For the second half of the 2025/26 season, Tyrique George has been on loan at David Moyes’ Everton from Chelsea, after struggling for any sort of major game time with the Londoners. The Toffees have a buy clause at the end of the loan, which could be activated for a rumoured fee of approximately £20m. So why, when the club are looking to bring in multiple wide players this summer, would they not permanently sign a 20-year-old for such an affordable fee in today’s market?
This season has been a difficult one for George. Despite coming to Everton to get more game time, he only managed 353 Premier League minutes combined for both Everton and Chelsea, averaging just 23.53 minutes per game. This is despite Chelsea having disappointing options in attack and Everton, at one point, having both Jack Grealish and Iliman Ndiaye out either injured or at the African Cup of Nations. The lack of game time has proved to be a major issue for George and if he is to rejoin the club permanently, it’s something that needs to improve. It’s not because he didn’t impress when he played, though, with no other Under-25 winger or striker in Europe's ‘top 5 leagues’ creating more big chances per 90 minutes than George.
Tyrique George profile
Creativity is definitely the strongest part of his game, with 0.3xA per 90 being by far the best of any member of the Everton squad to have played more than 90 minutes. His ability to beat a man and put in a dangerous cross is staggering for someone so young. He did only manage to create 3 chances, but, with an average xA of 0.39 and having a big chance-creation rate of 100%, it means when he does create, it’s a dangerous chance. 2/3 of these have come from crosses, with this being his most effective way of creating chances.
Combine this ability with his two-footedness, and you have a player who is dangerous, mainly playing on the left but having the ability to play on the right-wing or even up front (when playing for Chelsea). This ability to play anywhere along the front line makes him not just a useful squad player but also a flexible starter. The ability to swap wings with Ndiaye and not have either one of them look uncomfortable is something the best clubs look for. Look at the Manchester City attack, for example: Antoine Semenyo and Rayan Cherki are capable of playing anywhere behind the striker and Jérémy Doku is efficient on either wing.
Tansfermkt Position table
A bit like Doku, George enjoys cutting inside before shooting from the edge of the box. Out of our long-term natural wingers, George is the only one that possesses this ability currently. This ability to go either way is a nightmare for full-backs, especially when the winger is as explosive as George is. Here are two videos, both against Tottenham in the final game of the season. One shows him performing a give-and-go, going down to the byline before trying to find Beto in the middle, and the second him cutting inside and producing our only shot on target for the entire match.
Unfortunately for George, Grealish is heavily linked with a return to the blue side of Merseyside, after spending last season on loan from Manchester City. With Grealish on one side and Ndiaye on the other, it’s unlikely George is going to start many games. This wouldn’t normally be an issue, with consistent minutes off the bench being able to rack up more than enough minutes to satisfy George, but under Moyes, minutes off the bench can be heavily limited.
So, realistically, it’s going to be one of George or Grealish coming in this summer, with the committee favouring the latter. However, Moyes only has one year left on his current deal and his goal is to get the club back into Europe. With this length of contract and goal for the upcoming season, the Scotsman isn’t overly bothered about the long-term future of the club, which is completely understandable. Now Grealish is better for the manager’s plan than George, being the better player currently.
In an ideal situation where the club had unlimited money to spend, they would go out and get both, one for short-term quality and one as an understudy to get some meaningful minutes off the bench and make the most of someone like Grealish being at the club. However, with the club having a fairly limited (not tiny but also not endless) budget, signing both is highly unlikely. The committee wouldn’t want to spend a significant amount of the transfer budget to sign George, just for him not to play.
This is a tricky situation to be in for the committee. Do you favour the long-term option, and it potentially costing the club European football, or do you follow the manager’s wishes and go all out for Europe, taking a bigger financial risk? This is something the club needs to make its mind up on. Last summer we spent big money on ageing players; like a ‘premium loan’ on Grealish and around £25m–30m on Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall. This isn’t an issue if the plan is to get to Europe as quickly as possible and use the additional revenue to worry about the long-term. It’s a strategy that we have in place.
However, we also spent big money on Tyler Dibling, for him to get very limited minutes, Adam Aznou for €10m for him to not make a Premier League appearance or go out on loan, €30m for Thierno Barry just for talk of us looking to get our money back just 1 year later. This, half-youth, half-experience approach without really giving the youth any chance of developing isn't something any other club in the league does. You're not going all out short-term, so the goal of getting European football is weakened but you're also not being patient and looking to grow over the next 3-6 years, eventually making Europe.
Playing time of Everton players, season 2025/26
In my opinion, George is not good enough of a starter short-term to really make us progress up the table. The progress would come from us starting a 20-year-old every week. You have to be careful, though. George could very easily come in, be incredible and be sold for big money, but the opposite could also happen. This seems like a negative way of thinking but it's just realism. Do we want to spend a decent chunk of our transfer budget this summer on someone who very easily could fail to make it at the top level? Potential is purely an opinion; there’s no actual way to measure it.
So, yes, in an ideal world, we sign George, play him and develop him into a £60m player like we have Ndiaye, but I just think for someone who isn’t ready to be a guaranteed starter, it is too great a risk. People keep on saying, 'what Brighton would do?' Brighton started off not signing 20-year-olds for £20m. They signed the majority of their long-term investments for less than half of what George would cost us, not worrying if they went wrong because they were signed for minimal fees.
The example I would like to give is with Kacper Kozlowski from Pogoń Szczecin, who they signed for £9.5m in January 2022. Immediately, they loaned him out to Belgian club Union Saint-Gilloise for the remainder of the season. When that loan came to an end, they loaned him out to Vitesse in the Netherlands for 2 seasons, where he played 59 games. Despite Vitesse being relegated, you’d assume Brighton would start to integrate him into the first team, as they do so well. Instead, they chose to sell him to Gaziantep for just €200,000 (1/55th of what they signed him for).
Kozlowski has earned multiple Polish caps, including coming off the bench against Nigeria earlier this month and played over 2,500 minutes for the Turkish club in the Süper Lig. So he’s not a bad player, they just needed to be more patient with him, or to have managed him better.
Kacper Kozwolski stats profile
Despite losing over €10m, they just continued to do their business, finding more players to sign for cheap, develop and sell for a profit. Most of Brighton’s signings have ended up like Kozlowski, but because they’re for insignificant fees (Kozlowski being one of the biggest), they’ve still managed to make a significant profit. What we’d be doing by signing George isn’t the same as what Brighton did.
Now, obviously he’s currently better than Kozlowski was. He’s definitely good enough to be a squad player. He’s creative, he’s dangerous, he’s versatile and explosive and is exactly what you want off the bench. He’s also very different to Grealish, who enjoys slowing down play and looks to play like Guardiola has taught him to. In comparison, George still had that youth and eagerness to him.
Overall, George is a player with potential but with Jack Grealish potentially coming back to the club, potential being a non-measurable quantity and the manager’s lack of willingness to rotate, the committee don’t want to spend a decent proportion of our transfer budget in a key window to get him permanently.
Written by @EvertonScouting on Twitter
Sources:
FotMob.com
YouTube
ScoutingStats.ai
Transfermarkt.com
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