Martinez: We will keep all the players that we want to keep
Everton manager Roberto Martinez is confident that the club will keep hold of all of their star performers should any of the richest clubs come in for them in the summer and says that the club are in a strong position financially.
A number of players including Seamus Coleman, Leighton Baines and Ross Barkley have been linked with lucrative moves away from Goodison Park, but Martinez is confident that the players are on long term contracts and in no rush to move.
Martinez said: “It’s always the same question when a player is performing well. Can you keep them?
“The reality is if you are in a strong position financially as a football club you don’t have to sell anyone. We have shown that.
“We want to keep every player who is part of our future who has performed well and financially we are in the strongest moment we have been for, I don’t know how many years, but a long time.
“We have everyone under contract apart from the loan players. I would be worried if we had four or five players performing really well who were out of contract.
“Do we want to keep players who do not want to be here? No, but that’s always been the case with any squad of players.
“When I look at our squad everyone loves representing Everton so I have no problems keeping players who have a short-term relationship with the squad.”
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The only chance of losing squad players will be the chance that uber rich clubs might want to stockpile our promising kids.So there could be offers for Stones or Barkley or McCarthy. All the others are getting a bit long in the tooth and/or just signed reasonable length contracts. Seamus is class,but would he fit in to the playing style of any team who can afford to buy him? I suppose Moyes might be tempted to make an offer,but I can’t really see any of the other teams being very keen.