Recap of Everton Ladies Preseason Transfer Business So Far

On July 10th, Everton announced that midfielder Angharad James was leaving the club now that her contract has expired. It’s quite remarkable given that James was a standout player for the team and that she had won Everton Ladies Player of the Season for 2017/2018.

She has not yet announced her next club, but preseason training has already started for the WSL and it should be interesting to see where she ends up.

After closing their last season on a loss to Liverpool, James had emphasized that Everton needed to take a long hard look at the squad and make changes this summer:

”That’s something for us to work on in pre-season – to get together as a group, bring new players in and change the dynamics of the team. Fundamentally, we’ve got everything here and it’s just putting it together. I’m sure [Manager] Willie [Kirk] and the staff will do that.”

Kirk told BBC Sport a few months ago that he was planning on making a lot of changes this summer:

”We’re going to have six or seven departures and we’ll bring in six, seven or possibly eight players.”

Kirk is on track to making that prediction come true. Here is a list of the changes so far this summer:

7 Everton Ladies departures:

• Defender Siri Worm
• Midfielder Dominique Bruinenberg
• Backup goalie Becky Flaherty
• Midfielder Olivia Chance
• Forward Claudia Walker
• Midfielder Angharad James
• Defender Emma Brownlie (short-term contract with Everton for half a season)

5 New Players:

• Scotland Midfielder Lucy Graham
• Finland Goalie Tinja-Riikka Korpela
• Dutch Defender Kika van Es
• England youth Midfielder Molly Pike
• French Midfielder Maeva Clemaron

So, to recap:

3 midfielders, 1 backup goalie, 2 defenders, and 1 forward have left.

3 midfielders, 1 goalie, and 1 defender have come in.

Looks like the next signing should hopefully be a forward because defenders Gabby George, Georgia Brougham, Megan Finnigan and Taylor Hinds have agreed to renew their contracts with Everton, and left back Dan Turner looks to be staying because she was on the recent trip to Kenya with the club.

Who will the new forward be? The Toffees need a goal scorer because they were the second to last in their league for goals scored last season.

Photo by Tony McArdle/Everton FC via Getty Images