Henry Onyekuru: ''How my Everton dream fell apart''

Very nice article by Patrick Boyland. Very empathetic and generous analysis of what appeared on the face of it to be yet another of those incomprehensible transfer sagas that Everton seem to have been sucked into over the years.

Indeed, I had Henry down as an upcoming candidate for my Mystery Men series, but now I'm going to have to rethink that as Patrick's gazumped me with this deep and penetrating 'exclusive'.

I had high hopes for this lad and Vlasic too. Henry looked very good in his breakout season in Belgium and then in Turkey. Seems to have found his level though and not really kicked on. That aside, I consider these two to be moderately successful transfers due to small outlay and sell on profit. I'd be happy to see a few more like this (albeit with a work permit this time) so that we can 'do a Kyle Walker' and spend big money on some proper talent

Michael, with your mystery men features, I'd like to find out more about some of the players who came and left without featuring at all. I'm thinking players like Eddie Bosnar, Guillaume Plessis and Ibrahim Said off the top of my head. And who were them American lads who turned up for a season, never featured and then left? Cody Arnoux was one. Keep them coming anyway. 👍

Yeah well my Everton dream fell apart when we were 2-0 up at Anfield with two minutes left and the alarm clock woke me up!

I bet you that alarm clock never wakes you up again Jim!

Good job you woke up Jim.With 2 minutes to go we would have got beat 3-2 !

Slightly related in terms of players out on loan, I came across a cool little quiz at the Everton VitalFooball site. (I can't stand their clickbait headlines, though.)

Anyway, I can't even find the page now to link to. And nothing after numerous searches. Ah well... would have been fun for youse!

Like Robert @ 2 I had high hopes for this lad, and the price we managed to get him for, looked like we had secured a star for the future.

Unfortunately his arrival at Everton as listed above became a catalogue of disappointments, both with Work Permits not being granted and contractual obligations at his loan Clubs.

Probably an agent in there somewhere too, advising him of what was his best move etc. I watched wherever I could any of the games in which he played, and as Robert mentioned he seemed to taper off from his original showings.

Michael (7), not to be too fussy, but I think there is an ‘e' on the end of yous, if you are gonna talk Scouse speak it properly.

Jim #4 had the same dream about Newcastle at home once!

Thank you, Dave. I've been working too much on my Somerset accent obviously!

Anderlecht screwed him big time by dropping him near the end of the season, in the hope of getting another season loan for him.