Reece Welch wants Everton loan exit with MK Dons interested
Reece Welch is “keen to depart” Everton on loan this summer to get more first-team football, according to the Liverpool Echo.
The teenage defender was named in the squad that has travelled to Switzerland for Sean Dyche’s preseason training camp on Monday (10 July).
But with the youngster currently having a crowded field of competitors for senior action once the season starts he has his eye on a temporary Toffees exit.
MK Dons have been linked to the centre-back, but according to the Echo while they “admire” Welch the League Two side haven’t made an offer to take him from Goodison Park after coming close to bringing him in last January.
Exit option?
Welch currently has an opportunity to force his way into Dyche’s thinking but his chances of breaking into the first team next term still look like an uphill battle.
With James Tarkowski, Michael Keane and Ben Godfrey all ahead of him, and Jarrad Branthwaite likely to also be in the reckoning, it would take somewhat of an injury crisis to open the door for him even if there aren’t any new arrivals this summer.
Mason Holgate is currently ahead of him in the pecking order but is linked with a move away this summer, yet the manager has shown he likes to go with a tried and tested pairing at the back.
Despite Keane’s standing at Everton having diminished significantly over the previous 18-months Dyche didn’t take long to drop regular starter Conor Coady to pair the former Burnley man with his one-time Turf Moor teammate Tarkowski for the relegation battle.
Now-Leicester man Coady was allowed to depart once his loan ended and Yerry Mina’s injury record saw his contract run out without an extension, but Branthwaite’s return from PSV and the possibility of an addition in the transfer window doesn’t make Welch’s task much easier.
League Two might seem like a big drop down for a player who will turn 20 soon after the season starts, so if he has designs on making it at Goodison Park he may need a Championship option before the window shuts, but he only signed a new four-year contract eight months ago so the club does appear to have plans for him.
In other Everton news, a journalist has branded the Toffees’ transfer window activity “hard to justify”.