Moyes blasts City’s haggling as Lescott fee agreed
The England international is expected to undergo a medical today after City finally came up with a bid which met the Merseysiders’ valuation of the player.
Having rejected two previous offers – the first about £18 million (€20.7m) – Everton are reported to have accepted £24m (€27.6m) from City for Lescott. City last night confirmed one of the summer’s most protracted transfer sagas is nearing an end.
“Manchester City can confirm that agreement has been reached with Everton for the transfer of Joleon Lescott.The move is subject to the player agreeing personal terms and passing a medical,’’ a statement on the club’s website said.
Everton later issued a statement to the same effect but Moyes is unhappy that the Eastlands club, bankrolled by Abu Dhabi’s multi-millionaire Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, were not prepared to pay what he thought was the going rate from the outset.
Asked if the Lescott deal was well advanced the Everton boss said: “If they (City) say they are quite far on I’m sure they are.
“But we shouldn’t have been asked to wait this length of time for an amount of cash we think was the correct value for the player.
“If the money had been offered in June it would have been a lot easier for us. The time is against us (to find a replacement).”
Everton lost 1-0 to Burnley at Turf Moor after conceding a 34th-minute Wade Elliot goal. Martin Paterson also hit the crossbar with a header in the opening minute, while Louis Saha missed a second-half penalty wrongly awarded when Tony Hibbert went down in the area.
It was Burnley’s second successive 1-0 home win after defeating champions Manchester United on Wednesday. “Burnley were the better side in the opening 25 minutes. I think, with the confidence they gained from the game in midweek, we expected that from them,” added Moyes. “But after that I thought we got back into it and were a little bit unfortunate not to get something out of it.”
Burnley boss Owen Coyle was delighted his side had been able to reproduce another good performance after the high of beating United in midweek.
“We started the game at such a terrific pace and then I thought we scored during Everton’s best spell of the half,” he said.
“I felt over the course of the game we were the better team. It was enjoyable today and it is another three points but that is all it is.
“We’ve had a great week but that is all it has been. There is so much more ahead of us, so much hard work.”
BURNLEY: Jensen, Mears, Carlisle, Bikey, Jordan, Alexander, Steven Fletcher (Thompson 86), Elliott, McCann, Blake (Guerrero 84), Paterson (Eagles 79).
EVERTON: Howard, Hibbert, Yobo, Neville, Baines, Osman, Rodwell, Fellaini (Jo 65), Cahill, Pienaar, Saha.
Referee: Phil Dowd (Staffordshire).
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