JUST IN: Everton List Players That Are Back In Pre-season Training

Everton’s squad are being put through their paces back at Finch Farm this week as they returned for the start of pre-season training but just how many of them will still be there when the transfer window closes?

Manager Sean Dyche and his coaching staff work hard with the players to maximise their fitness levels at this time of year and next week the squad will head off to Ireland for a training camp before completing their time in the Emerald Isle with their first friendly of the summer at captain Seamus Coleman’s previous club Sligo Rovers. The Blues then return to England for trips to Salford City, Coventry City and Preston North End before concluding their preparations for their final season at Goodison Park for what is set to be the ground’s last friendly against Roma (yet to be officially confirmed) ahead of Brighton & Hove Albion’s visit for their opening fixture of the 2024/25 Premier League campaign.

Dyche and director of football Kevin Thelwell will use this time to assess the playing staff and although Lewis Dobbin and Ben Godfrey have already been sold since the window opened with Tim Iroegbunam and Iliman Ndiaye coming in, there are expected to be several more twists and turns when it comes to reshaping of the playing staff before the deadline passes on the slightly earlier date this year of August 30. Here’s a look at which players look to be facing uncertain futures.

As Everton skipper Coleman admitted after Everton’s final game of last season at Arsenal, when it comes to Branthwaite, “You can’t really hide talent like that for long.” Whether we like it or not, the Blues’ breakthrough star of 2023/24 is a man in demand with Manchester United leading the chase for him but the thing is, so far Old Trafford chiefs haven’t come close to matching their Goodison Park counterparts’ valuation of the precocious prospect who has emerged as a generational talent.

Everton have insisted that they won’t be bullied into selling their most-valuable asset on the cheap and are actively planning for him to be with them next season, unless a mega offer comes in. Given the £80million fee that Manchester United paid for Harry Maguire in 2019, the £75million Chelsea paid for Wesley Fofana in 2022 and the £77million Manchester City paid for Josko Gvardiol in 2023, the Blues consider Branthwaite to be in the same bracket, especially given the premium for both left-footed defenders and homegrown talent.

rejected United’s second offer of £45million plus add ons for Branthwaite on Tuesday, less than 24 hours after the bid was made. The rebuff came three weeks after United had made an opening offer of £35million plus add ons but despite their reluctance to meet the Blues’ valuation and their additional pursuits of other central defenders Leny Yoro and Matthijs de Ligt, they have still been tipped to come back in a third time for ‘The Carlisle Kaiser.’

Beto

Everton paid £25.75million for the Portuguese striker who had netted double figures in Italy’s Serie A for Udinese in back-to-back seasons on August 29 last year but less than a year into his time at Goodison Park, his future is already being questioned. The 26-year-old scored just three goals in 30 Premier League appearances last season and while his introduction to matches often brought a degree of chaos factor among opposition defences, he seemed to lack the polish of Dominic Calvert-Lewin whose own uncertainty (see next) brings an added layer of intrigue to Beto’s position.

Back on June 26, reports from Turkey claimed Fenerbahce were in negotiations to sign Beto and their new coach Jose Mourinho had approved the signing of his Portuguese compatriot but the ECHO understood Everton had not received any contact from the Istanbul-based outfit at that stage.

Dominic Calvert-Lewin

Everton’s number nine has been the team’s main attacking outlet for several years now but despite becoming only the fourth player to break the 50-goal barrier for the club in the Premier League last season, the 27-year-old now faces an uncertain future. After a couple of injury-plagued years, Dyche’s methods to cure the Sheffield-born striker’s fitness ills worked and he turned out 39 times last term in all competitions.

However, Calvert-Lewin has now entered the final 12 months of his current deal and is still yet to put pen to paper over the new contract that the Blues have offered him with uncertainty over the club’s ownership understood to be among the factors shaping the player’s reluctance to sign. With Newcastle United desperate to solve their own PSR issues, there were transfer negotiations late last month ahead of the end of football’s financial year about a potential part-exchange for Yankuba Minteh that could have seen the Yorkshireman head in the opposite direction to St James’ Park but the deal collapsed while Arsenal, Manchester United and even West Ham United have all been mentioned as potential suitors with Everton loathed to face losing Calvert-Lewin for nothing next year, even if many think that is a gamble worth taking.

