LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - MAY 3: Jarrad Branthwaite of Everton during the Premier League match between Everton FC and Ipswich Town FC at Goodison Park on May 3, 2025 in Liverpool, England. (Photo by Visionhaus/Getty Images)
Jarrad Branthwaite during the Premier League match between Everton and Ipswich Town at Goodison Park last season
Jarrad Branthwaite’s new Everton contract took less than a fortnight to secure in a move that was a landmark show of faith by both club and player. Getting the coveted centre-back to buy into the vision for the Blues was seen as one of the top priorities in an historic summer for the club.
Achieving that so quickly has galvanised a fanbase desperate to enjoy better times and provided momentum heading into the start of pre-season.
It also represents an early win for both new owners and the new-look leadership team that has been trusted with handling a summer of transition on and off the pitch at .
Talks formally opened between the Blues and Branthwaite’s representatives, , in mid-June. But, in reality, they became inevitable 12 months ago amid the derisory bids for the player made by Manchester United.
United, sensing Everton were vulnerable ahead of the deadline to comply with the ’s Profitability and Sustainability Regulations, submitted two offer, the second of which amounted to a package worth around £50m.
Neither came close to the club’s valuation of a player after a breakthrough year in which he became one of Europe’s standout defensive talents.
The Red Devils were not wrong to think the Blues needed to do business but last summer, like this, they began the close season determined to keep hold of .
The focus before and after the PSR deadline was on retaining the starlet and business was constructed accordingly. Then director of football Kevin Thelwell secured the late-June sales of Ben Godfrey and Lewis Dobbin to ensure regulatory compliance for the first time in three years.
He then sanctioned the sale of Amadou Onana to Aston Villa in a £50m deal that fell below the asking price previously set for the Belgium international but , who was viewed as more critical to the setup of then manager Sean Dyche, unless they were too good to turn down.
Everton won that battle and with it, protected Branthwaite for a further season.
Yet while the club could take comfort in having secured him to a new deal just after he broke into Dyche’s first team, one that would run to 2028 if the option to extend it by a further 12 months was taken by Everton chiefs, those terms were redundant just eight months after the ink had dried.
That contract had been drawn up to reflect Branthwaite’s status at the time - that of a young player who had just earned a place in the first team. By the end of June 2024 he was being valued north of £70m by the Blues and pitched as a key first-team player. Put simply, there was a stark contrast between what he was being paid and how he was being valued.
That was not an issue last year and the focus ahead of the most recent campaign was on helping Branthwaite back to fitness.
The 23-year-old missed the opening weeks of the season as he recovered from groin surgery and, when he did return, took some time to rediscover the rhythm of first team football.
Once he did, it quickly became clear that his superb first season as a feature of the starting XI had not been a fluke. With the form that guided Everton, for a second consecutive year, to one of the best defensive records in the Premier League, came the expectation that the club would spend another summer fending off interest in the player bought from Carlisle United for just £1m.
Alongside that came the understanding that a contract that better reflected his status would be useful if the Blues were to spend another summer telling clubs he was not for sale.
The became a core part of the club’s plans well before the end of the season. The arrival of in January led to an upturn in form that helped Everton surge away from the relegation zone.
As fears of another survival fight diminished, thoughts behind-the-scenes were able to become more expansive. The club’s immediate ambitions did too.
In Moyes’ early press conferences, which occurred amid the January transfer window and with an injury-savaged squad looking to the market for players who could carry the club away from the bottom three, there were repeated references to the need for work to be done to help the Blues comply with PSR for the 2024/25 financial year.
Against that backdrop, the subject of Branthwaite’s future was pushed up the command chain all the way to TFG. In the months that followed, concern over compliance eased - partly as a result of Everton’s climb up the table, partly through the unfolding work to stabilise and strengthen the wider business of the club.
Amid high-level meetings in which the route towards meeting the PSR stipulations were discussed, it was agreed that Branthwaite was an important pillar of the club’s future and that the club did not want to sell him, and was not required to sell him.
While those conversations were ongoing, the form of the team continued to impress. With it, Moyes’ own impression of Branthwaite grew.
Once he was willing to accept the club were no longer in danger of a relegation fight his attention started to turn to the future and he wanted Branthwaite to be part of it, prizing the relationship between him, James Tarkowski and Jordon Pickford and viewing that axis as the foundation around which a new-look Everton should be built.
By the end of the season, with the club’s financial outlook further bolstered by the higher-than-expected league finish and the increased merit payments that flowed from it, the Blues were prepared to tell the world Branthwaite was not for sale. There was, as a consequence, an acceptance that he would need to be rewarded with a new deal.
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For all the desire to improve his contract, there was no guarantee an agreement would be easy to reach, however. After a second successful campaign in the first team, clubs in England and Europe were tracking Branthwaite.
Along with the came the opportunity to attract higher wages and the potential to launch a push for England’s 2026 World Cup squad. Branthwaite is yet to be picked for the senior international side by Thomas Tuchel and the value placed by the England manager in his players featuring in European competition had not gone unnoticed. There had also been tough moments in the campaign - most notably in the loss at Bournemouth at the start of 2025.
In the aftermath of a miserable defeat for Everton, Dyche had taken the unusual step of drawing attention to Branthwaite’s role in David Brooks’ late winning goal. It was a move that caused surprise and disappointment to the player and, to an extent, in the dressing room. That would end up being Dyche’s final game in charge of the Blues, however.
When negotiations started six months later, Branthwaite’s attitude to the talks was never in question. While there was an acceptance that Champions League football would hold an appeal and some jeopardy in the attention he was attracting in England and abroad, most significantly from Tottenham Hotspur, there was also deep gratitude to Everton for the opportunities provided to him by the club.
His view was understood to be that a buying club’s treatment of the Blues would be reflective of their view of him, meaning he would understand if club chiefs dismissed offers that fell far below their valuation of him.
Knowing they could place trust in the player and the people advising him did not mean the talks, when they eventually did open, would be straightforward. There was a sense that for all that he knew Everton, the club would have to reflect his status in their plans and convince him to commit to them.
Whether a deal could be agreed with Branthwaite therefore became an early bellwether for the new leadership team that handled the negotiations, one of the first major tasks for new chief executive officer Angus Kinnear and new player trading specialist Nick Hammond.
That it was less than a fortnight before Branthwaite was recording promotional material at the Hill Dickinson Stadium to mark his new deal is therefore being seen as an early major success for the new era Everton have entered.