Arguably the most important skill for our new manager has to be the ability to work on a limited budget, with transfer funds at a minimum David Moyes had to rely on picking up bargains like Tim Cahill and Steven Pienaar, and selling players on for a profit like Joleon Lescott and Mikel Arteta. At Wigan Athletic Roberto Martinez has, like Moyes, had very little to work with. He’s signed the likes of Arouna Kone for £2.7m and Shaun Maloney for £1m whilst selling on Charles N’Zogbia and Victor Moses both for fees in excess of £9m.

Under David Moyes Everton’s style of play has slowly evolved to the beautiful free-flowing football we saw in the victory over West Ham on Sunday, the natural progression from this is to appoint someone known for playing a good passing style of football, Roberto Martinez is this man.

David Moyes has remained loyal to Everton for 11 long years and Bill Kenwright will be hoping not to have to make another appointment in the near future. Martinez has been incredible loyal to Wigan turning down opportunities to manage a big club like Aston Villa, and also Liverpool.

Martinez has put his faith in young players like Calum McManaman, James McCarthy and Victor Moses. Everton have a good crop of young players having reached the semi-finals of the U21 Premier League and the likes of Shane Duffy and Ross Barkley finding opportunities limited under David Moyes would get more opportunities under Martinez.

Evertonians’ main criticism of David Moyes is that he has not won a trophy, well Martinez went and won a big one just a few days ago with even more limited resources than Moyes, not forgetting the 3-0 mauling at Goodison in March.

Candidates such as Malky McKay have never managed in the Premier League before, with Everton now an established “Top 7 club” gambling on a lower league manager simply isn’t what we need.

Roberto Martinez is a good man who has a number of very good young players he could bring with to Everton and build on what David Moyes has achieved and bring in the start of a new era at Goodison Park. I can think of no other candidate that ticks all the boxes like he does.

Spanish newspaper ‘AS’ claims that all of Valencia’s players are transfer listed – except 27-year-old Soldado.

It’s no wonder Valencia are not looking to sell – Soldado is a prolific Spanish international striker, who has scored 57 goals in 99 league games for his current club and 192 goals in 396 games in all competitions throughout his career.

‘The Sun’ also briefly mentioned a £10m move from Everton for Soldado, but claimed that the deal is in doubt as ‘Soldado is worried that the new Everton manager won’t want him’.

Soldado is not the first Spanish striker to be linked with the blues recently, with Seville front man Alvaro Negredo having attracted a bid from Everton in the previous transfer window.

Can we have both?

The news comes after Sir Alex Ferguson announced his retirement and Everton confirmed Moyes would leave at the end of the season.

Manchester United wanted a young, loyal manager and, looking for stability, secured Moyes on a 6 year contract. The Scot told the media it is a “great honour” to become the next Manchester United manager.

An “upset” Everton chairman Bill Kenwright has said he will take the fans views into consideration when looking for his replacement. However, the fact that arguably the biggest club in world football will take Moyes shows us the magnitude of what we need to replace.

Where is our new Mr Everton?

It was interesting to read that Everton chairman Bill Kenwright apparently had no idea that Manchester United wanted David Moyes prior to today (Wednesday).

United were not actually required to make an official approach for Moyes, due to his contract expiring, and so one can only wonder whether this (potential) move was planned privately months in advance with the club and Bill Kenwright himself having no idea what was going on behind their backs.

Furthermore, it’s no secret that Sir Alex and David Moyes are good friends, so it’s more than possible that Moyes knew Ferguson was retiring and was told not to sign his contract with a view to taking the United job.

Or perhaps it’s simply a co-incidence that Moyes has not opted to sign a new contract and his contract ends just as Sir Alex Ferguson is retiring. There’s probably nothing sinister going on – he probably only found out this week that Ferguson would retire.

It’s very rare that a manager runs his contract down and so annoyingly, Everton would receive no compensation whatsoever should Moyes become the United manager. This leaves Everton in a pickle should they look to bring in a manager who is in contract at another club – they would have to pay them compensation – this would surely eat into any transfer budget. If only he had signed his contract 6 months ago!

Would it have made much difference if Moyes had secured Champions League qualification with us for next season? He may have given it a chance with us, but with a job like this not coming round too often, one would have to think it would of made no difference whatsoever had we secured Champions League qualification. It’s most likely Moyes was just planning on waiting until the end of the season to weigh up his options – to see if the likes of the Manchester United job would become available.

Some fans will see Moyes leaving as a blessing in disguise – a make or break for Everton. Yes, we do have a core of good players, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the likes of Baines in particular end up in Manchester United shirts next season. People don’t realise what they had until it’s gone.

Others will be disappointed to see Moyes go, not only because of the job he has done for us but most importantly because who will replace him?

With the budget and calibre of players United have, it’s more than likely Moyes will be a success at United, and so many Evertonians will be kicking themselves seeing what Moyes can do with such great resources.

