“We are coming out of a tunnel,” Everton’s director of football Kevin Thelwell said in an interview with the club’s official channel on Monday. “We can see the light, but in our reality we are not quite out of it.
“We’re in fairly good shape and that gives us a really strong opportunity to attack the market and start to deliver a team befitting of the world-class stadium we are moving into.”
Whether Thelwell will be around to capitalise on those opportunities and help with Everton’s summer rebuild, though, remains to be seen.
After nearly three years in post, his contract expires at the end of the season. What happens next for him and the director of football role at the club in general remain Everton’s greatest unanswered questions.
There is no doubt that Thelwell has been dealt a difficult hand at Goodison Park. He arrived from New York Red Bulls in late February 2022 with Everton on the decline and hamstrung by the financial profligacy of the Farhad Moshiri era.
Everton were in special measures with the Premier League, who were granted approval on all club transactions, and in a relegation battle. Even then, some at Goodison were focusing efforts on a swift return to European football.
The three years since have been remarkable. There have been two separate breaches of the Premier League’s profit and sustainability regulations (PSR) resulting in points deductions, three successive relegation battles and high-profile sales as the club sought to make ends meet during a costly new stadium project.
At various points, the financial threat to the club was, as then owner Moshiri once described it, “existential”.
Thelwell’s remit in that time was to keep the lights on and heads above water. “It is not a badge of honour to say we have been outspent by everybody in the league but it has been a necessity for the last three years,” he said in his club interview. “I know how we have survived, but when I look back I wonder how.”
A fraught financial climate
It will no doubt have quickly become apparent to Thelwell on taking the job that lingering aspirations of Europe would have to be put to one side.
His first day in post came soon after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, an unforeseen turn of events that saw Everton indefinitely suspend and then cancel lucrative sponsorship deals with companies linked to the sanctioned Uzbek oligarch Alisher Usmanov, then a close business associate of Moshiri’s.
With Everton in special measures with the Premier League and a £760m stadium project to fund, Thelwell’s task was to reduce the wage bill, balance the books through player trading and keep the club in the Premier League.
Star players had to be sold regularly: Richarlison to Tottenham Hotspur at the end of that season, as part of a forlorn attempt at PSR compliance. Anthony Gordon to Newcastle United six months later with the club needing urgent cash to keep the lights on. The departure of Alex Iwobi, another regular, in September 2023 came at another financial pinch point and combined could earn the club around £130m.
Richarlison was sold to Tottenham for an additional £50m (Tony McArdle/Everton FC via Getty Images)
Even as recently as last summer, there was an admission from then manager Sean Dyche that every player in the squad had a price. Yet Everton have, at least, been able to keep hold of one key asset, defender Jarrad Branthwaite, up to now despite significant and sustained interest over the last 12 months.
Everton’s financial stability has been a top priority but the team has suffered. Regular sales, coupled with an inability to spend at the level of rivals, has left a threadbare squad in need of strengthening.
Transfer spend alone is not everything. Wages and agents fees are part of the equation, the former in particular often an indicator of potential league position.
But in the last three seasons under Thelwell, Everton have spent £80m less than they have recouped, earning £160m on player disposal — ie PSR profit — in the process.
As detailed recently by football finance expert Kieran Maguire, Everton’s net transfer income is the highest of any side to have played in the Premier League from 2021 onwards, higher than even Luton Town and Sheffield United, two clubs who have spent most of their time in the Championship.
Everton’s wage bill is also estimated to have shrunk by between 15-20 per cent during Thelwell’s time. There has been a move to lower base salaries, with new additions often coming in on between £40,000-60,000 a week, and performance-related bonuses.
High earners like Andre Gomes, Fabian Delph, Allan and Yerry Mina have been released, but Michael Keane and Abdoulaye Doucoure are among the 13 players whose deals expire at the end of the season.
Transfer near misses and ‘buy now pay later’ strategy
There has long been a feeling at Everton that it is not talent identification but lack of resource holding the club back.
