Well the final few hours are upon us and it looks again like the red carpet of transfer victory is going to be swept from under our feet yet again.
A final few weeks that promised so much including a promise that we were looking at world class defenders, strikers and ‘number 10’ style attackers has warped into a bit of a farce as Everton manage to ‘Everton up’ deal after deal.
The biggest excitement that was being felt was that Yarmelenko of Dynamo Kiev was going to be joining us for around 20 million Euros but that seems to be dead in the water. The players’ agent and the club admitted yesterday that we waited too long before putting a final bid in meaning they could not replace him. Not quite Shearer-style levels of buffoonery but not far off.
A player of that calibre would have sent new levels of excitement around Goodison Park but it looks like we’ll make do – and don’t get me wrong, he did well last season and would be a decent asset on the right – with Aaron Lennon if we can avoid paying stupid prices from Spurs.
The breaking news so far today is that we have finally signed the Argentinian defender Funes Mori from River Plate, but in typical Everton style we have seen the price gone from 5 million Euros to £6.25m yesterday to apparently £9.5m this morning! Either Everton are trying to show that they mean business or they’ve had their pants pulled down there! What on earth happened in the last few days?!?!?
We also signed another River Plate player (from River Plate Montevideo), Leandro Rodriguez the other day who sounds dreamy but who I’ve never seen play. The 22-year old is a playmaker so that might be the ‘number 10’ we were after. Hold me.
I’m also hearing silly rumours about Seamus Coleman going to PSG and Lukaku going somewhere too simply because he has been pictured with a suitcase. In international week. Thanks for that Sky.
So will we end up with any exciting new faces before 6pm? Can we get Lennon over the line or will Spurs play hardball on a player that hasn’t even got a squad number this year? If we get him why not get him earlier? Can we get rid of McGeady?
I asked on Twitter for the names of players that we were convinced that we’d sign around transfer deadline day in the past. Here are some of the best…
• Manual Fernandes was seen in Nandos in Liverpool, went to the club and was then given taxi money to go to the airport, where he boarded a plane and signed for Valencia. • Muller flew in from Brazil to meet with Mike Walker to sign a deal worth £100k a week. Unfortunately for us he wanted that pre-tax and we spat our lunch out, leaving him to go back home. In hindsight he never made the grade anywhere else so that’s not too upsetting. • The ‘Mountinho delegation’ was sent to Portugal to sign the scheming midfielder who wanted to play for us. Unfortunately they were never seen of again and we refused to pay any more for the player who went on to be a huge star. • Scott Parker and Tore Andrew Flo were definitely going to sign for us in a double SWOOP from Chelsea but upon talking to the club they both decided to go elsewhere at a time where they both would have added a huge amount to our side. • Ever Benega was one that David Moyes (who did very well on deadline day in the past to be fair) wanted and at the time was seen as unreliable and a bit of a loose cannon in the Valencia squad. He went on that season to play brilliantly and is seen by many as one of the best midfielders in La Liga these days.
• Then we have players like Leroy Fer (failed medical) and Sean Davis (linked every season) who we thought we may one day see in an Everton shirt but it looks the dream (for them) is over.