Everton’s ability to fund an overhaul of its squad may have been boosted by the sale of two academy products.
Ellis Simms and Ishe Samuels-Smith have each left the club in multi-million pound deals in recent days.
Their exits are the first pieces of business completed by Everton this summer despite the first team squad being in desperate need of strengthening. They come against the backdrop of wider uncertainty about the extent of the club’s ability to operate in the transfer market after several years of huge losses and amid a major boardroom shake-up.
Both deals hold merit for Everton and could provide the catalyst for recruitment. What they certainly do is highlight the continued importance of the club’s academy. Prospects have been sold in deals that could total around £60m in this calendar year so far. Across a difficult year it is Everton’s future who seem to be playing the biggest role in supporting its present.
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At the beginning of the summer, Sean Dyche said he was unsure whether he would need to sell players in order to fund improvements to a side lacking depth. Whether that is the case remains unclear but the club was unable to secure any new arrivals before the players returned to Finch Farm for pre-season this week and it is expected to be a summer in which Everton will need to operate with intelligence.
Against that backdrop there is a case that can be made for the departures of Simms and Samuels-Smith. Simms looked increasingly likely to leave after being unable to cement himself within Dyche’s plans and while the subject of widespread interest from Championship clubs. A package that could eventually be worth £8m was deemed suitable for Everton to sanction his move to Coventry City.
Samuels-Smith, meanwhile, is a talented prospect who has caught attention during his rise through the international age groups with England. The 17-year-old was unlikely to present a solution to Everton’s search for left-back competition for Vitalii Mykolenko at this stage in his development though, and a compensation package of around £4m is a considerable deal for a player of such youth.
One of the key tasks given to Director of Football Kevin Thelwell upon his appointment in February 2022 was to overhaul the academy setup, both to create a genuine pathway from youth teams into the senior squad and to maximise the sales of those deemed not quite good enough to complete that journey. Thelwell’s objectives were handed to him in different circumstances, with the club hoping the conditions of his arrival would form part of a cultural reset. Instead, two relegation battles have followed across seasons in which he has been hampered by the financial consequences of the money spent in the years before his arrival.
Those issues continue to haunt Everton and appear set to impact this summer as well. Against that backdrop, the academy has provided a rare source of support for the club. In January, Anthony Gordon’s departure to Newcastle United in a package worth up to £45m provided crucial funds while Nathan Broadhead left for Ipswich Town in a seven figure deal. The inability of the club to spend that in the final days of January showcased the predicament the club was in at the time.
This transfer window looks set to be another tough one as suggested by business so far. That business - the exits of Simms and Samuels-Smith - has now pushed the academy towards having achieved sales that could reach a value of £60m. The club has also benefited from a £2.5m clause triggered when former player John Stones won the Champions League with Manchester City. Just how much any of this summer activity will shape the coming weeks remains to be seen but one thing is clear - the setup designed to create the players of Everton’s future is playing a key role in supporting its present. The club would ideally want to be able to match the ambitions of the likes of Gordon - regardless of the circumstances in which he left - and Samuels-Smith. Until then pragmatism is crucial.
