Who To Pick From Everton

Drafting from Everton

Everton bring the smallest squad in the game to the wheel — 22 players, and nobody carries fewer. That one fact shapes the whole approach. There is no deep bench to dig through and no second version of anybody, so the top of the board is the entire offer: 3 players rated 82 or better, a tail that runs down to 68, and a power rating of 80 that puts them tenth on power, comfortably mid-wheel rather than anywhere near the bottom of it.

Which sets up the sharpest single-pick dilemma on the board. Jordan Pickford's 84 is the highest number here; Jarrad Branthwaite, an 83-rated centre-back, is the next one down. Take the centre-back, every time. A goalkeeper fills one slot in your XI and one only, and the gain from 84 over a competent alternative is a rounding error next to what an 83 centre-half does to a back line built eleven deep. Centre-back is also Everton's strength on paper — three of them averaging 80, with James Tarkowski at 81 sitting behind Branthwaite — so you are buying from the department the club does well rather than raiding it for a specialist you can find anywhere. If you want an Everton goalkeeper that badly, the legends board holds Neville Southall at 92, a keeper worth a slot in a way 84 is not.

Chemistry pushes the same way. 12 of Everton's 22 players are English, the biggest England bloc anyone on the wheel carries — Coventry match the count at 12 and nobody beats it — and Branthwaite anchors it from the position where compatriot links pay best: alongside a partner, in front of a keeper, behind a midfield. Pickford is English too, but a goalkeeper links to one man and then stops.

The rest of the board is thinner than the 3 elite names suggest, and thin in the particular way a 22-man squad is thin. Jack Grealish at 82 on the left is the third of that trio and a genuine pick, Brennan Johnson at 81 hands you the right wing, and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall at 80 with James Garner at 79 are honest midfield bodies. After that it drops, and it drops unevenly: there is exactly one senior left-back, Vitalii Mykolenko at 78, and exactly one centre-forward, Thierno Barry at 76. Spin Everton hoping for a striker and 76 is the entire answer. Spin it hoping for a centre-half and you have got the best one on offer to you.