Everton made “important bid” to sign massive upgrade on Dwight McNeil

Honest to say, Everton really want to strengthen their attacking choices in January.

Saturday’s 1-0 defeat at Bournemouth means the Toffees haven’t failed to attain in eight of their final ten Premier League matches, leaving them only one level and two locations above the relegation zone.

Additionally, as famous throughout Sky Sports activities’ Monday Night time Soccer, for the reason that begin of final season, Everton have scored simply 26 objectives from open play; for context, that is a ginormous 30 fewer than the crew second-bottom of this listing, particularly West Ham.

Beneath Sean Dyche, spending has been very minimal however, following the Friedkin Group’s takeover, confirmed in mid-December, there’s more likely to be scope for the Blues to usher in much-needed reinforcements this month.

Premier League participant needed by Everton

As reported by Fabrizio Romano on Twitter earlier this week, Everton had “opened talks” with Aston Villa, as they try to signal Jaden Philogene.

Nevertheless, in an enormous twist, the participant is now on his option to Ipswich City with Fabrizio Romano having revealed on Wednesday evening that he is resulting from journey to Portman Street for a medical.

Regardless of being simply 22-years-old, Philogene has already performed for Stoke Metropolis, Cardiff Metropolis, Hull Metropolis and now Aston Villa twice.

It was final season, when he was with the Tigers, he actually burst onto the scene, scoring an astonishing rabona in opposition to Rotherham in February 2024, that was nominated for the FIFA Puskás Award.

This led to journalist Lewis Railton describing him as a “skilful, but direct winger”, labelling him a “actual expertise”.

How Jaden Philogene would have improved Everton’s assault

Properly, since shifting again to the Midlands, the winger has been given restricted alternatives, beginning simply 4 matches throughout all competitions, totalling 535 minutes total, but to register a objective or an help throughout his second spell in claret and blue.

Thus, a transfer away from Villa Park in January could possibly be finest for Philogene’s improvement.

As talked about earlier, Everton actually discover objectives arduous to return by; they’re the bottom scorers within the Premier League this season with simply 15 objectives, whereas they’re additionally backside of the xG standings, accumulating a miserly 18.1 up to now.

Their joint-top scorers are Dwight McNeil and Iliman Ndiaye, each with a miserly three objectives, so how does Philogene evaluate to the Toffees’ present wide-attackers?

As outlined, for the reason that begin of final season, Philogene compares favourably to Everton’s present winger choices.

He is scored extra objectives, registered extra progressive carries and tried extra pictures than all the trio, most crucially of all, Philogene has overperformced his xG, whereas Jack Harrison and Ndiaye have each underperformed theirs.

McNeil, essentially the most spectacular of the Toffees’ trio, has missed the final six video games resulting from a knee damage, with Dyche describing this difficulty as “a bit trickier than we thought”, however even when he was taking part in recurrently, Philogene was outperforming his numbers.

Thus, put succinctly, it is a deal Everton must be gutted about failing to finish.