'Ruthless' Everton to overhaul squad with transfers that 'would surprise you'

It's just a load of empty words and speculation - a mix of stating the obvious sprinkled with a few unsubstantiated hints at what they think people want to hear.

I so desperately want to believe every word!

Let's look again after the retained list and again after the summer window... and then in November after we've played 10 games or so.

If it happens, and I hope it does, I have to admit it will take a season or two for me to get sick of 'only' finishing 7th-ish though.

You're only as good as your next game, let's get that out of the way first... then the next one... and then, etc.

Surprise who?

Fans always want their club to be interested in signing the best.

Or does ‘prowling' actually mean ‘are close to signing'?

Reminds me of when two guys from the clubs marketing department came to a place I worked, looking for some level of sponsorship/ touting corporate hospitality summer of 2014. One of them was bigging up (not quite Trump-style) the recruitment activities without giving anything away. That was a decent window but I've no idea how much he knew or if it was part of the sales pitch.

Okay, Salah, Van Dijk, Mbappe, Haaland, Cole Palmer, or Alexander-Arnold would be surprising.

This concerns me, sounds like buying more older experienced Premier League players on high wages that got us into the PSR mess in the first place.

“The word is” … “according to one insider” … “A source said the club” … “It is understood that” … “ “One report claimed” …

These are the reassurances and empirical confirmations used to stitch together this fluff.

Mark Douglas did not post this crap so who did (the accurate name of the poster should always be provided at the head of the post)?

“The word is”!!!! Dear God, our source is “the word” now! “Hey bro the word on the street is that the Duke might not be around in the summer bro”.

Fluff hiding behind straw claims and plastic platitudes: “the word”, “one report” (fecking name it), and the perennial yellow fallback “insider” (but I can't name them).

“Nothing will come of nothing”, King Lear tells Cordelia,

Trite remarks, predictions, generalisations that may or may not happen but saying that we might buy a player who might “surprise”. Wow, courageous “I'm sticking me neck out” and “going on a limb” bold journalism in capitalised upper case.

Braveheart Mark Douglas is clearly the new Carl Bernstein/Bob Woodward.

And here is the thing. Last week, ToffeeWeb editor Anjishnu Roy posted an article on Jesper Lindstrom that was based on information that he provided that was patently wrong and false. I demonstrated this beyond all reasonable doubt. He gave no sources for this completely distorting information on which his post was based. I asked him more than once to give us the sources for his information. He did not respond.

If a ToffeeWeb editor can do this with seeming indifference and dismissal of absolutely appropriate requests for sources then let's have an open information free for all. Let's have a circus. Jarrad Branthwaite is not 22, according to a “source”, “insider”, “report”, and “the word”, he is in fact 25.

This post here is painfully and uncomfortably similar to Anjishnu choosing not to respond to my reasonable questions about false information and the sources he used.

This is the very essence of editorial and authorial credibility. If you care about these things it has to matter. A word from Anjishnu would still be appreciated. As a professional writer myself whose works stands or falls on evidence, sources, and support, I found his choice for silence deeply troubling. Toffeeweb is one of the most venerable footy sites anywhere in the world. There are too many reasons to state for that deserved status. But one of them has always been imo high standards of editorial and authorial performance.

How can I have a drop of confidence in Mr Roy's journalism if he chooses not to respond to the most important questions about writerly credibility?

Surprise players? If that is meant to suggest Everton will try to pursue the best players they can realistically land, then that is what we expect. Not wasting our time and effort chasing the end of the rainbow, but showing some ambition to climb the ladder from where we've been.

Let's just hope this so-called "prowling" entails the recruitment team and scouting network being creative.

More of the likes of Ndiaye, Alcaraz, O'Brien and Branthwaite type signings for me. Relatively unheard of until we signed them, well they were to me anyway.

As for "low key", I'm okay with that and is how it should be. Do our business in a quiet and professional manner; stay under the radar, almost clandestine like. Make an announcement when business is done and there is something to announce.

Similarly with the owners and any plans they have for the club and the stadium.

I give opinions, especially recently on the stadium and associated infrastructure, but I am a fan of not getting too excited until an announcement is made, especially with transfers, which is why I don't really get involved in transfer speculation. Unless it has legs, which you can usually tell, or for a bit of a laugh.

We can't really say 100% what was written in the past is totally true. Hardly rock-solid sources.

Imagine if you built a wall PH with 999 sound bricks and 78 shite ones, you know what might happen mate.

Being ruthless or bargaining hard etc doesn't really mean much to be honest. I am pretty sure all of our 19 rivals in a highly competitive Premier League plan to be ruthless and to bargain hard.

The group of teams we need to catch up with and overtake (Bournemouth, Palace, Forest, Brentford, Brighton etc) also have generous net spend and a track record of spending their money well.

Of course it is not just a case of how much you spend. You do also have to spend well.

But with most Premier League clubs spending well (apart from Man Utd, Spurs and West Ham) this is not something that creates a great advantage. The net spend will be critical to whether we keep Branthwaite, whether we upgrade our striker or continue to rely on Beto and whether we have competition for places.

O'Brien and Tarkowski could I think form a solid defensive core in his absence and that £80M could go a long way. Before anyone jumps on that, I am not saying I want that, I am saying I could see that happening.

That's the very reason why I/we need to be so careful and attentive when using and citing our sources of evidence.

I'm not sure you quite grasp the concept here… but there's a clue given fairly prominently at the bottom of the piece:

» Read the full article at The I Paper

But what the fans would like to see is a squad playing good football, in our amazing new stadium and challenging for trophies and Europe. Simple as!

If we are really going to be 'ruthless', I'd like to see a brand new start. I'm surprised, but absolutely delighted with Moyes and the job he's done… but let's start anew.

Go all out for Iraola and half his team, including his scouts. Young, fast and hungry athletes playing positive football and taking teams apart with attacking menace.

New stadium — new Everton!