Sunday 1 August 2010, 09:57
by Adam Clark @adamclark_efc
The views on this page are taken from the local and national media and do not necessarily reflect the views of Everton.
Phil Jagielka has suffered a new knee injury scare just two weeks before the Premier League’s big kick-off.
Everton’s England defender, who only made a comeback towards the end of last season after a serious cruciate ligament injury, was hurt again when he fell awkwardly in training last Thursday.
At first it was feared he would need an operation but that has been put on hold and Everton are hoping the injury settles down and doesn’t prove to be serious.
They even hope Jagielka, 27, might be able to play in Wednesday’s friendly at Goodison against the other Everton – from Chile – after he missed yesterday’s 4-2 win at Norwich.
Jagielka’s latest problem came as Everton were fighting off Arsenal’s attempt to take him to The Emirates.
That deal now looks unlikely to go through, much to the relief of boss David Moyes, who has faced a summer-long struggle to keep his top players.
Moyes is also determined to hang on to playmaker Mikel Arteta, a target for Manchester City and Arsenal. And even though midfielder Steven Pienaar is in the last year of his contract, the Everton boss intends to keep the impressive South African international, who is also admired by City and Tottenham.
But Moyes’s biggest worry at the moment is the fitness of key defender Jagielka.
WEST HAM are set to make a renewed bid for Everton striker Yakubu.
But they will have to offer at least £9million to land one of new boss Avram Grant’s top targets.
The Hammers were stunned when Everton rejected their original offer of £6million – plus a further £1m if Yakubu, 27, helped ensure they kept their Premier League status.
The Nigeria international is known to be available, particularly as manager David Moyes has signed another three strikers this summer.
But Everton want to recoup as much as possible of the £12m they paid Middlesbrough for The Yak three years ago.
Moyes has signed Magaye Gueye for £900,000, Joao Silva for £500,000 and free-agent Jermaine Beckford.
West Ham have also signed a striker, paying £1m for Lyon’s Frederic Piquionne, who was on loan under Grant at Portsmouth last season.
But having released strikers Guillermo Franco and Ilan, the Hammers are still in the market for another forward.
And Grant still hopes that man will be big Yakubu.
EVERTON have singled out Rangers midfielder Steven Davis as a replacement for Steven Pienaar if the South African leaves Goodison Park.
Toffees boss David Moyes is still no closer to getting Pienaar, 28, to commit his future to the club.
With one year now remaining on his current deal, Inter Milan and Arsenal are closely monitoring the situation and will be encouraged by the midfielder's stalling tactics.
Moyes is loathe to losing a player who has been a revelation since his arrival from Borussia Dortmund three years ago, but past experience with key departures Joleon Lescott and Wayne Rooney have taught the Scot to adopt a pragmatic approach to the situation.
SPFA Players' Player of the Year Davis, 25, has been earmarked by Moyes as the man to bring stability to his midfield should he lose Pienaar.
The Northern Ireland international made 36 appearances for Rangers last season.
ARSENAL are looking at Montpellier's Emir Spahic as a candidate to fill their vacancy at centre-back.
Spahic caught the eye as captain of the Bosnia team which made it all the way to the World Cup play-offs before losing narrowly to Portugal.
Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger is thought to prefer Germany star Per Mertesacker but is looking at alternatives if a deal cannot be struck with Werder Bremen to sign the 25-year-old.
Spahic is older, at almost 30, but would provide cover elsewhere in Arsenal's defence. Like Mikael Silvestre, one of three centre-backs to leave the Emirates this summer, Spahic can play at left-back as well as in the middle.
In his increasingly urgent search for a fourth centre-half, Wenger has not ruled out going back with an improved offer for Everton's Phil Jagielka. Everton have already rejected a £10m approach and Arsenal will have to dig a lot deeper if they want to sign him or a previous target, Bolton's Gary Cahill.
DAVID MOYES has told Landon Donovan he would love to have him back at Goodison Park... if only he could afford him.
David Beckham's LA Galaxy team-mate issued a 'come and get me' plea last week, saying that he wanted to return to Everton where he made 13 appearances in a three-month loan spell last season.
But the MLS club will only do a deal for a permanent move - and they want as much as £11million for the 28-year-old.
Moyes has pleaded with his chairman Bill Kenwright to make the transfer possible but the Toffees board say a deal is dead in the water.
The Goodison boss - who saw Tim Cahill's hat-trick sink Norwich at Carrow Road - confessed:: "Don't you think I've asked my chairman to make it happen?
"We'd love to have Landon but he looks too expensive for us and we just don't have it.
"We don't have the finances. The price the MLS want for him is very big and it's an additional problem because of his age.
