I've just been reading a post on the Everton fans website Grand Old Team from someone even more disenchanted than I am - and just as numbers driven, given that he starts by remarking that the 5-1 hammering at Arsenal was the ninth 3+ goal defeat of the season and "simply unacceptable".
While it's implicit that the author is no fan of Allardyce, he delves more deeply into the problems of the club, from majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri downwards.
After many years of stability under Kenwright and Moyes - and what could reasonably be called success apart from the obvious (i.e. not actually winning a trophy) - change has happened under Moshiri. Without his backing would Koeman have arrived, or the head of recruitment from the then champions (Leicester)? Would Lukaku have extended his stay by a year or the Welsh captain (Williams) have chosen Everton for his move, or Palace's best player (Bolassie)?
Maybe not but the author argues convincingly that these have all been bad decisions. Recruitment has been erratic. Bolassie was unlucky to pick up a bad injury but always looked expensive at the price - and Palace fans warned us that he flattered to deceive with little end product. Williams had peaked and is looking old and slow. Klassen was a big disappointment, though arguably wasn't given much chance. I would add that no-one outside the inner circle knows who really wanted Rooney. It hasn't all been bad as Ademola Lookman and Dominic Calvert-Lewin are youngsters with great potential - though as Calvert-Lewin arrived only a month after Walsh it's not clear how much he had to do with it. And promising youngsters is one category Everton weren't short of anyway.
I observe that it isn't getting any better judging by the centre forward fiasco. The replacement for Lukaku didn't arrive in August when needed and the January signing, Cenk Tosun, has been left out in favour of the limited and previously deemed inadequate Oumar Niasse on at least 2 occasions already, so it looks like Allardyce either doesn't fancy him or doesn't think he's ready for the premier league.
Everton have lost the air of sound and competent management that was present for more than a decade. And, for all the reputation of Walsh, the wisdom behind the recruitment of the Moyes era - yes there were expensive mistakes like James Beattie and Per Kroldrup but there was huge success with modest priced signings like Baines, Cahill, Pienaar, Stones and Coleman - has not been continued.
The solution advocated in the Grand Old Team piece is that Everton have to change the manager, but change the director of football first. And others are predicting the latter: the Daily Mail says today that "Everton's transfer flops may get Steve Walsh the sack as director of football after the Toffees experience dismal returns on £239m recruitment drive"
Everton wouldn't be the first club spoiled by a new owner arriving with the promise of money, only for the money to be spent badly followed by decline. But the author's punchline is a concern that, without change, Everton could be on the way to becoming the next Sunderland.....
This analysis has much to commend it and you can read it at https://www.grandoldteam.com/2018/02/08/brave-new-world/
The Mail piece is at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-5374059/Steve-Walsh-faces-sack-Evertons-director-football.html#ixzz56hxWEdUm
Showing posts with label Everton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Everton. Show all posts
Saturday, 10 February 2018
Thursday, 8 February 2018
Next Everton manager?
Readers will know that I was doubtful about Everton recruiting Sam Allardyce. While he seemed to have an initial impact, the team now seems to be nearly as clueless as when he arrived. If a Big Sam team can't defend (witness the 5-1 defeat at Arsenal not long after the 4-0 defeat at Spurs), then just what is he for?
I also wonder about Allardyce's state of mind. Less than a fortnight ago he said that Wayne Rooney and Gylfi Sigurdsson could not play in the same team*. Tell us something we didn't already know: Evertonians were asking back in September why we had signed three number 10s (the aforementioned two and Klassen), the implication being that they were too similar and couldn't be accommodated in the same team. In some matches Allardyce had success with a 4-3-3 formation, Rooney playing deeper in the midfield 3 and Sigurdsson on the left at the front. But this got found out at Spurs, with Sigurdsson leaving the hapless Martina totally exposed at left back. So no surprise that Sam said the two are "too slow" for him to accommodate both and "are very talented but covering ground is not their strength". Allardyce made these comments in explaining why he included Sigurdsson but left Rooney on the bench for the 1-1 home draw against West Brom on 20 January, though Rooney did come on after an hour to join Sigurdsson. So why did he pick both of them in the rather fortunate 2-1 win at home to Leicester (quite a quick team by the way!) in the next match? And then leave them both on the bench in the debacle at Arsenal a few days later? Do you know what you are talking about Sam or have you just decided not to listen to yourself?
