Abdoulaye Doucoure has opened up on his Everton future and the possibility of a new contract
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Abdoulaye Doucoure insists he “would love to stay” at Everton but will assess his options for the future when the contract offer that he expects from the club comes through. The 32-year-old has made 164 appearances for the Blues and scored 21 goals – including the dramatic match-winning strike against Bournemouth on the final day of the 2022/23 season that saved the club from a first relegation in 72 years – since making a £20million move from Watford in 2020 after they had dropped into the Championship.
Everton declined to take up their option to trigger a one-year extension on Doucoure’s current contract that expires this summer, ensuring that he is currently able to talk to other clubs about the possibility of joining them on a Bosman-style free transfer. Speaking on Fozcast, a podcast hosted by goalkeeper Ben Foster, one of his former team-mates at Vicarage Road, which was published last week, the Mali international said (as of mid-April), he had not been in dialogue with the club over his future and suggested he did not believe he should be offered reduced terms.
However, Doucoure has now claimed that he is expecting Everton to offer him a new deal. He told Toffee TV, an Everton fan channel: “It’s still up in the air. The club are going to offer me a new contract soon and obviously I am happy about that, I think I deserve a new contract.
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“The celebration (of his winning goal at Nottingham Forest) was just a joke you know. In the back of my mind, I was thinking ‘where are the talks?’
“I will always be grateful for Everton, but I wanted to know what was going on, if I was going to stay, if I was going to leave, are they going to offer me something? At some point, you want to know as a player.
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“I think, given what I’ve done for the club, I deserve to know. I had a nice conversation last week with the club and hopefully they are going to offer me a new contract.
“At the moment, I am still an Everton player, but it’s going to be a long summer, so let’s see what happens.”
Doucoure, who has netted four times in 34 outings this term, added: “As a player you want to have certainty, you want to have security. At the moment, many of the players, we don’t have that.
“This is the club’s business. They know they are in a very strong position, going into the new stadium with new owners who are going to buy new players as well.
“Obviously, they play the game, but as a player you have to protect yourself. You have to see what is the best for you.
“It takes a long time, but as the manager said, after we got safe, the talks started. It was good to hear from them and if I stay, I will be very happy to play for Everton and if I leave, I will always be grateful for what I have done for the club and will wish them the best.”
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Like all of Everton’s players, Doucoure acknowledged that the lure of playing in the new 52,888 capacity stadium, which will enable the Blues to play in front of the biggest regular crowds in their history, was a big pull. He said: “You want to play there. The club didn’t trigger my contract in January but in my mind, I was always staying, I had one more year.
“It was an easy option to trigger for them, but they didn’t. The new owners came in and they wanted to do things on their own terms which I can understand, that’s normal, as a business you always do that.
“I was a little bit disappointed to be honest, I was a little bit surprised when my agent called me saying: ‘You’re going to become a free agent.’ I really wanted to be sure that I would see the new stadium but now I don’t know.
“It’s a bit sad, but sometimes when things finish, you can just take it and move on. I will always be happy to have played for Everton, this club means so much to me, and I will always be a blue.”
Pushed on whether he will still be an Everton player next season, Doucoure said: “It’s a big question. I would love to, to be honest.
“I’m not joking. I would love to stay.
“I love the club. Now, nothing is in my hands anymore.
“I’m just waiting for the club to offer me that contract and we will see with my agent how the solution is going to be. But you know I would love to play for Everton and I would love to stay at the club and play in the new stadium.”
Everton now have only one remaining fixture at Goodison Park against Southampton on Sunday and when asked what message he would give to Blues supporters ahead of such an historic occasion, Doucoure said: “I would like to thank them for all the loyalty they had for the football club, even before I was here and all the players were there. The club is there, the players are coming and leaving, but the fans, they always stay.
“I think for Sunday, we want to give them the best game we can and I know they are going to be behind the players. I just want to let them know we are ready, we are training well and we are preparing for the game, given the importance of it.
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“Everyone is going to be 100% from the starting 11 to the players on the bench. Everyone is united for that game to have the best reception we can and achieve the best result possible for them.”