Let’s be very honest with ourselves. The financial situation means there will be no transfer kitty available for strengthening the squad in January. I suspect Plan A is to muddle through with a small squad and do what we can to cope with injuries and suspensions.
If we bring in anyone, it will need to be either (a) free, or (b) on loan. And that might only be enabled if we can shift the likes of Gomes and / or Godfrey whether on loan or permanent deals.
Who might be out there?
Free transfers
Contracts tend to end in June rather than January. The main exception is the MLS where a few decent players will become available for free soon. US-based fans may have a more informed opinion on the following:
- Miles Robinson: a decent USA international centre-back playing for Atlanta, managing 27 games so far this season after injuries. From what I’ve seen, he’s fast and quite classy on the ball without being particularly dominant in the air. At 26 he’s earned a move to Europe and a bigger league. Might be a good low-cost replacement for Godfrey.
- Kai Wagner: The German left-back made no impression in his homeland but has built a good career with Philadelphia, managing 7 assists already this season. At 26, he’s practically an infant compared to our other full-back cover.
Otherwise, the free transfers are really quite obscure players from across South America – and very unlikely to be a high priority right now.
There are also a few unattached players who would also be free. These include Jesse Lingard, Phil Jones, Matty Longstaff, Shdrokan Mustaphi (once of our youth team) and Marvin Plattenhardt (a German left-back who nearly signed a few years ago). I suspect we’ll give these a swerve too. There’s a reason why they’ve all been unattached since summer…
Loans
Although there are exceptions, this tends to comprise players at the Champions League clubs who cannot get a game. Many of these are very good players, they have just found themselves down the pecking order behind a few seasoned internationals.
I think that we can have:
- Up to 7 loans in total
- Maximum 2 loans from other English clubs
- Presumably up to 5 loans from non-English clubs
It’s been quite hard to find the information on this so please do correct me if you know the right position. There is a suggestion on-line that 2 is the absolute maximum; if that’s the case, then the rest of the article is meaningless!
At present, we have Harrison (from Leeds) and Danjuma (from Villarreal). Contrary to what some Toffewebbers seem to believe, Dele Alli is not on loan. We bought him, albeit on a weird set of terms.
So it looks like we could recruit a decent number of additional loans – albeit only one more from an English club. So what might be available? From other Premier League clubs, here goes:
- Disasi (Chelsea): A decent French centre-back who was never worth the £45m fee paid in summer. A big unit and a good leader in the right environment. He would be quality cover, and also enable us to use a very imposing and mobile back 3 too. Rumoured to be available already.
- Chalobah (Chelsea): Another decent, imposing centre-back who is also rumoured to be available, although they’d be looking to sell ideally (rather than loan). I don’t think he’s that good really but Inter and even Bayern were rumoured to be interested over summer (as were we).
- Sarr (Chelsea): A smaller left-footed centre-back who is a good player going nowhere at Chelsea, having joined a few years ago but barely played since (other than on loan).
- Gusto (Chelsea): An excellent young French right-back bought for £30M in January last year. Might be available although possibly needed as cover given Reece James is fairly injury-prone.
- Maatsen (Chelsea): A really good attacking young Dutch left-back who was at Burnley last season and is out of contract in June. Behind Cucurella and Chilwell (and maybe Colwill) for the first team – with some lad called Samuels-Smith doing well in the academy.
- Chukwuemeka (Chelsea): An excellent, dynamic young English midfielder bought from Aston Villa for £18M. Been injured, but really talented and may be available.
- Ugochukwu (Chelsea): An excellent, dynamic young French midfielder bought from Rennes for £27M. He’s been injured, but really talented and may be available (why did Chelsea buy all these players?).
- Madueke (Chelsea): An excellent, dynamic young English wing / forward bought from PSV for £35M. Possibly now behind Sterling, Nkunku, Mudryk and Palmer and so may be available. He’d add real quality, exciting dribbling and end-product to the right wing position.
- Van de Beek (Man Utd): We know all about him. He probably needs to return to the Netherlands to rebuild his career but might not be the worst signing as a stop-gap.
- Shoretire (Man Utd): A really talented English youngster with the first-team squad at Man Utd but behind Pellestri and Garnacho (no shame in that). Probably not what we need right now but one to monitor longer term.
- Sancho (Man Utd): A really talented player who probably needs to cheer himself up in Germany again. Mind you, I’d be over the moon if we signed him because he can be a special player on his day. If he could find his form with us it would take the attack up a level altogether.
- Phillips (Man City): A very good midfield general in the right set-up (ie, not City). Would fit in very well at Everton, I am sure. Paul Kossof will tell me to give my head a wobble for mentioning him, but I can handle it. Bring it on, Paul.
- Soares (Arsenal): A decent, experienced right-back – and at 32, a spring chicken compared with Young and Coleman.
- Nelson (Arsenal): A talented right-midfield player who, at 23, really needs to find a club to give him more than just a few cameo appearances now and again. Signed a new contract at Arsenal in summer instead of leaving for free. Could conceivably be available. Would fit in nicely on our right flank – but I suspect he’ll hang on and hope to get enough games to merit a league title winners medal if Arsenal clinch first spot.
Across Europe, there are a few potential loan deals to be done too – from teams like PSG and Leipzig with swollen squads but nothing really stands out as it does sometimes. It’s possible also that we might even try the MLS for loan deals (given Thelwell’s connections there) but again, nothing really obvious stands out.
In conclusion, there might just be a few options out there for January that are within our non-existent budget. If we could get (randomly) Kalvin Phillips and Miles Robinson that would position the squad very well to cope with the second half of another challenging season.
It’s obviously not going to be a big spending January but we never have needed mega bucks to materially improve the squad. Here’s hoping that Thelwell will have enough wriggle room to do his magic.