The last FanShot got me thinking. As we now know, Everton aren't on the verge of collapsing and going into administration immediately, but at the same time we are not sitting pretty either.
As the article from Liverpool Echo suggested, the banks may force us to sell an asset (player) in order to push down some of the debts we have accumulated. It's not a given, there's just a possibility that it could happen.
So that leads to the question, If we were forced to sell someone who would we want to go? The next logical question to ask would be, who would we least want to see leave?
Before we start answering these questions, there are a couple of ground rules to this sad little hypothetical game we are playing.
Rules after "the jump".
The first rule is that we aren't including players that are pretty much already on their way out. There's no point in discussing about these players, when we already know that they'll probably leave. I can just write that myself, I wouldn't need a poll to find that out. This list would include Mucha, Yobo, Yakubu, and Vaughan.
The second rule is that we can't include players that aren't worth much. There's no point for the banks to make us sell a player that is worth only 2 million. That is going to decrease debt by a fractional amount. So this rules out players like Neville (age and overall decline), Distin (age), Cahill (age), Beckford (he's just not worth that much), and most backups (Hibbert, Osman, Gueye, Anichebe).
The third rule is that we should ignore the hypothetical amount that no sane club would turn down for each player. I know that every player has a price point that the club would sell the player for because it is just too hgh. We're not arguing that. We're not playing "what if" with that amount.
Also, I'm not going to include Bilyaletdinov because that's just too easy (and the money would be borderline).
The last rule is, we are not including the Everton player with the name John Heitinga. Yes, he will probably fetch decent money. Yes, he has shown us that he wouldn't be heartbroken if he left. He doesn't have the same loyalty as the other players seem to have for Everton. And he's a backup right now. All these factors lead me to exclude him from the poll.
In other words, I want a heart wrenching answer.
Everyone is welcome to explain their choices and a ranking of the players they want to see gone. My answer will be in the comments, so I don't sway anyone with my explanation here.