He could do worse than take a Cullen / Parrott approach & go do well in a decent European league, he'd have options you'd imagine, and probably better than those two had. It won't suit the EPL purists but so what, he just needs to do well somewhere ( as Idah did as well ) & then take a look at his choices. The least worthwhile one is the Brighton bench. There were Everton rumours last week but they seem a little hopeful, obviously glad to be wrong about that if so, new stadium, very strong finish to the season, upwardly mobile club, warhorse manager.Originally Posted by MylesNotMiley
Theres a lot to be said for getting out of the spotlight a little bit too. A move to a top flight team on the Continent I think is 100% what he needs right now, not some slog with the likes of Millwall or Stoke who are more in interested in trying not to lose than actively trying to play.
At 20 theres still a lot of development needed for him and he has shown that he is a good ball player, Id hope he goes somewhere that can bring that back and not somewhere that would try to turn him into a version of Duncan Ferguson
Its really not that complicated!!!
he's a bit of a victim of his own success. Brighton still think they potentially have a very valuable asset on their hands, so are unwilling to sell for pennies on the pound, which leaves him with just loan moves. As we saw with West Ham, unless he's immediately contributing and if his performances over the last 2 seasons are anything to go by, he may not, it may be difficult for him to get the necessary minutes to have a real impact...
Surely a deal with add-ons could be made based on goals scored or a percentage on resell value? Brighton have smart accounting when it comes to making a lot of profit from their academies so I'd be really surprised if they can't come up with a solution to monetize his potential
We saw already how Liverpool handled the Kelleher situation with a buyback clause. There are definitely ways to hedge against underselling a player with a high ceiling.
You can't spell failure without FAI
We had two hit the bar, Taylor's sounds like what you're describing? So maybe who did what is getting mudled up, I can't remember them hitting it fwiw, but I was also barely paying attention, the game was awful. Maybe no one was paying enough attention to know what actually happened
As Max O' Leary's biggest advocate I am happy to see the man finally get his cap, it might be the only one he ever gets, but he deserves it for always showing up and playing consistently at the level he has.
On the Evan chat, I think Brighton are likely to lose a forward, Welbeck won't keep the level he has up forever either, Evan will get his shot to impress in pre season, apparently the January interest from Chelsea and Man United was real, so I am sure he is still rated and considered someone of great potential/value, but it is going to be the biggest few months of his career to date, it has to go well, he has to stay fit. Having a big long term contract at Brighton means they have to try and make the most of him and not bin him off yet IMO.
Last edited by Acornvilla; 12/06/2025 at 6:46 AM.
wrote this earlier today:
"i'd say Evan's value in the market went from £70-100m in summer 2025 to £50m last summer to probably £30m this summer. They'd certainly be selling low now."
i just saw Brighton have bought an 18 year old Greek striker from Olympiakos for £30m today. i wonder if he moves ahead of Evan in the rankings or if it makes it more likely that Evan will move on.
What's the point of guesstimating his plummeting value in the first place ?
Whatever he was, or however much it was speculated he was worth two years ago, is as much an irrelevance in this as plucking figures now like you are.
If he fixes whatever is wrong with him ( and those odds keep getting longer ) he will have a career relevant to our national side, if he doesn't, he wont, same as Connolly and Obafemi don't.
You are worth what someone is willing to pay for you, not a penny more or less & none of that really matters to us Ireland supporters perspective on this anyway.
Last edited by CraftyToePoke; 12/06/2025 at 8:06 PM.
It's as much to illustrate that if you're Brighton, you might try find a path where you can rebuild that value, either with an intelligent loan move or reintegrating him into the squad - if you loaned him to say Freiburg and he played and he scored 20-25 goals in the Bundesliga, then suddenly he returns to that price range. Saying that, from a club perspective there's always a time to sell. If Brighton had sold Aaron Connolly in summer 2020, just after his breakout, they could have made tens of millions off it, instead of him being released on a free.