A further concern about Allardyce is his selection policy. Not so much rotation as give people a run and then leave them out for no apparent reason. Holgate being a case in point but Gueye, always reliable previously has been in then out and seems to have gone backwards. I have been wondering if Allardyce is assessing his squad for a summer cull and new faces. After all, he needs a good showing next season if he is to have his 18 month contract extended. But his selections seem almost random.
But not quite random. I was very concerned that Allardyce wouldn't play the youngsters, like Tom Davies, Calvert Lewin and Mason Holgate, all part of a very strong crop of talented young players currently in the squad. At first my doubts were assuaged, Allardyce waxing lyrical about Kenny and Holgate in particular. And Calvert Lewin figured as a starter or sub in just about every game. But the youngsters now seem to be getting less game time. Even though Kenny, Calvert-Lewin and Davies all appeared at Arsenal, Martin Samuel noted**
In Everton's 4-0 win over West Ham in November, the final match before Sam Allardyce took over, four players aged 21 or under started and three came on as substitutes, playing a total of 366 minutes. Losing 5-1 at Arsenal on Saturday the number of young starters had dropped to one and the minutes played to 164. Tom Davies was given the second half but one imagines only because, by then, Everton were 4-0 down."
Samuel went on to note that when the loan transfer of the promising Ademola Lookman (aged 20), Everton's best player at the recent Anfield derby, was mentioned Allardyce began reciting the transfer fees of the players he was using, like Theo Walcott (£20M) and Yannick Bolassie (£30M). As Samuel went on to say:
This is why, from the start, he was wrong for Everton. Allardyce is very good at what he does, but what he does isn't what Everton require. Allardyce's teams aren't top 4 contenders, which is where Everton hope to be and he doesn't trust youth, which is what has fed Everton's soul for years. He keeps teams up, which is hardly the greatest feat at Everton, considering that they haven't been relegated since 1951. Plenty of managers have done that and nurtured the famous youth system too."
Allardyce wasn't Everton's first choice, of course, that was Marco Silva whose promising start at Watford then evaporated, getting him the sack. I wouldn't have gone for him, nor would I next time. So who should Everton have gone for and who should they try to get next time?
Well, why not go for a proven Premier League manager who also happens to be the only manager in history to win the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, UEFA Super Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup?
And he still, from back when he was at Liverpool, has his house on the Wirral, keeping his family there through his last 8 years at Inter, Chelsea, Napoli, Real Madrid and his current uncomfortable perch at Newcastle.
Benitez is so passionate about football that, when he was back at his Wirral home between jobs, he went out to watch boys football and within 2 weeks was coaching a team. "It was hilarious" his wife said. "He stood there on the touchline and shouted at them as if it was the first division". Benitez made a tactical change in a match: he moved a tall, quick player to face a small defender (a favourite tactic of mine when coaching boys, that one!) and his side won. After they won their next match parents of the opposing teams started complaining "not fair - you have a professional manager!". Benitez says his family often ask "haven't you had enough?" Then, when he starts moving the plates and glasses around into football formations (another habit of mine when I was playing and coaching) they say "Go!" Would he like to be a manager in 13 years time at 70, like Roy Hodgson? "At the moment I have to say yes, obviously. The main thing is to have health, if you are healthy you can continue and I am fine, touch wood."***
"Touch wood" tells you everything you need to know about his command of English, something Arsene Wenger, for all his years here, still seems to find alien.
Benitez's 3 year deal at Newcastle ends in March 2019. Allardyce's at Everton runs to June 2019. Even if I have to put up with Sam at Everton for next season, I know who I would want there by summer 2019.
Everton were contending for the top four when Rafael Beneathus, as he was called when Everton finished 4th in 2005, was at Liverpool. Indeed that was the last time Everton did finish above Liverpool. But Benitez is capable of getting Everton back in contention, which I don't believe Allardyce is.
*https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/jan/21/sam-allardyce-everton-wayne-rooney-gylfi-sigurdsson-too-slow-play-together
** Martin Samuel's column was in the Daily Mail on 6 Feb 2018
***The material on Benitez is from the Sunday Times article "Coaching is child's play for Benitez", 4 Feb 2018
Friday, 19 January 2018
Now Allardyce HAS improved Everton (probably)
Signing Theo Walcott would appear to materially strengthen Everton's squad. It has been reported that Walcott chose Everton because of Sam Allardyce: Walcott was selected in Allardyce's only England match in charge. (Remember, Everton is the only club whose manager has a 100% record in internationals).
