Tuesday 4th February 2020 'Right In The Thick Of The Top 6'
Outgoing; Brendan Galloway hasn't progressed enough to break into our first team and was on £15k p/w so I moved him on to clear him off the wage bill. Bolton stumped up £700k to bring him in!
Outgoing; Another player that was cleaning up a big wage of £35k p/w in the reserves was 30 year old Cuco Martina, so he was another to be shipped out of the club! He joins Wigan for a fee of £400k.
Outgoing; One player I wanted to make sure I got rid of this window was the high earning Bernard! He has joined Sampdoria for a fee of £18.25 million, although I did have to agree to pay £40k of his salary to get him to move. However, this does leave us better off by £80k per week and the £18 million is a boost to the poor bank balance!
Outgoing Loan; I think Ademola Lookman has the potential to be a first team regular for us, but his opportunities have been very limited this season, so rather than him sit and stagnate, I sent him out on loan for the second half of the season where he should get more first team football. Southampton have taken him and promised to give him plenty of game time and will also take on his £31.5k wages for the rest of the year too!
Incoming; The board made some of the Bernard money available to me, so I have used it to bring in a youngster who will remain a mystery for now. He won't sign until the end of the season and all will be revealed then, but for now I can tell you he is the son of a legend of the game!
Incoming; Another youngster that I can reveal as he has joined us immediately for a fee of £700k. Sixteen year old Rayan Bischoff is tipped for a bright future in the game, so I have brought him in from RC Lens and will keep an eye on his development through our youth academy closely!
Incoming; The theme of this transfer window for me is clearly youth and looking to the future, and this signing is no different! I have paid out £525k to Ipswich to bring 16 year old centre back, Kenny Powell, to the club! Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking at him to become a world beater, especially with a determination attribute of 1!! However, he is good enough and has the potential to become a player that I will likely sell on for £2-3 million in the future and make a decent profit on!
Incoming Loan; Another English player added to the ranks (for the rest of the season at least)! James Ward-Prowse has struggled to work his way into the team since his move to Arsenal and they now have him on the transfer list! I feel he can offer us something so I have agreed a loan move for the rest of the season with an optional future fee to buy him of £13 million!
It only took us 21 seconds to get our noses in front as Cristian Pavon scored a wonderful solo effort and I thought we might go on to win this by a big margin! However, it turned out that was the only goal of the game in the end! I'll say one thing though...if Norwich could finish then we'd have been in trouble in this match...they missed some absolute sitters!
Theo Walcott terrorised his boyhood club with a stunning performance and two great goals as we recorded a big win over Southampton! They were poor, but we were also very impressive with a complete performance all round!
This was a terrible performance from us and we really weren't at the races at all for the first 80 minutes! By the time we actually woke up and decided to play, we'd left it too late to get back in the game! A poor result!
We were solid here and should have won by more than the 1 goal really, but we'll take this all day against a Leicester side that are also pushing to compete for the top 6 or 7 places in the league!
In three prior attempts, we hadn't beaten Wolves and I was starting to think they might become a bogey team for us! However, a solid performance here and a Richarlison goal on his return from injury ensured we record a good away win over them! This win was also out 13th of the season in the league, matching the same amount of games won in the whole of lasts season!
Odsonne Edouard was the star of the show as he bagged his first hat trick for the club on our way to an easy win against relegation threatened Cardiff.
There's no doubt about it, we are right in the thick of the chase for the European qualification spots this year and a top 6 finish can be seen as a realistic target to aim for with only 13 games remaining! There's still a long way to go, but we've put ourselves in a position to compete and have seen significant improvement on last season as we close in on last year's entire points tally and it's only February! With an 11 point gap back to Spurs in 9th, we will definitely be finishing in the top 8 this year for sure, unless we have a complete meltdown of course!
Tottenham signed Fatih Terim as their new manager! Chelsea signed Zinedine Zidane as their new manager! Leeds fired Ruben Comendez, and replaced him with Michel Preud'homme!
I think it's fair to say that Dominic Calvert-Lewin would absolutely tear up League One...Haha! The likes of Stekelenburg, Taylor, Schneiderlin and Lookman were all handed starts for this as I tried to rotate the squad a little against our lower league opponents! A debut was also handed to 16 year old centre back, Craig Scott-Gilmour as he came on at half time when we were already 4-0 up!
