Saints remain keen on Holgate loan deal

When he didn’t go on to the training camp I was hoping for something like this to be the reason, let’s hope we get a good £8-10 million fee or maybe a decent swap deal.

Definitely not another ridiculous boomerang loan deal.

A good swap deal or £8-10M would be excellent

If we get £10M for Mason, then I might believe we've finally turned a corner in the transfer market!

Or, we finally found someone even dumber than we are?

He won't be playing many games here so a good move for him and probably help Southampton get promoted. £8-10M is good business if it's true.

Of their players, if Onana was sold, I'd have James Ward-Prowse, 10 goals and 5 assists per season from midfield would be welcome. Along with his sharpness pressing . He would help see us safely as a Premier League club going into the new stadium.

It's speculation season, but this could have legs.

If we could entice Ward-Prowse back to the Premier League, then that would be fansastic.

It would fit with Dyche's style. Along with McNeil, we would have midfielders with great delivery from set pieces and goals in them.

I see West Ham are linked with him and the alleged fee is £20M. Given they now have a gap with the seemingly departure of Declan Rice and an alleged £105M to play with, I guess that puts them in prime position especially with European football on offer.

Yes, European football's "lesser" competitions. Some call them distractions. Tell that to West Ham and Aston Villa supporters.

Very Sam Allardyce. No. Just no. Think Rotterdam and some of those nights in the 2000s.

Danny, it's always baffled me how anyone can turn their nose up at European football!! I'd be ecstatic if we even qualified for the Conference League this season let alone win it next season.

The whole point of following your club is the hope of one day seeing them win something.

Don't know where the fee is coming from but if we get £10 million for Holgate, I assume Thelwell gets a statue at BMD.

Seriously though, there's a player in Holgate and a fresh start may bring it out. He's probably one of the players who wasn't helped by playing under 7/8 different managers in such a short space of time. He could do really well in the Championship.

Wish him all the best (I'd take anything over £5M)

I hope this is true, I would take either of their fullbacks in part-ex. Walker-Peters can play both sides and the right-back they signed from Chelsea, Liveramento (maybe) looked good until he got injured.

Ward-Prowse would be hard to entice in our current situation.

Knowing us, this deal will involve Che Adams and a large fee going their way.

I'd expect £12m+. As for Ward-Prowse, he's probably thinking higher.

Southampton signed Irish left back Ryan Manning yesterday free agent, and one of the best left backs in the Championship last season for Swansea. He's 26, Young is 38?

Surely we are due some good news; whilst Mason looked a promising player some years ago, he has gone backwards very much in the way Tom Davies did. It would seem a good move for him and for us; let's hope it happens.

I can only see it being a loan unfortunately, got a massive contract at Everton that no Championship team will be able to pay. A loan with Everton picking up half the wages,I would imagine.

A good move for all concerned it true.

Spot on, Sam. If he is allowed to go, his present wages will be too hot for a Championship club to meet, so a loan deal looks the most likely outcome.

Holgate going makes sense, and that fee would be welcome. It would also save us £70k a week on wages! Online source reported that was the value of his 5-year contract signed in 2020.

Ainsley Maitland-Niles would be a good free transfer, can play in lots of positions and is quick.

I would like to see us get Ward-Prowse but I fear it's beyond us financially, and quite honestly midfield isn't too much of a problem compared to attack.

Holgate is just not reliable enough. His concentration is very suspect. It seemed so different before his injury 3 years ago.

The only thing is that he may not be replaced, since Ashley Young has been brought in. Everton do need a centre-back who can do a job, hopefully with pace.

Holgate is supposedly on £70k per week and has 2 years left on his contract. Unless he hands in a transfer request, if we sell him I believe we'd need to pay out his contract – so £7M!

So we'd need a fee of £7M just to break even if we sold him. So, even if we sold him for say £10M, we'd only have about £3M left over, albeit we'd have freed up £70k on the wage bill.

I'm guessing that's been the stumbling block with Sheffield Utd as they didn't want to pay a 'big' fee. It makes no sense for us to sell him for much less than £7M if we can't loan him out to someone who can pay a large chunk of his wages. Otherwise, may as well keep him as back-up.

