Everton and Iliman — An All-Too-Brief Love Affair

I am in love, I can’t deny
Our Number 10, his name is Iliman Ndiaye

So went the ode from the Everton faithful to the Senegalese magician who thrilled crowds at both Goodison Park and Bramley-Moore Dock following his arrival from Marseille in what was, frankly, a steal at £15m three years ago.

Ndiaye will be in the Everton history books for being the player who scored the last goals at the Grand Old Lady and the first goal at the new stadium by the waterfront, a unique distinction for someone who is a unique talent in so many ways.

During his two years with the Toffees, the French-born winger became something of a Talisman for supporters gritting their teeth through the final few months of Sean Dyche’s tenure and then when David Moyes came in for his second spell.

He would finish his first season with the club as top goalscorer with 11, including that brace against Southampton in the Goodison farewell and a wonderful solo effort against Tottenham in the first win of Moyes’s second spell.

Having moved to England as a boy and made a circuitous route to the pinnacle of the English game via Boreham Wood and Sheffield United, there is a “street footballer” quality to his game and it is evident in his willingness to work as hard defensively as he does going forward.

That made him a hugely important asset, particularly in the 2024/25 campaign where Everton’s nosedive under Dyche had them staring down the barrel of another relegation fight by the mid-way point in the season.

But it was his breathtaking ability on the ball for which Evertonians will remember him so fondly. In terms of sheer skill and technique, Ndiaye has few equals in Everton history; the ball seems to stick to his feet like glue at times and when he is on the top of his game, he can be unplayable for opposition defences.

Add in the ability to win a match from out of nowhere with a feint or shimmy and a glorious shot into the top corner and he is a special talent who will be sorely missed.

Indeed, it was those prodigious talents that made him impossible to ignore for some of England’s biggest clubs. At various times over the past few months, Ndiaye had been linked with Arsenal, Manchester United, Tottenham and Manchester City (not to mention, of course, the talk of a big-money move to Al-Hilal in the Saudi Pro League), but it was City who eventually came through with the bid that turned Everton’s head.

Does the deal make sense for Everton?

When you’re selling one of your best players so close to the deadline, it’s a fair question to ask, but with the way that Everton's summer transfer window collapsed into farce on deadline day, it's even more pertinent. Ndiaye's departure feels exponentially more painful in that context.

To Everton fans, the £65m valuation suggested by the deal, one that sees Jack Grealish come the other way in a separate (but possibly related) transaction feels much too low. After all, Grealish himself cost well over £100m in a far less inflated market than the current circus which has seen four more players move within the Premier League for nine-figure sums in the last two summer transfer windows, with another potentially on the way in Enzo Fernandes before the deadline.

With Ndiaye contracted to the club until 2029, Everton were in the box seat when it came to the negotiations and they could, quite easily, have held firm and insisted that the player was going nowhere this season because he was too important to our hopes of qualifying for Europe.

Players being human beings with aspirations of their own on the one hand and with Everton’s Squad Cost Ratio concerns, things aren’t often that simple. Ndiaye reportedly turned down more than one offer of a bumper new contract from Everton that would have made him one of the highest-paid players at Hill Dickinson Stadium. He and his representatives, however, were insistent on a release clause being inserted into the terms, one that was too low for the Blues to entertain.

In the end, given Ndiaye’s stated desire for Champions League football and murmurings that he was ready for a fresh challenge and when added to the Blues’ need to make a significant sale this summer, City’s offer was too good to turn down. And the windfall, a £50m profit on that fee paid to Marseille, helped fund badly-needed signings elsewhere in the squad.

Ndiaye’s particular blend of technique, swagger and industry will be hard to replace and Everton felt far better equipped to absorb his loss than they were even a few months ago. Now, with their promising move for Folarin Balogun having collapsed and the defence as weak as ever with the prospect of just two senior full-backs on the books, things feel a lot less certain. 

Still, Tyrique George has been signed on a permanent deal and has made a terrific start to the new season; Brennan Johnson, the recent arrival in a swap deal with Dwight McNeil, adds pace and an eye for goal to the wide areas; Tyler Dibling continues to show in flashes what he can provide when given the chance; and Grealish provides experience, skill and know-how of his own.

Furthermore, Grealish actually out-performed Ndiaye at Everton last season in most attacking metrics apart from goals, that despite playing significantly fewer minutes due to the injury that kept him out from January until the end of the season. Ndiaye being four years younger is not insignificant and he is generally a more explosively attacking presence in the side but a fit Grealish is a decent alternative.

And for all his brilliance, Ndiaye is human and not completely indispensable. He managed just six goals and three assists in all competitions last season and, after sweeping home his quite wonderful goal against Chelsea in that exuberant 3–0 win by the docks in March and having a goal wiped out by VAR in the Merseyside derby, his form fell off a cliff.

He spurned a gilt-edged chance to put the game to bed against City when the Blues were 3–2 up and largely went missing in the seven final games of the campaign where Everton went from European shoo-ins to 13th-place mediocrity by failing to register another win.

He leaves our hearts heavy, though, and Everton short a supremely gifted player who was hugely important on both sides of the ball over the past couple of years. It’s hard not to lament one of the filthy rich “big six” poaching yet another star player from one of the “other 14” and part of you suspects that, perhaps like Grealish, he will be chewed up and spat out the other side in a couple of seasons once he has outlived his usefulness.

Who knows, he could even end up back at Everton — on loan, like!