We'd already beaten Leicester 2-0 and 1-0 in the league this year, so the bookies had us as favourites to progress here! However, we'll have to do it via a replay after this game ended in a draw! Both goals came early as Leicester took the lead on 7 minutes, but were only ahead for 4 minutes until Barkley fired home a stunning half volley from about 20 yards to level things up!
We got the job done in the replay against Leicester. It was a closely contested match in all fairness with the difference between the two sides being our extra bit of quality in attack! Vardy looks past it to me and Leicester really need to focus on replacing him in the Summer as their number 1 priority in my opinion!
We simply battered Watford to progress to the next round! We had a total of 34 shots on goal, whilst they had 4, so it was a one sided game for the entire game! Richarlison turned in another man of the match performance as he continues to prove me right for keeping him around in the Summer!
With Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal all remaining in the competition, I was keen to avoid them. And we were lucky enough to as we go away to The Saints in the next round!
Fulham are having a decent season and are well clear of the relegation places where they were expected to be, but this is still a game I expected us to win and to only take a point is disappointing!
With Maarten Stekelenburg set to retire at the end of the season, this injury means he may never pull on the Everton shirt again!
David De Gea single handedly won Manchester United 3 points here! Really tough for us to swallow as we completely outplayed them and 12 of our 18 shot were on target but De Gea saved all of them...the *******!
Like us, West Ham are seriously challenging for a top 6 spot this year, so this was a massive win which put 5 points between us in 5th and them in 7th!
It was a case of 6th vs 5th as we took on Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, so again this was a massive win for us as we've now opened up a 4 point gap between us and Chelsea and as much as 8 points back to 7th placed West Ham! European qualification is looking a very strong possibility all of a sudden...will we bottle it?!
Sandro had it all his own way when Newcastle beat us 2-0 earlier in the season! However, we made sure it was an unhappy return to Goodison Park for the striker as we returned the favour here, with a good solid 2-0 victory of our own! Newcastle were never in this game as we dominated them from start to finish!
Leeds are fighting for their lives at the bottom end of the table so these sort of games have the potential to be banana skins as we continue our challenge to finish in the top 6! But we looked calm and collected out there as we cruised to a comfortable win. We took our foot off the gas a little at 3-0 up, but the damage was well and truly done by then anyway so I'm certainly not going to crucify the lads!
After a really good run of form, we have moved into 4th in the league with only 7 games remaining! Manchester United and Bournemouth are right on our tails for that 4th placed and final Champions League qualification spot, but we really should be looking at an absolute minimum of Europa League qualification now as we have opened up a 10 point gap to Chelsea in 7th! At the bottom, Cardiff and Watford look nailed on for relegation now, whilst at the top, Liverpool have a 16 point lead as they are absolutely ******* the division this year and are looking at back to back titles! *******!
Player Watch
Following his £38 million move to Manchester United in the Summer, poor old Tom Davies has sat and rotted in the reserves all season only getting 1 appearance in the league! Great bit of business there from the Red Devils!
Great progress this season mate and good to see you turning more of those draws into wins! Looking forward to seeing what/who you can attract when you get into Europe and hopefully the CL!
Tuesday 12th May 2020 'European Qualification In The Bag'
I bagged myself another new 3 year deal with the club and a pay rise to £65k per week! I'll also get a nice little bonus if I can get us into the Champions League!
Oh dear! Only the two North London clubs made bigger losses than us over the past 12 months! Incredibly, Manchester City turned in nearly £100 million profit...someone's got to be fiddling the books there surely?!
Defensively we were all over the ****** place in the first half and Southampton raced into a 2-0 lead inside 25 minutes! We got one back and it looked like we'd be in the game, only for them to quickly restore their two goal lead before the break! We were a lot better in the 2nd half, but the damage was done and we weren't able to close the gap and are dumped out of the FA Cup by the south coast side! Really annoyed to go out here as this was a very winnable tie that would have seen us into the semis!
****! ****! ****! For anyone who don't like swearing I apologise, but this is justified I feel and there was no other way to describe my reaction to this news! A massive blow to our hopes of qualifying for the Champions League as we lose our main man up front for the rest of the season! The frustrating thing is that he picked up the injury whilst on international duty with France!
