United bid for Toffees pair ‘waste of time’

Everton boss Roberto Martinez has branded Manchester United’s £28 million bid for Marouane Fellaini and Leighton Baines as a “waste of time”.

The Toffees dismissed United’s joint offer for the two players “out of hand” as “derisory and insulting”.

Now Martinez wants to put an end to any further speculation linking the pair with Old Trafford, where former Everton boss David Moyes took charge in the summer.

Martinez, inset, said: “It’s been well documented what happened with the transfer speculation, that’s been dealt with and it was all a little bit of a waste of time — time I don’t want the players to waste.

“I think the start of the season was important for us at Norwich and I won’t come out now and carry on talking about the speculation.

“The players have had the demands of international football and then they started the league with a lot of travelling, so obviously you can imagine it’s been important these past few days that we can get them recovered, regenerate them in the right manner and get them ready for the next game.

“That, at the moment, is our only focus.”

Belgium midfielder Fellaini and England left-back Baines have both been linked with moves out of Goodison Park for some time.

It remains to be seen whether United will submit fresh bids but any bid would need to be substantially higher than the respective £12m and £16m they are believed to have offered for Baines and Fellaini for Everton to consider selling.

Martinez has previously revealed that a buyout clause in Fellaini’s contract, believed to be £23.5m, expired at the end of July.

Martinez has promised to keep supporters informed on the issues of comings and goings.

The Spaniard said: “I think the situation is very clear. I think as a football club we will always keep our fans informed. When there is something to tell our fans we will do that — they’ll be the first ones to know if there are any players coming in or any players going out.”

Everton opened their Premier League campaign with a 2-2 draw at Norwich and host West Brom on Saturday.

These are the matters he wants to be concentrating on and believes the transfer window should close before the season starts.

He said: “I don’t believe in getting involved in the transfer window when the games are under way and we are in a very, very important moment of our season.

“We’re trying to find our feet, we got a good start under our belts, we’ve got real competition for places and we’ve got the visit of West Brom at the weekend.”