Everton decided to go all-out in the summer transfer window to back David Moyes with a host of new recruits to bolster the squad for the Premier League season.
Jack Grealish arrived on loan from Manchester City, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall was signed from Chelsea, and Thierno Barry was snapped up from Villarreal.
The most expensive addition of the summer transfer window, though, was the £35m rising to £40m move to bring 19-year-old right winger Tyler Dibling in from Southampton.
Why Everton have paid £35m to sign Tyler Dibling
Everton did not splash that level of money on the teenage star because he was the finished article and ready to hit the ground running at the Hill Dickinson, though, because he still has a lot to prove.
Dibling produced two goals and zero assists in 33 appearances in the Premier League for the Saints in the 2024/25 campaign, along with two goals in two outings in the FA Cup, per Sofascore.
This shows that the young winger is in the very early stages of his development as a first-team player, which is why patience is needed with the forward, who started in the 2-0 defeat to Wolves on Tuesday night.
At the age of 19, Dibling has racked up 34 appearances in the Premier League and been capped three times by England at U21 level, which shows that he is a promising young talent, as he has emerged as an option at the top level at a very young age.
Whilst it remains to be seen whether or not Everton invested their money well with Dibling, the Toffees will regret releasing a star who would have been a homegrown version of the English forward, Mohamed-Ali Cho.
Why Everton should regret releasing Mohamed-Ali Cho
The Toffees signed the young attacker from Paris Saint-Germain in 2015 and he spent more than four years at Goodison Park before being released in 2020.
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Your star player or biggest flop has left the club but what are they doing in the present day? This article is part of Football FanCast’s Where Are They Now series.
Everton had talks with the teenager over an extended deal with the club, but the two parties were unable to reach an agreement and he was allowed to leave for nothing to sign for Angers, partly due to the perceived lack of a pathway through to the first-team.
The club should, now, regret not doing more to convince Cho that there was a chance for him to progress into the senior side, because he has developed into a top talent in Europe.
After four goals in 55 matches for Angers, Real Sociedad snapped him up in 2022. Cho scored two goals in 40 matches for the Spanish side before his move to Nice in 2023, per Transfermarkt.
U23 scout Antonio Mango claimed that the forward has an “unbelievably high ceiling”, and his form in the 2024/25 campaign suggests that he may have an even higher ceiling than Dibling.
Appearances
27
33
xG
3.94
2.56
Shots on target per game
0.6
0.3
Goals
3
2
Big chances created
9
3
xA
3.48
1.46
Assists
4
0
As you can see in the table above, the 21-year-old star outperformed the £35m man at league level last season, with 12 goals and ‘big chances’ created combined.
A 19-year-old Cho had also outperformed current age Dibling, with five goals in Europe’s major leagues, compared to the two that the Englishman has managed so far.
Like Dibling, the France U21 international is also a left-footed right winger, cutting inside from the right flank to cause havoc in the final third, which means that they are similar players from a tactical perspective.
Cho, therefore, could have been a homegrown, and potentially better, version of Dibling if Everton had managed to keep him in 2020, instead of releasing him to join Angers.
This means that the Toffees could have saved themselves £35m to £40m on the former Southampton man, as they would already have had an exciting young talent on the right wing to call upon.