Bournemouth came into this game 6th in the league and there's no doubt they are having a wonderful season! They probably even had outside hopes of making the top 4 this year, but within only 18 minutes we'd put any chances of that to bed as we raced into a 3-0 lead!! We took our foot off the gas a little after that and Bournemouth managed to get one goal back, but it turned out to be only a consolation as we saw the game out well!
Another blow as we lose Ross Barkley for the next 4 weeks!
I admit I went into this game with a relatively negative attitude and defensive mentality as my target for the game was not to lose! But to be fair to me, it was a case of mission accomplished as we scrape a draw against The ****! Richarlison came off the bench and only played 20 minutes but still managed to bag the man of the match award!
The injuries continue to pile up as we lose Seamus Coleman for a month!
For the first time in a Merseyside Derby since I took over, Liverpool didn't win!! This is a very good draw for us against a side that have won 28 of their 33 league games this season! A massive well done to all my lads and for once the fans haven't got to suffer the wrath of the Liverpool fans on Monday morning!
Another very respectable draw against one of the best teams in the league, although we could and should have won this one as we were actually the much better side!
We struggled to deal with Southampton in the FA Cup and it was the same old story here in the league! Are they becoming our bogey team? I'm not sure but we definitely play **** when we play them, I know that much!
Going into the final game of the season, European qualification is guaranteed for ourselves, Man Utd and Bournemouth! However, that final Champions League qualification spot in 4th is still very much up for grabs and any one of us can still take it! We play Norwich at Goodison Park, Man Utd play Wolves at home and Bournemouth take on Arsenal at home!
We finish off the season with a narrow 1-0 victory over Norwich who were fighting for their lives to stay up! Despite losing to us here, they just about managed to finish 17th and stay up...fair play to them! Stekelenburg is retiring at the end of the season so I brought him on right at the end to say goodbye to the fans!
Manchester United also managed to win on the last day of the season, which means we will be in the Europa League next season! Although we took potential Champions League qualification right down the last day of the season, I am still well chuffed with this achievement and would have taken it all day long at the start of the season!
The final league table shows our confirmed finish of 5th place! Our home form this year has been excellent with only 2 games lost and only 12 goals conceded at Goodison Park! Hopefully over the coming years we can build it into a true fortress, especially in European competition! Watford will be disappointed to have gone down as they definitely have a good enough squad to be at least a mid table side, whilst relegation was probably half expected for Cardiff and Leeds! Chelsea and Spurs will be bitterly disappointed to finish outside of the top 6, although Chelsea will still be in Europe after winning the Carabao Cup!
We bag nearly £31 million for finishing 5th, although the board were quick to keep my feet on the ground and remind me that we could have qualified for the Champions League!
Premier League; Liverpool Championship; Huddersfield League One; Fleetwood Town League Two; Mansfield Town FA Cup; Tottenham Carabao Cup; Chelsea Champions League; Barcelona Europa League; Arsenal
A good season for us as we exceed expectations and are praised in the media season review!
Richarlison finished up 3rd in the goalscoring rankings which is an amazing achievement for two reasons...not only did he miss a fair few games through injury this year, but he also doesn't play as a striker for us either!
Richarlison picked up the goal of the season award this year. He did score some bangers along the way but this was a special goal!
Wow, I wasn't expecting that! Before I've even ever won a Manager of the Month award, I am honoured with the Manager of the Year for this season!
The fans appreciate and recognise the much better season from Richarlison this year and make him their player of the year! He also takes the young player of the season as well and is finally showing why the club forked out over £40 million for him!
The only real surprise in the overall best 11 is Kenny getting the right back spot over Seamus Coleman!
