RandoEFC

Maybe it's a scouse thing then because I feel as though that's what it's like with us now. The fans getting shit for being "toxic" and being cited as a reason we can't attract players while it's completely ignored that Kenwright and then Moshiri have spent years driving the club into debt, pissing money out the window, making their mates rich and overseeing the managed decline of the football club. Not that I'm defending a handful of fans who have certainly overstepped the mark over the past couple of weeks with the booing of DCL and social media comments directed toward Maupay and Onana. But these things happen at every club and have nothing to do with the position Everton are currently in.

It's about time people stop reporting it as "Everton did this" and "Everton have messed this up" and "hahaha look at how incompetent Everton are" and start talking about Moshiri and Kenwright instead. I just wonder when our ownership is going to actually start getting some bad press from the national media like Mike Ashley, the Glazers, Tony Fernandes, Venky's, the Cardiff owners who tried to change their kit and the Americans who almost sent Liverpool into administration did.

Just fuck off. Club has been absolutely hijacked by cowboys and charlatans. An absolute miracle it's still a Premier League club. I'd sack the whole thing off tomorrow if I could but after 30 years it feels like giving your only child up for adoption. I hate what a small group of absolutely rotten individuals have done to ruin my football club.

What an absolute diseased carcass of a football club. It just goes to show that football now boils down to little more than whether or not the Saudis/Americans/Iranians/Thais that fancy buying your club are sensible or lunatics. Moshiri and Kenwright have turned one of the historical biggest clubs into the country into an absolute mess and a laughing stock. We as fans can't do anything about it but we're the ones who have to go through the emotional ringer and put up with the jibes from other fanbases who are lucky enough not to have ownership and management this fucking disastrous inflicted upon them. I don't really know how much or how badly the MSP stuff affects us but it's just more bad news relating to the club.

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I'm going for the following this weekend: Liverpool to beat Bournemouth but also be leading at half time. I think this is an absolute home banker and can see Liverpool winning quite handily. I find the HT/FT bet is a good one when the odds for a simple win are not worthwhile. Liverpool will be hungry to get their first win of the season and think they'll start fast here. Chelsea to beat West Ham. I liked what I saw from Chelsea last weekend and reckon they'll get their first win of the season here. £10 returns £33.68

Romano reckons Amrabat is Utd's first choice but Onana is a potential alternative. Good physical attributes and a great tackler when running back. High ceiling but very raw and unpolished. I'd have taken £50m earlier in the summer but at this point in the window and with him being involved in the plans throughout pre-season I'd hope to see us hold out for closer to £60m now if United come in for him.

Man Utd win by two or more and it's a winner. Man Utd win by 1 or fail to win it's a loser. The Asian Handicaps like -1.0 are the awkward ones because they pay out as 'void' if the handicap levels the scores. Even worse are the split ones like Man Utd -1.0 -1.5. I avoid both of these types in general and will probably try to avoid them completely in this thread for your benefit.

I will take this double for the weekend.

I will run Last Man Standing again this season but I'm away on holiday until Sunday so it'll have to start from the second set of Premier League fixtures.

This will do for my first.

Sounds as if El Bilal Toure has chosen Atalanta over Everton. Can hardly be surprised as they've been a good stepping stone club for young players and are playing in Europe this season. On to Plan B....

I think Gray would be good for Palace. He's a decent option. We just have full backs who aren't very athletic and therefore need help and Gray doesn't provide enough of that compared to Iwobi and McNeil. In our financial position, if there's a player you can probably get about £10m for who you aren't going to miss from the starting eleven then it's a no-brainer to cash in and reinvest the cash.

The dominoes finally taking effect now. With Zaha not renewing with Palace and interest in Olise, the chances of Demarai Gray heading there are increasing. It sounds as if Everton are confident of a sale, be that to Palace or somewhere else, and have a deal more or less in place with Almeria for El Bilal Toure. Elsewhere, Man Utd are looking to bring in Rasmus Hojlund from Atalanta who are our main rivals for Toure's signature. Got to hope now that Everton can do whatever is needed to secure Toure before Atalanta come into a big fee and can blow us out of the water. If the Toure thing doesn't come off it sounds like Iheanacho is Plan B.

I'll play this but if you don't tag me as a reminder I will forget

Missed this so I'll reply now. Everton's problem this summer is cash flow, even more so than the profit and sustainability rules. Moshiri was bank-rolled by Usmanov up until he was sanctioned for links to Putin. Moshiri is a billionaire but he's invested more than he could afford into Everton already. New investment has come in over the summer from local businessmen but that money has pretty much gone straight to funding the rest of the stadium project. There is a small amount of money in the transfer budget and a bit of wriggle room on the wages front, but with about £20m (rough estimate), Everton ideally need to sign half a dozen players. At the bare minimum they need a couple of attacking players which is why Gnonto, Elanga and Danjuma have been the strongest links. Preferably you'd add to that a new backup goalkeeper, a third new attacker and another centre back. There's several players like Gray, Gomes, Maupay, Gbamin and Holgate who are available for the right price but every one of those that leaves creates another gap, on top of the gaps created by Mina, Coady, Davies, Vinagre and Simms leaving since the end of the last season. There's also the complication that if the club wants to utilise Dele Alli, we'll have to pay Spurs £10m after he makes 7 more appearances unless the deal is restructured somehow. So essentially, Everton are trying to buy about 5 players with about £20m. This is the complication. Man Utd want £15m for Elanga. Everton can afford to pay about £4m up-front and then spread the rest in instalments. Leeds want £20m for Gnonto. Again, Everton can afford to pay this over the course of a few years with a structured deal but not all in one go. It was the same last summer - the headline transfer fee for Dwight McNeil was about £15m but the reality is Burnley agreed we could pay them £3m a year for five years. A number of deals struck over the past few years are similar which is where a lot of our incoming cash goes before it even makes it to the transfer budget for making further signings. So that's Everton's strategy this summer. Begging, borrowing, stealing. Trying to plug as many gaps as possible with free transfers like Ashley Young and loans like Danjuma so that the small pot of money available can be spread across 3-4 permanent acquisitions instead of 5-6. And this is our financial situation without relegation. You can't even begin to imagine really where we'd be now if we'd dropped last season or the year before. It would have been a genuine existential crisis for one of the biggest and most historic clubs in the country.

