RandoEFC

Most business so far revolving around trying to get the wage budget down. Coady wasn't signed because the £4.5m was deemed reasonable but the £60k weekly wage was too much for someone Dyche didn't have pegged as a weekly starter. Mina wasn't offered a new deal. £100k a week too much for a good defender but one that averaged just under 20 games a season over five years due to injuries. Begovic wasn't offered a new deal. A very well-rated second goalkeeper but again, on £40k a week or something and not reflected value for his role. Townsend has also been released after completing his recovery from injury. He was on £48k a week reportedly. Coleman, Lonergan and Davies have all been offered new deals. Davies is around 4th choice in the holding midfield role behind Onana, Gueye and Garner. He's emergency cover really and he isn't seen as a potential starting player but on £20k or so a week, the club see him as decent value to bolster squad numbers. He wants first team football and has interest from Scotland and the Championship apparently. If he leaves, Everton will have to either replace him or use a young player like Lewis Warrington to fill the bench when really they need to be out on loan at this stage of their careers. Hopefully Davies sticks around for another season just as a backup as we have enough gaps to fill already.

Phil Neville was within a week of being able to call himself Leo Messi's manager.

The biggest Everton win in the last week.

In the first transfer news of the summer, today was the deadline for Everton to trigger the £4.5m buy option for Conor Coady. The club released a statement today thanking him (and Ruben Vinagre lol) for their contributions on and off the pitch, so it seems like he won't be signing. I am a bit disappointed because he's been a great character and leader by all accounts but it also makes sense. He is much better in a back three than a back four and Sean Dyche is likely to prefer the latter as he starts to put his own team together. £4.5m would have been a decent fee for a player of his calibre but we probably don't have a penny to waste this summer. Good luck to him.

They literally had an official from the Saudi government on the pitch taking penalties at half time the other night. Hardly much of a secret is it? Why bother covering it up though when the FA are clearly fine with it for all their noise about fit and proper ownership?

Apparently funding for the stadium and new members on the board. All speculation at this point. Better than nothing but until Moshiri and Kenwright are both out of the picture, it's not good enough.

A lot of talk that Moshiri is close to completing the sale of the club. I really fucking hope it's true. 777 Partners are the interested party that were named yesterday, I don't know much about them but I like to think that they can't be worse than what we've had. First order of business for any new owner is to get rid of Bill Kenwright as Chairman and put their own board in place.

I would only add to @Honey Honey's explanation that currently the "proper right wing" parties like UKIP, Brexit Party and Reform are currently a total irrelevance as the Conservatives have pretty much adopted the majority of their policies and rhetoric. Didn't hear a word about any of them during these local elections aside from the fact that UKIP lost all of their remaining council seats. The problem for them is that so much of the party membership hold views significantly to the right of the average voter. If Sunak had his way, he'd probably shift the party back toward the centre ground as it gives them a better chance of winning voters back in the current climate where people are less obsessed with getting angry about immigrants due to the presence of the cost of living crisis and NHS at breaking point. However, any Tory leader at the moment has to make concessions to the right wing of the party in order to remain in charge of it. The one thing that party cares about above all else is winning elections though. When they get booted out of power and process the fact that they'll have to change to win power back, you'll see them drift back toward the centre ground and adopt a more moderate and nuanced set of values and policies again.

Was yours the one where the Tory candidate got about 33.5% and the incumbent Lib Dem had about 32.9%? I remember seeing that one and seeing the Labour candidate on about 15% and the Green candidate on about 10% and just thinking you guys really should have done some tactical voting.

My favourites were the South East councils which read something like. LDM 18 (+6) LAB 13 (+6) GRN 5 (+3) CON 0 (-15)

