Sleepless In Seattle

The Everton squad is off to a training camp in Seattle ahead of a series of games on a tour of North America. Nice place to be based. Bit like the UK in terms of weather, but unlike anywhere in England, there's plenty of space. That's not to say Seattle is a city full of space. Some genius stuck the mother of all freeways right through the middle of it years back cutting off the waterfront from the main downtown cityscape. And it does have some of the worst traffic jams in the USA outside LA.

That aside, I love the place.

The travelling squad is pretty much a case of 'as you were' in terms of unenlightening additions and no obvious replacements for the departed Castillo, Van der Meyde, and Valente. You could easily argue with a shrug of the shoulders 'so what we managed without them for most of last season', which has validity. However, by May 2009, Everton were obviously running on empty with the squad stretched to the limit demonstrating our blatant need for reinforcements.

Outside of the re-signing of Jo, there have been no further additions. I refuse to count the youngsters we've poached from youth schemes away from our own. The rumours have run their course and we've not signed M'Bia, Tuncay, Owen, Hunt, Reo-Coker, Eagles, Defour or Moutinho. The Naughton story drags along through the dirt and I've lost complete interest in that now. The fact that it's 10 days or more since a concrete offer was made, countered by Spurs and followed by a whole series of increasingly bizarre scenarios even including another lad at Sheffield called Kyle. It does make you wonder what on earth the clubs, agents and players are up to.

All of which effectively leaves us with a starting 11 come August 15th of Howard, Hibbo, Lescott, Yobo, Baines, Fellaini, Neville, Pienaar, Osman, Jo and Saha. The weak link remains Hibbert and Osman. It's as obvious now as it was 4 years ago.

Watford sign Slovenian defender

A headline on the BBC's football page this morning. Priceless. It completely sums up the madness and nonsense of modern-day football, squads and the transfers that clubs partake in, especially at this time of year.

At the end of last week, City finally put a concrete offer for Lescott on the table. It was one facet of a busy week faxing, texting and calling in offers for various players on Mark Hughes' hitlist. As the City manager and staff are all in South Africa, I assume someone in the purchasing department at Eastlands is sending out these offers? They managed to secure the services of Adebayor despite reservations coming out of Abebayor's country compatriots in Togo. It was one of the more ridiculous reasons for delaying signing a deal to make yourself a multi-millionaire, but Adebayor did say that we was thinking things over because he wasn't sure what the people back in his homeland would think of a move from Arsenal to City. Apparently City's reputation for being the home of comedy extends all the way to darkest Africa.

Eventually the lure of £150,000 a week over-ruled any possible feelings of embarrassment for Adebaoyor and he signed on with City. Either that or the hoped-for offers from Inter / AC Milan never arrived...

So we wait for a similar thing with Joleon. £15 million is not enough. I still think we'll sell for about £17m, more so if City chuck in a player. Moyes has made one of those statements that is without meaning and may well come back to haunt him along the lines of 'nobody will be leaving Everton', which was then downgraded to 'nobody will be leaving Everton without me knowing about it'. Lets face it, IF City up their offer and Joleon is then pushed to ask for a move, he's gone. What we need to do is ensure we have enough money coming in and enough time to find a replacement.

Season Ticket

New season ticket, or card, arrived on Thursday. No expense spared on design with this thing but at least the front side is different from last season and it is, according to a West Ham supporting friend of my, better than theirs. And a good deal cheaper.

Ultimately the look of the card doesn't matter. As long as the technology within works and it opens the turnstiles on August 15th, that's what really counts. Having said that, the card is part of the identity business and I reckon with over 20,000 sold, a little bit more imagination could be put into the card's appearance.

Rock 'n Roll Stars

Went to see Oasis at Wembley Stadium on Sunday. Not remotely keen on big stadium venues but sadly these days it is likely that this will be the only way you'll get to see the biggest bands on the planet.

You know what you're going to get with Oasis and they delivered. A series of anthems punctuated by Liam's disappearances backstage allowing Noel to play some semi-acoustic tracks. The crowd pitchside could have been pulled off an 80s football terrace - albeit with a handful girls thrown in to prove this is the 21st Century. Any show that kicks of with Rock 'n Roll Star is alright with me and the whole 105 minutes turned into a one-band karaoke night. Leicester's finest Kasabian proved immediate support but it is with the earlier line-ups that the big stadiums get shown up. Broad daylight and banks of empty seats just doesn't work.

