Another failed January window? It depends how you look at it
Thanks to David Moyes, Everton's outlook for the remainder of the season has changed significantly since the day he was appointed but the Club will be riding its luck where the centre-forward position is concerned and it could end up costing them financially anyway
On the one hand, it looks very much as though Everton owe a sizeable debt of gratitude to David Moyes for the three successive victories that massively relieved the pressure on both the recruitment team and the new ownership to first find and then spend the money to acquire players capable of keeping the Toffees in the Premier League this season.
The wins over Tottenham, Brighton and Leicester, which lifted Everton nine points of a relegation zone that was just one point below when he took over three weeks ago, transformed the Club’s outlook for the remainder of the season. No one will be getting too comfortable but it’s 14 years since 40 points was needed to stay in the division and, in any event, Moyes’s team would need to fall below an average of a point per game to miss that threshold in their remaining 15 fixtures.
Add in the fact that Ipswich and Southampton still have to come to Goodison Park this season, that the three promoted clubs have four wins between them over the last 10 games and it’s clear that it would take a spectacular collapse from the Blues to get relegated this year. That must have entered the thinking as director of football, Kevin Thelwell, surveyed the landscape over the final days of the transfer window with his hands tied somewhat by profitability and sustainability rules (PSR).
The £63m losses the Club incurred in the 2022/23 season, the earliest of the three-year accounting cycle for PSR, will dog Everton until the 30th of June and they are believed to have restricted Thelwell’s budget to around £15m this month. That could potentially stretch to three new modestly-priced players with a £5m down payment on each but January is a notoriously difficult month in which to do business at all, let alone find bargains in the one position most clubs are always looking to strengthen: striker.
On the other hand, Everton’s need for cover at centre-forward is pretty acute. As things stand, Beto is the only fit, senior striker on the club’s books and his potential stand-in, Youssef Chermiti, is still around three weeks away from being fit and has a solitary Premier League start to his name. Armando Broja and Dominic Calvert-Lewin, while thought to have sustained less-serious injuries than first feared, might not be available again until April. An injury to the more senior Portuguese forward would leave Moyes without a first-team striker at all.
However, despite being short of wide options as well, the 61-year-old boss will feel as though he could make do. Iliman Ndiaye can operate up front, as can new recruit, Charly Alcaraz and, at a push, either of Jack Harrison or Jesper Lindstrom could operate as “false nines”. It’s a good thing that Moyes has got Everton playing the ball effectively on the deck because under his predecessor, such an injury crisis might have been terminal.
Realistically speaking though, Moyes is going to need luck where Beto’s fitness is concerned because the afore-mentioned contingencies are far from ideal. Where the short term is concerned and in the context of the question, “are we stronger or weaker than when the window began?” the answer would have to be the latter and it’s for that reason that this must be regarded as a poor window from Everton’s perspective.
And in terms of the team’s prospects of climbing the table between now and the 25th of May, it could prove costly if injuries continue to bite. Sitting just five points behind 11th-place Brentford and eight behind 10th-place Brighton, the manager will feel that on the basis of his early results since succeeding Sean Dyche, a top-half finish isn’t out of the question. If he could achieve that, it would be worth around £15m in additional prize money; in the modern top flight, it pays to do more than simply beat the drop.
Let's also not forget the FA Cup. Victory over Bournemouth at Goodison Park on Saturday would put Everton two games away from Wembley and with the passage of every round, the prospect of a dream end to what has been another mostly miserable season doesn't seem all that ridiculous.
Not knowing who was on Thelwell’s list of targets and how much more favourable the terms might be to land them in the summer, it’s hard to make a judgement either way. It will, of course, be disappointing if results over the remainder of the campaign suffer because of a failure to add to key areas of the squad or a shortage of firepower cost us a shot at a deep cup run. But if Moyes can continue to navigate a path forward with the small complement at his disposal, Everton will be in a strong position come the summer.
By keeping the powder dry until then, it would allow the Club to go for key targets in June — i.e. before the financial year ends — perhaps with the added bonus of some more commercial deals being signed in the interim.
At the same time, what it does, of course, is ramp up the pressure on Thelwell — or whoever else might be sitting in the director of football’s chair when the summer window opens — to deliver some significant signings to get the Friedkin era off to a proper start after a fairly inauspicious January.
In the meantime, Evertonians are going to have to exhibit more of a quality of which their club has demanded far too much in recent years: patience.
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