Everton haven’t had too much to smile about over the past few years, yet the Blues seem to finally be restoring the goals after an agonisingly slow start to the 2023/24 season.
From below par on pitch performance, to issues high up within the club, the Toffees have been starved of consistent progression of late, however it’s not all been bad at Goodison Park.
One element that is a positive for the Merseysiders is their ability to offload players, with one notable name’s exit saving the club millions, after a terrible spell on Merseyside – Theo Walcott.
How long was Theo Walcott at Everton?
Signed from Arsenal in 2018, the Blues captured the signature of Walcott, who had been at the Emirates for 12 years prior.
The then-28-year-old was welcomed to Goodison by Sam Allardyce, penning a three-year-deal after the Toffees handed the Gunners a fee of £20m for his services.
At the expiration of his deal in the summer of 2021, Walcott rejoined his boyhood club, Southampton, after endeavouring on a season-long loan there for the 2020/21 campaign.
How much did Theo Walcott cost Everton?
Joining Everton in January 2018, the Englishman was handed a £100k-per-week deal, which would cost his new club somewhere in the region of £2.6m for his first half-year to take him to the beginning of the 2018/19 season.
The former Arsenal whiz collected £5.2m-per-year in wages alone from the Toffees, making the total expenditure of his stay on Merseyside to around £13m, as he spent two and a half years representing the club before returning to St Mary’s.
Adding his £20m transfer fee to the mix, Everton spent roughly £33m on the now-retired winger, a fee that wasn’t even nearly repaid by his efforts on the pitch.
Was he worth it?
Spending half of the 2017/18 campaign and the entirety of the 2018/19 and 2019/20 seasons at Everton, Walcott scored 11 goals in 85 appearances across all competitions.
Once dubbed “dreadful” by journalist James Corbett, the forward arrived after going full circle at Arsenal, assuming a sporadic role in his more mature years after a wonderful career in north London that began at the mere age of 16.
Theo Walcott's Premier League record at Everton
Season
Apps
Goals
Assists
2017/18
14
3
3
2018/19
37
5
2
2019/20
25
2
3
2020/21
1
0
0
Figures via Transfermarkt
Unfortunately for the Blues, they received the ageing and frustrating edition of Walcott, who – when referencing that £33m total cost – bled the club of around £3m per goal, telling of how poor the signing turned out to be.
To make matters worse, the Englishman was the club’s joint third-highest paid player in his first season, reinforcing just how badly Everton were rinsed by the former England international.
After the 2019/20 campaign, in which the 34-year-old scored just two goals in the Premier League, the decision was made to loan him to the Saints, subsequently easing the Blues of his wage demands and of his low level of performance.
The forward, who scored 108 goals for Arsenal, netted three goals during his temporary spell on the south coast, impressing enough for the Saints to sign him permanently the following summer as a free agent.
Walcott’s dreary stay at Goodison was one to forget for both player and club, but perhaps less forgettable for the club’s finances as he drained Everton for £100k-per-week throughout his association with the Toffees.