Swine Flu Derails Trade Rumours

With possibly the best rumour-to-reality story of the close-season, it would appear that Micah Richard, far from being at Goodison Park this week to seal a deal to move to Everton, was in fact in an isolation tent somewhere in Manchester having contracted Swine Flu on a holiday to Cyprus. It is one of those moments when the truth is better than the fiction (the fiction being Richards' transfer to Everton). The good news is that Richards is OK and will recover in time - we hope - to be the subject of more transfer links next week.

I wonder if he invoked the government's recommendation that all people who think they have swine flu can now call in sick for two weeks.

Elsewhere, our attempts to sign Sheffield United's tidy-looking right back, Kyle Naughton, could be scuppered by a late bid from.... Tottenham. Now there's a surprise. If there is a team with in England with a less structured approach to signing players for their bloated squad than Newcastle, it is Tott, and now with 'wheeler-dealer' Harry Redknapp making those decisions, it will be even less structured. This is the club that sold right-back Pascal Chimbonda to Sunderland in July 2008 only to re-sign the bloke in the January transfer window. Chimbonda apparently didn't like the North East (nobody is going to criticise him for that), but Tott didn't need him and he spend most of the remainder of the 09 season on the bench. He's still there. As is Alan Hutton and Chris Gunter.

Tott will do the usual, offer greater wages and the virtues of living the dream in the Smoke. It's up to young Naughton to see the light and take the short ride across the M62 and join a club where he'll play every week for a good manager and not end up each Saturday in a Essex night club with Ledley King.

Sky Ruins My Plans

It's about this time every year that I suddenly find out that, having shelled out £500 for a season ticket, I'm about to lose at least 4 matches before Xmas courtesy of Sky's TV fraternity. The fixture list gets decimated as Sky and newly arrived ESPN start carving up matches left, right and centre, kindly handing new kick off times like 1948hrs or Saturday at 1726hrs.

Having just checked out the changes I wasn't surprised to see the home Derby switched to some nonsense time around lunch one weekend, but the opener against Arsenal is now an ESPN game at 1715.

Assuming all the Micah Richards rumours are true, we should have a new look back line on August 15th. Crossing Tower Bridge in Central London this afternoon, Micah Richards approached me wearing a new Le Cock top with the number 23 on the back and asked me if I thought his bum looked big in white.

Gary Ablett

I remember first hearing that Everton were about to sign Gary Ablett. I was lucky enough to be somewhere in a lounge at Goodison when word came via one of those characters that inhabit the Everton lounges - always in the know - that 'Howard' had just told him we'd paid half-a-mill for "a defender from over there".

Knowing it wouldn't be anyone who was any good - even in the dire Souness-led times - after much shouting and argument, the decision was that we'd signed Barry Venison. Maybe we needed cover at full-back in 92/93? I can't remember now. I'm sure we had Ratcliffe hanging in there plus Martin Keown and probably Neil McDonald still. By the time we left the club that evening, rumours having flown, we had (in our own minds) signed Venison and somehow, Jan Molby. In the end it was all nonsense and it says a lot about Gary Ablett's reputation that when we all found out it wasn't Venison there were some disappointed sighs that night in town.

Ablett it turns out was a good signing. Without completely forgetting his unfortunate red background, he did well for us and was a key component of the '95 Wembley side, becoming (I think) the first player to win the FA Cup with both Liverpool and Everton. I may have just made that bit up.

In his post-playing career, Ablett has turned himself into a well respected coach having spells at Everton and Liverpool, most recently at Anfield until the FSW 'rejigged' his backroom team early in 2009. Today, Ablett took his first step on the managerial ladder taking the vacant job at Stockport County.

By the way, what is all this nonsense with Jo? We haven't signed anything with City, yet Jo has been allowed to join the pre-season training camp in Scotland. How does that work? Is it a bit like trying out at a different company before handing your notice in to see if you fancy it? Weird.

Matteo Ferrari

The deal to take Jo back for another loan spell seems all but done. Which is a relief. For me, Jo, a fit-again Yak, Saha and young James Vaughan is a good group of strikers to have on the books. Back fill with the midfield threat of Cahill and Fellaini and we don't look too shabby. The real difference maker will be a flying, goal-scoring winger, and we haven't seen one of those since The Russian so I won't hold my breath.

