Saving Everton – A Football Manager 24 Story – Part 3 January Refresh

Saving Everton, an Everton Football Manager 24 Story. Join us as we battle against a points deduction, no transfer budget and a depleted squad to save this giant of a club.

It’s been some season thus far, and as we find ourselves at the end of the January window and onto the home stretch we find ourselves in a curious position. While I’ll avoid spoiling too early, let’s just say we won’t be getting relegated this season. Our tactic is working, and the squad is still holding together.

As we head into January, the vultures have begun to swoop for our star man Calvert-Lewin, and given our financial situation we might have to sell him. That said, his sale would allow us to make a lot of moves in the window, so let’s take a look.

Check out the previous Part of our story.

The form doesn’t stop

So, as we saw in part 2, the tactic and team were performing at an unbelievable level. I’ve had success with this tactic in the past, however, I’ve never seen it click this fast with a team. But as you can see above, we’re in an unbelievable run of form, to the point where I genuinely had to check I wasn’t cheating somehow. As for the league table, well, just take a look below.

That’s right, without the -10 deduction we’d be in second place, behind City on goal difference alone. Honestly, it’s hard to really put into words this season thus far. Given our squad, however, and what’s about to come in January I think I’d settle for midtable.

In our Newcastle save we had to budget to make the first season in the Champions League work, with Everton, we just lack the bodies and experience to do it. And with DCL leaving in January, that isn’t going to get easier.

January Sale

Players Sold

Michael Keane – £6.5 million

He simply isn’t good enough, so he had to be moved on. For £6.5 million, it’s a cracking deal for us, and one we can use to get some more quality into the side.

Idrissa Gueye – £ 2.3 million

Another player simply not up to standard, Gueye goes for a decent fee, having not played for us at all thus far

Dominic Calvert-Lewis – £65 million

The big one. We knew someone had to go, and when Brighton came in with this offer we just couldn’t turn it down. We had just £8 million to play with prior to this sale. His sale gives us some room to move in January, so, let’s see what we did.

Players in

Dennis Seimen – £30 million

Yeah, so, we needed a new keeper before the Summer, with Pickford getting older. Seimen is a very promising young keeper, and with Pickford injured as we entered the window, he’ll get some early game time. At just 18, he’s one for the future and one we’ll be getting a lot of game time out of.

Leny Yoro – £25 million

Another young player, again, at 18 he’s one for the future and will come in as our backup to Tarkowski.

Yaser Asprilla – £11 million

We tried to get Asprilla in the Summer, but the Everton board wouldn’t give us the extra funds. It looked like we’d missed our chance, with other clubs interested. But, Watford kept him on the bench, so we managed to get a deal over the line in January. Asprilla isn’t going to walk into the first team, but we can develop him.

Will Lankshear – £7.5 million

Having featured on the NXGN award, we took a punt on Lankshear who was loan-listed then. While Spurs were not overly keen to sell, a few future fees secured the deal. Lankshear is not ready for the first team yet, but we can give him some minutes this season.

Michy Batshuayi – £2 million 

Batshuayi was a free agent in the Summer, so we decided to bring the deal forward. He’s nothing special but gives us a stop-gap between Beto and our young strikers.

Harvey Araujo – £1 million

We badly needed a spare left back, and with not much money left in the budget for a left back, Araujo would have to do. In the Summer, we’ll probably have other options, so Araujo has 6 months to impress before heading out on loan.

And that’s about it for Part 3. Join us in Part 4 where we end the season, while also preparing for the next season ahead. From this point onwards, we’ll split the Story into two parts per season.