Gavin Buckland has claimed on the All Together Now podcast that he doesn’t expect Everton to spend a lot of money in January.
Everton fans and Frank Lampard himself will likely be clamouring for new signings in January to ensure they can move away from the threat of relegation during the second half of the season and avoid a tense finish like last campaign.
However, given they are not in the best financial situation due to their overspending on players over the last few years, there won’t likely be an outlandish amount of money at Lampard’s disposal.
Buckland is certainly not holding out much hope for Lampard being handed a big pit of money by the Everton board to improve his squad.
He said: “I’m not sure how much money’s available, and I’d seriously doubt whether we’ve got money to get a decent-sized ‘star’, shall we say, from the World Cup. I think they’ll be looking elsewhere.
Will Everton be active in January
Yes!
No!
“So I can’t see, on that basis, us really throwing all our eggs into one basket, or being able to.
“My guess is it might be similar to last January, where we might bring in two or three and try and offload a couple and hope that those deals balance each other out.
“I can’t see us going out and buying players for £50m in January, bearing in mind, as everybody knows, we’re in consultation continually with the Premier League over our finances.”
TIF Thoughts on Everton’s January plans…
This won’t be the type of message Evertonians will have wanted to hear as the January transfer window looms, but it is also their reality for the club’s reckless spending over the last few years, so a few seasons of stringent recruitment is what’s required to sort their finances out.
Just because Buckland doesn’t think they will be splashing big money, doesn’t mean they can’t find bargain deals for certain players, just like they did with the likes of Conor Coady and James Tarkowski over the summer.
Whereas, you look at someone like Dwight McNeil, who set the club back £20m and has been far from impressive, with two goals, zero assists and an average WhoScored match rating of 6.60, highlighting how poor he’s been despite costing a lot of money.