Walcott has not fulfilled the promise that got him a (then) quite big money move to Arsenal aged 16, followed by a call up for England's 2006 World Cup Squad aged 17 a few months later. But he has 47 England caps and over 100 career goals for Arsenal. To put that in context, in Everton's long and glorious history* they have only had five players who have scored over 100 goals while playing for the club. Walcott was Arsenal's 18th. So he is very much a proven Premier League forward.
Yes, Everton have Wayne Rooney, with even more stellar career numbers. But Rooney is 32 and, though both he and Walcott started out young, Rooney has a lot more miles on the clock and never had explosive pace, an important attribute the current Everton squad was pretty well devoid of.
At 28 Walcott could have few good years left. His goal return from games played is significantly better than the departed Kevin Mirallas and the remaining Yannick Bolasie and Aaron Lennon, who have latterly filled the berth most likely for Walcott in the team.
Whether Walcott will improve Everton in practice we shall see, but it is a good acquisition on paper. The fee of around £20 million doesn't seem high for an English player in these times of stratospheric fees. And if it doesn't work out a decent proportion might be recouped, so low risk on the face of it.
So this might well be the first really significant change made by Allardyce since his arrival.
And here's an off the wall idea for further improvement - bring back Jack "The Lad" Rodwell, currently languishing at Sunderland, excluded from the first team squad and training alone 3 times a day, while pocketing his crippling £70k a week wedge which Sunderland would dearly love not to pay - and are only doing so because they failed to insert a relegation clause when they bought him from Manchester City. Sunderland can't cancel Rodwell's contract and can't get anyone to take him off their hands.
Rodwell, who hails from Birkdale and was with Everton from the age of 7 to 21, is still only 26 and was the youngest player to play for Everton in Europe aged 16. He was capped by England at 20 and was spoken of as a future England captain. He moved to Manchester City in 2012 in a big money move which blighted his career, much as the move to Arsenal did for Franny Jeffers and as, I fear, will Ross Barkley's move to Chelsea.
In Everton's academy Rodwell was always seen as a central defender, but he got in the first team very young playing in midfield. He now thinks central defence would be the right role for him. Well, here's my idea. Offer to take him on loan from Sunderland for half his current wages, with a view to taking over his contract by the end of the season if he does well. Play him as a holding midfield player, much as Eric Dier at Tottenham. After all, he can't possibly be any worse than Morgan Schneiderlin. If it does work he provides back up for the centre backs (you need lots of them if you want to play three). We could get him for nothing and offload Schneiderlin for worthwhile bucks. If it didn't work the cost would have been trivial for Everton. And I note that Rodwell appeared a lot for Sunderland when Sam Allardyce was their manager.
And here's another controversial proposal: if Everton can't get either of their preferred target left backs, Aaron Cresswell from West Ham or Luke Shaw from Manchester United, make a deadline offer to take Jon Flanagan from Liverpool for a handful of peanuts. Flanagan has just been sentenced to a 12 month community order for egregiously attacking his girlfriend, has 5 months left on his Anfield contract and is persona non grata there judging by Liverpool's statement after the court hearing. While all this is unsavoury and can't really be excused, Flanagan clearly does not deserve to lose his right to earn a living over it. I've never quite understood why professional sports people are regarded as role models for anything other than their ability to play sport. And so few of them do anything to deserve their unasked for status as role models. Rare exceptions are Juan Mata, who donates one percent of his salary to a global charity and Steven Naismith who, while at Everton, regularly paid out of his own pocket for unemployed fans to have a seat at Goodison.
Before things went off the rails, Flanagan had made 40 appearances for Liverpool, mainly in the season when they so nearly won the league and won one cap for England.
The only problem I see with this idea is that it might be better for Flanagan to make his way somewhere other than Merseyside. But where better to earn redemption? After all Everton's pioneering Everton In The Community programme, which has 140 staff involved full-time in community projects, does a lot of work with young offenders and claims a 76% non-reoffending rate in the first year compared with the national average of 26%. They also run 26 disability sports teams, a free school, a programme to tackle dementia and look after children whose lives have been affected by crime**. A perfect opportunity for a young man who has gone astray to make amends? And again, if it didn't work, by taking him now the cost would be tiny.
