George Overhill

Fri 28 January 2022 7:40, UK

Duncan Ferguson cannot have thought much of Rafael Benitez’s transfer plans as he excluded both the new signings from his first 20 man squad.

Lost in the furore over yet another defeat, the sit-in protest after the final whistle, Aston Villa players being hit by a bottle thrown from the crowd, and Bill Kenwright being confront by upset supporters outside the ground, was the significance of the match-day squad last Saturday.

Despite naming 20 players in the starting XI and on the bench, the only piece of Toffees transfer business involved in the 1-0 loss was Lucas Digne playing for the opposition.

The Frenchman had fallen out with former boss Benitez, and hit out at him in an Instagram post as he completed his transfer to Villa Park.

Another problem

During the window Nathan Patterson arrived from Rangers for £12million, potentially rising to £16million, after Vitaliy Mykolenko’s £17million transfer from Dynamo Kiev.

Yet those millions were not put to any use at Goodison in Big Dunc’s first game, even though the Ukrainian had started the previous defeat to Norwich in Benitez’s last one, and Patrick Boyland reported that Patterson subsequently performed well for the U23s on Monday.

The Scottish manager told the BBC following the game that he was “really pleased” with his players for “putting a shift in” during training and in the match, so it seems odd that he could not find a place for two relatively pricey signings among nine subs.

The pair may come good on Merseyside and the caretaker boss may have simply been intent on including players who already know how to embody the Everton DNA.

But in Jonjoe Kenny and Ben Godfrey as starting full-backs he had a man who has barely featured over the last two seasons while moving away from the club twice on loan, and a centre-back who himself has only been at Everton for 18 months.

Those who did earn a place on the bench included Lewis Dobbin and Tyler Onyango with only a handful of appearances between them, and the lesser-spotted Jean-Philippe Gbamin who has played a grand total of five times since a £25million move in 2019 and The Liverpool Echo reported this month had been told he could leave.

The two January arrivals were deemed less of a viable option than all of these.

The Ivorian is one of a list of expensive flops that have arrived at Goodison under owner Farhad Moshiri, with the waste of money that has dogged transfers and managerial appointments forming part of the reason fans are now furiously protesting at the way the club run.

And unless the two latest signings re-emerge in the next couple of squads it looks like they might be the newest additions to that list.

In other Everton news, the prospect of Frank Lampard being successful at the club has been pulled apart on talkSPORT.