"All we've done is spend £1m on Magaye Gueye so far. Jermaine Beckford and Jan Mucha were free, so we've spent no money by Premier League standards and will probably be the ones who spend the least this season."
Moyes is instead looking at the likes of Beckford to make a major difference.
He added: "Sometimes people in life need opportunities and we're going to give Jermaine that opportunity to see if he can score goals in the Premier League.
"He can certainly do it in the lower leagues and from what I've seen, I can see how he is a goalscorer. He's looked fantastic in training. Whether he can step up to the big league, we don't know.
"It was a gamble but not one too expensive for us to try."
Beckford's reputation soared after his goal for Leeds dumped Manchester United out of the FA Cup in January. Mucha played in goal as Slovakia reached the World Cup last-16.
Moyes welcomed back Tim Howard and Steven Pienaar to his starting line-up at this friendly in Norfolk but it was calamity rather than class that made the difference against Norwich.
It took young Canaries keeper John Ruddy just six minutes to emulate former Norwich man Rob Green's England howler to a tee.
A sharp turn from Tim Cahill was followed by a sluggish shot in the home side's penalty box, but the Aussie's former Goodison team-mate somehow let the ball squirm under him and trickle into the net at a snail's pace.
Cahill made it 2-0 seven minutes from half-time after nodding home Ruddy's attempted clearance from his initial shot.
Canaries hit back straight after the break through an Andrew Crofts strike. And Andrew Surman levelled from a tight angle on 58 minutes.
But substitute Diniyar Bilyaletdinov restored Everton's lead a minute later before Cahill completed his hat-trick with 19 minutes left.
Everton v Everton - there can be only winner there.
But exactly what Everton? The one that has been crowned champions of Chile four
times, most recently in 2008, or the Premier League club that has been champions of England nine times.
One was named after the other, a century ago so to celebrate this fact - and to extend the hand of friendship across the Atlantic, Andes and Amazon - they meet at Goodison Park to play for the Brotherhood Cup on Wednesday August 4 (8pm).
In 1909 Everton and Tottenham were invited to South America to play a series of exhibition games against each other and the strongest teams Argentina and Uruguay could muster.
The trip for the two English clubs involved a three-week voyage each way, with stops on the way that included Lisbon, Madeira and Rio de Janeiro.
Obviously, it was a marvellous experience for the players who included England's centre forward, Bert Freeman of Everton. He was the star of the tournament, helping the Blues' score 14 goals in five games that included wins over the Argentinean League XI, the Uruguyan League XI and Spurs.
A few weeks later, after news of the games had spread, a group of Anglo-Chilean teenagers met in the port of Valparaiso and formed a football club which they named Everton.
If there was any doubt about the origins of the name, this was dispelled in 1919 when one of the founders, David Foxley, confirmed the link to Goodison Park officials during the celebrations for the Chilean club’s 10th anniversary. Sadly, two of the founders, Frank Boundy and Malcolm Fraser, had died on the Somme in 1916.
Later, the two World Cup tournaments of the Sixties served as a reminder of this unique link. In both the 1962 and 1966, a semi-final, a quarter-final and all three of Brazil 's group games were held at the Everton ground, the Sausalito in Chile and Goodison Park in England.
By this time, Everton had twice been champions of Chile, in 1950 and 1952, and had re-located to Vina del Mar, a few kilometres along the coast from Valparaiso. They were Chilean champions again in 1976 and 2008.
The match will pit two of the shrewdest coaches in the game against each other: David Moyes, three times voted manager of the Year by his peers and Nelson Acosta, who was in charge of Chile when they beat England at Wembley in 1998.
Acosta has said his players will be treating the game as if it were a cup final.
The game is taking place after years of lobbying by the Ruleteros Society, which was set up in 2002 to develop links between supporters of the two Evertons.
There have already been exchange visits involving supporters of the two clubs, including one Juan Foxley, nephew of Chilean co-founder David .
A leading light in the Ruleteros Society has been John Shearon, from Norris Green, Liverpool. He was a 20-year-old Latin American Studies student in Mexico when he decided to hitch-hike to Chile in 1980 to see at first hand this other Everton he had heard about.
He has since been back five times and has conducted extensive research for a book he is planning to publish next year.
Shearon said: 'In an age when everything connected with football seems to be driven by profit, we have an occasion where two teams will meet as a direct result of the initiative of both sets of fans - supported by the boards of each club - to celebrate a unique relationship and history.'
A hat-trick from Tim Cahill helped Everton record a 4-2 victory over Norwich City at Carrow Road.
The Australia midfielder had given the visitors a two-goal lead at half-time, but they were pegged back by strikes from Andrew Crofts and Andrew Surman for the Championship side. However further goals from Diniyar Bilyaletdinov and Cahill sealed the win.
