Maybe I’m just a cynic but like others, no doubt, I still can’t see a seriously positive reason for handing Arthur Masuaku a new four year deal.

It seems unfair after yesterday quite appalling display by the team to focus on any player for criticism because they all deserved to be pilloried in a big way.

However, my thoughts turned back to Arthur as I saw him pulled inside out and backwards for the first and probably, critical, goal.

Yes Roberto should have done better but Arthur should have done a LOT better.

We were assured at the time the new four years was offered  it was because he has a big part to play in our future and, on the face of it, with his contract coming to an end next summer, this would be the natural time to do so I guess.

However, it may not have necessarily been for the sort of reasons some may have considered, as I can’t see how his form over the last two and a half years will have justified an extension equal in years to that of an American presidency!

Yesterday’s considerable cock up  wasn’t the first and much as I hope otherwise, I doubt whether it will be the last because his history tells us differently.

So why four years!

Could it be that with just a few months left on his deal there would have been no chance of getting any sort of fee for him but that with a few years tagged on he won’t be going anywhere on a near free.

Like I said, maybe I’m just a terrible old cynic but, I honestly can’t see him still being at the club in nearly five years time.

Manuel Pellegrini announced two changes to yesterday’s starting lineup when Aaron Cresswell and Andriy Yamolenko were left out in and replaced by Arthur Masuaku and Pablo Fornals.

Aaron Cresswell suffered a knock against Crystal Palace but on Thursday’s press conference the manager insisted he had no fresh injury concerns except for the long term injuries of Fabianski, Reid and Antonio. It now appears he was being economical with the truth with Cresswell missing some training this week.  If he was playing mind games with Everton he didn’t work with Masuaku not having his best of games for the Hammers.  Cresswell is expected to have a full week of training in the coming week and be fit again for the Sheffield United home game at the London Stadium.

Andriy Yamolenko was rested on the bench by the manager after two international games for Ukraine and came on in the second half when things started to go against us. The decision not to start Yarmolenko was a strange one given his current great form and the fact that Masuaku had played two full games on International duty but was deemed fit to play.

Yesterday’s Daily Mail non-story about West Ham being available for sale has raised fresh questions about the financial penalties the owners would face if the club was sold before 2023 and whether they plan to buy the London Stadium before that date.

Suggestions that the club is up for sale at £600m were described as ‘complete nonsense’ by one senior club insider yesterday but it is true that the owners would need to pay out compensation if the club as sold before 2023.

Should the club be sold to say he King of Saudi Arabia before 2023 for £600m then the owners would need to hand over just under £80m to the stadium owners. There is no compensation on the first £125m,  £1.875m compensation on the next £25m, £5m on the next £50m, and £12.5m on the next £100m, anything above £300m attracts a further 20% compensation so at a £600m sale it would a further £60m.

As for the club buying the London Stadium before 2023, while the stadium is experiencing losses as high as £30m per year there is almost zero chance of the club taking over ownership of the stadium unless a heavy government subsidy was provided with it. Even with naming rights and without athletics the stadium would lose £20m with the current long term contracts in place.

Seb Haller reckons some serious talking needs to be done after yesterday’s shocking defeat at Goodison Park.

Left to plough his lone furrow up front without a hint of service from his midfield, the Frenchman – like the rest of us – simply can’t understand how that performance happened or where it came from.

Thankfully nobody has started talking about the “Everton bogey team” after a match which surely came down to one team’s motivation against what appeared another’s  disinterest.

We say APPERED  because no highly paid professional athlete every goes onto a pitch with such a minDset. It’s impossible.

Maybe Haller should be excluded from blame given the awful position he found himself in yesterday. Frankly, it was more than unacceptable and there can surely be no more displays like that without the most serious lash back among those paying to watch the team.

Pellegrini will know that but in the meantime Haller declared @ https://www.whufc.com/news/articles/2019/october/20-october/haller-everton-defeat-shows-we-need-improve: “It’s a shame to play like that and today Everton were better in every part of the pitch. It was even worse in the first half, the second we [were] better but we didn’t deserve anything.

“Sometimes it happens and it’s difficult to understand why we were like that because it was not only one player, it was almost the whole team. It’s something we have to speak about after the weekend.

“Hopefully that kind of performance will remind us that we need more to be more than 100 percent every game, be more aggressive and make different runs.

A lot of small things made this game very bad for us, so we need to think about it [and do better] because that was unacceptable.”