Everton in for 3 huge targets

If you read our Everton season preview yesterday, you might have noticed that their squad is looking a bit thin. Players who played 12,021 minutes have left the squad, and they’ve been replaced by three players who had just 4,055 minutes played last season, and one of those is a backup goalkeeper.

In a recent press conference following a preseason friendly in the United States, Toffees boss David Moyes openly admitted that his team needs to sign “5 or 6” new players before the window closes. Thankfully for him, it seems like the recruitment department got the message that they needed to move their tails.

The Athletic reports that Everton are in talks to buy midfielder Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall — affectionally dubbed “Bridgerton” by Ted — for the same £25m that Chelsea paid last summer. He was always an odd signing for the Blues, but he looks like he’d add some much needed playmaking to Everton’s midfield. Between his Championship stats 2 years ago and what he did in the UEFA Conference League last year, he looks very much like a £25m player.

They also continue to work on signing a player from Southampton who has my current favorite banter nickname, Tyler Dribbling. We don’t know if the dribbly boy will ever perform any other skill at a Premier League level, but he’s a good enough dribbler that I’d be willing to find out.

The Toffees are also in negotiations to sign Jack Grealish, which would presumably be a loan in which City covers a significant chunk of his wages. Grealish doesn’t have a big enough sample in any competition to make any kind of good statistical evaluation of him, but he’s been so good in previous years that he’s well worth the risk if Everton don’t have to pay a large fee.

If Moyes can get these 3 in the door, suddenly Everton’s prospects are looking up considerably. The club’s new recruitment department is doing stuff that makes sense, and I’m excited to see what this club looks like in a couple years.

More transfer rumours

• I’m a big fan of Evann Guessand to Aston Villa for £35m. He’s kind of a hard player to categorize — he made starts at all of striker, left wing, right wing and 10 last season — but he was pretty good at everything. He’ll be an extremely tactically versatile forward for them.

• Benjamin Šeško to Manchester United isn’t a done deal yet, but it seems pretty clear that they’re deep in negotiations with Leipzig and the player has made his choice. This might take a week or two to sort out, but I can’t see any other outcome besides him being a United player by the end of the window.

• Having lost out on Šeško, Newcastle could pivot towards Nicolas Jackson. I’d actually like that a lot for them, and Chelsea would be relieved to make the sale so they can do whatever crazy shit they’re planning for the deadline.

• Newcastle are also back in for Marc Guehi, since Liverpool are dragging their feet… because they’re trying to buy Alexander Isak. The Magpies are also talking to Milan about long-standing target Malick Thiaw.

• Darwin Nuñez seems to have softened his stance on going to Saudi Arabia, and is close to a move to Al-Hilal. That’ll certainly make the Isak rumours heat up.

• Spanish media seem intent on pushing Rodrygo to Spurs, recycling this rumour after Son Hueng-Min departed for Los Angeles FC. Spurs are not shattering their wage structure, it’s not happening unless Rodrygo wants the move badly enough to take a pay cut.

• In more sensible Spurs rumours, they’d love to sign Marc Casado from Barcelona, and Barca would like to sell him. Problem is that, like every other Barca player, he has absolutely no desire to leave. Still, this is a profile I like a lot for Spurs, a defense-first DM who can also pass a little bit.

If you missed it yesterday, the directory for all of our Premier League season previews is here. They’ll be added as links in the predicted table as they get edited and posted. Once they’re all out, I’ll add a directory to the bottom of every page as well. To read them, you’ll need to be signed into the website with the email address you signed up with. Thanks to everyone who signed up, and I hope you’re enjoying them. —KM

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