Everton tell long-serving player he can leave as Prem rivals plan bid

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Mason Holgate has been told he is free to leave Everton this summer with Premier League newcomers Sheffield United keen to sign the defender on loan. 

A clear-out is long overdue at Goodison Park.

Andre Gomes, Dele Alli, Jean-Philippe Gbamin and more are all still Everton players – at least in name only. What’s more, the club’s precarious financial situation means that, if Sean Dyche wants to put his own stamp on the Toffees in the transfer market, getting a number of high-earning misfits off the wage bill would be not just beneficial but necessary in order to free up some valuable funds.

But if Gomes, Alli and Gbamin have no future on Merseyside, then Mason Holgate is one of those who falls somewhere in the middle. Not quite one of Everton’s forgotten men. But no longer a key member of the first-team either. 

Mason Holgate could leave Everton for Sheffield United

The long-serving 26-year-old started only three Premier League games after Dyche replaced Frank Lampard in February. talkSPORT believe that he’s now been told he is free to leave if the right offer arrives. 

Sheffield United, who finished second behind Burnley in the automatic promotion places last term, are interested in striking a season-long loan deal. Everton may jump at such an opportunity; a short-term spell at Bramall Lane potentially helping Holgate raise his market value again and enabling the Toffees to make sizeable profit on a player who joined in a £2 million deal from Barnsley back in 2015. 

Doncaster-born Holgate is grew up in – and made his name in – South Yorkshire. Sheffield United, then, would represent something of a homecoming for a player who was named Barnsley’s Young Player of the Year shortly before he joined a Toffees side then under the stewardship of now-Portugal boss Roberto Martinez. 

‘It’s going to be more difficult’

Sheffield United have also been linked with Conor Coady; the Wolves captain who spent last season on loan at Everton. 

Blades boss Paul Heckingbottom, however, has played down suggestions that any proven Premier League operators will be heading to Bramall Lane on permanent deals. 

“We did well last year at this time of the season, and it set us up really well. I think it is going to be more difficult this season,” Heckingbottom tells Yorkshire Live.

“We have gone up another level, and (with) the calibre of player we want to attract. But, arguably, we probably can’t attract the ready-made Premier League players.

“So we are going to have to be really good and clever in the recruitment. Unearth some talent and some players with potential. (Signings) that can go and cope with the level that we are playing at.”