The whole squad improved this year with a lot more players scoring higher average ratings with the amount of players finishing above 7.00 really standing out, Richarlison and Gylfi Sigurdsson recording the highest! Both Odsonne Edouard (who had a great first season in England) and Richarlison finished up as joint top scorers with 16 each, whilst Calvert-Lewin managed to reach double figures again despite a lot less football this year (although he did still get his fair share)! Ross Barkley enjoyed his first season back at the club chipping in with 9 goals and 6 assists, whilst Cristian Pavon again had a good season and his stock has increased significantly again! The new defenders that came in have been brilliant and did the exact job they were brought in to do, tighten things up and ensure we concede less goals! Lascelles has been a brilliant captain and was always my first choice at centre back and he paired well with both Mina and Dunk throughout the season! Michael Keane saw his chances limited this year as 4th choice centre back and may be leaving the club in the Summer as I appreciate he is good enough to get into a lot of other Premier League starting lineups!
My Player of the Year; Jamaal Lascelles My Young Player of the Year; Odsonne Edouard Must Do Better; James McCarthy Most Disappointing Player; Nobody!
As far as the commercial summary goes, the £10 million we lost on broadcast revenues, we made up in prize money! Sponsorship was about the same again and brought in nearly £50 million!
So the finances at the end of the season look decent enough despite us being massively in the red all year!
With a little bit of money now in the bank, I asked the board to improve the youth facilities and junior coaching!
Transfer spend over the past season shows that we have made more profit than anyone else in the division!
I have another hefty transfer budget to play with this Summer to improve the squad for European competition next year! I'm not sure it would have been this high had we not finished in the top 6, but I'm grateful for it for sure!
Our wages to turnover rate has gone down by 1% over the last year, but we remain 5th in this table. Our wage bill is £150 million against a turnover of £323 million!
Summer Plans; After getting rid of most of the dead wood and older players over the past year, I don't have too much clearing out to do this Summer! However, due to a number of our players having great seasons, I wouldn't be surprised to see a few of our stars in demand and some offers come in and I will have to weigh those up on an individual basis at the time! I will more than likely move on Michael Keane as he deserves better than sitting in the reserves all year, but just isn't going to get in above Lascelles, Mina and Dunk! He will need replacing if he does leave though! Morgan Schneiderlin is another player that has fallen out of favour with me and is taking home a massive £120k per week so I'll be looking to offload him too...and again he will need replacing! Theo Walcott is another player who is taking home huge wages and I might need to make a decision over him as well, whilst a new goalkeeper is essential with Stekelenburg retiring! Finally, I definitely feel we can strengthen at right back and that will be a position I will pay some attention to over the Summer, but I won't sign someone for the sake of it as we can continue with Coleman and Kenny in that position if need be!
Merseyside - Blue or Red?
Well, with Liverpool lifting another league title, it's fair to say it's definitely still red for now! However, we managed to ****** a draw in one of the Merseyside derbies this season and we have established ourselves a bit more with our 5th placed finish, so the gap is closing, if only very slowly!
Teaser; a couple of massive signings have been made during this transfer window that could change the fortunes of the club next season and make us genuine challengers for the top 4! Here's hoping anyway!
Cheers mate! The two players I've brought in have cost me £55 million between them and could genuinely be game changers for us! I should get an update out later today after work when I will reveal all!
haven't commented in a while but following your stories! Excellent 2nd season, Hopefully you can have a good run in the Europa league too! Looking forward to seeing these signings!
Dejan Joveljic - ST - Hannover - Agreed £17 million fee - Couldn't agree personal terms with player. He is currently on £11k p/w and was looking for £140k+ to join us...personally I think he was taking the ****! Mario Gaspar - RB - Villarreal - Agreed £10.75 million fee - Couldn't agree personal terms with player. He wanted £90k+ p/w and I wasn't willing to pay him that! Chris Smalling - CB - Manchester United - Agreed £11.5 million fee - Couldn't agree personal terms with player. Wasn't willing to meet his £100k+ p/w salary demands! Ruben Neves - CM - Wolves - Couldn't agree fee with Wolves...they wanted over £80 million for him!
Bid Rejected; I like Eddie Howe, but he's having a laugh with this bid for Odsonne Edouard! I quickly told him he'll need to at least double it for me to even consider selling him!
Outgoing; I said Michael Keane would be leaving the club this Summer and he is the first out the door. I put him up for transfer and Stoke quickly came in and were willing to pay £7.5 million to take him off our hands! I wish the lad well and hope he has a successful spell in Stoke!
