Everton fairytale has us hooked - shame it's built on £50m loan sham of Lukaku, Barry and Deulofeu (so Wenger's right to moan)

Everton's good season has been built around loan players such as Romelu Lukaku, Gareth Barry and Gerard Deulofeu

The Toffees have done nothing wrong but loan system is flawed

Lukaku, Barry and Deulofeu would cost more than £50m

Arsene Wenger is correct to complain about the system

Manchester United stars are picking and choosing their performances

Nicolas Anelka's move to Brazil will test the FA's resolve

Assem Allam's win in the 'Hull City Tigers' vote was a sham

Neil Adams seems a strange choice as Norwich City manager



There is one problem with Arsene Wenger’s complaint about Everton and the loan system. Arsenal have been involved in 14 loan transfers themselves this season. None as effective as Romelu Lukaku, admittedly, but whose fault is that? It is hardly Everton’s responsibility that Arsenal do not play the loan game very well.

So let’s start by saying that the club challenging Arsenal for fourth place have done nothing wrong. Most fans admire Everton’s rootsy status and wish them well.



Roberto Martinez has done an outstanding job and Bill Kenwright is the type of wealthy local supporter who should be in charge throughout the Premier League. ‘If you’re going to take me, take me now,’ a classically overwrought Kenwright implored after Sunday’s impressive win over Arsenal. Lord knows how he’ll react if they make it to the Champions League.

Loan star: Romelu Lukaku has been Roberto Martinez's talisman this season at Everton

Finishing touch: Lukaku (centre) scores Everton's second goal in their 3-0 win over Arsenal

Central figure: Gareth Barry (right) has been revitalised during his temporary move to Everton Rising star: Gerard Deulofeu, on loan from Barcelona, would not come cheap should Everton try to sign him ALLAM VICTORY NOT A FAIR FIGHT

To quote the late, great Gil Scott-Heron: mandate, my ass. Hull City’s owner Assem Allam rigged his sham ballot with a loaded question, excluded all fans barring season-ticket holders and still collected only 2,565 out of 15,033 votes for his plan to change the name to Hull Tigers. This amounts to 17 per cent of the electorate. Sadly, there were so many abstentions and shoulder shrugs that Allam can claim to have won the vote — as only 16.7 per cent actively voted against him. It makes no difference. Allam did not offer a straight yes or no, preferring to word the options so that a stand against him as good as advocated putting the club up for sale.

It was not a fair fight and the FA, who blocked the renaming scheme, must stay strong. Allam did not emerge victorious — he failed to secure 83 per cent of the polled support.

There remains no mandate for change. That isn’t fair. Michel Platini, president of UEFA, says that living off the investment of their owner gives a club an artificially inflated position. Yet that is what Everton have achieved, simply by different means. Chelsea’s Lukaku and Manchester City’s Barry, in particular, have propelled them to a peak they would not have been able to attain under their own means. Yet, while self-improvement by owner is outlawed and scorned, by loan it is approved. How can that be? This is the future. As financial fair play bites, clubs will find all manner of ways to sidestep its effects. Barcelona have recently fallen foul of FIFA for contravening the rules on cross-border transfers for Under 18 players, yet it is only natural that with top-end signings having such an impact on the balance sheet, the youth market will overheat.

Why wait until a player is 25 and pay £40m with UEFA looking on disapprovingly if a deal can be struck for a tenth of that at a young age? FFP makes it worth the gamble. Manchester City have signed Rodney Kongolo of Feyenoord, who is already being compared with Patrick Vieira. Kongolo is 16 and would previously have made his name at his first club, like 20-year-old brother Terence. Now Feyenoord risk losing both as Terence becomes disenchanted without Rodney. It is undoubtedly a harmful trend for smaller clubs, yet from City’s point of view, the money risked represents better FFP value than buying Kongolo later for a much larger sum. So important is the youth market these days that City’s scouts even have a piece of computer kit, a very upmarket FIFA 14 almost, that shows how the teenage protege will link up with Sergio Aguero, or play beside Yaya Toure in midfield. Mums, dads, kids and agents are apparently very impressed. Chelsea have placed similar emphasis on accumulating the next generation, farming young players out to Vitesse Arnhem in the Dutch league which, again, artificially inflates their league position. Local boy in the photograph: Everton chairman Bill Kenwright (right) is the type of wealthy supporter who should be in charge of every Premier League club Outstanding: Martinez has done a superb job with Everton this season and has played the loan system well Trouble in paradise has arrived, however, with the claim from former chairman Merab Jordania that the arrangement between the clubs runs deeper than youth loans, and Vitesse actually take their orders from ‘London’. ‘I wanted to be champion of the Netherlands, but London did not,’ he said. ‘Ambition is fine but Vitesse may not be in the Champions League with Chelsea.’ The Dutch Football Federation are investigating these claims. Vitesse are now fourth, having topped the table on January 18. Arsenal are complaining most bitterly about the loan system, as it is their safe fourth-placed berth that is under threat from Everton. Yet the suggestion that it distorts the league would carry greater weight if Wenger was not perfectly happy for Arsenal’s purposes to disrupt other competitions. Arsenal have two players of little consequence in on loan: Emiliano Viviano, a 28-year-old goalkeeper at Palermo, who spent last season with Fiorentina and has not played a first-team game in 2013-14, and Kim Kallstrom, the catastrophic January transfer acquisition from Spartak Moscow, who turned out to be as seriously injured as the player he was replacing. Kallstrom has featured for 11 minutes as a substitute against Swansea City, during which time Arsenal lost a 2-1 lead.

