c1982

A left-footed set piece specialist was one of the key focuses this summer - something we’ve been desperate for and in McNeil, I think we’ll see a lot more quality from deadball situations.

Burton’s just up the road for me so will be getting to a few games next season

A lot of talk that we want both (McNeill and Cornet) anyway.

The 2 Burnley fans I know (which accounts for about 50% of their fan base) didn’t understand why we were chasing injury-prone Cornet and thought McNeill would be a much safer bet long-term. I must say - ignoring the obvious goals/assist stats, McNeill is my preference too. I think he’ll flourish here and just seems the ‘right fit’ to take us forward. Feels like a Moyes type signing which, in my opinion, is not a bad thing for a few windows until we’re looking like a rope half side again.

Bloody hell, this looks like it’s done already…

Tin hats at the ready…

Fuk enn el - now we’re talking!

Sounds an excellent player - the exact type we need… but… €40m or whatever on a 28 year old with potentially no/little resale is a mistake we’ve made too many times in recent years and this probably isn’t a risk we can afford to take.

Another thing to consider on this - it’s clearly a signing chosen by our director of football - surely that’s who we want in charge of signings.

Everyone wants attacking players and midfield reinforcements but we also need back-up for Mykolenko - if Nkounkou was deemed good enough, we wouldn’t be chasing this deal - so this deal makes a lot of sense. It’s a sensibly low cost deal for a player our DoF knows already and fits the likely preferred system - he’s meant to be a good character too. This deal is not at the expense of Richarlison replacements, attacking reinforcements or midfield stability- plain and simple, it’s just a sensible bit of essential business.

Heinz. ALL. DAY. LONG!

Decent sauce helps though…

Thelwell links - had him at Wolves…

Supposedly interested in this chap… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guido_Rodríguez

Both on bench… Everton's bench v Blackpool: Crellin; Leban, Holgate, Keane, Allan, Iwobi, Nkounkou, Simms, Warrington, Mills, Price, Dobbin and Welch.

No DCL in the squad - injured? Offski?

I’d prefer younger players but, at the right price, there’s no harm in signing more experienced players. It’s the £20-30m Walcott, Tosun, Schneiderlin and Bolasie type deals that have got us into this mess - £6-8m for any of them and they’d have been long forgotten but as it is the £100m outlay is hard to forget!

I was watching the Premier League Years earlier and looked back at our squad after the £140m spend under Koeman/Walsh… this starting line-up less than a month after that spending spree is sickening… Pickford Martina Baines Keane Williams Jagielka Schneiderlin Gueye Davies Sigurdsson Rooney

With many of the players we’re linked to playing for Chelsea and them being our first game it makes me think that it’s in Chelsea’s interest to drag things out a little. We do need non-Chelsea signings too but I think we’ll end up with at least 2 from Colwill, Ampadu (throwing this name in), Gilmour, Gallagher (late in the window loan maybe), Barkley or Broja.

To be fair, he was also the stand-out in a very good Pokémon side.

Milner wasn’t a ‘find’ though - completely different hence why we never sang, “Free transfer, free transfer, Gareth Barry…”

This may be one to revisit if he misses out on the World Cup squad. He will only be hanging around at Chelsea if he’s getting game time which I think he will. I’d guess, he could be off in January if this doesn’t happen.