Bluedylan

Droogba has really excelled himself with his collection of insults recently. Really reflects well on your site and the mods, just resorting to name calling visitors to your forum for no reason whatsoever, when we've been talking football and saying nothing personal back.

You're not going to get Varane. Real aren't stupid, they don't lose their best players. Laporte is gettable though and he does have a release clause (£35m I think)

Agreed Pedro. The only caveat in my statement is if Chelsea or another club bid an absurd amount, beyond what has already been discussed in the media. In these situations local journalists are infinitely closer to the story than national journalists, and every single indication locally is that the player will not request a transfer or kick up as fuss. With respect the story in the Express is clickbait, and it's written by John Richardson (I think). If you've ever read any of his stuff before or seen him on the Sunday Supplement, he's a hack and nothing more. The other reason I'm so certain is that Martinez said it wouldn't even matter if the player did submit a transfer request now, it's too late in the window for us to replace him properly, and it would affect our season too much.

I can keep posting, but it'll just be repetitive and you'll find me annoying (if you don't already, which some clearly do). He's not leaving Everton in this window. Last time, I promise. I'll pop back on the 2nd September, or if you sign him before that date.

You're not going to get Stones, so don't worry about it. New contract in the offing.

Bet you he doesn't put in a transfer request. I'll eat humble pie if I'm wrong, but I bet he doesn't. I know we all favour publications when they say something we want, and discredit them when they say something we don't like, but The Sun....seriously? Our board is definitely full or morons, in reference to an earlier comment. That's objectively true.

Your manager's got his heart set on him though. And surely you trust his judgement of defenders? (ignoring Filipe Luis temporarily). And it's not your money. Do you really care if you buy someone for £35m or £40m when it comes down to it? Surely the joy of being insanely wealthy is the pleasure of saying ''how much? yep, I'll take that'' regardless of what the other party comes back with. PS That's not meant as an anti-Chelsea dig, we'd be doing exactly the same in your position.

It is a ridiculous fee and it's not a ridiculous fee. Both are simultaneously true. It's a paradox.

We're not 'pissed' at all. We really like Rom, and we're happy with what we paid. We've just got the player under contract so we're entitled to ask for whatever fee we want to, it's nothing personal. If you don't agree with our valuation, there are plenty of other excellent defenders you can get.

I don't think Chelsea's strategy has been that strange really. You've put in a series of bids that you knew would be rejected, but each one increasing, so it creates a transfer narrative that plays out in the media. Presumably the idea being that eventually Everton accept one of the bids, and it creates the illusion that the clubs have compromised and met in the middle, when in reality you paid roughly what you expected to pay in the first place. It's an old one, and we're onto it.

@oneclubinlondon, point taken mate. What you say makes sense. But we feel, with another season and more development, and more international exposure that we could probably get £40m or more off City or Utd or you guys next summer. And I think that's a relatively logical position (barring catastrophic injury). I've already accepted a bet from one of your fans who said he would be signed for £32m. Honestly £40m wouldn't be that big a deal because Barnsley have a 25% sell on, so that's down to £30m for us and then we have to buy 2 CBs, and clubs would know we've got money so we'd be getting quoted silly money. I really think our manager would just rather keep him for now, and if he has to be sold in the future, deal with it then.

I'm not even sure £40m will get him in all honesty. And bidding beyond that would be ridiculous. I think we just don't want to sell him under any circumstances, and we're confident he will retain or increase his value, so there's no imperative to sell. Martinez spoke at the weekend how he doesn't want to follow the Soton model of selling and reinvesting. Obviously we're not naïve enough to think he'll always stay with us, but I am really starting to think we're just not going to sell in this window. Get Aymeric Laporte and everyone will be happy.

