tajjuk

Can they? Not sure they are a bottomless pit of money, they also probably paid Rooney like £20 million this year and are apparently still going to be paying his wages if he moves to DC, spent £24 million on Klaasen and the £45 million on Siggurdsson who worked out at about £11 million per goal. All that makes Carrillo look cheap to me. He wins football matches, he got a provincial Portuguese from the 2nd division up challenging with Portugal's big three, broke records at Olympiakos, almost performed a miracle at Hull and gave Watford their best ever start (which basically kept them up as they were pretty much in relegation form for the rest of the season). His loyalty is crap but he's clearly a good manager. But I doubt he'll take Everton into the top 6, the gap is too big and their squad is still a bit aging and average, to close that gap they'll have to unearth some talents that turn out to be much better than expected, much like we need to do and did before. The only way anyone out of the top 6 breaks into the top 6 right now is Man City levels of investment, or finding 3-4 players that are a lot better than they appear and they have wonder seasons, and they drag the rest of the squad with them. Newcastle did it a few years back IIRC, we did it with the likes of Mane, Wanyama etc. and that is pretty much how Leicester did it with Vardy and Mahrez playing like world beaters.

I doubt Hughes would want Everton either at the moment, seems to have an affinity with us and what do you get with Everton at the moment, an underperforming and aging squad, a moany fanbase and an owner expecting the moon by the looks of things. Everton want top 6 with exciting football, that is a big ask for any manager. I dislike Allarydyce intensely and I'm pretty sure most managers could have steered Everton to safety, but it smacks of ungratefulness to me. Just like I am not a huge Hughes fan, but I support giving him the job because it's the right thing to do because he's earned that chance.

I'd prefer we didn't, a club our size is unlikely to get some huge sum for it anyway so not sure the cash income is compensation for the annoyance to fans.

Arsenal? They are the only ones I can think of who have probably played academy graduates a lot. Iwobi, Wilshere, Maitland-Nisles, Nketiah, Reiss-Nelson and Willock are all players that have appeared in the league for them this year and are from their academy.

Austin being 'not good' is such a complete load of tosh. And we are not going to get rid of 18 members of the first team squad, how the hell would we ever replace them? We'd have like 6 first teamers left.

Just for interest, based on whoscored ratings this season - Nick Pope (6.93) Lowton (6.97) Tomkins (7.31) Tarkowski (7.22) Ward (6.89) Zaha (7.38 ) Ndidi (7.14) Mahrez (7.28 ) Loftus-Cheek (7.08 ) Arnautovic (7.08 ) Vardy (6.98 )

£36 million is a lot for us (it also might be Euros so actually less) but the in the grand scheme of things and today;s transfer market it's not actually that much for most PL clubs. We'd be over paying for him probably but it basically means if we really want him and the player wants to come then Celta Vigo can't charge a really high fee.

Tuchel is PSG coach.

I think Bertrand might go if we receive the right offer for him, plenty of rumours around this one. Cedric I think we will fight to hang on to. IF Hughes is appointed manager as expected, then I think Hughes likes long so I suspect he will stay, conversely I think Hughes does not rate Carillo and he will end up going out on loan to a European club or South American club. Again Boufal has said he wants to return to France and has had a falling out with Hughes, so that one looks pretty likely if we can find the right buyer. Yoshida and Gabbi may be outs of their own accord due to issues wanting to go home. Pied is out of contract. I think Targett and Reed will want to know if they are going to get game time, if not they might go. Clasie hasn't been here and called his time here 'horrible' so he'll be off So my potential outs would be - Very Probably will leave - Bertrand (to big club for £25 million), Boufal (back to France), Pied (out of contract), Carillo (out on loan), Clasie (to Brugge or back to Holland) Might leave - Gabbiadini (homesick wife), Yoshida (return home or end career somewhere) Everyone else will probably stay, If we are lucky we might be able to raise £40 million in sales, so potentially if you add VVD money could have at least £80-90 to re-invest. But we probably won't spend that much.

Austin is by far our best striker, he is the most reliable source of goals we have, he just gets injured. But if he had been played from the start of the season, he would have played way more games had over 30 league games this season. Pellegrino didn't start him in the league until the 4-1 win over Everton (where he scored twice), so he was fit and available for 11 league games before that and barely played, coming off the bench a handful of times. I also get the impression Huges likes Long so he'll stay. Gabbi will be down to whether he wants to stay I reckon and any family problems. Carrillo we will struggle to give away, might get him to go on loan. I reckon next year we'll still have Long, Austin, + one new striker and maybe still Gabbi.

1 in 3 for us and that is with a lot of meaningless sub appearances and two fairly negative managers. Even with his injury problems, it would be madness to get rid of a proven PL scorer. Sturridge has played 14 league games in the last two years, Austin has played 38 so it's no comparison at all. He appeared 23 times this season and Pellegrino sat him of the bench for the first 10 games of the season, not playing him so he could have had closer to 30 league games which is hardly a 'perennial sick note'. ------------------------------ We are also not going to ship anywhere near as many as people are suggesting here. Can't see more than about 3-4 actually being sold and a few of the ones out of contract will leave.

