The news of Nottingham Forest pushing for Harrison Armstrong hasn't gone down well with Evertonians.
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Everton need to come out and be honest.
When news broke on Saturday morning that Nottingham Forest were working on a deal to sign Harrison Armstrong, social media went into meltdown. And rightly so.
Losing an academy talent who has now established himself as a first-team regular is never nice, especially when he's been one of our most consistent performers at the start of the campaign and during pre-season.
The £40m fee being spoken about isn't enough to justify a sale. If a club came in with an £80m offer, then fine, but you're never going to be able to convince fans that the deal makes sense at £40m.
So for me, something isn't quite right.
Something's not quite right at Everton
After listening to Angus Kinnear speaking to various Everton podcasts earlier this month, there was a bit of optimism that we could have a strong end to the window.
It was a chance for Kinnear to be honest, but was he?
There's just one justification for selling Armstrong on the cheap, and that's if Everton are desperate. If we're absolutely desperate for money, and we feel we can reinvest the £40m to strengthen, say, three positions, then it's something that's perhaps not very nice, but it's more understandable.
But based on what we've been told, Everton are in a strong position financially. We need to cash in on some players to invest heavy, but we shouldn't be in a position where we have to undervalue our most exciting academy product in years.
So, something isn't quite right.
If we're in a position where we have to panic sell in order to strengthen, there needs to be an explanation. I just find it so difficult to find a justifiable reason to offload Armstrong for £40m.
This isn't just about Armstrong either. Right-backs are moving all around us right now. Fulham are in talks for Andrei Ratiu, Forest are signing Daniel Munoz, Bournemouth have signed Juanlu Sanchez, Newcastle have signed Amar Dedic, Guela Doue appears to be heading to Bayer Leverkusen.
All of these right-backs are moving, and we've been told we're waiting for that right one. Who is that right one?
Now, news has emerged that Everton have agreed personal terms for Kenny Tete. We know that Everton enquired about Timothy Castagne from Fulham, so we've now moved for their second-choice right-back?
Is this what we've been waiting for?
We're also seemingly allowing Adam Aznou to depart with no sign of a replacement. Is Jake O'Brien being frozen out? What's happening with Tyler Dibling after zero Premier League minutes again today?
So again, are we in a worse position than is being let on?
Questions need to be asked. There is no justification to sell Armstrong for £40m and to have spent the last two years chasing a right-back to land on Tete. Tete is fine, he'll improve us, but it's kicking the can down the road and clearly a panic buy.
Why is it the 29th August and we're in this position?