A fee of £8M effectively gets him off the wage bill as if his contract expired.

I don't think we would have to pay up his contract. I maybe wrong.

Denis @16,

I could be wrong as we never know the fine print on players' contracts but, in all the years I've been following the shenanigans that pass for transfer business at Everton, I have never heard of the club having to pay up the full contract earnings of a player who is being transferred out for a fee.

That's very much a new one on me. Managers get their contracts paid up, yes... but no-one holds their registration and they are not usually being transferred for a fee.

Michael, this is probably ancient history; but I think it used to be that if a player asked for a transfer, he would just paid up to date, but get 10% of the transfer fee if he hadn't asked to go. Mind you, nowadays the agents will probably have sorted out that the player gets good money. whatever way the transfer takes place!

Bite their hands off

And stay away from adding another relegated player (ward prowse) to our ranks.

It's only gonna go one way

Offer them Holgate plus £10m for Carlos Alcaraz. He scored 4 goals with 2 assists last season in 18 games. He played CM, AM, DM and CF. The only position he didn't score from was CM. He's 20 and those stats are better than Onana, who played 33 times, (16 CM. 14 DM and 3 AM) with 1 goal and 2 assists. We can get the £10m from the sale of Gray.

Holgate was too error-prone. It's good to move him on, but as we are all ready seeing, it's the quality of any players that we bring in?

It's about time that the board communicated with the fans regarding intentions in the transfer market. If they continue to isolate the fans, I can see a lot more protests against them.

Lost his way massively over the years.
Looked a player when first getting into the team, quick, skillful, good tackler, seemed to have everything.
Stuffing seems to have been knocked out of him. Seems disinterested, disillusioned, lacks concentration and a move would be the best solution.

Agree that it is worth cashing in on the player. If the Manager doesn't fancy him then selling is obviously the way forward.

Personally, I have found him to be an unreliable defender, but occasionally, maybe some time ago, he played in front of the back 4 and did so very well I think. He tackled well, scored the odd goal, and could make a telling pass, qualities not so obviously present in Gana Gueye.

Still, Manager knows best.

Dennis #16, we would not have to pay up his contract, effectively his contract is being ended by mutual consent as he does not have to sign for anybody.

What we might have to do, to sweeten the deal for him to go, would be to compensate him for any reduced earnings, ie, if he has 2 years left at £70k per week and they offer £50k per week there would be some discussion over compensation for the £20k per week difference.

This can’t be true. Saints only want £10m !

Dean (21), I think most folks here would disagree with you on Ward-Prowse. Cracking player with his set pieces and assists.

He'll have lots of suitors though, who can offer him much more than we can.

Vijay @28 is correct, I'd love Ward-Prowse at Goodison, but he will likely join - if he leaves Southampton - a club with greater prospects than the current Everton.

I read somewhere that the fee is around £2M.

Apparently we are only looking for loans or frees as they want to put all the funds towards a striker and Weghorst is being mentioned again.

We could become Burnley Mk II.

Southampton probably finished the season with a better squad than us by some measure. I'd be very pleased to have any number of their players at Everton but I suspect it's much more likely they'll take Holgate for a very modest fee (£2m or £3m) with no-one in return. In effect, they are helping us out by reducing our wage bill in relation to a non-productive player - so they aren't going to help us any further with a big transfer fee.

I've said it so many times before but if we want players like Alcaraz on our books, we have to buy them direct from South America - once they've made a bit of a name for themselves in the Premier League then we cannot afford them.

Whatever the case, our activity so far indicates we are gathering together whatever pennies we can in small transfer fees (and reduced wages) in order to pay for a striker.

Perhaps we are hoping to do so without a major sale. That might make for a boring summer with very few incoming players - but it might actually be the right thing to do.

ps. Christy @ 9, shame about Manning but I cling to the idea that Mykolenko will become a very good player under Dyche. Here's hoping.