Elsewhere today, I noticed that a former loanee, Italian Matteo Ferrari has moved from Genoa to Besiktas, the lesser known Istanbul relations of Galatasaray and Fenerbache. I think Amokachi went there from Everton in the mid-90s? Ferrari took a while to get going when he arrived on loan from Roma, slotting in at full-back and centre-back. But then I recall he started playing regularly alongside Yobo in the centre of the defence and things improved, especially a rearguard action at Fratton Park. At the end of the season, Ferrari was allowed to return to Rome as Moyes decided to 'look elsewhere'. That elsewhere turned out to be Joleon Lescott so things turned out just fine.

http://www.goal.com/en/news/10/italy/2009/07/05/1365799/matteo-ferraris-transfer-to-besiktas-almost-done-agent

Making Ferrari more impressive is his missus, a TV presenter / model / general all good-looking thing called Aida (below).

They're Back

Notables for July 6th.

Some of the Everton squad are back for pre-season training. The official site is full of pointless quotes from people like Leon Osman and a rather fetching snap of someone who could be Carlo Nash outside Finch Farm. But look closely and it could be any sportsman parked outside a shopping mall in Florida.

Anyway, there's nothing to say about pre-season training and it's somewhat symptomatic of football's blanket and insatiable coverage that anyone even mentions it, and I include myself in that. It's probably very important to those infamous Far East markets.

Elsewhere, Jo was also apparently at FF before slinging his rucksack in the back of the van and heading with the squad to Scotland (for pre-season training). But then, maybe he wasn't. And the unnecessary rumour of the day was Moyes preparing a bid for Paul Scholes.

I'm a cynical person by nature so when I see these snippets of news emanating from Goodison's media department about 'signing' Kieran Agard and 'signing' some American boy who isn't even good enough for the MLS, I fear the worst.

Spend, spend, spend

I've been sensing people all over the internet starting to get agitated because Everton haven't signed anyone. They're even allowing people to complain on the official club site, which is a surprise. Some kid has joined us from the Leeds United academy (that must have been a tough choice), we've lost three squad players, and it's only 5 or so weeks til our home opener with Arsenal.

The good news is that most other clubs are in the same boat. United have lost two excellent players and replaced them with poorer alternatives. Arsenal have done nothing. Liverpool blew £18m on a right-back, and everyone is predicting a rash of spending at Chelsea but the only big story coming out of West London is City's repeated attempts at pilfering John Terry - now that would be a story.

Everton's biggest rivals will be Villa, City and Spurs. City with all the money in the world, are struggling to spend it. Barry is a great addition alongside Santa Cruz, and it's assumed Tevez will arrive shortly and we wait to see if they'll do the right thing and offer proper money for Lescott rather than expecting Joleon to go all septic on us and start doing the Rooney routine, engineering a move. He won't.

So aside from City, nothing much seems to be happening with Villa or Spurs. Maybe Harry is still on holiday? This appears the case around the division with the only significant activity being made by the promoted clubs who are doing the usual and wasting small amounts of money on Championship-ready players or obscure foreigners that they hope may turn out to be OK.

Fingers crossed we'll see some action before too long.

The Luckiest Man In Football

In the space of a week Michael Owen has gone from a future involving Hull City, Stoke and possibly Everton, to a nice two-year deal with the Champions of England, recent Champions of Europe, and probably more of the same in the 2009/10 season.

I'm not sure anyone can believe it. I certainly can't. It's reassuring though to see all the tired journalists trotting out the lines comparing the move for Owen to that of Cantona back in the mid-90s. Ferguson's pulled another rabbit out of the hat etc. It would have been interesting to see what the same hacks' reaction would have been had Moyes signed the best Welsh forward to play for England. I'm guessing not quite the same.

For a team like United with money to burn and a great and settled squad, signing Owen is a no-brainer. No transfer fee, a moderate weekly wage (by their standards) and probably laced with appearance and goal incentives. They're not going to have to rely on Owen. He'll spend time on the bench, contribute when needed and provide options and striking cover. For Everton, Owen was always going to be a gamble. We've already got injury-prone forwards and didn't need another. I'm also not sure - never have been - about Owen's attitude within a club. He doesn't come across as a real team player and it is noticeable how little vitriol is emanating from the Liverpool fans; imagine if Fowler or Gerrard moved to Old Trafford and the subsequent reaction. It would be carnage. What I'm saying here is I don't think the Liverpool faithful revere Owen in the same way they do Fowler, Rush et al. Owen is going into a club with a hatful of players far better than him, his status is diminished and he's a squad player for sure.

That said, I still think Moyes was prepared to chance his arm on Owen and now he's got to look elsewhere. All signs point to Jo returning on a year-long loan.