Who To Pick From Everton

Drafting from Everton

Jordan Pickford's 84 is the highest rating anywhere across the five clubs ranked eleventh to fifteenth, and Everton's spread of six, best XI player to eleventh, is the widest of that group too. This is the most top-heavy squad in the range: a power rating of 80 for thirteenth place, only 24 players on the books, and two of them rated 82 or better.

Which sets up the sharpest one-pick dilemma of the five. Pickford at 84, or Jarrad Branthwaite, an 83-rated centre-back. The centre-back, every time. A goalkeeper is 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 behind Branthwaite, so you are buying from the department the club does well rather than raiding it for a specialist available 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. Eleven of Everton's 24 players are English, comfortably the densest bloc of the five clubs in this range, and Branthwaite anchors it from the position where compatriot links pay best: next to 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 top five suggests. Brennan Johnson at 81 on the right is a proper pick if you need width, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall at 80 is fine, and left back is a hole at two players averaging 75. Spin Everton hoping for a left back and you will be disappointed. Spin it hoping for a centre-half and you have got the best one available.