Everton flop was “better than Gerrard”, now he’s worth less than Keane

Everton are unrecognisable – and for the better. David Moyes‘ three-game winning run in the Premier League might have ended in the Merseyside derby but this is a coherent and dangerous unit.

Relegation fears are in the background. Of course, you can never be certain in this division, but the Toffees have raced toward the outskirts of mid-table and have a ten-point buffer over 18th-place Leicester City.

Moyes’ tactics negated Liverpool’s fluid attacking play, and while the onus is on preserving top-flight status until the summer, the new owners, The Friedkin Group, are going to try and make headway in the transfer window. Signings will be posted to the Everton Stadium.

However, there are going to be several current stars heading out of the turnstiles. Let’s take a look at who they might be.

The players leaving Everton this year

While TFG and Moyes have big plans, there’s going to be an exodus at Everton. First-team stars such as Dominic Calvert-Lewin are out of a deal at the end of the campaign, with a host of veterans set to depart too.

Calvert-Lewin is a talented and powerful centre-forward, but he’s only scored three Premier League goals across 22 matches this season.

Abdoulaye Doucoure, Idrissa Gueye, Ashley Young, and Michael Keane, all in their 30s, are also reaching their conclusions, so it is clear that Moyes will need to bring a range of faces to Merseyside, charging a project that will lift the club away from the bottom end of the division.

Moreover, there are a number of loanees who may see their permanent clauses activated, namely Charly Alcaraz and, possibly, Armando Broja. The same could be said for Jesper Lindstrom, but along with Jack Harrison, the right-winger has failed to register a single goal contribution with the Toffees this term.

Everton haven’t been good enough at cutting ties with stars who haven’t cut the mustard in recent years, but one former player departed at the right time, Tom Davies; the 26-year-old is worth even less than many of those soon-to-leave veterans.

Tom Davies’ Everton career

Everton academy graduate Davies never lived up to his billing, chiefly due to injuries disrupting his development. However, the 26-year-old was once considered to be a high-class talent and did make 179 senior appearances for the side, scoring seven goals and supplying eight assists, before joining Sheffield United after the end of his contract in 2023.

There’s typically a frustrating overreaction when a young talent takes strong steps on Premier League soil for the first time, but Davies did carry himself with the swagger and certainty of a midfielder headed straight for the top.

Reports from 2017 – when he broke through – even suggested that Chelsea were keen on swiping the Toffees teenager and adding him to their large Cobham ranks.

The fact that Davies is now worth even less than Keane, 32, says it all. According to Transfermarkt, the Blades midfielder has a market value of just £4m, whereas the Everton centre-half’s price tag sits at about £5m.

There’s no bad blood between Davies and his former Merseyside outfit but it’s a real shame that he didn’t live up to the hype, especially since he was touted to become as good as one of Liverpool’s most iconic footballers.

Indeed, journalist Adrian Durham, speaking to talkSPORT in 2019, even went as far as to say that Davies could become “better than (Steven) Gerrard was for Liverpool” as he pushed for a prominent role in the Toffees first team.

In hindsight (or perhaps at the time for many) this seems rather silly, but Evertonians will recall Davies’ excellent start to life, showing such promise with his technical ability and energy.

Aged only 18, the English prospect put in a man-of-the-match performance as Everton thrashed Pep Guardiola’s nascent Manchester City side 4-0, dominating the central battle against none other than Yaya Toure. It made a telling comment on his future success, his potential in the Premier League.

Picture this: Davies collects down the right touchline, he’s in his own half. A quick drop of the shoulder and he’s away, driving forward and skipping inside. He’s going to get swarmed, neatly plays across to Ross Barkley; Barkley plays it back, Davies arcs it above Claudio Bravo, all finesse and composure. It squeezes inside the post.

Goodison Park erupts, making that special kind of noise that most stadiums are unable to produce.

You can see, to be sure, that Durham’s belief in Everton’s academy star, his vision that Merseyside had found its Gerrard regen – this time in Blue – had substance.

Davies fell by the wayside in the end, his Everton career tapering off year by year, fading like a pen running out of ink.

Keane isn’t exactly a mainstay in the current Everton team, had fallen into the fringes of Sean Dyche’s squad, and has been noted for “always struggling“, according to talkSPORT’s Perry Groves. It’s highly unlikely that Moyes will want to risk stagnation by renewing the ageing star’s signature.

But he’s still worth more than the once Gerrard-esque Davies, something that underscores just how far the injury-affected pro has fallen.

The shining light in all this is that Davies has returned to fitness with Sheffield United and has recently started six matches in the Championship, notably completing 88% of his passes and winning 57% of his ground battles, as per Sofascore, as he instils composure and control in the engine room.

The Blues will simply hope that he can maintain his form and enjoy a successful coming chapter of his career. It’s just a shame that he’s a shadow of the prospect who once suggested so much.

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