Simon Jordan tears Everton mess apart live on talkSPORT after Andre Ayew chooses Nottingham Forest
Simon Jordan says the reason Andre Ayew chose to sign for Nottingham Forest over Everton is because the Toffees are “toxic”.
The free agent chose to team up with his former Swansea boss Steve Cooper at the City Ground on Thursday (2 February), meaning the Toffees missed out on one of the few remaining available targets after going empty-handed throughout the transfer window.
Former Crystal Palace chairman Jordan didn’t hold back when he summed up why a move to Goodison Park wasn’t attractive to Ayew or a whole host of other players the club missed out on during January.
Speaking live on talkSPORT (3 February, 11.39am) he said: “The fact is players don’t want to go to Everton at this moment in time.”
Jim White then asked: “Why would Andre Ayew want to go to Forest, where he’s ended up, and not Everton?”
And Jordan replied: “Because Everton is toxic. Why would you want to go into a bag of trouble right now where you’ve got everything against you?
“You’ve got a playing squad that’s perceived to be not good enough. You’ve got a fanbase that’s disillusioned. You’ve got a new manager coming in the door.
“You’ve got a board that apparently can’t come to games, and you’ve got a situation where Nottingham Forest are on the up.”
Miserable
The fact that Ayew had a previous relationship with Cooper is clearly relevant to his case, but on the whole it is unfortunately difficult to argue with a lot of what Jordan said aside from the murky circumstances around the board’s attendance of games.
That has obviously now registered among players, because it can’t be a coincidence that so many turned down the club’s advances, and two targets went to the only side currently worse off in the table Southampton.
Kamaldeen Sulemana and Paul Onuachu both headed to St Mary’s and while money might have come into it, Anthony Gordon’s exit had freed some cash up so it can’t be the only factor.
Sean Dyche put a brave face on to explain the situation to the media in his first press conference on Thursday, and by extension the fans, but he would surely have liked some new options to work with.
The list of free agents is by definition not going to be packed with highly sought after players, and with the other man linked, Isco, apparently now ruled out [Mail+, 3 January] it seems like it may be just the current squad the Dyche has to work with.
Keeping the club in the Premier League is clearly the primary objective in itself, but instilling some confidence in the direction of travel so that players, other than Amadou Onana, don’t all take other options is also going to be important.