

David Moyes has reaffirmed his commitment to keeping Jarrad Branthwaite and believes Everton “hold all the cards” when it comes to the England international’s future.
Branthwaite, 22, was the subject of two unsuccessful bids from Manchester United last summer and remains on the radar of top clubs.
Speculation has persisted regarding a big-money move, but Moyes is looking to keep hold of his star defender. As previously revealed by The Athletic, the new four-year deal Branthwaite signed in October 2023 also contains a club option for another season, further strengthening their position.
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“Good players will always be linked with moves away, especially good young players,” the Everton manager said in Friday’s news conference. “But you have to remember Jarrad’s got a three-year contract left, he’s got two years and a year’s option so if anything Everton hold all the cards regarding that player.
“But I have to also say over the journey I’ve had over many years at Everton we’ve had to sell different players from Wayne Rooney to Mikel Arteta to Joleon Lescott.
“Apart from being a football manager, especially at certain clubs you have to sell on the journey to try and build as well. But I wouldn’t think that Jarrad one of the players I would want to lose, that’s for sure.”
Including loanees, Everton have 15 players out of contract this summer.
Moyes added that work has already begun on recruitment for the summer ahead of a big squad rebuild, but decisions on new deals for existing players are on hold until their Premier League status has been mathematically confirmed.
“We’ve started to look forward,” Moyes said. ‘First and foremost, the job is to make sure we’re a Premier League club. If we weren’t, then obviously things would be completely different but I believe now that we’ve probably got enough points to be a Premier League club. Mathematically, that isn’t completely correct but we are starting to plan, starting to look forward.
“We’ll talk about the players’ contracts probably when we are mathematically safe because then at least we can start to understand exactly what the finances will look like. So hopefully in a week or two’s time we’ll be able to start looking at players’ contracts and what we’re going to do.
Everton are in 15th place ahead of Saturday’s trip to face third-placed Nottingham Forest.
They hope to have Vitalii Mykolenko fit for the game. The Ukrainian has trained this week after missing the 1-1 draw against Arsenal with an unspecified injury.
But striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin is still around “three weeks” away from being available, according to Moyes, and Jesper Lindstrom is likely to miss “much of the rest of the season” after undergoing hernia surgery this week.
(Jan Kruger/Getty Images)
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