Firstly Mike the points you make are complete nonsense. Lescott left because City doubled his wages and nothing more, to pretend otherwise is kiddingiyourself. Now as regards to what players are paid well in my own opinion and i don't think i am alone in this, as many of my friends agree with me that footballers especially the elite players such as Rooney and John Terry etc are overpaid. However not. Do you think they are underpaid? You sem to think it is acceptable for a player or players to hold the club or clubs to ransom. Moving to Felli and Baines you say get £40 Million for both of them because Moyes can replace them with new players and train them up. So it is that easy is it? Somehow i don't think David Moyes would agree, i think he would prefer to keep them both. However if one or both of them wish to leave then they should show the supporters the respect they deserve and come out and say so and not leave it to the last day of the transfer window.

Peter- Absolutely right again mate, they have won nothing there have they. Lets face it if it was your lad or mine and Utd came calling, would both of us not carry them down the M62 on our backs if we had to. I expect if you were offered a double your money job you would turn it down? Its a job, a business, nothing more nor less. Why does it have to be so personal to everyone. They are paid professionals and they move on like all walks of life. Its not about being clueless at all. I suppose you're in the 'they are all overpaid' lobby too? They really are not. The revenues they generate through globalisation and syndication of television rights and the merchandise would probably suggest that they are underpaid. I'm not clueless and i don't comment on what i don't know, so i don't know what motivates them to go other than professional motivation which they have achieved and remuneration for professional performance. I'm not a pessimist, misery arse or doom monger. I'm really not clueless at all and definitely not a drama queen, crying because someone wants to further his career. As for rooney and man utd and £250k, that's between him and his . Nothing to do with me or you or Everton. People boo and hiss at the kid for going and making his fortune and realising his professional ambition.. £40m for Baines and Felli brings in a bunch of new players and DM definitely picks good ones and it also keeps the club stable. It has to be good business. Was Felli or Baines player of the season last season??? I didn't think so. Johnny is the one we should be hanging on to!!

Once again Mike you haven't got a clue. Firstly about Rooney did you conveniently forget that he threatened to leave United unless they gave him A Quarter of a million a week. Don't get me wrong i still think Rooney is a class player and when we sold him we had no choice as we needed the finance to kep the club going. As for Lescott when he signed for City he could not have known at that time what if anything City would win in the future, the only thing that swayed him was an instant double you wage.

Lescott- FA cup winner/Prem league winner Rooney- European cup, 4 x prem leagues, numerous cups its not just money Peter from Aintree

Why do you think all those players like Lescott etc joined Man City at the start? FOR MONEY! When Lescott left Everton had just finished 5th and got to the FA cup final and were clearly the better side. There was no reason for him to leave besides the fact that he could double his wages! Players, therefore, do leave and join other clubs for money!

Most Evertonians are realistic. It's only a few who live in lala land. Every club has them, look at the land of make believe across the park.

Barry, I've seen Everton win everything and I was there... been following them for more than 40 years and am a die hard blue. Loyalty? There is none..a few throw backs like cahill who will stay till he leaves the country, Graveson was the same. If you are expecting another Labone or Lyons..who's the dreamer?! It's a shame but that's the game. I also remeber the arse end of us being the Mersey Millionaires when although the numbers were smaller, it was Everton and Arsenal who broke the transfer records all season long and cherry picked the players. Not a pessimist just a realist. We are down in the pecking order. The debt the club has is far outweighed by its value and the reality of the the finances are none of our business, that's the clubs business. Nobody forces us to go and if we don't like it then we can stay at home. Enough with the armchair analysts and business moguls unless someone has half a billion to chuck at it...No I didnt think so. So... why don't we just shut it and let the club do what it has to do. I'm not here to bang BK's or Moyes drums but I have seen the sublime to the ridiculous in more than 40 years of watching, and right now, we are ok. Every club in the world sells players. The game has evolved into a global phenomena where players move from club to club and from country to country. If we can get a huge chunk for Fellaini and Baines then great! Get it, job done. It's a simple math, 2 out for a chunk 6 in for half of the chunk, club keeps the bank happy for another year and Moyes can punch above his weight. OR we can go back to the Johnson years... One final thought.. Maradona went to Naples and won 2 championships single handed... Felli and Baines do not win matches or championships, therefore they are dispensable.

Mike if this is how you feel then don't buy a season ticket. Don't bother going to the games. Honestly you sound so depressing. So you say players don't move on for money. Lescott did exactly that, when City came in for him they offered a double your money deal and he snapped it up like the mercenary he is and he is not the only one. Hence the old saying more wants more. On a final note if you believe we will never compete with the other big teams again then go and support someone else. For me "ONCE A BLUE ALWAYS A BLUE" COYB.

Sell Fellaini and get Wanyama in from Celts. 15m profit and, in my opinion, a better player.

We all know the club is in debt. The club will always be in debt just like every other club in the premier league no matter who we sell and how much we sell them for. Selling players would probably cover the debt but then we would have to take out another loan for Moyes to cover the debt. As long as our best players are under long term contracts they are Everton players. Moyes has done a lot for this club and one of the most impressive things he has done is the investment of youth talent. Vellios, Magaye, Garbutt, George Green are all players coming through who are impressive and Ross Barkley will be like a new signing next season, so we will be competing with the best for a long time, so let's support Moyes and Bill.

If you think we don't have to sell players for financial reasons you are living in a fairy tale.

