Everton's takeover funded £361m wild summer spending spree - according to our simulation

It’s a bold soothsayer who makes any concrete predictions about Everton’s immediate future. Relegation may have been avoided this year, but financial uncertainty and troubling ownership issues mean that there is every chance they face a long, slow summer with more talent going out than coming in. Is there any real hope for a forward-thinking transfer window? To find out, we peered through the virtual veil to see what a powerful computer simulation might tell us…

When we say “powerful computer simulation”, what we of course mean is Football Manager. And the mighty AI that (presumably) powers the highly-addictive computerised world sees a pretty startling future ahead for the Toffees.

For starters, the ownership situation was resolved swiftly. A fictional Chinese billionaire was found to take the club off Farhad Moshiri’s hands, and he set about doing what all good hyperwealthy foreign investors do when they buy a Premier League club, and fired the manager and signed a colossal amount of players. £361m of them, to be precise.

The managerial situation has not, if we’re honest, been a success. Dyche made way for former Shakhtar Donetsk coach Mircea Lucescu, he retired four months later, Vincent Kompany took over, was sacked even faster, and now real-life Girona coach Míchel is in charge. Which, in fairness, is quite an exciting appointment. But who does he have at his disposal in this fantastical world, and will computerised fiction be reflected in reality? Let’s take a look…

Goalkeeper & Defence

Just about the only thing that hasn’t changed is that Jordan Pickford remains between the sticks, but there are plenty of new faces in front of him. Indeed, the only familiar faces who regularly get a game are Vitaliy Mykolenko, James Tarkowski and Jarrad Branthwaite, who for some obscure reason is the first-choice right-back. That’s generally where you put quick players, Míchel, not the massive blond beanpole bloke.

Elsewhere they’ve done what we’d all agree was something entirely logical, and buy loads of players who got relegated with other clubs - Anel Ahmedhodžić (£33.5m) and Moussa Niakhaté (£8.5m) among them. Elsewhere, the manager raided his former club to sign promising youngster Arnau Martínez for a whopping £46.5m, before giving him all of seven games. RB Salzburg left-back Aleksa Terzić also came in for £10.5m and sometimes gets a game.

Along with Nathan Patterson, that makes up the sum total of seven defenders in the senior squad, with Ben Godfrey mysteriously loaned out to Juventus, of all teams. Top transfer work, there, very un-Dychey.

Everton defensive options: Anel Ahmedhodžić, Jarrad Branthwaite, Arnau Martínez, Vitaliy Mykolenko, Moussa Niakhaté, James Tarkowski.

Midfield

Amadou Onana is still there in this vision of reality, with the money from his sale no longer required to keep the lights on, and James Garner, Idrissa Gana Gueye and Abdoulaye Doucouré are all in place too, although the latter two are transfer listed. There has no shortage of cash splashed elsewhere, however.

Danilo (£29m) was signed from Nottingham Forest to continue the “buying relegated players” theme, Romain Faivre was loaned from Bournemouth and Lille’s Angel Gomes (of “used to be at Manchester United, you remember him” fame) arrived for a princely £66m. Three goals and one assist in 31 games was the ultimate reward for that move.

One transfer that would have fans very excited were it to happen this summer is the capture of Sverre Nypan from Rosenborg for just £3.1m. A hugely-rated teenager in real life, his 18-year-old virtual edition is already on the fringes of the first team. But if all that doesn’t sound like too much of a shake-up, wait until you see how many wingers they signed. It’s like Chelsea in here.

Everton midfield options: Angel Gomes, Danilo, Abdoulaye Doucouré, Romain Faivre, James Garner, Idrissa Gana Gueye, Sverre Nypan, Amadou Onana.

Forwards

To contextualise the silly season we’re about to unveil, Dwight McNeil is still the first-choice left winger. That’s in the face of the following list of wide forwards all signed in the same season – Pedro Neto (£41m), Nicolò Cambiaghi (£9m), Ernest Nuamah (£27m, barely gets on the pitch), Matheus Pereira (£6m, likewise) and Adam Armstrong (£21.5m, transfer listed a year later without scoring a goal). Neal Maupay is on the transfer list too, but with a ruptured cruciate ligament there’s an unsurprising shortage of suitors.

And up front, there’s been some change as well. A small fraction of all this absurd outlay was funded by the sale of Dominic Calvert-Lewin to Aston Villa, with the number nine fetching a solid £41m in the game. They replaced him with Matheus Cunha (£60m), but tend to start Beto anyway. If you’re wondering what happened to Youssef Chermiti, he’s off on loan at West Bromwich Albion, and doing just about OK.

So where did all this massive spending and all those splashy signings get Everton by the end of the 2024/25 season? 16th. It seems that you can pour a ton of money into Everton, but you can’t take the Everton out of Everton.

Everton attacking options: Adam Armstrong, Beto, Nicolò Cambiaghi, Matheus Cunha, Neal Maupay, Dwight McNeil, Pedro Neto, Ernest Nuamah, Matheus Pereira.

Is any of this remotely realistic, or helpful in determining the course that Everton will take in reality this summer? No, not remotely. But then, what odds would you have got on Chelsea’s makeover before Roman Abramovich showed up? So who knows, maybe a free-spending Chinese billionaire is just around the corner, and maybe the real one will spend the cash a little more sensibly.