Last season, with little PSR headroom and even less hard cash available (if possible) for permanent transfers, Evertonwere forced to make full use of the loan market — not an arena they’d had much success with in recent years. Who can forget the herculean impact of temporary signings such as Donny van de Beek (seven appearances), Ruben Vinagre (24 minutes of league “action”) and Anwar El Ghazi (a mighty eleven minutes)?
In fairness to van de Beek, at least he was injured for some of the time, but the other two were mystery men, who most Blues fans would have passed in the street without a flicker of recognition. Even the likes of Arnaut Danjuma and Conor Coady were underwhelming additions: the former being bizarrely overlooked by then-boss Sean Dyche, the latter a stop-gap starter, who was eventually replaced by Michael Keane, then Yerry Mina.
Let’s take a look at the five players who paid fleeting visits (in four cases) to Goodison Park last term.
Jack Harrison
Through some oddity of the contract he signed at Leeds United back in April 2023 - the terms of which allowed him to move temporarily to a top-flight club should the Yorkshire outfit be relegated (as they were the following month) - Harrison has spent the past two years at Everton. The move cost the Blues no fee, but they had to pay the player’s hefty, rumoured £90k weekly wage. The winger arrived with a solid Premier League pedigree, which had seen him find the back of the net 21 times over the previous three seasons — in addition to providing 16 assists. Sadly, we’ve not seen that player at all.
In 63 league outings with the Toffees he has scored four and added three assists. If his first season at Everton was unproductive, then his second was bleak — just a single goal and no assists in 34 appearances, with 24 starts. It’s not helped that Harrison has invariably lined up on the right, due to the club’s seemingly endless problems in filling the position, and he is historically more effective on the other flank, but his failings seem more down to inherent weaknesses in his game, than anything positional. Slow, prone to holding onto the ball too long and erratic in his crossing, Harrison struggled to make an offensive impression.
Wolverhampton Wanderers FC v Everton FC - Premier League Harrison celebrates getting off the mark against Wolves, but this was March and would be his only goal of the season
Photo by Dan Istitene/Getty Images
I’m convinced that his impressive goal contribution numbers at Leeds was a product of Marcelo Bielsa’s ultra-aggressive system — which clearly benefited Harrison’s skillset. Outside of that arena, what we see is a hard-working, defensively responsible player who is physically limited and of only borderline Premier League ability. At various points I’d expected that Everton would be tempted to sign him on a permanent basis - as managers like his industry - but thankfully this has not transpired. He departs with thanks for his honest efforts, but the club needs to be setting its sights much higher.
Jesper Lindstrøm
I was excited to see the club bring over the Danish attacker, who had caught the eye at Eintracht Frankfurt, before a disastrous move to Napoli derailed his career. Played out of position on the few opportunities he was awarded by the reigning Italian champions, it seemed as though Everton had taken advantage of the situation, in order to bring in a talented player who - only a year earlier - had been out of reach, with a €22m purchase option inserted into the loan appearing to be an attractive price. Unfortunately, it has not worked out as planned.
Although fast, Lindstrøm is neither adept at taking on his man off the dribble (18.6% success rate), nor does he hug the line, despite being right footed — unsatisfactory traits for a winger, which is how he was exclusively deployed at Everton. In Germany, he’d been utilized as one of two attacking midfielders, and it’s my belief that this was the role he was signed to fill, but the club’s inability to acquire a natural right winger last summer meant that he was shoehorned into an unsuitable position, spending much of his time on defensive duties and often playing second fiddle to Harrison on Dyche’s watch.
After an initial period of getting up to speed with the physical nature of the league, he found improved form under David Moyes, starting eight consecutive games, but his confidence was undoubtedly affected by a long goalless run extending back to his time in the Bundesliga. Groin surgery ended his season back in March and the club understandably did not activate the buy option, but Moyes is known to have tracked the 25-year-old when at West Ham, so it’s not unfeasible that he could be brought back later in the summer, depending on how recruitment goes in the meantime.