I'd imagine Pickford would move to a Premier League side. Coleman has actually been our most consistent full back this season and would be fine in the Championship as cover for Patterson who I don't think would get snapped up. I'd prefer to see us invest in a left back even if we go down because Mykolenko is poor. Mina will leave this summer as he's out of contract which will do the wage bill no harm. Tarkowski may or may not get a move back to another Premier League side. I imagine Keane, Godfrey and Holgate would stay. Branthwaite might get a permanent move to PSV. Coady is available on a free in the summer. I don't think Dyche massively fancies him but I can see us signing him permanently if we go down as I don't imagine he'll be flooded with offers from the top flight. Gueye is under contract for another year and I can't see anyone wanting to take him off our hands on his wage. Onana probably moves on. Doucoure is 30 now and I'm not convinced he'd get a move back to the Premier League. Iwobi probably moves on, possibly abroad. Davies is out of contract this summer, he should certainly move on if we stay up but could be worth renewing if we go down. Garner probably stays for at least a season if we drop. McNeil might get snapped up by someone if we're relegated but I imagine Gray and Townsend if he ever gets fit again are stuck with us. Simms will stay or be loaned out depending on incomings. Maupay is supposedly moving to Salernitana in Italy this summer regardless of our division. Calvert-Lewin would be a huge gamble for anyone to invest in given his recent injury record so his only option is probably to stay and rebuild his fitness with us at least for a season. We're not down yet though so let's see what happens. On the bright side, I don't think our squad gets picked apart in the event that we do go down so if it comes to that, we should be able to hit the ground running.

He's a very decent talent but also very raw. I wouldn't say he's been incredible this season but you can see the potential. One we'll certainly have to cash in on if we go down but if we stay up he's not really done enough to justify a move.

Just remembering the state of things at the end of January and our failure to bring in a forward. Calvert-Lewin played against Arsenal and helped us win 1-0 although he didn't score. Hasn't set foot on a football pitch since. Maupay still hasn't scored since October and Simms has just the one goal at Chelsea which earned us a point. The fact that we have a fighting chance of staying up is a credit to Sean Dyche but we all bemoaned the lack of signings in January and the lack of a goalscorer is hurting us badly. Don't forget the owner said on camera "we'll get a striker" in January and that the Everton board haven't been to a home game since January either. The run of reasonable results from a difficult run of fixtures on the pitch, along with a level headed manager with a calm demeanour, makes it easy to forget what a shambles the club has been allowed to become.

Joint 3rd in Round 5 for @nudge sees her retain a 100% record of podium finishes this season and a 9 point lead over closest challenger @Dan in the season standings. With just 1-2 rounds remaining, we're approaching mathematical confirmation that the only female in the Last Man Standing competition will be crowned as champion for the first time.

I didn't realise it but we have another first timer in the Hall of Fame following the most recent edition. It only took him the best part of five seasons to win a round but welcome to the circle of champions, @DeadLinesman, winner of the 2022-23 Ligue 1 round of Last Man Standing.

Our second debutant of the year in the Hall of Fame is @Tommy, with the victory in this year's La Liga edition his first ever in Last Man Standing.

An updated table for the 2022-23 season: Another top three finish for @nudge sees her retain a comfortable lead at the top of the table. @Dan manages to close the gap to single figures with a solid 2nd place in Spain. @Tommy shoots up to 4th place thanks to his victory and the sea of 1s and 0s scored by the rest of the squad.

Still talk of this Andre Ayew deal getting done on a free. Honestly just get fucked. A 33 year old journeyman who played a couple of seasons in the Premier League five years ago, with nothing to offer and looking for a last pay cheque. Fine if you manage to keep the contract to an end-of-season deal but otherwise no. I'd rather we gave a chance to some kid. Ellis Simms for example, who has had his season and development actively damaged by Everton Football Club because we recalled him from his loan, where he was doing quite well, in desperation because of our inability to get our ducks in a row. If we're going to do that, then at least give the lad a chance to play some football instead of signing any old washed-up randomer from the Middle East because they played in the Premier League once upon a time.

Our turnover/wages ratio is absolutely terrible which I think is a major issue with FFP. Our wage structure is absolutely ridiculous (non-existent). Players like Keane, Doucoure, Mina, Allan, Tosun being given 4 year contracts on anything from 60k to 100k a week, turning out to be nowhere near worth it and then sitting on their contracts on the bench for years while they take millions out of the club every year. Just another aspect of the amateur running of the whole thing. It all adds up.

