Everton have to be spot on in the transfer market

The fact of the matter is that football, particularly the Premier League, is ludicrously popular and as a result, newspapers, magazines and commercial television and radio stations need to cover it extensively. To fail to do so would be commercial suicide.

On the other hand, Tom Daley or not, synchronised diving is never going to shift a lot of papers. So it's
the BBC themselves, as a public service broadcaster, who seem to be most at fault, as there's absolutely nothing stopping them giving the so-called minority sports more airtime instead of pointing the finger at football.

On the subject of blame, the second favourite pastime among Evertonians at the moment is trying to apportion responsibility for the club's continued poor showing in the transfer market.

The first is obviously trying to find out just who some of the weird and wonderful players are that the club are linked to.

It's hard to know whether to castigate David Moyes for seemingly putting all his eggs in a couple of high- priced baskets or to in some ways admire his determination to push the envelope in terms of getting the kind of players he thinks can improve the team on a budget that is limited compared to some of the other top clubs.

Make no bones about it, if he had the money that Luiz Felipe Scolari has at his disposal then the elusive Joao Moutinho would be training at Finch Farm now.

However, it is Moyes's duty to have a contingency plan should he fail to land his top targets, and at the moment it looks as if he is trying to bring in squad players, like Lars Jacobsen, for as little outlay as possible.

What Moyes knows is that he has no room for expensive mistakes. Whatever he spends now will clearly have a direct effect on how much he has in January when, who knows, the players he has his heart set on might become available.

If he fails to actually improve the first team though, especially with the state the midfield is in at the moment, then January might be too late: we could be out of Europe and floundering in the league. How attractive would we look to the better players then?

Luckily the current players seem to be relatively unaffected by the uncertainty surrounding the club at the moment.

The Hawthorns is never an easy place to visit, and especially with a cobbled together side featuring two teenagers in the starting line-up, so to weather the early pressure and take all three points last Saturday showed a lot of character.

The introduction of James Vaughan, rusty but still brimming with enthusiasm, was the turning point. Needless to say, it would be a fillip for the whole club if the talented striker can stay fit this season.