Everton seeks transfer value despite financial constraints

There are hardly any more demanding transfer windows in the Premier League than Everton’s.

The need to sell players while finding relatively inexpensive replacements can be a difficult task for a sporting director or football director, but it is a challenge that every serious recruitment team should face.

It is safe to say that Everton’s transfer dealings in the years leading up to and during the emergence of the club’s profitability and sustainability problems – and in the years in which they even caused them – were a gamble.

Although the club was one of the top five spending teams in the Premier League in the five years to 2021, the results of that spending were never seen on the pitch.

As the Premier League’s financial rules became less of a threat and more of a reality, the club had to raise money and ease the financial burden by selling players and reducing wage costs.

In the three seasons since 2021/22, Everton are only one of two Premier League teams – the other being the much-vaunted Brighton – to have made a profit from transfers in each season, according to Transfermarkt data.

At the same time, Everton had to maintain a squad strong enough to stay in the Premier League. Relegation was unthinkable.

They narrowly avoided relegation a few times before Sean Dyche got the team back on track, renewed the fundamentals of the team mentality and turned a ragtag team into a more cohesive team with more character.

While Dyche rebuilds the mentality, Everton’s director of football Kevin Thelwell must master the task of transforming the team into a team that can do more than just cling to Premier League relegation.

As the club enters its final season at its historic Goodison Park stadium before moving to its new stadium at Liverpool Docks in 2025, avoiding relegation remains a priority (playing its debut season at the new stadium in League Two would also be unthinkable).

But in addition to this basic requirement, a little more initiative and entrepreneurial spirit on the pitch would be a worthy farewell for Goodison Park.

That’s where Thelwell and the recruiting team come in. The type of players that are signed and who is traded this summer will set the tone for how next year unfolds.

There are a handful of players at Everton who could attract interest from other clubs and the key decision will be which of them to sell and which to keep.

Given the club’s financial situation and the prospect of actually having money available to strengthen the squad, the temptation might be to sell them all, but there needs to be a balance.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be a complete overhaul, but if that happens, Dyche could start from scratch next season in terms of rebuilding the team’s mentality.

The players who attract the most interest from other clubs are goalkeeper Jordan Pickford, Jarrad Branthwaite, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Amadou Onana and perhaps Vitalii Mykolenko. Everton shouldn’t have to sell them all. Everton shouldn’t sell them all.

Perhaps surprisingly, Everton have already been active in signing players in this 2024 transfer window.

Midfielder Tim Iroegbunam, 20, joined from Aston Villa for $11.4 million, while the transfer of Senegalese striker Iliman Ndiaye from Marseille is expected to be completed for an initial fee of $20 million.

For accounting purposes, the total transfer fee of approximately $30 million for these two players will be spread over the term of their respective contracts, so spending this summer will not impact the cost of the total transfer fee stated.

Everton are likely to sell a player this week before the Premier League’s financial year ends on June 30, but these sales would not necessarily have anything to do with recouping the transfer fees for these new signings.

While the expenses for the upcoming transfers can be spread over several years, any income from player sales can be added immediately as a lump sum.

There will also be a reduction in the wage bill if one or more of Calvert-Lewin, Pickford and Onana are sold, as they are among the club’s highest-paid players. However, Everton have already cut salaries this summer, with top earners Andre Gomes and Dele Ali leaving the club because their contracts expire.

Everton therefore has some leeway but, like many other Premier League clubs, must still be cautious until new Financial Fair Play rules come into force for the 2025/26 season.

As the new signings show, there is some breathing room for the first time in a long time. The key for Thelwell and Co. will be who they sell and how they replace them – a task they have already begun.