When Close Just Isn’t Good Enough

The link between the Toffees and the Icelandic international has been in place since the early part of the summer and – as the selling club – we should have put a deadline on completing the deal for the sake of both clubs and the player.

I completely get that we are holding out for the right price but this is not the sale of a normal asset, we have to get what we want and quickly to enable us to move into the market for the relevant replacements and bed them into our squad.

We now know that even if we were to complete the deal today the chances of anyone being here and ready for the season opener at Southampton on Saturday is minimal and whilst we looked good at home to Sampdoria our pre-season has been lost to bed new players in.

The one thing that we have to say is a positive is us finally holding out for what a player is worth but the reality of the world was that the moment Gylfi decided he wanted to go then this deal was coming. Now we are faced with a little over three weeks to get suitable players – each of which will have risen in price with the selling clubs knowing that we have some cash to spend.

Our form at the end of last season was excellent and in Paul Clement we have a very good manager but even he must be frustrated – as he showed on Saturday – that this is the main talking point around the club and that is before the speculation increases about who will replace one of our most successful players ever.

We already see West Brom quoting £25m+ for Nacer Chadli (good player but not at that price) and that will happen more and more especially as the window has such a short period left before it closes. Had we concluded the deal quicker then the prices would not be as high as most clubs know that the prices increase as the window gets closer to closing.

Today should be very simple with the Swans saying that we conclude today or the discussions are off and Gylfi remains here until the January window at the earliest. Something we should have done weeks ago.

What will really happen is he will go on Thursday/Friday – miss Everton’s first two league games of the season and we will wait 10 days to make any move in the market. Natural pessimist me you see!

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