*Don't smirk: when I left school no team had won the league more often than Everton and it was only in the mid 1990s that Arsenal and Manchester United joined Liverpool in having materially more league titles. Everton still have 9 league wins to Chelsea's 6 and Manchester City's 4.
**http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/everton/11337745/Everton-are-a-shining-beacon-for-football-as-a-force-for-good-in-the-community.html
Walcott has not fulfilled the promise that got him a (then) quite big money move to Arsenal aged 16, followed by a call up for England's 2006 World Cup Squad aged 17 a few months later. But he has 47 England caps and over 100 career goals for Arsenal. To put that in context, in Everton's long and glorious history* they have only had five players who have scored over 100 goals while playing for the club. Walcott was Arsenal's 18th. So he is very much a proven Premier League forward.
Yes, Everton have Wayne Rooney, with even more stellar career numbers. But Rooney is 32 and, though both he and Walcott started out young, Rooney has a lot more miles on the clock and never had explosive pace, an important attribute the current Everton squad was pretty well devoid of.
At 28 Walcott could have few good years left. His goal return from games played is significantly better than the departed Kevin Mirallas and the remaining Yannick Bolasie and Aaron Lennon, who have latterly filled the berth most likely for Walcott in the team.
Whether Walcott will improve Everton in practice we shall see, but it is a good acquisition on paper. The fee of around £20 million doesn't seem high for an English player in these times of stratospheric fees. And if it doesn't work out a decent proportion might be recouped, so low risk on the face of it.
So this might well be the first really significant change made by Allardyce since his arrival.
And here's an off the wall idea for further improvement - bring back Jack "The Lad" Rodwell, currently languishing at Sunderland, excluded from the first team squad and training alone 3 times a day, while pocketing his crippling £70k a week wedge which Sunderland would dearly love not to pay - and are only doing so because they failed to insert a relegation clause when they bought him from Manchester City. Sunderland can't cancel Rodwell's contract and can't get anyone to take him off their hands.
Rodwell, who hails from Birkdale and was with Everton from the age of 7 to 21, is still only 26 and was the youngest player to play for Everton in Europe aged 16. He was capped by England at 20 and was spoken of as a future England captain. He moved to Manchester City in 2012 in a big money move which blighted his career, much as the move to Arsenal did for Franny Jeffers and as, I fear, will Ross Barkley's move to Chelsea.
In Everton's academy Rodwell was always seen as a central defender, but he got in the first team very young playing in midfield. He now thinks central defence would be the right role for him. Well, here's my idea. Offer to take him on loan from Sunderland for half his current wages, with a view to taking over his contract by the end of the season if he does well. Play him as a holding midfield player, much as Eric Dier at Tottenham. After all, he can't possibly be any worse than Morgan Schneiderlin. If it does work he provides back up for the centre backs (you need lots of them if you want to play three). We could get him for nothing and offload Schneiderlin for worthwhile bucks. If it didn't work the cost would have been trivial for Everton. And I note that Rodwell appeared a lot for Sunderland when Sam Allardyce was their manager.
And here's another controversial proposal: if Everton can't get either of their preferred target left backs, Aaron Cresswell from West Ham or Luke Shaw from Manchester United, make a deadline offer to take Jon Flanagan from Liverpool for a handful of peanuts. Flanagan has just been sentenced to a 12 month community order for egregiously attacking his girlfriend, has 5 months left on his Anfield contract and is persona non grata there judging by Liverpool's statement after the court hearing. While all this is unsavoury and can't really be excused, Flanagan clearly does not deserve to lose his right to earn a living over it. I've never quite understood why professional sports people are regarded as role models for anything other than their ability to play sport. And so few of them do anything to deserve their unasked for status as role models. Rare exceptions are Juan Mata, who donates one percent of his salary to a global charity and Steven Naismith who, while at Everton, regularly paid out of his own pocket for unemployed fans to have a seat at Goodison.
Before things went off the rails, Flanagan had made 40 appearances for Liverpool, mainly in the season when they so nearly won the league and won one cap for England.