Mason Holgate

Despite being a versatile defender who can play at centre-back and right-back plus a holding midfield role, Holgate has been deemed surplus to requirements by Everton for over a year now. As early as June 2023, it’s understood that the Blues were prepared to let the Doncaster-born player depart on either a permanent deal or a loan should a suitable offer be submitted.

Holgate would subsequently join Southampton on loan but struggled for game time at St Mary’s with his spell in Hampshire cut short in January after just five Championship matches. He subsequently returned to the Premier League and his native South Yorkshire by being loaned to Sheffield United where he turned out more regularly but was unable to prevent the Blades being relegated with a defence that leaked a record-breaking 104 goals over the season.

A significant factor in Everton’s struggles to offload the 27-year-old are his wages – a legacy from when he penned a lucrative new deal in 2020 amid interest from Manchester City – and while his stock has fallen since then, he is understood to be earning more than Branthwaite.

Michael Keane

England international Keane cost a cool £25million when he joined from Burnley in 2017 which made him Everton’s most-expensive defender of all-time and although they subsequently eclipsed that fee to bring in Yerry Mina a year later, he remains at number two on the list. Keane played over 30 Premier League games in each of his first five seasons at Goodison Park but has found himself on the fringes of the team for the past couple of years, with a dozen outings in the competition in 2022/23 and then just nine last season as Branthwaite and his former Burnley team-mate James Tarkowski forged an effective partnership.

Now 31, he is also entering the final year of his contract and while teams have comes in for him in the past but the finances have not been right to prise him. If Branthwaite stays and he and Tarkowski remain fit, he looks unlikely to get a look in again but all that might change if the Blues’ most-valuable asset is sold.

Neal Maupay

The Frenchman arrived at Everton for £15million with a solid-looking track record in the Premier League with goal returns of 10, eight and eight from his three seasons at Brighton & Hove Albion, but his move to the Blues has proven disastrous. Brought in as an attacking alternative to Calvert-Lewin, the diminutive Maupay is anything but a like-for-like replacement and he has struggled leading the line on his own without a strike partner.

After just one goal in 32 games for Everton, he was loaned out to Brentford last season but they failed to take up their option to make it a permanent switch and with a year remaining on his Blues contract, he is currently back on Merseyside. Dyche insisted he appreciated Maupay’s competitive nature after he was sent off in a 2-0 victory over League Two Stockport County in a behind-closed-doors friendly shortly after his appointment, and said: “I know who Neal is, as in he’s got a little bit of fire in him. I quite like that actually.”

However, following his loan return to Brentford, the Versailles-born player made some strong claims about Everton’s supporters, telling Sky Sports: “I’m always honest and tell the truth; last season, I didn’t enjoy myself.

“I didn’t enjoy my football and life up there was tough. The people around the club, the fans, made my life really difficult.”

Amadou Onana

Shortly after the intelligent and extrovert Senegal-born Belgium international polyglot who speaks five languages first arrived at Goodison Park in a £33.5million deal – by far the most-expensive purchase under Thelwell so far – he was being tipped to become a potential future Everton captain. However, despite the midfielder’s obviously immense talents, he has struggled to produce the kind of displays such gifts warrant in a royal blue jersey on a regular basis.

The 22-year-old was not always a regular under Dyche last season and if the Blues did need to offload one of their big names this summer then Onana’s departure was seen by many as being the most palpable. Ahead of the European Championships, the player himself declared that he was using the competition as a platform to secure a big move. He told Het Laatste Nieuws: “At previous tournaments you have seen that the players who did well make the step up to the top clubs. That’s something I strive for.

“I feel like presenting myself to the European top and showing what I have to offer. This European Championship is a stage.”

Some of Europe’s biggest clubs have been linked to Onana’s name and it’s understood that Bayern Munich were considering him as a potential alternative to Joao Palhinha but they eventually struck a deal with Fulham for the Portuguese international and so far nobody has come in for him with a feeling that while he’s high on several wish lists, he might not actually be a number one choice for any of the giants.