Everton FC v Tottenham Hotspur FC - Premier League Lindstrøm in one of his better performances, against Spurs in January, but a lack of end product hurt the player’s chances of making a permanent move
Photo by Visionhaus/Getty Images
Armando Broja
Sometimes a gamble is worth taking, as occasionally it will pay off, but more often it won’t. Such was the case with Broja; a man tracked by Everton director of football Kevin Thelwell for some time, before the opportunity to land him eventually presented itself. The forward had looked promising in loans at first Vitesse Arnhem, followed by Southampton a few years ago, but his fortunes had slumped in recent times. An ACL tear had ruined his chances of establishing himself at Chelsea and a temporary move to Fulham had proven a waste of time. A roll of the dice to bring the Albanian international to Goodison Park seemed like it could be a shrewd move, considering he was seen as a talent who had hit a couple of hurdles.
A £30m buy option in the loan did appear fanciful, given Broja’s meagre goal return over the past two campaigns — and that he arrived at the club carrying an Achilles tendon injury. If this caused some to doubt the wisdom of bringing the striker in, then watching him limp out of two games when he did return, through innocuous contact, seemed to confirm the worst fears. When fit, the 23-year-old did not look like a lone striker and struggled to make any impact. Broja is still young enough to turn his career around, but he needs to somehow find fitness and to play games regularly. Unfortunately, he showed little of that at Everton and will be consigned to the list of failed loan signings mentioned above.
Orel Mangala
The midfielder was signed, apparently in an act of largesse, by Olympique Lyonnais owner John Textor, during the period that the American had thrown his hat into the ring as a prospective owner of Everton. Since the former Nottingham Forest player already had Premier League experience, even Dyche had no real excuse to avoid using Mangala, eventually trusting him enough to give him a run as a starter. He complemented Idrissa Gueye well, creating a balanced midfield, with him acting as the fulcrum for the Senegalese veteran’s energetic pressing. Moyes also appreciated this, starting Mangala in his first three matches in charge, before the Belgian suffered a season-ending injury at the end of January.
Everton FC v Nottingham Forest FC - Premier League Mangala in action against old club Nottingham Forest in December, in what was a typically composes performance
Photo by MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images
The 27-year-old’s torn ACL will likely keep him sidelined until close to the end of the year, effectively ending any possibility that he could sign for the Blues at the conclusion of his loan deal. What we learned from Mangala’s stay though, was the type of player the club should be looking to add in the summer — a true defensive midfielder who is comfortable in possession, positionally disciplined, and able to use the ball with precision. James Garner is provably not that man, so what the club needs to find is a younger, preferably more athletic version of Mangala, along with an understudy/competitor with Gueye’s attributes.
Carlos Alcaraz
Unquestionably the success story of the group, the 22-year-old joined in January as the club’s lone addition of the winter transfer window. The Argentine, who’d bounced around quite a bit from club to club, seemed to gel straightaway, immediately looking like a classy operator — calm on the ball and eager to make things happen, allied to a bit of fire in the belly, which always goes down well with Blues fans.
Puzzlingly, it appeared that Moyes was unconvinced with the player, who was typically played in a non-optimal position on the left, despite clearly being a natural attacking midfielder, with Abdoulaye Doucouré preferred centrally. His starts were limited, in order to avoid triggering a mandatory purchase which the club had agreed to, which was odd.
Eventually, a player of the match performance against Newcastle United on the final day of the campaign made exercising the bargain €15m agreed price a no-brainer, so the club confirmed the transfer, albeit after renegotiating its terms. A two year contract resulted, plus an optional third. This, however, makes absolutely no sense at all and the only deduction I can make is that Moyes was still not totally sold on the player — for reasons which escape me, in all honesty.
I think that Alcaraz is a class act and that Everton have found a real gem of a player, who should be in the mix to start in an advanced midfield position next term — regardless of who the club brings in over the summer. I think he’s that good.
Statistics provided courtesy offbref.com andtransfermarkt.com