Demarai Gray’s departure was a messy ending to a transfer window and none of the parties involved came out well from the debacle.
Gray’s public complaint may have been effective but was disappointing to read. Everton, meanwhile, have lost a player it appears Sean Dyche hoped to be able to call upon this season.
Both can claim to be the winner in this - Gray is no longer at Everton while the Blues have boosted the club accounts through the sale of a player who was unlikely to have been a key part of the starting line-up.
But it was an unedifying end to a transfer window that, while it had a sting in the tail, held positives for the Blues. The questions that will linger are whether the situation was avoidable and, if so, there was a miscalculation that further weakened a small squad.
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On Saturday, Dyche said he believed Gray would remain at Everton. On Tuesday he said no deal is done without the club’s say so. On Thursday, Gray was sold. It was a messy addendum to the transfer window. And it was a mess the club could have done without. In the end, Everton made the right call and, to some extent, the mature one - once Gray issued his social media post it was difficult to see a way back for him and selling him removed an unhappy player from the squad for a sum that will no doubt be useful.
Only time will tell whether the deal is one too far for a small squad but the reality is that it became a necessary one. No-one comes out of it unscathed, however. Gray’s Instagram post made an internal problem public. It was also a surprise that he took to the platform on Sunday morning to write: “Everton fans have always been great with me but it is so difficult to play for someone who don’t show you respect as a person.”
Less than 24 hours earlier, Dyche had pointed to the player being part of his plans for the season after a summer of speculation about his future and during which Gray played no role in the first team - Dyche repeatedly having said this was down to the player’s fitness. Then after the Sheffield United game, when I asked why Gray was not involved, he told me: “It was a bit of everything - his fitness, his fitness to play in the side, the situation around him and all of the noise. Hopefully over the next couple of weeks that will become clear and he will get himself fit as a start point.”
This was the first acknowledgement the “noise” around his future had played any role in the player not being involved in the matchday squad - pertinent with the bench at Bramall Lane featuring just four senior outfield players, one of whom was Dwight McNeil, who Dyche said was brought back from injury earlier than he would typically like. Gray, for his part, declared he was fit in his parting shot to Dyche upon confirmation of his exit. The amount of minutes he plays for Jamaica during this international break will be interesting. While Dyche appears to have a higher threshold for match fitness than normal, and has handled matters such as Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s rehabilitation well, should Gray be heavily involved it may raise questions about why he did not feature at all in a squad with such limited numbers.
Questioned on Saturday whether he believed Gray would remain at the club, Dyche added: “I do at this time.” To club media, he said: “Dimi Gray is coming back into the group, he will get fitter and stronger… we want these guys back in the squad and then all of a sudden you look and go right OK that looks more like the squad we wanted.”
One can only imagine the conversations then sparked when Gray’s post appeared online the following day. Whatever had happened behind closed doors over the summer, Dyche had opened the door for a return. Gray appears to have seen that as a challenge rather than an invitation though.
Dyche and the club had every right to respond and few supporters will disagree with the manager’s standpoint of no player being bigger than the club. His claim that Gray had previously refused to train was one many fans will understandably find disappointing, the suggestion Gray had downed tools a troubling one. It was also concerning as it suggested that significant cracks were visible in the relationship between club and player before the saga became public. If this was the case it is hard to see how there was ever going to be a happy ending to this situation and, if so, why the problem was not dealt with at a time when the club could have potentially responded in the market rather than lose a senior player whose presence within the squad must have been a factor in the decision to allow Alex Iwobi, Tom Cannon and Neal Maupay to leave on deadline day.
