Are Everton… fun now?
Last time out, the Toffees beat Wolves 3-2 at Molineux, thanks to goals from Beto, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and then Iliman Ndiaye, albeit Jack Grealish was the star of the show, registering two assists.
That’s now three successive victories in league and cup for David Moyes’ men, who will be looking to make that four in a row, achieving this for the first time since December 2023, when Aston Villa visit Hill Dickinson Stadium on Saturday; the Villans haven’t even scored a goal yet this season.
With Grealish the poster boy, the Blues are playing a brand of free-flowing, attacking football not often associated with Moyes, but just imagine how good this team would be had they not sold an academy prospect for £400k.
Jack Grealish's Everton renaissance
During his final two seasons at Manchester City, Grealish saw just 1,716 minutes of action in the Premier League, during which time he accumulated a miserly four goals and two assists.
Thus, it was hard to forecast if the England international would be able to rediscover his mojo upon moving to Merseyside, but the early evidence suggests he certainly has.
Having registered two assists against both Brighton and Wolves, Grealish leads the way in the Premier League with four assists; no one else has more than two.
This is, as already mentioned, twice as many assists as he mustered across two league seasons with Man City, so, should he continue this form, he’ll surely force his way into Thomas Tuchel’s England squad for games against Wales and Latvia in October.
Grealish is of course only on loan at the Toffees, but they do have a £50m option to buy, which would smash the club’s transfer record which currently stands at £45m.
So, could Everton have saved themselves a potentially enormous outlay by holding onto an academy graduate, rather than selling him for just £400k?
Everton's homegrown talent starring on the international stage
Unless they keep a keen eye on the youth teams, it is possible that Evertonians have never even heard the name Isaac Price before.
He joined the club’s academy at the age of seven, making 64 appearances for the U21s, but featuring just three times for the first team, totalling 45 minutes, debuting against Boreham Wood in the FA Cup, before late substitute cameos against Arsenal and Brighton in the Premier League.
Thus, no one particularly noticed or cared when, still a teenager at the time, he was sold to Standard Liège, the Blues receiving around £400,000 in compensation.
During 18 months in Belgium, Price established himself as a first-team regular, making 64 appearances for les Rouches, his solitary goal for the club coming during a 2-1 victory over Club Brugge at Stade Maurice Dufrasne.
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These performances must’ve caught the eye back home because, back in January, West Bromwich Albion paid £2.5m to bring him to The Hawthorns.
Having been in and out of the side last season, Price began this campaign on fire, bagging the only goal against Blackburn Rovers on the opening weekend, before scoring a brace during a 3-2 victory over Wrexham at the Racecourse the following weekend.
However, it is his displays for Northern Ireland that have propelled the 21-year-old into the limelight.
He opened his international account against Slovenia in Ljubljana soon after leaving Everton before, back in October 2024, netting a hat-trick during a 5-0 Nations League demolition of Bulgaria at Windsor Park.
This makes him only the sixth man to score a treble for the Green and White Army, after Billy McAdams (1960), Johnny Crossan (1965), George Best (1971), Colin Clarke (1991) and David Healy (2006 & 2007).
His international scoring spree has hit new heights this calendar year, on target during friendlies against Switzerland, Sweden and Iceland, before bagging his tenth for his country with a sweetly struck volley during a World Cup qualifier against Germany at RheinEnergieStadion on Sunday night, making it 1-1.
This goal in Köln makes Price the youngest player to reach ten goals for Northern Ireland, joining illustrious company at that milestone. Like Grealish as a youngster, he’s burst onto the scene in quite some style.
David Healy
95
36
Kyle Lafferty
89
20
Billy Gillespie
25
13
Colin Clarke
38
13
Steven Davis
140
13
Joe Bambrick
11
12
Jimmy Quinn
46
12
Iain Dowie
59
12
Gerry Armstrong
63
12
Josh Magennis
82
12
Jimmy McIlroy
55
10
Isaac Price
24
10
Johnny Crossan
24
10
Jacek Kulig of Football Talent Scout is certainly a fan, labelling Price a “magnificent…box-to-box midfielder”, while his international manager Michael O’Neill, described him as a “brilliant young player”, highlighting his work-rate and pressing. Positionally, he may well be different to Grealish but the same raw, exciting talent is certainly there.
As a result, according to the CIES Football Observatory, he is now West Brom’s most valuable player, with an estimated transfer value of around £16m.
Thus, even with Grealish, Dewsbury-Hall, Ndiaye and the recently signed Tyler Dibling fighting for starting positions in Moyes’ team, Price would surely have improved this Everton squad, had they been able to keep hold of him two years ago.
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