As an Ireland fan, I think you'd want Evan to have a similar move to Troy. Move to a team where he's an undoubted starter in a league which is good enough for people to take notice but maybe not a level where he will go on barren runs that would make him lose his confidence or his place in the side. The issue is clubs similar to AZ could never afford someone like Evan. They paid €8m for Parrott plus a 20% sell on clause. Shay Given linked him with Celtic today - but similarly Celtic have the finances for Idah but nowhere close to what Evan would command. Even in Germany, the teams that could afford to buy Evan are probably just the likes of Bayern, Leverkusen, Dortmund and Leipzig - below that they just wouldn't have the finances. And all the clubs that have the finances to get a deal done (and would be willing to take a chance on him) aren't going to bring him in as a starter. Like say at £25m, he'd probably be very attractive to Man Utd, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea - just to take a punt that he pans out rather than having to pay £95m or whatever United paid for Anthony, Hojlund etc. Whereas at £25m, pretty much every non champions league club in Europe is ruled out immediately. Unfortunately, he needs the game time that a non-elite club can offer.
To go back to the Bundesliga, a friend of mine works for SC Freiburg so I always keep an eye on them. They came 5th last season, failing to reach the Champions League on the final day of the season and their record signing is €10m (this year and also 4 years ago - same fee). Maybe a newly promoted Premier League side could afford him and try do something similar to what Ipswich did with Liam Delap? That's perhaps the best route for Evan...
If I'm Brighton, I'm working out three separate plans - one to reintegrate, one to loan and one to sell and depending on the offers you receive for him and how well he does in pre-season, you judge which is the best course of action and go from there.
Last edited by elatedscum; 12/06/2025 at 11:32 PM.
It's probably worse for Mark O'Mahony than Ferguson.
The Cullen / Parrott / Idah or similar pathways were already covered though in the discussion & you're not Brighton, any more than this is a Brighton forum.
Have you considered perhaps writing to Brighton ?
A strongly worded advice letter.
Make as many plans as you ( or Brighton ) like, they're all of Canhamesque power point presentation relevance if the lad doesn't remember how to do what he's paid to do really soon, very much like your layers of valuations & pure speculation earlier.
What he's worth to his club will be dictated by how he recovers from this very long blip, what he's worth to his club is an irrelevance on an Ireland forum, his form, his goals & assists are.
Im as big a fan as any, but right now there's no one paying close to 30 million for him. That move to West Ham was as poor a move as possible and did massive damage to his reputation. It made me even wonder if hes going down the wrong road. However, a good season somewhere, and all of a sudden hes a 21 year old hot prospect again... but another season like this one and he might never recover
Its really not that complicated!!!
That’s exactly the point. Almost no one at the level he needs to go can afford the money Brighton would want. But there’s so much potential that Brighton won’t sell him crazy cheap, he still has 4 years left on his deal. Financially, I theoretically could see a big side gambling on him, had Chelsea not signed Delap for example, they buy Evan for €30m on a 7 year contract and loan him to Strasbourg for a season and hope they strike gold.
Brighton themselves have just spent €35m and €25m on two teenage Greek strikers who had 7 and 14 league goals to their name across the Greek league and German second division, neither has ever been capped for their countries.
The loan was awful for Evan’s reputation and development, although Brighton did receive “a significant fee”. I kinda still think you’re picking Evan over them.
Given all of the above, a loan seems the likely option, either to Europe, to a promoted side or a championship side.
I think he's as likely to have a good pre season and be back starting for them as he is to be loaned out tbh. We just don't really know where he is physically or if there's an underlying issue, but he seems like a fella that takes a while to get up to speed, missing pre season is something it looks like his body currently can't afford to do. On a level playing field I'm hopeful he'll show Brighton he's very much worth persisting with, those Greek teens will probably need a year or two to bed in themselves in any case, they're not his competition just yet.
As said further down, Mark O' Mahoney is probably the one who needs the loan.
Last edited by Acornvilla; 13/06/2025 at 8:55 AM.
I think it'd be worth stepping down to whatever level he can be more or less guaranteed to be banging in 20+ goals a season.
Gets him game time, gets him noticed, a better club will take a punt on him.
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