The only problem I see with this idea is that it might be better for Flanagan to make his way somewhere other than Merseyside. But where better to earn redemption? After all Everton's pioneering Everton In The Community programme, which has 140 staff involved full-time in community projects, does a lot of work with young offenders and claims a 76% non-reoffending rate in the first year compared with the national average of 26%. They also run 26 disability sports teams, a free school, a programme to tackle dementia and look after children whose lives have been affected by crime**. A perfect opportunity for a young man who has gone astray to make amends? And again, if it didn't work, by taking him now the cost would be tiny.
*Don't smirk: when I left school no team had won the league more often than Everton and it was only in the mid 1990s that Arsenal and Manchester United joined Liverpool in having materially more league titles. Everton still have 9 league wins to Chelsea's 6 and Manchester City's 4.
**http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/everton/11337745/Everton-are-a-shining-beacon-for-football-as-a-force-for-good-in-the-community.html
Monday, 15 January 2018
The saviour? I doubt it......
A recap. Everton under Allardyce:
West Ham (H) won 4-0 (Allardyce seems to count this as his era even though Unsworth was in charge but his appointment could have galvanised the players, so I'll give him this one)
Huddersfield (H) won 2-0
Appollon Limassol (A) won 3-0. Europa League, played a lot of kids against a bunch of Cypriots
Liverpool (A) drew 1-1, very fortunately.
Newcastle (A) won 1-0
Swansea (H) won 3-1
Chelsea (H) drew 0-0
West Brom (A) drew 0-0
Bournemouth (A) lost 1-2 and played badly
Man Utd (H) lost 0-2
Liverpool (A) lost 1-2 but played reasonably well
Spurs (A) lost 0-4, pathetically.
In the first 6 of these 12 matches Everton didn't play that well on the whole, but were tighter defensively, got good results - no defeats - and moved out of trouble in the league. In the second 6 they got a hard fought home draw with Chelsea and put in a decent performance in the Anfield cup tie but otherwise have been just as poor as they were pre-Allardyce. They have lost their best home grown player (maybe best player) since Wayne Rooney's original emergence, Ross Barkley and are slumped back in the league. OK, they are still 9th but 4 points behind the club above whereas they are precariously perched with 6 teams within 4 points of them, the lowest (Newcastle and Brighton) being very much in the relegation fight.
Don't get me wrong, I'm confident Everton will survive in the Premier League this year. After all, with 27 points from 23 matches an average of a point a game from here - normally relegation form - would probably make them safe by several points. And it is still very early days for Allardyce and his team, Craig Shakespeare and the short fat fella whose name I still don't like to mention.
But I question whether, other than the players initially trying a bit harder (I know they get paid a lot but it's human nature) there has been much improvement. The results have been broadly what you might expect. In the first 6 games the fixtures were easy, bar Liverpool away, where they got lucky. West Ham were awful at the time and have improved since; Huddersfield, Newcastle and Swansea some of the weakest ever Premier League sides. In the second six the fixtures have been harder: Chelsea, Man U, Liverpool and Spurs away. The disappointment was only getting one point from the West Brom and Bournemouth matches, even though they were both away.
Over the 12 games I can't see much Allardyce effect in terms of results, it seems to me it's just the way the fixtures have panned out.
The next 6 games are a more mixed bag: West Brom, Leicester and Crystal Palace at home, Arsenal, Watford and Burnley away. Leicester and Palace are looking quite strong recently and West Brom have got their first win in living memory (ok, since August). Watford started strongly but have gone flat, Burnley will still be hard at their place. This run might tell us more.
But it will be ok because we've signed a centre forward, a young (ish)Turk, Cenk Tosun. Won't it?
I hope his arrival helps, but I am worried by a stat that my son pointed out when he was signed. Yes Tosun had scored 8 goals in the Turkish Super-Lig this season. But so has Arouna Kone, who didn't exactly set fires alight in his time at Everton. And Kone is playing for Sivasspor, a weaker team than Besiktas, where Tosun played. Hmmm.
Yesterday against Spurs Tosun looked as if he could throw his weight around a bit and let the centre backs "know he's there". Maybe the idea is to soften them up before bringing on Calvert-Lewin, who looks to have more pace. In which case we need to not be losing 3-0 by that time....
At the moment I'm struggling to see that either Allardyce or Tosun are going to be the saviour, though they may help us to cement mid table safety. Disappointing after the progress of the previous 10 years or so but better than the alternative.