Outgoing; Morgan Schneiderlin was on massive money here (£120k p/w) and wasn't a first team regular starter, so I was keen to move him on. He has returned to Southampton where he spent many happy years and will likely finish his career there now. They have paid us £2.7 million for his return!
Outgoing; Mason Holgate was a player I tried to sell last Summer but he ended up out on loan instead. This year, however, I have been successful in offloading the centre back to Brighton for a fee of £16.5 million!
Outgoing Loan; I'm keen to improve the right back role this season, but I didn't want to sell Jonjoe Kenny as he could still improve with him only being 23 years old. So I've sent him out to Leeds for the season where he'll be a first team regular!
Incoming; First of all, I need to announce the signing that I actually made back in the January transfer window but who has only just joined the club (the one I kept a mystery remember). Well I mentioned in Jan that he was the son of a footballing legend...please welcome 19 year old, Khephren Thuram....son of Lillian. He looks good for 19 years old and will probably act as a fringe player this season, trying to break his way into the first team and gain more experience, but I have high hopes for him emulating his father one day! I forked out £6.5 million to bring him here from AS Monaco.
Incoming; My first signing of the Summer was a youngster with the future in mind. I raided Dutch side, AZ, for their promising 17 year old central midfielder, Arthur Versteeg. He definitely has potential and hopefully with good coaching and our excellent facilities, he can reach that and become a very good player! I paid £1.9 million to bring him here! AZ will get another £300k once he makes 50 league appearances for us too!
Incoming; I met the whopping £35 million minimum fee release clause in the contract of Torino midfielder Exequiel Palacios! The 21 year old is already an accomplished playmaker in the middle of the park and has been thriving in Italy over the past couple of years despite his young age! I have brought him here in the hope I can build the team around him for years to come!
Incoming; As I continued my spending spree, I forked out another £19.5 million for Manchester United's Anthony Martial!! A fantastic signing at a bargain price as well...I couldn't believe it when I saw he was transfer listed and when I saw the price tag it was a no brainer for me! Although he cost less than Palacios, Martial has to be considered our marquee signing of the Summer!!
Incoming Loan; After allowing Jonjoe Kenny to go out on loan, it was imperative that I brought in a right back. With funds running low after the big signings this Summer, I opted for a loan move and have brought in Leverkusen player, Mitchell Weiser, for the season! If he has a fantastic season for us, then I have the option to buy him for £30 million at the end of the campaign.
Promoted Player; Although not strictly a new signing, I am including this here as it is a new player added to the first team squad for the upcoming season. I have introduced 19 year old midfielder Beni Baningime to the first team as I feel he is good enough and ready for the step up and am willing to give him a shot. We'll see how he gets on.
There have been some massive deals in the Premier League this Summer, with the biggest of all being Dybala's move to Manchester United which was worth nearly £150 million!! Dele Alli moved to Manchester City in the biggest Premier League internal move. In total, there were 9 transfers which were worth £50 million or more!!
Wow, Martial was worth the waiting for! This save has been that enjoyable to read, its given me inspiration to do a similar one! Can't wait for the next update
Outgoing Loan; I've been trying to offload Theo Walcott this Summer due to his age and massive wages, but there have been no takers. So instead he leaves the club on loan and is heading to Portugal for the season. It will at least get £55k of his wages off the bill as Rio Ave will cover 50% of his salary for the year!
Europa League football this coming season should help us start to move back up the rankings!
Talking of Europe, BREXIT has finally happened!
No changes to the captaincy for the upcoming season!
Looking at the squad for the upcoming season, I imagine this to be my first choice starting 11. Some of the positions have 2 players as I'm really torn as to who will be first in line and it's likely to come down to form throughout the season...
GK - Pickford RB - Coleman/Weiser CB - Lascelles CB - Mina/Dunk LB - Digne DM - Gueye MC - Palacios/Sigurdsson MC - Barkley/Vlasic AMR - Pavon AML - Richarlison/Martial ST - Edouard/Richarlison/Martial
The board's expectations are here and I think it's fair of them to expect a Europa League qualification place in the league at least, considering the money we have spent and the fact we definitely have a better team than 2 years ago when I took over! In Europe, they want us to at least get through the group stage, which will be highly dependant on the draw we get!
We're at home to newly promoted West Brom on the opening day of the season, before going to Leicester for our first away game! The first Merseyside Derby of the new season is only 4 games in!
