See Smith has gone from Everton, will they want Reid to get them promoted ?

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2002

Answers

Ape potential

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2002

No David Moyes of preston is the likely candidate.

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2002

There was a headline on one of the back pages yesterday from Gazza - "If Smith goes I go". The Everton board clearly saw the chance to kill 2 birds with one stone then and have moved swiftly. :-)

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2002

There was an interesting article in yesterday's papers saying that Smith has spent the grand total of £800,000 more than he's sold at Everton.

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2002

I know Dougal, but Tony Cottee that world renowned football pundit said he deserved to go as he'd spent £57m.

Obviously sh*te at maths.

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2002

Or isn't familiar with the concept of selling players.

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2002

Well - the fact is he HAS spent £60m. He chose to sell the players they had and a skilled buyer would bring in better and improve the squad. I reckon Arsene must have the best record as a buyer in the Premier. He has certainly spent less than the players are worth.

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2002

One Anelka for £500k sold for £23m makes you look very good

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2002

What about Edu, Wiltord (who Arsenal fans don't like for some reason), Stepanovs, Inamoto and the other Japanese kid?

They must have cost over £20m combined.

The thing is with Everton, although Smith didn't make the best of buys, the club's repuatation wasn't enough to attract the big name players and they were stuck with players not good enough for the bigger clubs or foreigners who were desperate to play in England.

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2002

Viera, Overmars, Petit, Henry, Pires.

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2002

Aye - but where did they get @rse to? Oh - I see what you mean. Cost??

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2002

A LOT less than the £100m being offered for Henry, Viera & Pires at the moment.

I honestly think that Wenger's buying has been spectacularly successful, possibly even better than Keegan's although I haven't investigated the numbers.

(I can't stand the bloke BTW - "It's not my job to control my players" is just about the most crassly stupid thing I've ever heard a manager say.)

-- Anonymous, March 14, 2002

Jonno, I suspect that you are right that Arsenal are probably still in profit but in the past two seasons, they have bought:

1. Richard Wright £6 million

2. Lauren £7.2 million

3. Van Bronckhorst £8.5 million

4. Edu £6 million

5. Pires £6 million

6. Inamoto £4 million (who has never played a first team game)

7. Wiltord £13 million

8. Francis Jeffers £8 million

9. Plus whatever inflated nonsense they are paying Sol Campbell.

As well as various £1 million players like Stepanovs. Arsenal do have an eye for a player but it's not like every purchase is an Anelka..they'd probably stuggle to get their money back on a number of the above.

Equally, with Everton, while the ideal is to spot young players and flog them for £50 million a few years later, I'm afraid this is the exception rather than the norm. You normally get what you pay for. People have better luck with their academy product (eg. Everton with Jeffers; a significant proportion of Man Utd's first team) but it's generally only lower division clubs who need to sell off their kids for profit.

-- Anonymous, March 14, 2002

Jonno, I don't think Inter Milan have the resources to offer £100 million for three players. The Italian clubs are catully quite hard up at the moment - Man Utd are complaining to FIFA about Lazio who have defaulted on the Stam money and Inter and several other clubs have got most of their bench on the transfer list.

-- Anonymous, March 14, 2002