Yeah I listen to the podcast El Bobble is frequently a guest on and listened to that Twitter space earlier. He's very factual, doesn't leak stuff unless it's certain or go into detail about what goes on behind the scenes unless it's relevant to a specific story. Very cross on that space tonight. Called out the club as a joke and a disgrace. Pointed out that this idea behind the fans scaring off players who come from some of the roughest housing estates in the world as the absolute guff it clearly is. Essentially confirmed that the Bielsa approach was a one man crusade by Moshiri pulling against the work of the team of football professionals at the club trying to establish something resembling organisation. That Thelwell and his people are trying their best but continue to get undermined by Moshiri and Kenwright at every turn. It's just exhausting. Watching your football club getting transformed into a joke and a circus before your eyes because of a small number of idiots at the wheel who have no idea what they're doing but convinced they've actually just been unlucky and will fix it all eventually because they're really clever. Nothing you can do about it except bitch about it on Internet forums and listen to other fans bitch about it on podcasts and Twitter spaces. There's no end in sight. We will get relegated. It will probably be this season. And there's no guarantee we'll return to the Premier League quickly or even at all. This is now exactly the type of football club who would spend £100m on shite thinking it'll bounce them straight back up, before ending up outside the playoffs, racking up points penalties and playing in League One in the blink of an eye. Just utterly depressed about it now. It's absolutely criminal how little people are aware of how badly the club is run outside of Everton fans when you think about how much negative publicity was directed at the Glazers, Venkys, Tony Fernandes, Hicks and Gillette. The protests really do need to continue, and need to get louder.

After a series of desperate, scattergun enquiries by the club into Zaniolo, Giroud, Mateta, Sarr amongst others, Dyche has now left the training ground meaning that Everton, despite being one of if not the most desperately in need club in the league and despite receiving a 40m fee for a first team player, are on the brink of ending the January window as the only side in the league not to make a signing of any description. Bravo everyone.

I think Bielsa's issue was genuinely with the players not being suited to his style. He offered to take the job in the summer even. But the fact that the club's last two managerial prospects were Bielsa and Dyche. We might as well put a banner across the stadium saying "we still haven't got any idea what we want this project to look like after 7 years". Players are now choosing to go to Southampton and Bournemouth instead of Everton. I don't know about the stadium stuff. It's tempting to look at the way Everton are run and try to apply some reason to it through the medium of conspiracy theories or nefarious dealings but all the evidence points to the conclusion that we really are just run by utterly incompetent fools.

Imagine being such a shite football club and board that you lied about the CEO being put in a headlock to make fans look like thugs ahead of a peaceful protest against you and everyone's forgotten about it within two weeks because there's been so much more ridiculous shite already. Yet we'll still be seeing Talksport clips doing the rounds on social media tomorrow acting bemused at Everton fans protesting against the board and supporters of other clubs going "well why don't you just support the team harder" and telling us how to support the club as a whole whilst ignoring the fact that even in the midst of all this, fans are turning up to Goodison Park two hours early to welcome the team bus. The negligence around this transfer window has been absolutely criminal. Just what the fuck were the scouting and recruitment teams doing when it was evident we'd be entering January in a dogfight. There should have been players through the door on January 1st. There should have been deals lined up and ready to go the second the Gordon money hit our bank account. Instead we're going to end the biggest "make or break" transfer window in the club's modern history with a weaker squad than we started it. This lunatic owner, the senile idiot who sold the club to him and his enablers in the boardroom are killing/have killed this football club.

Andre Ayew on a free. Just pack it in and fold this mess.

Potentially making no signings today despite having one of if not the worst squad in the league after we had another shite window in the summer, not helped by us dicking around over Gordon which we should have pushed to get sorted early in the window if it was going to happen. Took two weeks too long to sack Lampard then spent most of the last week of the window sorting out the new manager leaving us paralysed in the market. Now, shock horror, the clubs that might have done business with us are raising their prices or flat out refusing to sell players because they have no time to replace them before the window closes. Every other team around us has strengthened this window. Bournemouth. Leeds. Southampton. We started the month in a relegation scrap and are going to end it having lost four games in a row, sacked our manager, less a £40m asset (as much as he's been shite all season) and without a single signing. An absolute disgrace from the football club and yet people will still chat shit about our fans protesting and creating a "negative atmosphere". We'll probably even get blamed for scaring players off by sections of the media after they've received their briefings from Kenwright. Window after window, the same disorganisation and poor planning. Manager after manager and director of football after director of football have and will continue to pay the price while the board, the common thread running through almost a decade of failure at every level of the organisation, will spend 1st February looking around at each other asking "we're all trying to find who did this" (insert meme) again. The players we're being linked with now are clearly the 5th, 6th, 7th options on our various shortlists, just like the end of the summer window with Maupay and McNeil. A ridiculous organisation that deserves relegation. If we're a Premier League club in 5 month's time then Sean Dyche is actual Jesus Christ.