Everton have long been praised for their production line, but not all who cut their teeth on the blue ground of Merseyside actually made it onto the Goodison Park pitch.
Leaving before their time, such stars that you will see below went on to forge impressive careers but ultimately recognised their talents away from Everton territory.
The best Everton talents who never played in the PL
Starting off this obscure blast from the past, we have Shkodran Mustafi, who played for Everton during his formative years and featured off the bench against BATE Borisov in 2009/20 – his first season as a professional. And that was all she wrote.
Mustafi cuts an infamous figure on the Premier League scene after several up-and-down years with Arsenal, who he played for 151 times but left having been branded a “horrendous” signing by journalist Charles Watts, even though he won two FA Cups.
Perhaps he wouldn’t have been all that for the Blues, though Arsenal signed the German from Valencia in a deal worth £35m. Thus, there was money to be made.
Antonee Robinson: Premier League Stats 2024/25 | ||
|---|---|---|
Statistics | Per 90 | Percentile |
Assists | 0.27 | Top 4% |
Progressive carries | 2.55 | Top 21% |
Successful take-ons | 1.09 | Top 12% |
Progressive passes (rec) | 7.00 | Top 6% |
Tackles | 3.00 | Top 11% |
Interceptions | 1.82 | Top 9% |
Clearances | 3.55 | Top 16% |
Stats via FBref | ||
More presently, Everton must rue the sale of Antonee Robinson, who is thriving for Fulham, hailed as “one of the best left-backs in the world” by Sky Sports’ Dougie Critchley. Given that Robinson left for just £2m in 2019, this must rankle some.
Another oft-forgotten one-timer is Eric Dier, who might have made the club a pretty penny had he stayed on the books way back when.
Everton let Eric Dier get away
Dier has enjoyed a comparatively successful career, having been a mainstay at Tottenham Hotspur for the most part of a decade before heading to Bayern Munich last year, where he resides still.
Last term, the 30-year-old England international was hailed by journalist Henry Winter for “intervening calmly, defending resolutely and ensuring a clean sheet” after defeating Arsenal in the Champions League quarter-finals.
Dier has been around the block and back again, but Everton sure must rue the fact that he never once plied his craft for the Toffees’ first team, despite cutting his teeth at the club, during an 18-month spell on loan at Finch Farm.
In 2011, Dier, who was a teenager fluent in Portuguese, returned to his homeland from Sporting Lisbon on a temporary basis for an initial six-month period, before extending that stint for a further year.
He notably captained the club’s U18s amid that promising spell, but returned to Portugal at the end of the 2012/13 campaign, albeit with Alan Stubbs subsequently revealing that David Moyes and co had targeted a permanent deal, only to be put off by his £1m price tag…
“We wanted to sign Eric and, at one point, thought we were going to get him. When he came, he was way off the pace because he had come from a really different culture. He was brought up in London but had gone over to Portugal and was with Sporting and you could see that he was used to that slow tempo of football whereas here it was fast, frenetic and he struggled fitness-wise to start off.
“It took us the best part of eight months to get him up to speed but you could see his game coming on 10-fold and that was when we decided we wanted to sign him and we were in negotiations to do it but, at the time, it was going upwards of £1m, which wasn’t where Everton were at the time.”
The Merseysiders must really regret not managing to ensnare him for good, for his value, as per Transfermarkt, rose to a peak of £34m after leaving. There was money to be made with this one.
Where Are They Now
Your star player or biggest flop has left the club but what are they doing in the present day? This article is part of Football FanCast’s Where Are They Now series.
Moreover, former Tottenham boss Antonio Conte even tipped Dier to become “one of the best” central defenders in the world, a further illustration of the quality that was carried within.
It’s a frustrating one, to be sure.
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