David Moyes last night ruled out a bid for Landon Donovan, despite the United States skipper declaring his desire to rejoin Everton.
The £10 million-rated star is desperate to return to Goodison Park. In a three-month loan spell from LA Galaxy earlier this year he scored twice in 13 games and was a big hit.
But Moyes closed the door on a return after watching the Toffees beat Norwich 4-2 at Carrow Road.
The Everton boss said: “We would love to sign him but we don’t have the finances to do that. The price he would go for would be very big. That would be a problem given his age [28] and what we might pay for him.
“It looks as if he will be too expensive for us. We don’t have the money.”
Moyes saluted Tim Cahill’s first hat-trick for Everton which helped them maintain their 100 per cent pre-season record.
“We want him to do that for us in the Premier League,” he said. “His third goal was fantastic.”
Cahill opened the scoring thanks to a terrible gaffe by John Ruddy. The goalkeeper left Goodison for the Canaries last month and was clearly so confused about his loyalties he allowed the midfielder’s shot to creep under his legs and roll slowly over the line.
The mistake was horribly reminiscent of former Norwich stopper Rob Green’s
infamous blunder in England’s World Cup draw with the USA.
Ruddy wasn’t at fault for the visitors’ second goal, with Michael Nelson taking the blame. The Norwich defender chested a harmless cross straight into Cahill’s path.
Ruddy blocked the shot, but the Australian followed up to head home.
Andrew Crofts then pulled one back for the home side just after the restart, nodding Adam Drury’s cross past goalkeeper Tim Howard.
And Norwich drew level when Andrew Surman hit his first goal for City, placing the ball past Howard.
But Diniyar Bilyaletdinov’s confident strike restored the lead for the Premier League side.
Cahill then made sure of the win with a sublime goal, flicking the ball over Ruddy before tapping in to complete a hat-trick.
Tim Cahill netted a hat-trick as Everton cruised to their fifth straight pre-season win.
But the Aussie was given a helping hand by Norwich’s ex-Everton keeper John Ruddy.
With just six minutes gone new signing Ruddy, 23, dropped a clanger by allowing Cahill’s innocuous daisy-cutter to go through his legs. And Cahill was gifted another after some sloppy Norwich defending.
Paul Lambert’s side hit back through midfielders Andrew Crofts and Andrew Surman.
But Diniyar Bilyaletdinov and Cahill sealed victory for Everton.
EVERTON maintained their unbeaten pre-season record thanks to a Tim Cahill hat-trick during an entertaining 4-2 victory over Norwich .
The Toffees were handed their lead at Carrow Road by former keeper John Ruddy with six minutes gone. The Norwich new-boy was about to embark on the Blues trip down under when his transfer to the East coast materialised, and he barely had time to say farewell. He allowed Tim Cahill’s sixth-minute shot to squirm between his legs Rob Green-style to gift the Blues the opener.
Despite their disastrous start, Norwich looked the livelier of the two sides for most of the first half, calving out the lion’s share of the clear chances thanks to neat passing and energy. Fortunately for Everton’s make-shift defence City striker Simeon Jackson did not have his shooting boots on.
Canaries striker Chris Martin was buoyant after a brace during his side’s 2-1 victory over Newcastle United last weekend, and he could have grabbed two in the first half here too.
He flashed a near post header from a corner just wide, and then bent a free kick shy of the post from a central position 20 yards out.
Although only going through their gears, Everton’s play gradually asserted itself and they scored again courtesy of an old pals act Evertonians desperately want to see more of next season.
After Jermaine Beckford pinched possession in the Norwich half, there was clever interplay between Tim Cahill and Mikel Arteta on the edge of the area before the Spaniard teed up his friend one on one against Ruddy. Cahill’s initial shot was saved, but he reacted quickest to head home the rebound. So far, so easy.
But if the Blues started the first half with a gifted goal, they returned the favour shortly after the restart. Leighton Baines and Silvin Distin conspired to allow Andrew Crofts to steal in between them and thump a header past Tim Howard.
David Moyes had brought on Joseph Yobo to replace Seamus Coleman, allowing Hibbert to move back to tight-back, and replaced Magueye Gueye with Diniyar Bilyaletdinov.
The Russian failed to shine during the three games in Australia , and almost looked set to atone when he shaped to volley a chance at the far post from a Baines cross, but he got his angles wrong and scuffed his effort wide.
If Everton’s defending was lax for Norwich ’s first, it was worse for their equaliser. Tony Hibbert was caught out of position from a throw allowing Chris Martin to take on Joseph Yobo, cut inside and slot calmly past Howard.
