1878 Group stand down in protest over transfer window shambles | OneFootball

(Photo by Carl Recine/Getty Images)

The 1878 Group have issued an extremely strong  statement expressing their utter disappointment and disgust at the way Everton have conducted the transfer window, and how it ended:

"We thought the tpotential sale of our biggest young talent was bad enough, but the last 24 hours has topped that."On Saturday Moyes said "I don't think we can afford to lose any players, we need to stay as strong as we can” - since then we have lost another five players (three of them who have left play in areas we needed to strengthen in) and only brought two in.

"To leave us with no back up full-backs and just one striker is full-on gross negligence, not forgetting we also lost one of our best players at an under valued price in today’s market in the process without replacing him too.

"We stated on Sunday that we do not feel that our fanbase’s ambitions and the club’s ambitions align right now - what happened yesterday has proved that even more.

"As a group, we will still be standing down for the foreseeable future and will not be dedicating a huge amount of our own time to put together the displays that we do that try and generate the best pre-match atmosphere possible.

"To be clear, this is nothing against the signings we have made, we welcome them to the club and wish them the best of luck here. However, like the rest of our fanbase, we are utterly disappointed and disgusted with how this transfer window has gone, especially the end of it.

"Also for fans asking, just to reiterate - when we design flags, there are rules and regulations that we have to adhere to regarding the wording on our flags during displays, we are not allowed derogatory or offensive wording or images.

"If we were able to get a load of flags in the ground to show our feelings of discontent, disappointment and anger over this whole situation, believe us, we would, but this is something that simply wouldn’t be allowed.

"Despite how we all feel, we still urge fans to get behind our team on the pitch for 90 minutes like we did at Bournemouth on Saturday. We will fully support any action the fanbase takes in reaction to this extremely poor transfer window."