Everton Ladies Goalkeeper Leaves Club

Everton Ladies starting goalkeeper, Lizzie Durack, has left the club to join the Chelsea Women side. The news came just hours before the men’s side announced that Joel Robles was one of seven players who would not be offered a new contract with their current deals expiring.

Durack joined Everton in 2013 for half a year and then played for Harvard University, where she majored in Economics. She told The Guardian about the style of play there:

“The American style of play is a lot more direct and a lot more physical over technical and tactical….It was the most fun environment I’ve ever played in. The Americans get so competitive and enthusiastic about everything.”

After turning down a potentially lucrative job at investment firm Goldman Sachs, she rejoined Everton Ladies and was pleasantly surprised to see how far the WSL had progressed:

“When I was playing there before I was on hardly anything – I can’t even remember being paid to be honest – and now the whole team are on professional contracts. We’re training fully at Finch Farm and all the infrastructure is there for us to be professional athletes. There’s still a long way to go but it’s fantastic to see how far it’s come.”

She played 18 games with Everton Ladies, competing throughout the season with fellow goalkeeper Kirstie Levell. Durack will be joining a club in their prime, having gone undefeated last season to become the WSL champs and also made it to the UEFA Champions League semi-final.

With Chelsea’s backup goalkeeper Fran Kitching having left the club, Durack will be competing with remaining goalkeepers Carly Telford and Hedvig Lindahl for the starting spot.

Durack told Chelsea’s website:

‘It’s unbelievably exciting! For a while now, Chelsea have been a team everyone in the country and in Europe has really looked up to, so to have the opportunity to be a part of that is so awesome.”

Chelsea has been busy making a lot of changes and it should be interesting to see who Everton Ladies can recruit this summer to fill Durack’s gloves. Hope Solo, are you willing to come back and play for Everton? (Just kidding but also kind of not kidding.)

Any other suggestions on who you would like to see in between the sticks for the Toffees?