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I'm struggling to decide whether Ron is brave or cowardly. Is he brave because he's risking a great reputation that he has recently built himself in order to take on a challenge of making a really ****, ageing squad better whereas if he had sat tight he may have had a big club calling, so his career really depends on how this job goes you'd imagine. Or is he cowardly because he thinks he can't get us any higher than 6th and it'll be a lot easier to take the 12th place team higher up the table (even if only by a place or two) than it would be the 6th placed team, whereas taking us backwards may have made his stock lower. Interesting to see how it goes, but two things I do know after this affair is that Everton are really, really annoying, and that I hate Merseyside as a whole, not just Liverpool. Exciting summer for us ahead though, under Poch we really never knew for sure where we would head, now we've been there before and we're a far more attractive proposition you'd like to think this time round it's going to be good fun.

Does anyone know what this magical 'ambition' actually is? What is the ambition of Everton? no one ever follows on from just saying 'ambition'. Is making the manager of the 6th placed team in the Premier League, the 6th highest paid manager in the world ambition? or just stupid?. A real big club would've gotten a real big club manager.

To be fair Chelsea's kit this year is quite different, very old school with the lion all over in, but Liverpool's has been virtually identical every season.

1 league title, 2 league cup's and a Champions League semi final at City (yes I know they had the resources to possibly do more but it wasn't a failure). But I look more at getting to a CL quarter final with Malaga after selling a lot of their best players amid financial crisis (which he decided to stay through) and only losing to Dortmund who went on to reach the final and if I remember rightly there was some controversial decisions that lead to them going out that night. He's not amazing, but he's very good, and has a CV way beyond most of what we've appointed in the past, so the dismissing of Pellegrini on here is surprising! But I do accept that his age may be a factor in why the club don't want him, just don't think it should mean that us as fans don't!

BREAKING NEWS: Update from Sky Sports News LIVE from Goodison Park and St Mary's: "It might be today, but probably will be tomorrow, we know absolutely f*ck all" Seriously bored of Sky. As for "we spoke to some Southampton fans on the street, here's what they had to say: "money talks, that's all he's going for", "yeah it's disappointing because he said he'd stay but we've rebuilt once we'll do it again", "don't know why he's going when he's built this team to be on the brink of something special but [cut off whatever he was going to say next]" and then shoot back to presenter in the studio "ooh they're not happy!" - Three fairly ambivalent reactions suggesting we're not that devastated but they still try and drum it up to be another crisis for us. **** off.

Simeone it is then

I know it sounds stupid because we were relegated and therefore lower than them for about 8 years, but obviously a large chunk of the Premier League era we spent outside it so in terms of seasons we've spent competing in the same league as Everton we have finished above them almost as often as they have us in the Premier League era (like I said, I'm talking about directly competing in the same league). Strange bunch, honestly didn't register on my radar until a couple of weeks back, now they're making Liverpool look almost likeable, almost...

For me too!! And I have absolutely no idea why, I don't even know that much about the guy but it just seems uninspiring for no apparent reason, strange.

Not a problem if you win all your home games, plus saves money on doing away trips when you know we won't win! Would sacrifice our league position for a cup win, as long as we don't get relegated.

Whilst Koeman doing a dramatic last minute change to become Holland manager would be hilarious in one sense, it'd probably just lead to Everton chucking more silly money at someone we'd like to replace him with, so probably not all that great for us anyway. Just want him to hurry up and **** off now, and enable us to get our replacement and settle down.

I bet they're gutted

Don't be silly! Everybody already knows everything about Everton's incredible history!!

The only appeal of Eddie Howe for me is to **** on someone else for a change, rather than having it done to us. But I really think we need someone who has managed in European competition before, risky to be taking a gamble on someone without that experience when there may be a lot of change over the summer.

Sounds familiar!

