Martinez: We don’t need to sell players as we are strong financially

Roberto Martinez has said that the club will do all they can to keep hold of their best players and believes that the club are in a much better financial position following the sale of Marouane Fellaini.  The Goodison Park club sold Fellaini to Manchester United in the summer transfer window and raised £27.5m from that sale to help the Everton coffers, as a result Martinez believes that he can do transfers based on footballing decisions rather than book balancing decisions now.

He said: “As a club we don’t need the money. We don’t need to balance the books and that’s something we have wanted, being in a position where you can make football decisions rather than financial decisions.

“We are very, very strong in that respect. Leighton is a vital player in the squad. For everything he represents he is an icon for the fans.

“All I want is for him to enjoy his football and be focused for the World Cup, which is around the corner.

“I am confident he will be here beyond January – we don’t want to sell Leighton.

“If you ask me about Ross Barkley I’ll answer the same. If you ask me about James McCarthy I’ll answer the same.

“When you are in a position where you have to bring money in, then it’s out of your hands. Then you have to rely on what you can sell. We are not in that position.

“If someone comes in and gives £100m for a player then maybe there is a decision to be made.”

It has been reported in much of the British press that contract negotiations with Leighton Baines haven’t begun despite the player only having 18 months left on his contract.

Ross Barkley has been linked with Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City but a series of tweets by the player himself have indicated that he is very happy to stay at Everton and on recent international duty he was also told to stay at Everton by Liverpool captain Steven Gerard as he believes that this would be in the best interest of the player.

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