Recruitment during Thelwell’s tenure has largely been about resale value, with the most significant fees committed on players 24 and under. Most transfers have been buy now, pay later deals.
This has left a shallow pool of talent to pick from — not every club is willing to accept such terms — and the lack of finance has contributed to them missing out on top targets.
Mohammed Kudus (who signed for West Ham United), Morgan Gibbs-White and Anthony Elanga (who both signed for Nottingham Forest) were among those on the radar early into Thelwell’s time at the club. In that first summer, a move for South Korean central defender Kim Min-jae, now at Bayern Munich, stalled due to financial concerns.
Yankuba Minteh (Brighton & Hove Albion) and Nicolas Jackson were targets last summer, but the former was dependent on Dominic Calvert-Lewin moving to Newcastle United in a separate deal and Everton were never going to be able to match Chelsea on Jackson.
Within those confines, there have been notable misses. Neal Maupay, signed to dovetail with Calvert-Lewin, is the most obvious example, scoring just once for the club before moving to Marseille in a deal containing an obligation to buy. Everton stand to make their money back on the forward when his purchase clause is triggered, but he was not an easy fit for Frank Lampard or Dyche, particularly once focal point Calvert-Lewin got injured.
That deal remains a sliding doors moment for those former managers and many still at the club. Before signing Maupay, the recruitment team had explored deals for Viktor Gyokeres, then at Coventry City, and Rasmus Hojlund during his stint with Sturm Graz in Austria, but the collective decision was taken by the hierarchy to go with a safer option.
Gyokeres has become one of the most wanted strikers in Europe at Sporting CP (Gualter Fatia/Getty Images)
The jury is still out on Beto, signed from Udinese two summers ago for an initial £21m on another buy now, pay later deal. But at least the Guinea-Bissau international, who scored in Wednesday’s Goodison derby draw, is starting to show his worth.
Others like Iliman Ndiaye (£15m), James Garner (£9m plus bonuses) and Dwight McNeil (£20m) have represented better value for money and, in most cases, seen their value appreciate significantly. A common view in recruitment circles is that Ndiaye’s value in the open market would now be more than double what Everton paid.
Amadou Onana was sold to Aston Villa for around £20m more than the initial £30m fee it took to sign him from Lille in August 2022. Tim Iroegbunam and Youssef Chermiti, meanwhile, have been signed with a view to the future. Those deals have been supplemented by older pros signed for smaller fees such as Idrissa Gueye and free agents James Tarkowski and Ashley Young. There is a place for both within Everton’s recruitment model, but the biggest fees have been reserved for younger talent with resale value.
Given the financial constraints, Everton’s aim under Thelwell has been to ‘win’ the free and loan markets. There was a belief last season that in Arnaut Danjuma and Jack Harrison, they had two of the best temporary options available. But the former failed to work his way into Dyche’s plans and made just five league starts.
This season’s loanees have been a similarly mixed bag. Orel Mangala was a solid addition in midfield before sustaining knee ligament damage that rules him out for the rest of the season. Armando Broja showed promise before succumbing to a series of injuries.
Jesper Lindstrom has shown glimpses of his talent but neither he nor Harrison has nailed down a wing spot. Broja’s injury and the PSR considerations meant they could have done with utilising the domestic loan market in January, but they had used their full quota in Harrison and Broja.
Recruitment has tended to be collaborative process. Thelwell was effectively Lampard and Dyche’s line manager but both had input on signings. For each new addition, recruitment and manager have had to be in agreement to proceed. Targets have been filtered according to data but also what the manager wants.
The recruitment done under Thelwell looks better now than it did at the start of the season, with £17m defender Jake O’Brien quickly working his way into David Moyes’ plans. Ndiaye, Beto and Garner have made telling contributions in recent weeks.
That comes at a good time for Thelwell, with his contract up. The theory behind a signing can be right, but it crucially needs buy-in from managers in terms of selection and tactics in order to work.
