Everton are in a mess.

[Calgarybaggy]

I just read a book called "Soccernomics" by Simon Kuper. I highly recommend it because its very eye opening. Its an attempt to analyze pretty much every aspect of the game, even the women's leagues, on a purely economic basis. He comes up with some very interesting conclusions. He says success is very closely related to how much you pay the players because there is a more or less free market for players. In general the teams with the highest payroll will be more successful and in the long run it doesn't seem to matter as much how "great" the manger/coach is - if he doesn't have a high enough payroll to be competitive he will ultimately fail. He admits that there are often exceptions to this rule which is what makes all sports interesting, but they are usually short term situations - think Leicester winning the Premier League but are now in the championship. So in our situation we have about the fourth highest payroll in the championship and guess where we have been most of the season. The top three payrolls are Leicester, Leeds, and Southampton and guess where they are. Fifth is Norwich and guess where they are. The outlier this season is Ipswich but unless they seriously beef up their payroll they are ultimately doomed in the premier league. Also, buying players for huge amounts of money is generally a poor strategy because they more often than not do not live up to expectations. Have we ever shelled out what for us were huge amounts and had a roaring success? David Mills comes quickly to mind but if we look at all the "club record breaking transfers" over that last forty years can you name one that became a Jeff Astle or a Tony Brown or a Cyrille Regis? The best strategy when it comes to buying players is to find the hidden gems, the diamonds in the rough, the out of favour and the unfashionable players. So we bought Cyrille Regis and Laurie Cunningham for next to nothing because black players were not fashionable at that time. We got Willie Johnston for about half what he was worth because Rangers had had enough of his discipline problems. But perhaps the most important conclusion he comes to is that the financial resources of a team are going to decide its long terms success. More economically viable teams comes from bigger cities. We are never(or rarely) going to see another Nottingham Forest win the champions league or an Ipswich Town make a splash in the premier league for more than a season or two because they just do not have the economic resources to compete over the long term. And financial fair play rules make it even worse because a sugar daddy can no longer pour literally billions of pounds into an otherwise failing team or a team from a smaller center. We are not going to see another Chelsea or Man City who have only reached their success in the past 15 years because of outside money. So where does that leave us? If we are smart about how we spend money and where we find players we can probably maintain our status as a mid level premier league team. Aspiring to anything else will be extremely dangerous for us. The economics seem to dictate that that is our lot.

[Dubbag]

I just read a book called "Soccernomics" by Simon Kuper. I highly recommend it because its very eye opening. Its an attempt to analyze pretty much every aspect of the game, even the women's leagues, on a purely economic basis. He comes up with some very interesting conclusions. He says success is very closely related to how much you pay the players because there is a more or less free market for players. In general the teams with the highest payroll will be more successful and in the long run it doesn't seem to matter as much how "great" the manger/coach is - if he doesn't have a high enough payroll to be competitive he will ultimately fail. He admits that there are often exceptions to this rule which is what makes all sports interesting, but they are usually short term situations - think Leicester winning the Premier League but are now in the championship. So in our situation we have about the fourth highest payroll in the championship and guess where we have been most of the season. The top three payrolls are Leicester, Leeds, and Southampton and guess where they are. Fifth is Norwich and guess where they are. The outlier this season is Ipswich but unless they seriously beef up their payroll they are ultimately doomed in the premier league. Also, buying players for huge amounts of money is generally a poor strategy because they more often than not do not live up to expectations. Have we ever shelled out what for us were huge amounts and had a roaring success? David Mills comes quickly to mind but if we look at all the "club record breaking transfers" over that last forty years can you name one that became a Jeff Astle or a Tony Brown or a Cyrille Regis? The best strategy when it comes to buying players is to find the hidden gems, the diamonds in the rough, the out of favour and the unfashionable players. So we bought Cyrille Regis and Laurie Cunningham for next to nothing because black players were not fashionable at that time. We got Willie Johnston for about half what he was worth because Rangers had had enough of his discipline problems. But perhaps the most important conclusion he comes to is that the financial resources of a team are going to decide its long terms success. More economically viable teams comes from bigger cities. We are never(or rarely) going to see another Nottingham Forest win the champions league or an Ipswich Town make a splash in the premier league for more than a season or two because they just do not have the economic resources to compete over the long term. And financial fair play rules make it even worse because a sugar daddy can no longer pour literally billions of pounds into an otherwise failing team or a team from a smaller center. We are not going to see another Chelsea or Man City who have only reached their success in the past 15 years because of outside money. So where does that leave us? If we are smart about how we spend money and where we find players we can probably maintain our status as a mid level premier league team. Aspiring to anything else will be extremely dangerous for us. The economics seem to dictate that that is our lot.

That's one block of text right there!!