Everton transfer target Jacob Greaves plays like Man City title winners and £80m man

Everton have been linked with a potential move for Jacob Greaves but what might the Hull City centre-back offer Sean Dyche’s side?

Barry Cooper, the Hull City Correspondent at the ECHO’s sister publication Hull Live reports that Everton are continuing to keep tabs on Greaves who was named in the Championship’s Team of the Season following a terrific campaign. The article adds that the Tigers do not want to sell Greaves and would like the Hull-born ace to stay for one more campaign and help lead Tim Walter’s side to promotion to the Premier League, but understand the player’s desire to play in the top flight.

The Tigers would only consider selling Greaves if he makes clear his desire to test himself in the Premier League, and a significant bid was received, which would ease the club’s Financial Fair Play concerns and help Walter’s plans to stamp his authority on his squad ahead of the new campaign.

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Everton might have to find a replacement for Jarrad Branthwaite who, despite missing out on Gareth Southgate’s England squad for the European Championships, has emerged as one of the hottest defensive prospects in world football. Manchester United’s opening offer of £35million plus add-ons is nowhere near Goodison Park chiefs’ valuation of the 21-year-old, which takes into account the £80million fee that United paid for Harry Maguire in 2019, the £75million Chelsea paid for Wesley Fofana in 2022 and the £77million Manchester City paid for Josko Gvardiol in 2023.

As the ECHO’s Everton correspondent Joe Thomas reported on Sunday, Michael Keane is trusted by Dyche as back-up but there are questions over the futures of Ben Godfrey and Mason Holgate. But contingency planning in the event of more serious interest in Branthwaite emerging is sensible, with Lyon defender Jake O’ Brien another player Everton have followed.

When it comes to which Premier League players Greaves is most like, Comparisonator’s Similarity Comparison calculates him as having an 85% match to both Manchester City’s Ruben Dias and the aforementioned Maguire, who also used to play for Hull, followed by another of Pep Guardiola’s squad, Manuel Akanji with a score of 79%. We can use Comparisonator’s Virtual Transfer tool to correlate Greaves’ statistics in the Championship from 2023/24 against players in his position already operating in the Premier League and it throws up some intriguing figures.

What might well appeal to Dyche is the fact that Greaves won more aerial duels than any top flight centre-back last term with an average of 4.27 per 90 minutes. Liverpool’s Ibrahima Konate led the way in the Premier League on 4.1 followed by Everton’s very own James Tarkowski (3.76) and another rival from across Stanley Park, Virgil van Dijk on 3.7

Greaves also won more defensive aerial duels (2.5) than anyone in the Premier League as he topped Konate again on 2.4 followed by Newcastle United’s Dan Burn (2.05) and Liverpool’s Jarrell Quansah (2.03). Although the Yorkshireman was competing in more aerial duels (5.96) than anyone else but Konate (6.09), he still enjoyed a higher percentage success (72%) than everyone other than van Dijk (76%), with Tarkowski ranked seventh in the Premier League (66%) for context.

Other standout feature of Greaves’ game include him winning 10.77 duels per 90 minutes, a figure that would place him fifth in the Premier League behind leader Konate on 11.74 but above seventh placed Tarkowksi on 9.81. His 1.36 dribbles against won would put him eighth in the Premier League in a category topped by Brentford’s Mathias Jorgensen (Zanka) on 2.06 while he would also make the top 10 for ball recoveries in his own half on 9.34, a section that was led by Luton Town’s Tom Lockyer on 11.16 who edged out Branthwaite on 10.88.

At 6ft 4in, Greaves is physically the kind of towering centre-back that Dyche likes to deploy but any interest Everton have in that position this summer will depend on the future of Branthwaite. Even if ‘The Carlisle Kaiser’ stays, though, and Blues insiders insist they are planning to keep him and are actively planning for him to be with them next season unless a mega offer comes in, the question marks over their back-up options in that area of the field might still prompt them to look to affordable prospects who Dyche could potentially polish up.

*Comparisonator is a football data comparison tool from 271 professional leagues around the world which compares players and clubs by utilising over 100 different parameters. Click here for more details.