Everton is out of crippling debt. What's next?

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Everton’s long-running financial nightmare appears to be over. The Friedkin Group has completed a takeover of the Toffees, while clearing or refinancing most of the club’s debt. Friedkin stepped up after a previous takeover bid from 777 Partners collapsed and several other groups inquired, but ultimately opted not to bid for the club.

Transfer market mismanagement was an issue at Everton for several years running, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine led to further financial problems with sponsors and minority owner Alisher Usmanov. This led to points deductions and transfer restrictions, but Everton have survived it all, and come out the other side still in a decent position in the Premier League.

It wouldn’t be wise to go nuts in the January transfer market — that’s the kind of thing that got Everton in trouble in the first place — but manager Sean Dyche will be requesting a budget reinforcement or two with his team sitting in 16th place, just 3 points clear of the relegation zone. There are some pretty obvious areas to address.

Everton’s defense is about the same as it was last season. They’re giving up slightly fewer total shots and worse xG per shot, but this basically the same side. Solid defensively relative to their position in the league, and doing so while playing a lower block and not giving opponents a lot of space around the box.

But their attacking numbers have fallen off considerably, most noticeably their set piece xG. Dyche’s teams have always been known for making the most of set pieces to offset their low-risk, defensive style, but Everton have not been able to do that so far this season.

Dyche is unlikely to make a dramatic stylistic shift at this point in his career, or with Everton’s squad in the state it’s in. If they’re going to score more and stay up comfortably, they’ll need to improve their attacking set pieces.

Everton could also stand to get quite a bit more out of Dominic Calvert-Lewin, who was previously an extremely impactful player. His issues have historically been more about staying healthy than quality of output, but this season has been a different story. He’s staying on the pitch, but not getting a lot of chances, or finishing the ones he does get. He’s averaging 0.26 xG per 90, and underperforming that pretty significantly too.

And Calvert-Lewin is getting no help from his teammates in the shot generation department. Jack Harrison is second on the team with 0.16 xG per 90 minutes, and no one else is over 0.1. If you’re wondering if this is mostly lack of goal-scoring talent, lack of playmaking talent, or system issues, the answer is: Yes. All of those things. They’re all huge problems.

So given all this, what’s the best place for the new owners to invest? If it was my money and I was allowing the club to make one impact signing this January ahead of formulating an actual transfer strategy for the summer, I’d make that signing a wide player with some dribbling ability. Preferably one who also gives the team some respectable right-footed set piece delivery.

Dwight McNeil’s set piece xA has fallen off a bit, but it’s not terrible. I think most of the problem is that it’s become too predictable. Almost all of his shots assisted are on inswingers to the back post. He’s not setting up set piece shots any other way, and neither is any other Everton player. Some variety in delivery type could make the Toffees’ set pieces much more difficult to scout and plan for.

A right-footed winger who can dribble and cross isn’t a difficult ask, and it’s a skillset that’s plentiful enough that the club should have no problem sticking to a budget instead of getting fixated on The One Target. —KM

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