Fleeting glimpse: The on-loan midfielder Kim Kallstrom (right) has played just once for Arsenal Dotted around: Joel Campbell is on loan at Olympiacos and Ignasi Miquel (right) is at Leicester Reel them in, loan them out, drag them back, send them packing - and we wonder why there's no loyalty in football Yet Arsenal’s loans out are substantial, amounting to 12 players: Damian Martinez and Benik Afobe (Sheffield Wednesday), Johan Djourou (Hamburg), Daniel Boateng (Hibernian), Ignasi Miquel (Leicester City), Nicholas Yennaris (Brentford), Francis Coquelin (Freiburg), Chuks Aneke (Crewe Alexandra), Joel Campbell (Olympiacos), Chuba Akpom (Coventry City), Park Chu-young (Watford) and Wellington (Murcia). So, while taking a high moral stance on the Premier League, the competitions Wenger doesn’t mind influencing include the Champions League, Europa League, Championship, League One, the Bundesliga, Greek Super League, Scottish Premiership and Spain’s Segunda Division. He doesn’t mind affecting your club, he just thinks it is wrong when it happens to his. As Leicester have earned promotion from the Championship, Olympiacos are the champions of Greece, Murcia are fighting to make the promotion play-offs in Spain, Brentford are second in League One, Hamburg and Freiburg may yet avoid relegation from the Bundesliga and Crewe Alexandra are still battling to avoid dropping to League Two, a great many managers may distrust Arsenal’s impact on their status. Arsenal’s 12 loan players have made 207 appearances for their temporary clubs this season. Now there is talk of an Arsenal deal to buy Alvaro Morata of Real Madrid for £8m in the summer with a fixed buy-back price for the selling club in two years’ time. What is that if not a two-year loan with bells and whistles? What Everton have been allowed to do is flawed, but every club plays the loan market for all it is worth and some with more talent than others. Indeed, now financial fair play has been so inexpertly grafted on top, the clamour for loans will only intensify. Fortunately, Everton seem committed to their youth policy, too, yet others will not be as scrupulous. What does the production line matter when UEFA regulations as good as encourage the temporary acquisition of ready-made first-team players? How can it be the permanent transfers that are viewed suspiciously? Reel them in, loan them out, drag them back, send them packing — and then we wonder why there is no loyalty in football.

Homegrown: Everton are committed to their youth policy which has produced the likes of Ross Barkley

And while we're at it

There has been so much delight at Manchester United’s little revival that some troubling developments are slipping beneath the radar. Take this admission from Patrice Evra after Saturday’s win at Newcastle United.

‘In the Champions League, we have played good, we are confident and it looks like we are up for it more than in the league and cup. I know it is not professional to say that, but it is the truth.’

Not professional? It’s a flaming disgrace. Can you imagine any United player offering such a view under Sir Alex Ferguson, let alone a senior player, nearly eight years at the club?



Nobody got to pick and choose their targets with Ferguson. He may have adjusted his squad for the smaller domestic competitions, or even against weaker opponents in the league, but there was never any question of United’s commitment to victory.

Disgrace: Patrice Evra implied that Manchester United tried harder in the Champions League Top travellers: United have been formidable away from home this season And what are we to make of the fact that United have the best away record in the Premier League, 33 points from 17 matches, at an average of 1.94 (Liverpool have 31 from 17, an average of 1.82, Tottenham 29 from 16, an average of 1.81)?

Going into Wednesday night's game against Bayern Munich this seems like good news, although it rather pokes a hole in the theory that David Moyes inherited a lousy team from Ferguson, and his struggles are only to be expected. Might it be that Moyes is happier with the more conservative style that United can play away from home, and weakest when his teams have to attack and dictate the game, as happens at Old Trafford. If so, he may be the right man for tonight’s job — but what of longer term?

The demands in those home fixtures are not about to go away. Conservative: David Moyes's managerial style is more suited to playing on the road

Anelka tests FA with Brazil move



Nicolas Anelka has joined Atletico Mineiro in Brazil, according to club president Alexandre Kalil. This is now a test of the FA’s resolve.



Banning him for five games over the anti-Semitic quenelle gesture, the FA insisted they would seek to have that suspension transferred to wherever he next plays football.



Will FIFA take up the battle on the FA’s request, will the Brazilian federation listen or are they all simply relieved the matter has gone away? We shall see.

Test of resolve: Will the FA try to uphold Nicolas Anelka's suspension in Brazil?

It was close to two months ago that David McNally, chief executive of Norwich City, admitted that he kept a list of Chris Hughton’s possible replacements on file.

He must have mislaid it, then, because if youth-team coach Neil Adams was his man for the job all along, then he could have made the switch internally sooner rather than later.