Maybe Everton need a witch doctor*.
*an obtuse reference to the bizarre story that Romelu Lukaku might sue Everton and/or it's major shareholder, Farhad Moshiri, who was quoted as saying that Everton met Lukaku's financial demands and he was 99% certain to sign a new contract until he spoke to a witch doctor (!?). Which upset Lukaku because he's a Catholic. Aaaargh - another snowflake!!
West Ham (H) won 4-0 (Allardyce seems to count this as his era even though Unsworth was in charge but his appointment could have galvanised the players, so I'll give him this one)
Huddersfield (H) won 2-0
Appollon Limassol (A) won 3-0. Europa League, played a lot of kids against a bunch of Cypriots
Liverpool (A) drew 1-1, very fortunately.
Newcastle (A) won 1-0
Swansea (H) won 3-1
Chelsea (H) drew 0-0
West Brom (A) drew 0-0
Bournemouth (A) lost 1-2 and played badly
Man Utd (H) lost 0-2
Liverpool (A) lost 1-2 but played reasonably well
Spurs (A) lost 0-4, pathetically.
In the first 6 of these 12 matches Everton didn't play that well on the whole, but were tighter defensively, got good results - no defeats - and moved out of trouble in the league. In the second 6 they got a hard fought home draw with Chelsea and put in a decent performance in the Anfield cup tie but otherwise have been just as poor as they were pre-Allardyce. They have lost their best home grown player (maybe best player) since Wayne Rooney's original emergence, Ross Barkley and are slumped back in the league. OK, they are still 9th but 4 points behind the club above whereas they are precariously perched with 6 teams within 4 points of them, the lowest (Newcastle and Brighton) being very much in the relegation fight.
Don't get me wrong, I'm confident Everton will survive in the Premier League this year. After all, with 27 points from 23 matches an average of a point a game from here - normally relegation form - would probably make them safe by several points. And it is still very early days for Allardyce and his team, Craig Shakespeare and the short fat fella whose name I still don't like to mention.
But I question whether, other than the players initially trying a bit harder (I know they get paid a lot but it's human nature) there has been much improvement. The results have been broadly what you might expect. In the first 6 games the fixtures were easy, bar Liverpool away, where they got lucky. West Ham were awful at the time and have improved since; Huddersfield, Newcastle and Swansea some of the weakest ever Premier League sides. In the second six the fixtures have been harder: Chelsea, Man U, Liverpool and Spurs away. The disappointment was only getting one point from the West Brom and Bournemouth matches, even though they were both away.
Over the 12 games I can't see much Allardyce effect in terms of results, it seems to me it's just the way the fixtures have panned out.
The next 6 games are a more mixed bag: West Brom, Leicester and Crystal Palace at home, Arsenal, Watford and Burnley away. Leicester and Palace are looking quite strong recently and West Brom have got their first win in living memory (ok, since August). Watford started strongly but have gone flat, Burnley will still be hard at their place. This run might tell us more.
But it will be ok because we've signed a centre forward, a young (ish)Turk, Cenk Tosun. Won't it?
I hope his arrival helps, but I am worried by a stat that my son pointed out when he was signed. Yes Tosun had scored 8 goals in the Turkish Super-Lig this season. But so has Arouna Kone, who didn't exactly set fires alight in his time at Everton. And Kone is playing for Sivasspor, a weaker team than Besiktas, where Tosun played. Hmmm.
Yesterday against Spurs Tosun looked as if he could throw his weight around a bit and let the centre backs "know he's there". Maybe the idea is to soften them up before bringing on Calvert-Lewin, who looks to have more pace. In which case we need to not be losing 3-0 by that time....
At the moment I'm struggling to see that either Allardyce or Tosun are going to be the saviour, though they may help us to cement mid table safety. Disappointing after the progress of the previous 10 years or so but better than the alternative.
Maybe Everton need a witch doctor*.
*an obtuse reference to the bizarre story that Romelu Lukaku might sue Everton and/or it's major shareholder, Farhad Moshiri, who was quoted as saying that Everton met Lukaku's financial demands and he was 99% certain to sign a new contract until he spoke to a witch doctor (!?). Which upset Lukaku because he's a Catholic. Aaaargh - another snowflake!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)