Apparently absolutely nothing in the Evans rumour (at the moment). We could do with another centre back because the pickings after Tarkowski are a mixture of unreliable and unproven. There's apparently a decent chance we'll sell Holgate to Sheffield United for a bit of a fee. I can't see us bringing one in unless this or something similar goes through. Last season we started with 6 centre backs because Lampard wanted the option of playing with a back three. Dyche is very much after a flat back four so when we have 5 senior central defenders in Tarkowski, Keane, Holgate, Godfrey and Branthwaite, I can't see us investing any money or effort in that part of the squad when the full back and forward areas are so bare.

Cambridge United

Go on then

Hopefully Alcaraz gets good competition from the likes of Ruud, Rune, Sinner in the long term because as soon as he's bagged another handful of grand slams over the next 3 years he'll be the one who we all say is boring for dominating . Nothing against Djokovic (or Nadal or Federer) but it's long overdue for one of the "next gen" players to prise the torch out of the hands of the old big three.

Alcaraz about to serve for it. One of the commentators said earlier he has some of the best traits from Nadal, Federer and Djokovic. I do get major Rafa vibes more than the others but otherwise hard to argue.

Tuned in just before the second set tie break. Alcaraz has been magnificent. Djokovic looks bamboozled and broken (for now).

I wouldn't be surprised by Yuki -0.5s or Ricciardo -0.5s at any of the remaining races to be honest. If Ricciardo comes in and beats Tsunoda straight off the bat in Hungary then that'll do real damage to the latter's career I'd have thought.

I wouldn't take the plunge (yet) if I was either of them because I just can't see even the best drivers going to Red Bull and being able to challenge Verstappen. For guys who are still deemed 'young and exciting' with their best days ahead, it seems a bit like career suicide to go there and be very good but still second best. Lando's stock is still rising at Mclaren. Leclerc's might be more or less at its peak. Both of them could still look realistically at Hamilton and Alonso retiring in the next few years, opening up a chance for them to go to Mercedes or Aston Martin (if they stay competitive) and establish themselves as team leader there (George Russell might have a thing or two to say about that of course), wait for their new team to have the best car instead of Red Bull. It's a better route to becoming world champion than going to RB now and having the best car but sharing it with Max. The only drivers I can really see going to Red Bull to win a few races, because that's going to be the peak of their career, whilst also being potentially an upgrade on Perez from the team's perspective, are the likes of Sainz, Ocon, Gasly and Albon. Perhaps Ricciardo as well if his comeback goes swimmingly. Ironically, four of those five have already been a part of the Red Bull programme before. It's a good stable they have but they still have work to do on ending up with an ideal home-grown driver pairing in the senior team.

Current situation: GK - Begovic gone as backup goalkeeper. Pickford appears to be staying and Lonergan has extended his stay as 3rd choice. Joao Virginia may step into #2 role after returning from loan but is very unproven. FB - Mykolenko isn't really good enough but looks like he'll have to do as our primary left back. Coleman and Patterson are a decent pair of options at right back relatively speaking. Young will cover both positions along with Godfrey if it becomes necessary. It's not great but it might do for the coming season. CB - Tarkowski is obviously a good option. Branthwaite is a decent addition on paper having done well with PSV on loan and he should suit Dyche's system but you still never know how he'll fare in reality. Keane, Holgate and Godfrey all aren't good enough to improve the team but I suppose you could argue they've been around for years and haven't been quite bad enough to relegate us (yet). CM - With Gueye, Onana, Garner and Doucoure we have reasonably good options at the forefront of the squad. Gomes might be brought back into the fold if he can't be sold. Gbamin will have to go. Iwobi can also play centrally. There's probably enough there to allow Warrington to go on loan but we've lost our emergency cover in Tom Davies so it's a risk. Maybe Ashley Young can plug that gap now. I'll be amazed if Alli actually features. Even if Dyche can get a tune out of him, we surely can't afford to spunk the £10m we'll owe Spurs after another half dozen appearances from him. Wingers - McNeil and Iwobi are sufficient as first choice. Gray, if he stays, is decent backup/rotation. There's not much after that with Townsend being released. I also would sell Gray in a heartbeat if the Saudi League does throw £8m or so at him. We've been quite heavily linked with Gnonto and Danjuma (loan) in recent days and could do with signing both probably. CF - We can't rely on Calvert-Lewin to stay fit. Maupay is supposed to be off to Salernitana but is hopeless anyway and Ellis Simms has been sold. The coaching team is having a good look at Tom Cannon in pre-season after a successful loan at Preston so he might feature this season but it's probably a year earlier than the ideal time for his development. We definitely need to sign a striker. Conclusion - as long as we replace any further sales and sign a couple of attacking players, there's enough there in most positions to survive if the squad is managed properly and we get lucky with injuries (lol, it's Everton, who am O kidding). Another centre back would also be nice but I'd absolutely take 17th if offered it today. Can't be fucked with this season already because relegation battles are exhausting.