Although still predicted a 7th placed finish, the bookies obviously feel like we're closing in on the big boys as they have slashed our odds this season to 25/1!
After his good goalscoring record last season, Richarlison is this year amongst the favourites for the Premier League Golden Boot!
Looking at the season preview, I think every other striker in the league should feel aggrieved that Christian Eriksen, a midfielder, makes the dream 11 up front!
It was a good pre season where we finished undefeated in 6 games. Good wins over Sligo Rovers and RB Salzburg either side of a tour of the US where we played Wayne Rooney's DC United, and a very respectable draw with Napoli in there as well!
Tuesday 15th September 2020 'Three Wins From Three, Followed By No Wins In Three'
Our commercial income is down £4 million on last year, but we remain 7th in the table! The likes of Man City and Man Utd are making nearly double what we are though and all the time that is the case, they will have far more muscle than us in the transfer windows!
It only took 9 minutes for Anthony Martial to score a debut goal and put us in front here! It was a terrific volley and he has immediately excited the fans after pulling on the Everton shirt in a competitive game for the first time! Kemar Roofe was a tranfer target of ours last Summer and he levelled things up for West Brom with their first shot of the game! However, Sigurdsson soon had us back in front, before Martial added his second early in the second half with a powerful left footed drive into the bottom corner! And only a couple of minutes after that, Martial capped off the perfect debut by completing his hat trick when he hammered home from an inch perfect cross from Pavon! He wasn't done there either as he added a 4th late on after dribbling through 3 players in the West Brom defence before slotting past the West Brom keeper from close range! A perfect opening day of the season!
It wasn't all good news from the West Brom game though as we lose Ross Barkley for 4 weeks after he limped off injured!
Anthony Martial picked up where he left off, scoring our opening goal again! He also provided the assist for Vlasic's first goal of the season as well! We were definitely the better side here and deserved the win, but were slightly fortunate in the end as Leicester had a late goal which would have been an equalizer disallowed via VAR for offside, the correct decision but there was only inches in it! After that, they looked deflated and Richarlison was able to capitalize and bag his first goal of the season! Good start lads, 2 wins from 2!
Bit of an off day for our attackers as they only managed to put one goal away from 27 attempts! Still, the defence was nice and sturdy and kept a clean sheet which ensured we kept up our 100% start to the season!
After 3 straight wins in the league, our fierce rivals brought us back down to earth with an earth shuddering bump!! Although the stats suggested a close game with the sides sharing 50% possession each and 18 attempts at goal each, the scoreline told a very different story! That story being that Liverpool are still so much better than us in the attacking department and we just can't live with them! Hope the fans understand I am just as frustrated as them at not being able to win a Merseyside Derby in 5 attempts now, but hopefully I can give them something to smile about in our next game!
We really should have won this game as we were dominant throughout, but failed to take our chances! Jack Clarke looked like he'd scored his first goal for the club and netted us a winner in the 85th minute, only for the goal to be disallowed for offside!
We can't really have any complaints here as Manchester United were the much better side for most of the game. We had our moments late on when we were chasing the game and Exequiel Palacios's first goal for the club gave us hope of a comeback. Richarlison then netted for the equalizer only for it to be disallowed for offside! As we chased the game and threw everyone forward, United caught us on the break and were able to net a 3rd and put the game to bed!
Charlie Taylor will miss around a month through injury!
After starting the season with 3 wins from our opening 3 games, we now find ourselves on a 3 game run without winning! However, we can take solace from the fact that we have played Liverpool and Manchester United away from home in those games! Our campaign has probably gone true to form so far as we've beat the teams I'd expect us to beat and lost the games I'd expect us to lose! It means we are 8th at this early stage, but there's a long way to go yet and it will take at least another 6 or 7 games before the league really starts to take shape!
Due to our participation in the Europa League this season, we have the luxury of entering the Carabao Cup a round later! It's Leicester that will visit Goodison Park in the 3rd round!
We were 3rd seeds in the Europa League, so could have been handed a tough draw! However, we can't complain with this as we've been handed a group that I'd actually make us favourites to win! Our most difficult fixture is likely to be a hostile trip to Russia!
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