Michael 16,

To confirm, I asked a friend (who knows a lawyer who does football contracts). Seems I was misinformed and times have moved on. The player's signing-on fee (if not fully paid) would need to be paid up and some negotiating done if the buying club is offering lower wages than the player is currently on.

So, ignore my initial post, was not correct. Thanks for pointing out.

£2m is what we paid for him, not his valuation. The headline is based on that, rather his worth, in my opinion.

Brian #25, not sure who that player was that you saw, but it wasn't Holgate. I believe he has played five games at DM, and he got red-carded out of one of them. He has scored five goals in seven seasons, which is something more than "odd", and in his entire Everton career he has made exactly one telling pass, a lovely through ball to DCL for a goal some years back. His other four assists for the club have all been flicked-on headers.

My feelings about this player have been quite public for years. I can't wait to say goodbye.

Cheers, Denis @32,

I can understand the wages thing I suppose, although the agreement of "personal terms" with the new club should take care of that really.

But I'm sure it's an integral part of the footballer's myth that he's paid principally for the experience he brings, and thus his wages are destined to always increase relentlessly. Maybe that's only if he's joining Everton!!

There are enough complaints about Mykolenko. We definitely don't need to pursue any 27-year-old career minor-league fullbacks.

"He's 26 [He's 27], Young is 38?" The former pursued by yet another minor-league team, the latter a Premier League team. Tells you all you need to know about this player.

Mind, I'm sure he's brilliant for Ireland's National Team.

Michael 35,

Does make me wonder though. If we sell a player to someone offering lower wages, I’d presume we’d need to make up the difference (otherwise the player can refuse to move, ala Winston Bogarde many moons ago at Chelsea ). Hence the difficulty in shifting the many we’ve recently signed on massive contracts - most of whom have just sat out their contract to expiry.

Whoever we sell Holgate to (if we sell) I’m 100% convinced they won’t be offering £70kpw so he’s still going to cost us something given he’s got 2 years left on his contract. (I’d do the same in his shoes tbh - it’s a very short carreer.)

Jack@ 22 Onana and Alcatraz are 2 completely different players, different positions, I agree though with the Alcatraz shout, he looks a really dangerous player, scored a few crackers last season, regarding Holgate, it’s time he was moved on, he has never been able to establish himself, but please don’t bring Che Adams the other way

Mark my words. He'll still be here when we move to BMD lol.

Seems we are bringing Jonny Evans in on a free so looks like we are trying to just raise as many funds as possible and replace them with Dad's Army on a shoestring. Short term planning. Not going to end well.

I would be happy with Evans on a 2 year contract provided his wage demands are reasonable. He brings calmness and leadership which is worth something with 2 or 3 young players in the back 4.

Worse injury record than Mina though. And 35/6. In 2 years time I think all of our senior players except Pickford have a deal expiring. We are going to see a serious turnover in players. I just hope we can navigate without going down. Need to start building some youth in to the first team as well if we can. I don't understand what our scouts actually do.

Mephis Depay asking for clubs to give Bejamin Mendy a chance. Would an English club pick him up?

Not sure I'd want to pay Mendy anything. I can't see him having the hunger to come back. We need hungry players.

It is my birthday tomorrow and I had been hoping that my present from EFC would be news that Holgate (and some other deadbeats) would have been sold by now. No such luck however.

Is anyone going to tell us why nothing has happened or is the usual case of don't tell them anything Pike

It’s not my birthday Peter but it would be nice to wake up and find that holgate, gbamin, Gomes, Iwobi, Keane and Gray have all been sold for a combined £100m and we were buying Mbappe.

No surprise to learn that Forest are interested in Holgate. Surprised they didn’t try and hijack Jack Harrison.

I see it's being reported that Southampton are arguing over how much of his wages they want to pay if they take him on loan.

Now while I think it just highlights how ridiculous our pay structure is to other clubs, Southampton should be told in no uncertain terms, if you want him on loan, you pay all of his wages.

They receive a parachute payment for dropping out of the Premier League; also, they have sold Ward-Prowse for £30 million and Liverpool have offered £60 million for Lavia, so hardly short of funds.