Everton brace for new dilemma after Demarai Gray exit as worrying transfer trend must end

Our writers assess the sale of Gray and whether Everton will be able to replace him

Just how do Everton fill the void left in the squad by Demarai Gray's depature until the January transfer window? Members of the ECHO sportsdesk have their say.

Chris Beesley - McNeil's return to full fitness cannot come soon enough

Demarai Gray could produce moments of magic on his day but unfortunately the gaps between such spectacular strikes were often many months apart and that’s just not frequent enough for a forward player.

Following his last-gasp winner against Arsenal, Gray didn’t find the net again for another eight months and the sad fact is that he failed to score from open play for Everton in 2023 with his effort against Manchester City at Etihad on New Year’s Eve proving to be his last for the club. So we might wonder what all the fuss is about, especially for a player who started just one of the Blues’ last 11 games.

With Gray’s exit confirmed a day after the CIES Football Observatory published their figures on clubs’ transfer net spends going back to 2014, calculating that Everton had made a bigger trading loss than Real Madrid and Bayern Munich over the period, a deal that saw the Blues sell a player for almost five times the £1.7million fee they paid Bayer Leverkusen for him two years ago would, under ordinary circumstances, represent a shrewd piece of business. However, with the English transfer window have closed six days earlier, Sean Dyche’s already threadbare squad now looks even more stretched.

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For most of the summer it felt as though Gray was on his way but even with new on-loan recruit Jack Harrison yet to come, the deadline day departure of Alex Iwobi – a player who had been a regular on the wing under the current manager – has made the Jamaican international’s late move feeling like an exit too far. For all his endeavour, James Garner’s skill-set is not being fully utilised when deployed down the flanks and the thought of him being deployed in such areas on a prolonged basis is concerning.

Ashley Young could push further forward if either Vitalii Mykolenko or Ben Godfrey were brought in at left-back but neither have been entirely convincing so in truth the return to full fitness of last season’s top scorer Dwight McNeil, who came on as a late substitute at Sheffield United, cannot come soon enough.

Joe Thomas - We could see Garner on the right more often

Gray was set to be a squad player so covering his loss in a fully fit team is not the issue. Arnaut Danjuma, Dwight McNeil and Jack Harrison may spread the wide jobs between them. The issue is what happens in the latter stages of games and, more pointedly, if players get injured. It is a danger the severity of which is heightened by the sale of Alex Iwobi. Everything points to Everton not wanting to sell both Iwobi and Gray for precisely that reason.

The options should the remaining wide men suffer injury issues are limited, in both the senior team and academy. The departure of Stanley Mills on loan to Oxford United deprives Everton of a young player with experience of the first team set up, until January at least.

So the reality is any problem will be dealt with exactly how it has so far this season - with James Garner slotting in on the right of midfield. Should Harrison or McNeil get injured then the most obvious solution would be to move to a 4-4-1-1, allowing Garner to play as wide midfielder rather than a winger, and with Danjuma playing off Beto or Dominic Calvert-Lewin. That may end up being the go-to tactic for the closing stages of games, with Garner coming off the bench to solidify the right side of the team in the late stages, particularly if Everton have something to hold on to.

Matt Jones - Everton have no natural alternative to wildcard Gray

So having seemingly bolstered their attacking depth and variety during the summer, three sales late in the window have left Everton looking a little short of firepower in the final third.

After the sale of the most creative player in the squad in Alex Iwobi and the club's most promising young striker in Tom Cannon, on Thursday the exit of Demarai Gray was confirmed in a blunt statement from the Blues.

If he had of stayed, Gray would likely have been on the bench most weeks, with manager Sean Dyche only turning to him in times of necessity last season. It is that wildcard option Everton will miss.

Of course Everton possess talent out wide in Arnaut Danjuma and Dwight McNeil, while there is a hope that Jack Harrison can offer something different when he recovers from injury. But the brutal truth is that aside from those trio, there are no other natural wing players.

So Gray's exit may not necessarily leave Everton's first team worse off. However, when they are chasing a point or a win and in need of a moment, perhaps during the festive grind with tired bodies on the pitch after a number of 100-minute matches, Dyche is going to turn to his bench and have very little in terms of game-changing talent.

Paul Wheelock - It's a deal that makes sense but leaves Everton very short

Forgetting the fact that there clearly appeared little way back in terms of his working relationship with Sean Dyche, the sale of Demarai Gray to Al-Ettifaq does make sense. With less than a year left on his contract, and offering a £6.3m uplift on the amount the Blues paid for the Jamaica international just two years ago, financially it ticks all the boxes.

The same could be said of the sale of Alex Iwobi. And Tom Cannon. And Ellis Simms. And Anthony Gordon. And Richarlison. But when does this all stop?

With huge losses in recent years to contend with and a new stadium to pay for, it's clear that Everton are having to cut their cloth accordingly, and they deserve credit for getting good deals for those players mentioned above. But they are playing a dangerous game.

Relegation from the Premier League would be catastrophic, not least financially, but after two seasons of narrowly avoiding the drop, Sean Dyche has been left with a paper-thin squad in which to navigate the demands of the Premier League until January at least.

Would Gray have started each week even if he had managed to patch up his differences with Dyche? Proably not. But with five substitutes and now longer matches than ever before, the importance of having game-changers on the bench is vitally important. And, for all his inconsistency, Gray had the potential to be one of them, as witnessed by his wonderful winner at home to Arsenal and his equally thrilling point-saving strike at Manchester City.

His exit leaves Dyche with three wingers at his disposal in Arnaut Danjuma, Dwight McNeil and Jack Harrison, who remains sidelined. That does not seem enough. Especially given Iwobi was arguably the team's most creative player, and he's gone, and especially given the options in a central attacking area are equally as meagre.

The Blues just have to hope they get through to January with no fresh injuries and then hope that some of the near-£40m banked for Gray, Iwobi and Cannon can be reinvested into the squad.