I agree with the path most are suggesting we follow, it's key to keep regenerating and developing wherever possible and therefore I completely approve the idea of going for a manager who is absolutely suave as they come. FdB whilst admittedly thinning on top does deal with it very well, but AVB's hair as previously mentioned is a bit of a work of art. Cocu is too creepy looking in my opinion, film villain-esque, and whilst Emery does top my list in terms of ability I question whether he really is capable of being our poster boy. Our team is full of beautiful specimens, it's only right that we appoint one to lead them.

Sky don't care about Everton, so I doubt it. The only reason we had Liverpool first game after the previous 'meltdown' was purely because it was Liverpool.

Because most of them on Merseyside are exactly that, a bit special

Would love Pellegrini, think he wants to stay in England if the opportunity is right, his job at City was good but not great, but his job at Malaga was fantastic and performances in Europe with a limited side were equally so, which is what we need. The same with Emery, but I do feel like both may not be interested. Laurent Blanc maybe an outside bet? Left PSG but as far as I'm aware not linked with anything at the moment unless I've missed that he's taken a job elsewhere! Feel like De Boer is the easy link for journalists because we've gone Dutch before. Knowing us it'll be someone not on the list of favourites with the bookies, which is the way I like it. As bad as it sounds I hope we don't go British, just nothing inspiring out there for me. We need someone who has handled a European campaign, in a state of transition as we may be this season, and the extra demands of 6 Europa games, we need someone who knows how to deal with it and then we'll be fine. Starting to get excited now.

The only thing irritating me more than the Koeman saga is seeing people on Twitter saying Giggs to Saints would be a good appointment. On what grounds!?!? Why does everyone assume this bloke is ready to be a Premier League manager just because he was a good player!? And how condescending that most think his route into football management should be with us. **** off.

Hasn't dawned on any Everton fans that having to almost triple the wages of the manager of the 6th best team in the Premier League just to get him suggests they aren't as 'big' as they think they are...

errr.. no he can't! May turn into a good centre half one day, but certainly can't play there at the moment given that in his first season at Arsenal he was deployed there on a number of occasions and was severely out of his depth to the point where it was sometimes painful to watch. Really liked him at full back when he was here, something different to the marauding full backs of today's premier league but very sturdy. As others have said though, only get him back if it's permanent, especially if we are seriously considering ourselves as competition for the big boys.

Think a lot of people on here are underestimating just how good Mane is. Admittedly has had off days aplenty this season, but even during those I still feel he's worth his place in the team because he still causes so many problems for the opposition. One of the very few players we have/will have sold since our return to the Premier League that I see as possibly irreplaceable. Thats not to say we won't cope and push on further, but we won't find someone as good as him I don't believe.

Les makes a very good point about last season not being a fluke. After the 2014/2015 season I was gutted as I thought our chance to come above Liverpool had come and gone and next season it would be back to normal. Of course I was wrong, and in fact we were able to jump Liverpool and obviously Leicester jumped everybody. So it actually suggests the top 4 are getting worse and have been for some time. The new managers coming into the country is understandably getting people excited, but as Les touches on they're all going to be going for the same type of players at the same time - have we ever had this many 'top' clubs in this country beginning a season with a manager in his first full season as we will do next season? (City, United, Liverpool). I think if Klopp is backed this summer (I'm not convinced he will be) then Liverpool may well challenge the top 4 this season, but it's going to be interesting just how well these new managers actually do.

Eto'o and Zlatan. But yes it does seem like the go-to story for journalists over the summer and is very rare nowadays.

I know it's easy to when you don't have £26million a year on the table but if he really is considering a move to China over Man United then it tells you all you need to know about this chump (if you didn't know already). It's hilarious that United are actually trying to sign a 35 year old target man who's played the last 4 years in one of the worst top division's in Europe - free transfer or not he's still going to cost an absolute fortune in wages and signing on fee with absolutely no resale value - good to see they aren't steering away from the 'quick fix' approach any time soon and will probably hang around the 4/5th mark for a few years yet.