Doucouré’s stance should offer clarity for Everton’s summer plans

Just two matches remain until the end of the 2024/25 season, when the attention of supporters and Club officials alike will pivot hard towards the squad rebuilding effort in store over the summer. Everton have 13 players whose loans expire or who are out of contract next month and while some of them may be retained, a good many won’t.

One of those who looks increasingly likely leave this summer is Abdoulaye Doucouré. The Blues’ hierarchy allowed a deadline by which they had to trigger a club option to extend his existing terms by another 12 months expire earlier this season, which leaves the French-born player uncertain of his future after five years at Goodison Park.

As he explained when asked about his goal celebration at the City Ground last month when he jokingly imitated signing a contract and suggesting the Club call him, he has not held any talks with Everton about extending his stay beyond this season.

That remained the case as of 23rd April when he spoke candidly and phlegmatically on Ben Foster’s Fozcast and admitted that he won’t be waiting around for the Toffees to make a move.

“There have not been any talks so far,” Doucouré told his former Watford team-mate. “I think personally I [w]on't wait for them to give me a contract or not because my contract is finished. I already have some proposals on the table, to be honest.

“I think in the next three weeks, I will have to take my decision [on] whether I stay or not…. whether I have a proposition or not, obviously. But I want this to finish within three weeks to announce if I stay or I leave the club.

“This is the first time in my career I’ve become a free agent because I always wanted to be under contract to protect myself. Obviously this season has been a bit different and I think I came to an edge. It’s nice, to be honest because I was playing almost every game.

“So, I’m quite secure to have other propositions. I know I'm gonna have some offers — I already have had — and obviously, like I said, Everton is massive for me but maybe the chapter is finished and I have to accept that.

“I will be happy at the end of the day if I leave the club.”

Doucouré was an indispensable component of Sean Dyche’s Everton side that successfully avoided relegation in each of the last two years and since coming in January to replace the former gaffer, David Moyes has also had faith in 32-year-old, starting him in almost every game and often keeping him on the pitch for the full 90 minutes.

Even with a much-needed reset and rebuild in store, were he still under contract for next season, it’s almost certain Moyes would have kept Doucouré around for next season given his impressive record of availability and reliability. However, the crossroads the player has reached in terms of his contract situation has changed the dynamic and, ultimately, as The Friedkin Group look to move Everton on from the largesse and waste of the Farhad Moshiri years, his salary expectations could end up being the deal-breaker.

There is, of course, an argument to be had — a case that Doucouré and his people might make — that in retaining him, even on six figures a week, would save the Club from having to spend millions on his replacement in the summer window and allow Moyes to prioritise other areas of the team. But the wage structure could well be an important part of TFG's thinking as they rebuild.

He, of course, wouldn't want to compromise his negotiating stance by saying otherwise but, in his conversation with Foster, Doucouré was adamant that he won’t take a lower wage to stay at the Club, believing that his importance to Everton means that, if anything, he should be paid more.

“I heard that on places like X and Instagram Everton fans are saying that, ‘we’d love Doucouré to stay but he needs to lower this wages,’ and I’m amazed,” he explained. “Why are they talking about my salary?

“To be honest, I deserve to have my salary right now and, to be honest, I won’t reduce my salary to stay at the club because I don't think I deserve to.

"For what? I'm playing every season, I'm scoring important goals, I’m very important for the club. No, I should have a [salary] increase!

“I’m only 32 years old and I think have three to four years easy to go in the Premier League. For me to reduce my salary at this age is not something I will do, I’m sorry.”

Whether Doucouré can get the same pay elsewhere remains to be seen — some would say that he was enormously fortunate to be handed the wages he is currently on by the previous regime — but if he is looking for Everton to pay him at his current level, he may well be moving on in the summer. That much might have been clear from the fact the Club didn’t trigger the option of another year when they had the chance, preferring instead to renegotiate fresh terms.

And Moyes’s comments on the topic this past week were equally instructive. Asked on Friday about Doucouré’s contract situation by Sky Sports’ Vinny O’Connor, the manager said that he was glad that players like him wanted to stay because it was an indication that the Club is growing but admitted that, “he’s no spring chicken so we have to make sure we’ve got other replacements when required”.

Furthermore, unlike against Nottingham Forest and despite his assist for Vitalii Mykolenko’s equaliser, Moyes did not leave Doucouré on the pitch beyond the first hour at Craven Cottage against Fulham this weekend and it was a pretender to his No 10 role, Charly Alcaraz, who stepped up and had a decisive hand in helping Everton win for only the second time in 11 games.

Whether Alcaraz or someone in the mould of Tomáš Souček ultimately fills that role behind the striker, it is looking increasingly likely that the chapter in the Everton story dominated by Abdoulaye Doucouré is coming to an end. That three-week timeframe within which the one-time Mali international wanted to have a decision with regard to a contract offer from the Blues made either way, is now more or less up so clarity over his future could come fairly swiftly.

As explored on these pages recently, he has arguably been the Toffees’ most important player of the past five years and will leave with our thanks and appreciation on the one hand while acknowledging that his departure will help pave the way to a new or substantially re-tooled Everton under a new regime.

Knowing that the Club will need to plan for that future without a player of Doucouré's specific profile — with his undoubtedly positive attributes and known limitations — can only help clarify the task of identifying fresh blood for what is a hugely important role in the team.