the early Moshiri years.

It's more likely we'll spend money on mostly cheap (ie sub £20m) with possibly a few mid price players (£20m to £40m) of the likes that Brentford, Forest and Bournemouth have been stocking up on.

If that's right, Moyes will probably help spend fairly well (although in fairness very much in line with what Thelwell was doing anyway).

Good players cost a lot of money but given the choice, I’d much prefer us to sign a few hungry ones who have both the willpower and the character to succeed🤞

That sets the tone for the club's ambition.

You can see that in the sub £20m category you can still buy some "ready made" good but not great players - players who might be comfortably good enough for the Prem, but not (yet) good enough for the European places or Champions League.

In the level above (£20m to £40m) where (taking account of inflation in transfer fees) Moyes did much of his shopping first time around, you can get players who are good enough for European football but maybe peak below Champions League level.

You can buck the trend a bit. Indeed I'm optimistic that Alcaraz offers a much higher ceiling than his price tag suggests. But it's a real challenge to do that consistently.

You can also buck the trend by buying high potential players age 16 to 21 - but have to accept these are hit and miss - and require patience and well structured development.

Having said that the very best players stand out instantly, but really we are not in that price bracket, we are shopping in the almost good enough for the champion league level as usual.

If Moyes cant recognise a good player by now I'll eat my hat, so I would trust him to find the right players.
I also think we are much more attractive to players now with new owners and a brand new stadium full of 50 thousand fans.

Of course other scouts are out there too for other Clubs, so there is little chance of having first dibs !

On the obverse side of the coin, how many very highly priced players turn out to be flops ?

I firmly believe that our best way forward is a structured approach like Robert T alludes to with a DOF or sporting director overseeing the style and direction of the club so that any managerial change does not require a reset. This is broadly speaking what Brighton, Brentford, Bournemouth and Palace have done to good effect.

Lets see who else comes in and how we spend out money this summer.

We (like other clubs) had the option to buy when he left Sweden and when he left Dortmund.

The only way to get these players on the cheap is to take a risk on young Champions League talent. You have to also buy at decent volume because many just won't make it.

There are so many outrageously gifted teenagers who end up never making it.

Moyes has no track record with this at all. There might be one or two but I can't think of a single player he has bought in this sort of category.

Maybe Baines and Fellaini but these were much more established players when Moyes bought them. Stones (his last ever signing for us) is probably the best example.

The unfortunate thing is other clubs have already started down this route, so we are well behind the likes of Chelsea, Brighton etc. and it is ok for Moyes to rubber stamp new recruits, but he can't be out there identifying players given the demands of managing the first team.

Personal opinion is there are some good players going down this season who would be less of a risk than the likes of Fellows.

Hutchison and Delap at Ipswich. Kyle Walker Peters from Southampton, Soumare, Ndidi and Daka at Leicester to name but a few.

I also have high hopes for some of our academy to come through like Omar Benjamin and Martin Shariff.

That said, I’d very much like to see Alcaraz, Patterson, Iroebugnam, and Chermiti get a run of games to see what they’re capable of. Just want to make sure we’re not setting them up for failure.