Well I don’t know about you, but if you wanna look to one of the best pieces of business in the summer transfer window look no further than the blue half of Merseyside.
Mastermind Moyes didn’t do half bad this window, snapping up a few deals and disposing of some of the dead weight (no disrespect) but did they do the best business? Decide for yourself…….
IN:
Steven Naismith from Rangers - Free
Steven Pienaar from Tottenham - £4.5m
Ben McLaughlin from Dundalk - Undisclosed Fee
Kevin Mirallas from Olympiakos - £6m
Brian Oviedo from - £3.2m
Matty Kennedy - £250k
Vadis Odjidja-Ofoe - Season-long Loan
OUT:
Marcus Hannehman - Released
James McFadden - Released
Femi Orenuga - Released
Connor Roberts - Released
Adam Davies -Released
Toto Nsiala to Accrington Stanley - Free
Adam Forshaw to Brentford - Undisclosed Fee
James Wallace to Tranmere - Undisclosed Fee
João Silva to Levski Sofia - Undisclosed Fee
Tim Cahill to New York Red Bulls - £1m
Joseph Yobo to Fenerbache - Undisclosed Fee
Jack Rodwell to Manchester City - £12m
Coming from an Evertonian’s point of view, I am myself delighted as are most Evertonians with the deals we have done, but have we done the best piece of business?
Arguments from an overhauled QPR, Chelsea, Southampton (who to be fair done incredibly well to snap up Gaston Ramirez) and a Clint Dempsey led Tottenham will not be far behind but in the case of how David Moyes has bided his time and money, he has done exceptionally well. Maybe it would’ve been nice to flex our loan bones a little bit more, a move for a decent playmaker wouldn’t have been bad….*hints at Lewis Holtby*.
But nevertheless we finally have cover in areas, Kevin Mirallas (who by the way, cost 6 MILLION POUNDS!!) should add that spark we’ve been looking for up top, Steven Naismith will be looking to recreate that partnership with Jelavic, which was crafted at a now depleted Rangers and our little gem Peanuts will be doing what he does best on that left hand side.
Of course there was despair across Merseyside when the great Tim Cahill departed to America, not so much for Jack Rodwell but nevertheless a fine young player who most of the Evertonians wished well for his career.
The fact that we spent less than 15 million on the investments makes in my opinion makes Everton’s transfer window look like one of the most well handled. We aren’t a team to massively overspend, you wont see us splashing out £16 million on Javi Garcia or banging out £32 million on Eden Hazard, but you will find that David Moyes will always be someone who creates something out of nothing, turning under £20 million into 7 players who we could all be seeing a lot more of in the future.
Everyone has been aware of the financial trouble which has been clear to most Everton fans (including myself) in recent months but most of us have kept optimistic and been faithful to the club in frustrating times but I think after this summer optimism has grown once again.
A blistering start to the Premier League season has been welcomed after our poor starts in recent years, as a Marouane Fellaini header gave us a narrow win over a Robin Van Persie included Manchester United and a battering of Aston Villa was a sigh of relief over whether we’d carry on our form from last season.
Are we going to do more genius business in January? Will we manage to strengthen our squad even more? Will our gem from across the pond return once again, but this time for good?
We’ll have to wait and see, but a little bit of advice for all you Evertonians. Get the passports out, I have a feeling they’ll be getting scanned a few more times than they have in recent years. Who knows, maybe in 2013 we could even take a trip to down an over-familiar Wembley Way.
Lets hope it doesn’t end the way it did last time…..
Written by Matty Hughes
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