Is Everton’s £20m move for Anthony Elanga a masterstroke - or a mistake?

Everton’s bid for Anthony Elanga – reported by the BBC to between £15m and £20m – is the first real indication of the Merseyside club’s plans for next season as they look to build a squad that can avoid relegation rather more comfortably than it was able to last time out. It’s also a very interesting move, at a relatively steep price, for a young player who has yet to fully blossom.

Since scoring his first senior goal for Manchester United on the final day of the 2020/21 season – in just his second Premier League appearance – the young Swedish forward has struggled to live up to early hype, registering just two more goals in his next 37 league games. Given Everton’s evident problems with getting the ball in the back of the net - only Wolves scored fewer last season - it looks like a somewhat odd signing on paper, a gamble on potential rather than present ability.

So what does Elanga offer Everton, and can he be a point of difference for a club that badly needs to inject some attacking flair into its squad? What does Sean Dyche see in him, and what does he need to work on to improve? We delved into the stats to figure out what kind of impact the 21-year-old can have at Goodison Park.

To start with, let’s compare him with two of Everton’s main wide players – Dwight McNeil and Alex Iwobi. Both have played far more minutes than Elanga over the past year or so, which means that Elanga’s sample size is small, perhaps unfairly so in some cases, but on a head-to-head basis it’s hard to see where Elanga can improve the club.

He’s a better goalscorer than Iwobi, undeniably, generating about twice as much xG per game, but he generates no more chances than McNeil and scores them less frequently. Creatively, it’s basically a three-way dead heat – they generate much the same xA and create similar numbers of shots, but Elanga is comfortably the weakest passer of the three. His progressive passing statistics are poor, and he gets the ball forward that way less than a third as often as Iwobi.

He does make the most progressive carries of the three, suggesting he’s better at exploiting pace, but while McNeil and Iwobi win about half of their one-on-ones while dribbling, Elanga succeeds with just over a third of his attempts.

Defensively, there’s barely a hair’s breadth between them. They’re all willing to track back and do their defensive duties – a prerequisite for a Dyche player – so Elanga wouldn’t be out of place in a more defensively committed system, but he doesn’t offer daylight ahead of existing options.

Of course, at just 21 years old, the Swedish international has plenty of room to improve, and the price tag is of course partly based on potential – but Everton need to improve now, so what does Elanga offer that can change the club’s on-field fortunes?

The big differential between the players is in how often they get into dangerous areas in and around the box. Last season, Everton averaged less than 20 touches in the opposing area per game, across the entire starting eleven. Elanga averaged about six touches in the penalty box by himself last season. He also gets into many more areas where he can advance play as a passing target – using his raw pace to generate nearly three more progressive receptions per game than McNeil and almost four more than Iwobi.

That basically means he offers a skillset almost similar to a wide receiver in the NFL – he can create space with his speed and guile, lose markers, and give his team an attacking outlet that they’ve sorely been lacking. Having tidy passers is all very well, but Everton have so often lacked someone who gets into really dangerous positions with regularity – and that’s precisely what Elanga can do.

Of course, you can get into as many dangerous areas as you want, but if you aren’t using them well then it becomes somewhat irrelevant – and that’s where Elanga has fallen down so far in his career. He has consistently underperformed his xG – especially with left-footed shots, which make up the majority of his efforts when he starts on the right flank – and has missed as many big chances as he’s scored. His composure in front of goal is a problem, but if he can get himself firing then he could be a big piece of the puzzle.

Whether the £15-20m outlay is worth the risk is the question, of course. Everton’s previous overspending and the huge amount of money sunk into their new stadium means they are unlikely to have a substantial transfer budget to work with, so they have little room for failure, or for expensive gambles – which makes this move all the more intriguing.

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A lot is riding on this season for Everton. Last season showed that they are serious candidates for relegation, and that would be financially disastrous for a team who have played every Premier League season so far. Anthony Elanga’s signing is unquestionably a roll of the dice – but if it works out, and expands their teams attacking outlet while netting them a player with plenty of potential for the future, it could look like something of a masterstroke. Until Elanga signs and starts playing, however, the jury must remain out.