Yep, we got him at 19. Moyes beat Martinez (at Wigan) to the signing, They've got a 25% sell on (rumoured anyway), so they'll be fine. We've just bought another one of theirs, Mason Holgate, aged 18. I don't think there's any harm buying kids in to supplement your academy, as long as your academy is functioning properly still, and providing potential first team players in the long run. I realise it's harder for you guys because of the immense squad competition but it shouldn't be that hard to play one or two kids in your team throughout most of the season. Ok, so maybe not against City and Utd etc, but the vast majority of your home games you're going to win 2/3-0 or better. There should be space in there for genuine youth development.

Nah it's alright ta. If you want him, pay an astronomical fee. We don't want any part-ex's cos you have fell out of love with Ivanovic due to his bad start to the season. I don't understand why certain Chelsea fans are antagonistic towards us for rejecting some bids, and not rolling over and having our bellies tickled. He's our player, under contract for a long time and your bids haven't been substantial enough to force our hand. We're entitled to say 'thanks but no thanks'. Not sure where all this 'don't deal with them in the future' nonsense comes from.

Laporte's the one (if you can't get Stones, which you won't unless you come back with significantly more)

Stones and Everton were both awful today. I wouldn't read too much into that performance other than our manager only has one way of playing, and people have figured it out ages ago.

Happy to comment on anything, not ducking anything. Just trying to read the situation from afar, and see what I think is happening and what might happen, but it's a difficult one to predict in all honesty, so it's been difficult to have any concrete opinions to offer. Re: Martinez's 'I'm not stupid enough to say I know what will happen' comment, I was happy with that. There's no point promising things that you don't have total control over, and then risking looking a fool afterwards. He can't promise. He'd like to keep the player, but clearly if the bid reaches a certain point (whatever that point is, who knows?), then we will accept it. Re: the comment about Terry, the articles do also say that we're not making any sort of complaint to the FA, we're speaking to Chelsea about it because both clubs are keen to maintain a positive relationship, and Martinez acknowledges that we've done business in the past to the satisfaction of both clubs. So don't take his comments too personally. He's just defending our interests as we want him to, just as your manager defends your interests as you want him to, and often oversteps the mark in the opinion of other club's fans. I think Stones will be fit this weekend, so I don't think that'll be an issue. Do I think he'll go? I honestly don't know.

We'd love to get shut of Naismith. Please take him.

Great player Ratcliffe, but he's widely regarded as a gobsh*te by our fanbase. Also no quotes or substance to Matt Law's article. If you've ever seen him on Sunday Supplement, he's a talentless hack who wouldn't know how to source an article properly.

Might've got this wrong, but didn't you guys enquire about him when we originally got him from Barnsley? I don't think it was any secret amongst scouts that his potential was huge

£32m won't be enough for whoever wants him. If Utd start getting involved, we enjoy fleecing them, so that would push it further up Also we're not going to take any deal that involves loaning him back to us. Think about it. A club would have to be breathtakingly stupid to do that, when there's every chance his value will have increased by next summer. I appreciate that it might make sense from your point of view, but you have to consider the other side of the equation.

Yeah but everyone wants everything to be perfect yesterday. Give the lad a break I say, he'd just won best player in the Dutch league, and has played well internationally. He's still a young'un. Wasn't his fault we were sh*te. Messi would've looked out of sorts playing for us last season, the way we played.

Nah we're happy with Rom, honestly. Still a work in progress admittedly, but he'll retain his value and hopefully better. I still think Atsu will be a good player, it just didn't work out because we played awfully as a team last year and it wasn't his fault. It's nice to know Kenwright and Buck are snuggled up next to each other whispering sweet nothings about John Stones. Buck better leave the right amount of cash on the bedside table though.

The way the market is, you'd definitely be talking world record territory to get Hazard. That's obvious. You could see Real Madrid sniffing more than anyone, but I wonder if Mourinho's acrimonious relationship with the Real hierarchy might scupper any chance of that. I reckon you'll keep him for the foreseeable.

Yep, defo just one perspective. Just nice to see the other side of things expressed (from our POV).