Everton ready to spend big to solve their right-back problem… finally

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Everton ready to spend big to solve their right-back problem… finally

Everton reportedly have a figure in mind for Djed Spence. He won’t come cheap.

According to Tottenham insider Paul O’Keefe, Everton are prepared to pay £25m to bring the 25-year-old right-back to the Hill Dickinson this summer. It’s the clearest sign yet in a search that has already run through several names, with Spence now having emerged as the leading option.

Whether Tottenham accept that figure is another matter. O’Keefe’s report, via Football Place, stops short of confirming a fee has been agreed — only that Everton are willing to spend it.

The logic for a sale isn’t hard to follow. Pedro Porro remains the first choice at right-back for Spurs, Archie Gray can cover the position, and Roberto De Zerbi is understood to be open to letting Spence leave for regular football elsewhere.

He’s featured at left-back in the past, but Andy Robertson and Destiny Udogie have that position well covered.

The right-back end game?

For Everton, the appeal is clear. David Moyes has needed a long-term right-back for a couple of seasons, with Seamus Coleman’s exit and Nathan Patterson’s own future unresolved. A move for Spence, still only 25 and with Premier League and international experience, would let Moyes draw a line under a problem that’s dragged on all summer.

There’s a timing complication, of course. Spence is currently with England at the World Cup, and nothing is likely to move until his international commitments are done. Everton, for their part, appear to have decided he’s worth the wait — and the fee.

It fits a summer where the right-back search has been the slowest-moving part of Everton’s business, tracked in full on our summer transfer tracker.

If £25m gets it over the line, it may end up being one of the more straightforward deals of the window.

If not, Moyes may need to go back to the other names still on his list.

Gary is editor for ReadEverton. He has many years experience of sports writing behind him after deciding (belatedly) that the world of accountancy wasn't for him. His work has been featured on (among many others) BBC Sport and The Metro. He has written on many sports, but considers himself an expert in football and F1. When not writing and editing he likes to go to the cinema and sip a lovely cold pint of Guinness (not always at the same time).

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