Lighthouse

TBF he does have a point with this one. I'm sure all managers would promote youth if it was good enough but we haven't really had anything special in the youth team for a couple of seasons now. In short it's a cliché, everyone says it. Koeman is no better or worse than most other managers in that regard.

Well, yeah but let's not kid ourselves. If Koeman is leaving and has made it clear to the board, they are obviously going to be negotiating with other managers, whether it's official or not.

What's this got to do with Koeman? Locked!

There are people on this very forum who have spent years tirelessly posting about how we have a yoyo strategy, are aiming to finish 17th, wont relax until we get to 40 points, when we're actually 3rd in January. It's no great stretch to imagine someone producing a fake fixture list just to gain some e-fame.

Imagine if we still had Morgan, Lovren and Taider

I wouldn't call him names, he can be quite abrasive. Although hopefully his coaching style will 'rub off' well on the team. Not going to happen. He's the obvious choice but the lunatic fringe won't allow it.

Must be a full moon.

Emery. Just so we can give him the nickname 'Cloth'.

Whereas nobody leaves Everton for a bigger club: Except Rooney and Arteta and Lescott and Peinaar and Rodwell and Fellaini

Palace away not over the Xmas period. Must be fake.

No we didn't, a big chunk of our sales went towards paying off some of the debt built up under Cortese. I don't remember Saints ever making public statements (official or otherwise) saying we were going to spend big.

If by 'lack of ambition' you mean not making him one of the highest paid managers in Europe. Also I really wouldn't get too cocky about 'smashing your glass ceiling into a thousand pieces'. Van Gaal spent £250m at Utd and went nowhere. The competition is only getting stiffer. Arsenal, Man City, Chelsea and Utd will always be up there. Now you can add Spurs to the list, Liverpool are telling everyone this will be their year (for the 20th summer in a row) and even West Ham are chucking the money around. Saints, like it or not still have a better squad too. You have 3 players big clubs might be after, we have 6. 7 if you include Pelle possibly going to Juve. You're going to need that money just be in the top 8, not the top 4.

If by that they mean paying absurd amounts for some bang average players then they're probably right.

We could just reject any offers.

Lukaku is six years younger, he probably has three times the shelf life at this level. Plus, if Vardy has a £20m release clause, it doesn't matter if he is 'worth' £80m. I doubt Leicester saw this being an issue when they signed him from Fleetwood. More to the point if Everton think Rom is worth £65m what exactly do they think they're going to get for £100m? Nowhere near enough to build a title contending squad (yes, yes Leicester I know).

I think Ron is going to come across a couple of fairly sizable problems. 1) Everton's owners have put their cards on the table. If you're going to blow our wage offer out the water and make Koeman one of the top paid bosses in Europe, people are going to notice. That means when you go in for a player, the clubs, the agents and the players will all jack their prices up. Remember Damien Duff when he was at Blackburn? He was a decent, £10m player around 2003 but if Chelsea are bidding - £18m please. You could spend £100m and end up with Mangala, Lovren and Benteke. 2) This is a completely different job to the one he was expected to do at Saints, Feyenoord or AZ. They were all about team spirit and getting the most out of shrewd signings. Now suddenly he's going to have a dressing room full of bill big ******, all on big wages, demanding Champs League football, expecting to be first name on the team sheet etc. It's a completely different task to the one he's used to.

What's the point in a loan with an perm option. One of two things will happen 1) He will have a crap season, in which case there we don't want him here. 2) He will have a good season, say "thanks very much for the game time but I'm going to have to decline your 'option'" and return to Arsenal.

You mean the stuff he knows about Koeman wont make my hair curl?

There's only one man for the job

You're kidding right? If Everton really are prepared to chuck obscene amounts of money at Koeman, they will want results. Any muppet could bring them from 11th up to about 8th, their new owners will want to see that team pushing for a Champions League place and soon.

Always makes me sad when I see people laughing about Gazza's antics. Everyone likes a few drinks and a laugh but nobody really seemed to care about his mental health back then. Shearer has a point; if only he'd gone to Utd and played under Fergie, maybe he'd have a bit more self discipline.

But then, how do we know any of us truly exist???

Can't see it. People will say we can pay him more wages because the transfer fee was so low but it's not that simple. If we pay Austin £100k, Fonte will want it took, so will VVD, Bertrand, Mané, Forster. Suddenly we'll have doubled our wage bill over one player.

I will openly confess to not being a 'proper' England fan. Given choice, I would prefer them to win any given game or tournament but that's about as far as it goes. If this was as good as England could hope to achieve then I would be happy enough but it isn't. England's record in major tournaments would be pretty good for a country like Ukraine or Paraguay but not for the supposed biggest, richest league in the world.

Makes them look ambitious in the eyes of other potential transfer targets. An interesting strategy which could help them punch above their weight in the transfer window, though they will end up paying inflated fees.