I know we’re not safe yet, but it’s in my nature to be conscious of succession planning and not to be taken by surprise by what’s coming in the future. I often get the impression that this is not the case with the people who run Everton since David Moyes left.
We are facing a huge and difficult summer of yet more uncertainty, significant squad changes and a need to be both clever and realistic in what we can achieve in the transfer market.
The problem is that, next season, we are looking at not having enough players to compete in the Premier League. Of this season’s relatively thin squad, we are about to lose the following to loan returns and end of contracts: Harrison, Danjuma, Andre Gomes, Gueye, Coleman, Young, Dele Alli and Lonergan. Apparently, there are also some financial issues around the club which mean we are not in a position to go shopping for replacements.
Of the eight players we’re losing, I would re-sign Harrison if the deal was cheap enough; Gueye might be worth one more year; and Andre Gomes would be worth keeping if he was happy to sign a new contract on about a quarter of his current salary.
Coleman is done as a player, but I would love to keep him involved at the club in a coaching/mentoring role as he exemplifies so much of what is good about Everton and our identity. The rest have contributed very little and I would be surprised and disappointed, to say the least, if any of them were still here next season.
This leaves us with the painful inevitability of selling players, yet probably only being able to reinvest about half of what we raise in the 5 to 8 players we’ll need for a competitive squad with enough depth. Fortunately, someone has got a couple of things right in recent years and both Branthwaite and Onana are likely to raise big transfer fees. Selling Branthwaite will be particularly painful as he also exemplifies everything I want Everton to be.
Obviously, I can only guess at what we’ll get for them. At the optimistic end, we could try to hold out for a maximum of around £80M for Branthwaite and £60M for Onana (I know he has his critics but, in a stronger team who dominate possession, he’ll be superb). The lower end might be more like £65M and £45M.
This would give us £110-140M in transfer income, along with some savings on salary from the likes of Gomes and Dele Alli. However, we’re still only likely to be able to actually spend about half of that in transfer fees at the most, and even then this will depend on complex factors none of us seem to understand (and it could be substantially less).
With the eight leaving and two being sold, and aiming for two first-team ready players in each position, our squad would look like this:
GK: Pickford; Virginia; Tyrer
RB: Patterson; ___________
LB: Mykolenko; ____________
CB: Tarkowski; Keane
CB: Godfrey; Holgate
DM: Garner; ______________
CM: Doucoure; ____________
AM: ____________ ; _____________
RW: _____________; ____________
LW: McNeil; _______________
CF: Calvert-Lewin; Beto; Chermiti
That’s really nine spaces to be filled, and practically an entire squad of midfielders. Some might be filled by retaining, for example, Gomes on lower wages and Gueye for one more year (though personally I don’t think this will happen).
Some might be filled by the likes of Kyle John, Reece Welch, McKenzie Hunt, Lewis Dobbin, Tyler Onyango, Lewis Warrington and Stanley Mills being promoted from the Everton Academy Under-21s and trusted (although Dyche’s track record suggests this is unlikely).
Unless we find some real bargains, our transfer pot is likely to stretch to three players maximum, so we’re looking to loan again and pick up free transfers. We’ve never been very good at free transfers so I’m not holding out much hope for that, although it will only take a couple of good ones to make things look a bit rosier.
Whatever happens, the summer is going to be complex, chaotic and unusual and the only thing I feel confident about is that, come 31 August at midnight, I’ll feel like we’ve missed out on some intelligent signings and are at least two players short of a squad that could compete.
We’ll finish this season having earned between 41-50 points. I can’t see any way we’ll be looking to move above that bracket next season unless Dyche, Thelwell and whoever is controlling the finances have the summer of their lives.
I am available if they would like to hire me as a consultant. I would be relatively cheap.