What are your thoughts? Leave a comment below, or discuss in our forums.

Whilst at first glance many may believe the badge is fake, it seems the club have actually registered one style of the above badge as a trademark (http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/tm/t-os/t-tmj/tm-journals/2013-015/UK00002656323.html).

The club have taken liberties to protect the use the trademark across many different areas, however its final use remains to be seen. Could this be the new Everton badge? Perhaps Nike and Everton discussed a re-designed badge to keep the club in sync with Nike’s ‘forward thinking’ and modern style of kits.

The 65-year-old composer and impresario of musical theatre was on Merseyside to check out the Liverpool production of The Phantom of the Opera – and following an invitation from close friend and theatre producer Bill Kenwright – was invited to attend the Blues home game with Manchester City at Goodison Park.

Lord Webber – who is worth £700m – was spotted in the Directors box for the 2-0 win and was believed to have been so enthralled with the Toffees performance that he and Kenwright sat down for talks over potential investment.. and more.

It is now believed Lord Webber has compiled a consortium – including Evertonian Sir Paul McCartney – that will invest funds into the club to boost the manager’s transfer kitty for the summer.

In addition to providing these funds, Lord Webber – leading the consortium – believes he has the commercial knowledge to bring new revenues into the club. In order to do so he plans to create a musical with trusted friend Kenwright about Everton Football Club.

The production, entitled ‘School of Science’, will look at the history of the club from its formation to the modern day. Bill Kenwright himself will not only produce the musical but play the lead role of ‘Blue Bill’ – singing ‘My Second Mortgage”, “Boys Pen” and “Watch this Space”.

As part of the musical, it is believed Sir Tim Rice and Sir Elton John will collaborate with Lord Webber to produce a special piece called ‘I guess that’s why they call us the blues’.

When asked about the deal, Kenwright was understandably delighted.

“It’s a great deal that myself [and Lord Webber] worked on. I can trust him. He’s leading a group who are investing into the club, and we’re also making a musical”.

However, Lord Webber was unaware that any discussions took place.

No offence intended, love you Bill!

Despite originally claiming he would open contract talks following the January transfer window, Moyes decided he would wait until the summer to discuss a new contract, stating that he wished to see how his team performed during the remainder of the season before committing his future to the club.

But despite a humiliating 3-0 home defeat to Wigan Athletic in the FA Cup, Moyes claims this decision is not having an adverse effect on his players.

“What can be said is people will always draw comparisons.  But anybody who watched that game will know it had nothing to do with that. It was just a poor performance by myself and the Everton team. It wasn’t anything to do with anything else.”

“I actually got a feeling that the supporters realised it was just a bad day. We just didn’t play well. It wasn’t as if it was something tactically we did. Throughout you saw misplaced passes, bad control, not winning a race, a challenge or a header in the box. It was a performance I’ve not seen from my team for quite a while.”

Before penning any contract extension, Moyes – one of the highest paid managers in Europe – is looking for reassurance that funds will be available to take Everton forward. The club will have some – albiet limited – funds to spend in the summer with Moyes particularly keen to improve the spine of his side – central defence, central midfield and centre forward. Revenue from sponsorship deals – including their sponsorship deal with Paddy Power - will help boost the transfer kitty.

On the pitch, Moyes believes his side will bounce back quickly from their FA Cup disappointment: “What we’ve tended to do in these situations is bounce back quite well.  We lost a big game at Wembley last year and I would expect the same from the players and the same from me.”

“I said before we’re still fighting on two fronts: the FA Cup and the league, and that’s why I would never say which one is more important than the other. Now the important thing is we try to win as many league games as we can.”

The FA Cup Semi Final draw almost certainly means that only 5th place will be a Europa League spot; one of Wigan, Blackburn or Millwall will join Swansea in Europe next season.

Everton are still in contention for 5th spot: They are currently just 2 points behind Arsenal in 5th, and seven points behind Chelsea in 4th – and the Toffees still have to play both sides in addition to Spurs, City and Liverpool. Everton can still have their say.

The Toffees reportedly lodged two bids of €10m & later €14m which were both rejected by the Spanish club.

Sevilla are unlikely to sell the Spanish international even if offered a better financial package – as they believe the player will be too hard to replace with only a few hours of the transfer window remaining.

We reported on Wednesday the clubs had opened talks and the Blues have proposed a fee of around €10m for the 27-year-old Spanish international.

However, Spanish sources say this offer is insufficient – as Sevilla will not accept less than €15m Euros for a player who is instrumental to their team.

It is believed a transfer could prosper with Sevilla already looking to sign a replacement in the form of Steaua București’s Raul Rusescu.

The blues have funds available having opted not to complete the signing of highly rated Dutch midfielder Leroy Fer.

27-year-old Spanish international Negredo would cost around £8m and has 14 goals to his name this season.

Moyes is also looking for a powerful, technically strong midfielder who can drive the team forward and a return for Belgium international Ofoe Odjidja is an option.