Their lead lasted just a minute, when Arteta fed Pienaar in the box and the South African’s cute back heel was met with aplomb by Bilyaletdinov who picked his spot through a crowded area within his right foot. Still partial enigma, the Russian is clearly capable of moments of sheer class. If he can manage to impose himself more consistently on games he will be a real positive this season.
Shortly after Louis Saha was introduced, and Everton really started to dominate.
On 71 minutes the Blues put the gloss on a lively friendly when Tim Cahill flicked the ball over the hapless Ruddy from close range and smashed his shot home for first Everton hat-trick.
Tim Howard will take some shifting from the number one spot at Goodison this season, when he spared Yobo’s blushes after he was caught on the ball, by first driving Wes Hoolahan wide and then bravely plucking the ball from the striker’s toes as he tried to score.
Norwich nearly made it interesting again with six minutes left when Oli Johnson cut inside at the byline to cross for City’s prolific striker Grant Holt who slid it wide.
Jack Rodwell responded with deft footwork to sting Ruddy’s palms at the other end with a low shot which he did well to hang onto.
And he went close again after impressive passing with fellow youngster James Wallace as the clock ticked down.
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The views below are submitted by registered users of evertonfc.com and do not necessarily reflect the views of Everton Football Club.
Anthony Wainwright
Does anyone on here know where some of the people posting get their figures from? E.G. we got 24 million for Lescott and paid whatever for 3 players leaving us whatever left. Have you included the cost of wages? Please let me know, is there a web site where you get all your financial info about EFC funds from? BTW stop slagging off Bill Kenwright, this club is one of the most financially stable in the PL. Look at the debts other clubs have. If we had massive debts even DM could not juggle that budget.
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Monday 2nd Aug 2010 13:29
Agree with Anthony?
PAUL SINNOTT
There is no way i would sell the yak for 9 million and use the money to buy jason donovan . there are better players out there .Donovan is 28 and not as good as people think. Use the 9 million and get stephen ireland taht would be a better move .
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Monday 2nd Aug 2010 11:14
Agree with PAUL?
Adam Dundon
Does anyone else think selling Yakubu for 9 mil-ish to get in Donovan is an excellent idea?
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Monday 2nd Aug 2010 09:28
Agree with Adam?
Dan Nally
Moyesy bids £11million, Man City bid £30million... I think the point he's trying to make is.
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Monday 2nd Aug 2010 09:15
Agree with Dan?
Dan Nulty
I do think Moyesy is playing his cards very close to his chest. As said previously we signed Billy, Distin and Johnny H for a combine £21m very soon after the Lescott affair last season - that left us with supposedly £3m to spend from the £24m we got for JL. We have probably spent that with signing on fee's this summer and what Gueye and Silva cost. SO where is the extra investment? My guess is that Moyes is pretty confident in the ability of this squad and will only act if the right player becomes available at the right price. £11 million for Landon is way too much - he's 28 - he had a good 3 months yes, but he didn't exactly set the bundesliga alight and you've also got to take into account his sell on fee which I imagine will be nil as we'll let him go back to America to see himself out to retirement. My view is that this squad is now strong enough to start the season with - see if we can pick up any bargains as clubs like Man City and Tottenham panic towards the close of the window or save our money for January or even next summer.
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Monday 2nd Aug 2010 09:00
Agree with Dan?
Justin Corio
I must admit, I am puzzled by the lack of transfer activity, especially when you consider we sold Lescott for over £22/24million last year depending on what reports you believe. We have also sold Lucas Neill for a minimal fee, and now have sold Ruddy and Jutkiewicz. Now I know DM is a miracle worker but he managed to sign Billy, Heitinga and Distin within a week according to reports. This makes you wonder if the funds were already in place to sign these players, meaning there should be ample funds at DM's disposal. Now the kicker, perhaps there are funds available and this is the cunning ploy of DM and BK to ensure that they are not forced into paying over the odds by clubs! Time will tell
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Monday 2nd Aug 2010 00:04
Agree with Justin?
Stephen Hillman
First the stuff up with Gosling that cost us 3 maybe 4 million still no word if Pienaar or Arteta's future is with us and after only spending 1 million on new players we have no more money, what a joke.
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Sunday 1st Aug 2010 23:01
Agree with Stephen?
mckee graham
peanut will sign defo, he is class look at his interview on efctv, and he says this is his home and he has missed his m8s.
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Sunday 1st Aug 2010 21:33
Agree with mckee?
timothy harris
If we sell the yak then we MUST bring in Donovan he is class! WE WANT DONOVAN!!
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Sunday 1st Aug 2010 20:30
Agree with timothy?
David Waugh
has anyone heard anymore on west ham and the yak bid, with the money west ham are willin to pay donovan could be a step closer! would rather have donovan than yak anyway
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Sunday 1st Aug 2010 19:45
Agree with David?