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Central defence was all over the place with no Jags or Heitinga but apart from that we played pretty well apparently. Bilyaletdinov is supposed to have scored a beauty.

Cahill got his first hat trick for us today

Maybe a few years ago but not now. N'Zogbia - 5 goals 6 assists in 37 app. Malbranque- 0 goals 5 assists in 32 app.

Blackpool are going to be woeful. They're actually in worse shape than the team that got promoted with the likes of DJ Campbell and Coleman gone

But what do you base this on though? His knowledge and experience of worldwide football is far better and I'm sure he'd be able to get better players than Hughes on any budget. To me the difference in class between Sven and Hughes is massive. Had Man City kept Sven once the Arab owners took over, rather than getting Hughes in, I believe they would have achieved that top four finish by now. I think you're living in the past. Sven isn't a good manager anymore (and his biggest success was achieved with a blank cheque book at Lazio anyway) Mark hughes is a cunt of a person but Fulham will be nowhere near relegation under him.

Maybe the best stopper in the game but best all round defensive/holding mid? No chance. He can barely pass the ball. Would have been much better if it was Torres or Gerrard being sold to raise funds.

Utter bollocks. Where've you got that from? Latest rumours are that him & Pienaar are both signing new deals soon.

Could be HIV, that's relatively positive.

if it was arteta cahill or jagielka you can be damn sure they'd have put it in writing They haven't put a written offer to Pienaar either. Do we want rid of him? I think we just do business like it's still the 60's and your word is good tbh.

Campbell - second fastest player at Arsenal last season according to Wenger, only Walcott outsprinted him over distance. That's about as likely as Yossi Benayoun bench pressing more than any Liverpool player at Melwood last season.

They were saying that on talksport when I was coming home from work before. 2 "very good sources" had told them. Most stuff on talksport turns out to be crap though

aka "please don't boo me when I come back in a City shirt"

What about the 12 million you spent on Yakuba, 6 million on Baines, 4 million on Jagielka and 6 million on Arteta? I know Moyes does a reasonable job budget wise but you have conveniently forgotten abpout some of your other major acquisitions here. I haven't forgotten any signings. As I said, his net spend works out at £4m per season over his entire reign. Oh, and Arteta was £3m iirc not £6m.

It's not just based on the Preston game though. That would be daft. Second half of the season when we got our players back together our form wasn't far off title winning stuff. Obviously we won't be able to do that over a whole season and go for the title(!) but there's absolutely no reason we shouldn't aim for top 4. It will be hard and we'll need a slice of luck but it's not far fetched to think we can do it. The first XI is quality and we've got much better options available on the bench than we had say, 2 years ago. This squad is definitely better than the ones that finished 4th, 5th (x2) and 6th.

Top 4 is do-able if we don't have an injury crisis of last seasons proportions. Especially with no extra Euro games this time.

I was at the game yesterday. Beckford had 2 chances and put them both away, the second one was excellent. Great finish. It's only Preston but he looked the part. We played some brilliant stuff in the second half as well, they barely touched the ball for 45mins.

Ok then. Steve- I think the last 2 seasons/4 windows we have a net spend of zero. e.g. when Fellaini signed for £15m we had to sell Johnson for £9m and McFadden for £6m first. When we signed Bily, Heitinga and Distin last summer we'd got more than the total outlay for Lescott. I think Moyes net spend in his 7 years works out at something like £4m a season. Debt levels are £40-odd million iirc. Was about £20m when Kenwright took over.

Is it fair to say he's ran/run it fairly well then? Not really. Debt has spiralled under him despite no investment in the playing squad or stadium. I'm confused as to how it's even possible (where's it all gone?!) but that's what's happened. I think he must just run the club that poorly and unprofessionally (perhaps summed up by this Gosling fiasco ). The only decent thing he's done is build a new training ground but even that has been sold to property investors and we lease it back. imo our increased fortunes are solely down to having a great manager in Moyes which papers over the cracks off the field. Going way off topic now though so I'll leave it there

Buys decent players? He hasn't invested a single penny in the club since he bought his shares so don't give me that. Walter Smith chose Moyes btw.

Or even Sarsfield

He's joking...I don't think he is seriously claiming Everton rang up HK to go out on the offensive But the Evertonians did f*** up and the syndrome he is referring to is happening. Attack the player and not the club. There's plenty of people moaning about the club fucking up as well. Evertonians don't need much of an excuse to whinge about Kenwright and co. Trust me.

when you know you've f***ed up send someone out to attack, in this case hope more focus is on goslings lack of loyalty rather than evertons lack of brain How is Kendall's regular newspaper column the club sending someone out to attack Gosling?

I'd love us to sign him. Moyes would turn him around.

Less so. But yeah.

I find it very hard to believe that Everton relied on the word of an agent when it came to dealing with Rooney and Rodwell. With either player, they'd have stood to lose £20 million plus. They're not that stupid, surely. I suspect they were a bit slow in getting the paperwork out to Gosling, because they didn't consider him that important a player, or they wanted to see how his injury was progressing before committing themselves. Stu, Cronky has just pointed out the holes I was referring to. Another hole in the "they offered him a contract" argument is that once it became clear they'd f***ed up they presumably had the chance to offer him improved terms before he signed for us and either didn't match us or didn't bother. I hope the Everton fans are bitter and Everton themselves are just quiet due to embarrassment over it but I fear it may be either (a) they just weren't that bothered when it came to it or (b) they wouldn't offer more terms to keep him without seeing his recovery. Neither are beyond the realms of possibility. Fans are bitter that he's gone for nothing but that's not the reason why he isn't rated. I could dig up plenty of posts from months ago on bluekipper slating him.