Still find it odd no one has taken Ziyech yet, he seems to get better and better. 178 games in Holland, 59 goals and 66 assists from midfield. 16 goals, 26 assists from 60 games for Ajax over the last 2 seasons.

Austin? Our top scorer and only guy that looks likely to score goals regularly, that would be stupid IMO.

Not buying Forster is on nearly £100k a week, sounds like utter BS to me. Even at his best he was nowhere near one of our best players and the club doesn't pay those sort of wages, highest earner would have been VVD and probably on £60 - 70k a week.

His own finishing is pretty awful as well though, over the last two years he has consistently missed big chances, probably my biggest criticism of him is that's he's one of our main attacking players but does not score enough. He was also tosh for most of the seasons and tosh all last season, these last 5 or 6 games seem closer to his old self of a few years ago, but is it a little blip before he returns to his norm or is it a rejuvenated Tadic under new management?

Ahead of Cech no, ahead of Karius and Mingolet, easily. Liverpool are in the Champions League final despite their keepers not because of them, Karius is still awful and a walking mistake machine even if he has done better (by low standards) recently. He let a shot go right through his hands early on against Roma, and it hit the bar, had that gone in then the game could have been completely different. Also as others have mentioned above he seems a decent leader and commanding at the back, which neither of the Liverpool keepers are. But I can't see this happening, he's just established himself here after being a number 2 for like the last 4-5 years and is starting to show his full potential seen at Reading, can' see him jeopardising that right now.

Wow a Liverpool player won it, shock. Should have a panel of experts, impartial ones, not ex-Liverpool or Man Utd players and get an actual objective vote not how many people in China voted.

I didn't really want Hughes and I am still doubtful he will get us punching above our weight, however - 1. Any faffing around now for a new manager would set us back for transfers, we need to overhaul the squad and identify our targets early. 2. He deserves it, I think many of us thought it was too late and we are down. 3. The players seem to get on well with him and have reacted to his management. 4. He has previously managed to turn smaller teams into pushing nearer the top 6 in Fulham and Blackburn IIRC.

Getting a hamstring injury is his fault now? The club look after his conditioning, if they didn't think he was fit enough they'd make him fitter, he is just injury prone. He's still IMO been our most consistent and best player when he's played, and has been vital to the points we have actually won this season, the team looks wholly better with him up front than without him. In the 9 league games he started we - Won 3 Drew 4 Lost 2 Scored 12 So 1.44 points per game. 1.33 goals per game. In the other 28 games we managed - 0.82 points per game 0.89 goals per game.

Goal has to be Boufal's Player I am going Austin, I think if he had been fit the whole season we would have been much higher, he must have a better points per game ratio for games he's played in than the other players.

We might get smashed but I can't see it being by more than 4, but I can't honestly see Swansea scoring more than 1 anyway. Their confidence is going to be rock bottom, they are down and they know it, very difficult to motivate a side on the basis of a 10 goal swing happening.

He really isn't, he's been bad for a while, he's made a mistake everytime I see time and he consistently goes to ground even in the box, he is also part of the joint worst defence in the league, even though they have a rated England keeper. Plus Lambert has had them playing pretty defensively since he took over and they still have conceded that many goals. ----------------- As for Cedric, most full backs are short and centre-forwards who are good in the air pulling onto them is fairly common, it;s the job of the centre-backs to prevent that but we lack leadership there. I don't think we'll find a better right back without spending a lot, he just needs to work on his attacking play, he's not bad at beating a man and gets into plenty of good positions with good movement but his final ball is often awful. But he's quick, works very hard, runs all day, technically is sound (aside the crossing) and is a very good defender 1v1.

I think Cedric is actually a lot better defensively than he is going forward. He's very solid defensively IMO, not many beat him and he covers for the centre-backs A LOT, but going forward his crossing is often woeful and his decision making is poor.

Should be noted that Swansea have only managed to score more than 2 goals in a league game twice this season, vs Arsenal and West Ham.

Keane was pretty average at best for Everton. Not sure he's been any better Hoedt (probably worse), he cost more and I reckon Hoedt has more potential to get better as it was his first year in the league whereas Keane has plenty of PL experience. Pickford was good, but to be honest if we'd just had McCarthy in all season I doubt Pickford would have done much better, he's still very much a potential keeper and has plenty of mistakes in him. And Sigurdsson has managed 4 goals and 3 assists this year. Which is the same assists and two less goals than Tadic this year, but he cost £45 million. So based on that I doubt we'd be much better off, and we'd have a lot less money. Maguire was very good though. I see Vydra is fast becoming the new Darren Huckerby, too good for the Championship, not good enough for the PL.