ALL clubs are selling clubs. Even those with money sooner or later have to sell players who aren't doing it for them, then they have to get the best deal they can. If they guess wrong when they buy a player usually they have to take a lesser price when he moves on. If a club borrows a lot of money to try to stay competitive it has to pay it back sooner or later. No club gets a free lunch and never has, there's no Aladdin's lamp of money, no magic fairy, no godfather and no sugar daddy. The days of loaning and spending money you don't have are well over. Now it's pay back time as it is for the whole of Europe's countries and the USA. Does anyone sensible really think football can escape the consequences?

Yeah you're right............what's the f***ing point of all this fourth generation loyalty. Maybe we should open a transfer window for fans to decide where to buy their next season ticket. Has our money become so insignificant compared to global tv rights that we should just accept the "modern day" EPL !! Thatcher hated football in 85 but I can't help but think she must love the neo-commercial, market forces regime that many accept as a sport. We are clinging on to being a "proper football club". Don't give up just yet..............please

Disagree mate, especially the 'Everton do not have to sell a single player for financial reason' bit. Last calendar year we sold Pienaar, Yak, Beckford, Vaughan. Got loan fees for Vaughan, Yobo, Yak. Then finally sold Arteta. That came to around £22m/£24m. (plus saved wages).  What did we bring in? Drenthe and Stracq on loan and McFadden short term contract. So, I have to ask, if 'Everton do not have to sell a single player for financial reason', where has all that money gone?

Not sure about that Mike. It's not like Moyes saw a penny from the sales of Arteta, Yakubu, Peinnar, Vaughan, Beckford or Bellefield! That is 25 million raised that went to the banks. It will be interesting to see how the board try an explain our debt if it still stands at over 40 million. I think players will be sold and even if they get near 25 million for Fellaini, Moyes will not see anywhere near all of that to reinvest. No wonder he has been happy just starting a new season with his existing squad in place.

'Its not about money' sums that piece up. Everything in life is about money, especially in football. Kevin Nolan went to West Ham to further his career didn't he.

Well said Mike.

Pretty obvious from reading this that mike has never seen Everton win a thing!

What is reality? - Everton owe practically £50 million to banks. - £30,000+ weekly is obscene, never mind the rest - most of us Evertonians would be happy with 30k a year. - Loyalty in football doesn't generally exist - If Everton got a billionaire owner, the majority of Evertonians would be happy to take other club's players (like City) if it meant we'd win trophies such as the League etc - We haven't won a trophy since 1995, so one's due!!

So you think it's OK for a player to sign a 5 year contract and at the same time professing their undying love for Everton and less than 12 months later engineer a move away? That demonstrates a massive amount of disloyalty. At least Pienaar told the truth when he left, he never tried to con anyone.

Mike you are talking out your arse lad! The actual fact you contradict your whole argument about players leaving to further their career and then say it doesn't make us a selling club...well we are a selling club because we don't have the finances to compete with the Top 5. Of course players move on to further their career but if we had finances to compete and buy other quality players to go with the likes of Baines and Fellaini then why would they move on at all? You make an example that Utd sold Stam, Beckham etc but the difference is Utd replaced them with quality like Ferdinand and Ronaldo!! Soon as people like you come into the real world and realise that Everton Football Club are an average club whose only profitable source of income is its players then the better. Arteta went and who have we replaced him with? Nobody and the reason being we haven't got finances to do so. Love the club but at the same time I'm not blind as to believing that we aren't a selling club.

So why has Gerrard stayed with the shite for the last 4-5 years. Cant have been to win the league cup, can it!? Even SG must have realised that that lot are nor going to win the big trophies.

Mike I bet you couldn't wait to tell your kids there's no such thing as father christmas or the tooth fairy, are you writing under a blag name?is it you Geoff off ov the telly?

Is that why David Moyes said it was generally understood that arteta was sold for financial reasons , even though Black Bill denied this when it when it took place. Get real Mike!

Well said Mike. Everything spot on. Only thing I will say is, I think you will find that the majority of Everton fans understand the situation and are realists. Its just a small minority that we have that can't live in the real world. We have a very good squad at the moment and with a good start to next season we could/maybe even make the top 4. The minority can carry on living in their negative world, thats not my idea of fun or of being a football fan.

Yeah I agree. Look at Ajax who used to rule Europe and still have a 5 star academy in world football, a 50000 seater stadium and can't compete at the top level, because all their stars move on. We only got Fellaini because the premier league pays big tv rights and prize money. We can't build sides anymore and the reality is its a crock of shit.

Well said. Love the Blues, but get annoyed by fans who will not accept we are not financial giants. Players wages are bleeding the game dry but the same goes for all clubs. If we get a new owner willing to put in £300 million then we might get a new ground and better players but many clubs have spent fortunes and won nothing. Got to agree with Mike, that`s the way of it and I doubt it will change in my lifetime so enjoy your Hols, enjoy a beer before the game come August and cheer on the Blues.

At first I agreed with this, but it wasn't until the end that I realised that this is more pessimistic than realistic. I think you are forgetting this thing that some players have called loyalty. I'm not saying someone would rather stay at Everton than get a massive contract at the likes of Man U, but many players owe their fame to Everton, or in my opinion, would want to stay at Everton. I think this about players like Baines, and I think that Pienaar would rather come back to us than go to someone like Chelsea, purely because a) He's learnt his lesson and b) he has that partnership with Baines down the left, unmatched by anyone in the League. I feel like I'm going down a dead end, so I'll shut up now.

When United sold Beckham, Keane, Ince, Stam etc they already had the best out of them, as for Ronaldo he was sold for 80 million. Enough to buy three world top class players.