The big irony is that Thelwell has been afforded more power and responsibility in the decision-making process than any of his predecessors, largely due to the lack of money available to Everton and the takeover. That would usually be welcomed, but it came when the club was more restricted than ever in the market. He has not had the chance to work with bigger budgets.
Ndiaye has been a huge success since signing from Marseille (Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty Images)
There have been so many sticking-plaster solutions, most out of necessity, that a huge summer overhaul of the squad now awaits. Everyone at the club has been holding out for the moment when new ownership arrived and the purse strings can finally be loosened.
With TFG now in situ, Thelwell, whose father grew up supporting the club, will hope to be afforded the chance to show what he can do with greater resources.
Is this now a club in Thelwell’s image?
A director of football does far more than just manage transfers, even if some fans still mistake them for heads of recruitment.
Thelwell oversees the medical and sports science departments, the academy and women’s teams and data/analytics.
Three years in, his fingerprints are evident across all of them.
Jack Nayler, formerly of Chelsea and Real Madrid, was appointed head of sports science in September 2022.
Gareth Prosser, Thelwell’s former colleague at Wolverhampton Wanderers, became academy director and Carl Darlington, previously of the Welsh FA, joined as head of coaching. Former player James Vaughan initially returned in the new role of loan pathways manager and now also heads up academy recruitment.
There have been promotions for the highly-rated Dan Purdy, now head of recruitment, Charlie Reeves (head of insights) and Matty Hawkes (head of first-team analysis).
Data has been moved to the start of the recruitment process, while Reeves produces game reports to be presented to managers and coaching staff.
Under Thelwell and Vaughan, Everton’s loan strategy has been revamped, with the focus shifting from winning youth matches to player development.
Loans are used for different purposes — to give players the necessary exposure to secure a deal elsewhere and help Everton recoup some money, or to help a potential future first-team player like Harrison Armstrong, who moved to Derby County last week, take the final leap into the senior set-up. Deals contain penalty clauses if a certain threshold of games is not reached.
Everton sold Tom Cannon and Ellis Simms for a combined £15m in the summer of 2023 after successful loans in the Championship. Also factoring in the departures of Ishe Samuels-Smith to Chelsea and Gordon to Newcastle, they have made around £70m from academy graduates in Thelwell’s time at the club.
They would not have wanted to lose all of those players, but PSR and the financial situation dictated that they had to make difficult decisions.
After consultation with staff across all levels, Thelwell, Prosser and Darlington have produced a ‘game model’ to be implemented by every Everton side, with the aim of improving the pathway to the first team.
There is a feeling strides have been taken, but an acceptance stocks will need to be replenished at academy level too if Everton are to compete again. It is a familiar picture across the board.
So will he stay or go?
That is the big question and there appears little time to waste, whatever the outcome. Everton are heading into a crucial summer and need resolutions on Thelwell and the vacant CEO role as soon as possible.
No contract offer has been forthcoming to Thelwell yet, and there is a temptation to read into the significance of that. If nothing else, it means Thelwell’s future is not secured.
Those close to TFG insist no decision has yet been made on the director of football role and that any speculation about potential replacements is premature.
Thelwell when he joined Everton in March 2022 (Tony McArdle/Everton FC via Getty Images)
Thelwell’s record at Everton is by no means blemish free. Maupay was one high-profile failure and it remains to be seen how deals like the Beto one turn out. There was an admission internally that Lampard was kept on longer than he should have been, in part because he was viewed as such a good cultural fit.
The general view in the game, though, is that Thelwell has done well in challenging circumstances, helping stabilise a club engulfed in chaos, and is likely to be in the frame for a decent job elsewhere if he is not retained. With his contract up, he too will eventually have to assess his options.
There is a good chance history looks back more fondly on Dyche’s time as Everton manager, particularly once the dust starts to settle.
The same is likely to be true of Thelwell whenever he departs.
His legacy will be the role he played in keeping the club afloat, and in the top flight, at a crucial juncture in its history.
(Top photo: Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty Images)
