The January transfer window is now open and Everton have been linked with a potential move for Olympique Lyonnais striker Georges Mikautadze
With the January transfer window now open, Everton continue to be linked with potential signings following the completion of the Friedkin Group’s takeover of the club. The ECHO’s Everton correspondent Joe Thomas reported on Tuesday that this January could mark the end of the Blues’ problems with Premier League Profit and Sustainability Regulations (PSR).
The club is due to find out whether it has the all-clear over the most recent financial year, which ended last summer, in the coming weeks after submitting its accounts for scrutiny. As Everton’s financial position now looks rosier going forward, the latest name linked with a potential move to the Blues is Olympique Lyonnais’ striker Georges Mikautadze.
Get Football News France cites Foot Mercato as reporting that Everton and Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen, who won a domestic double in Germany last season before losing the UEFA Europa League final to Atalanta, have entered the race for the Georgian international and even sounded out the player’s entourage regarding their interest in a move after Fabrizio Romano claimed Turkish side Galatasaray had submitted an offer of €17million plus add ons. But what might Mikautadze potentially offer Sean Dyche’s men?
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Born in Lyon on Halloween (October 31) 2000, Mikautadze only joined his home city club last summer on July 18, having refused to join Monaco despite the outfit from the Principality having previously reached an agreement to sign him. Although he grew up in France, where his parents had moved in the late 1990s, the striker spoke Georgian at home and having made regular trips there in the summer, he has now gone on to win 35 caps for the Caucusas nation to date, scoring 16 goals for them.
Mikautadze started his professional career with Metz but first established himself during a two-year loan spell in Belgium with Seraing. He plundered 19 goals in 21 games for them in 2020/21 to earn promotion to the top flight.
He was brought back the following season and with 14 goals in 33 matches in all competitions, it was his goal in the play-offs against Molenbeek which enabled the club to avoid relegation. Back playing for parent club Metz, Mikautadze then enjoyed his most prolific campaign to date as he struck 23 times in 37 Ligue 2 matches to help them to promotion.
Such form caught the eye of Ajax who paid €16million for the player on August 30, 2023, but Mikautadze’s time in the Netherlands proved disappointing as he played just nine matches and failed to find the net. He spent the second half of last season back on loan at Metz, scoring 14 goals, including 13 in Ligue 1 but his efforts were not enough to prevent the team from going straight back down after just a year in the French top flight.
In terms of Mikautadze’s style of play, Comparisonator’s Similarity tool calculates him as having a 97% match to one of Everton’s rivals from across Stanley Park, Liverpool’s Portugal international Diogo Jota. He is also deemed to have a 96% match to Kylian Mbappe of Real Madrid; Alexander Isak of Newcastle United and Viktor Gyokeres of Sporting CP, a former Blues target, who has netted 70 times in 77 games since moving to Lisbon, including 27 in as many outings so far this term.
We can also use Comparisonator’s Virtual Transfer tool to correlate Mikautadze’s statistics from Ligue 1 this season against strikers already performing in the Premier League. With an expected goals (xG) of 0.41, he would rank joint sixth alongside Joao Pedro of Brighton & Hove Albion behind Erling Haaland of Manchester City (0.78); Nicolas Jackson of Chelsea (0.57); the aforementioned Isak (0.53); Ollie Watkins of Aston Villa (0.52) and Anthony Gordon of Newcastle United (0.43) while for context, Everton’s Dominic Calvert-Lewin is ranked 17 on 0.31.
Mikautadze also averages one shot on target every 90 minutes which would see him ranked joint eighth in the Premier League in a category also topped by Haaland, who is the only player to average over two (2.16), followed by Isak (1.41) and Jackson (1.28). Another area where the Georgian impresses include his retention of possession as his average of 6.31 ball losses would rank him eighth in the Premier League behind leader Adam Armstrong of Southampton on 3.22 with Calvert-Lewin averaging 11.11.
While Mikautadze would only rank 15th for both passes (12.69, Joao Pedro is top on 25.8); and successful passes (9.92, Gordon leads on 20), his distribution is still impressive when he does have the ball. Only Armstrong and Bournemouth’s Evanilson (both 100%) can top his 83% success rate from long passes while his short pass accuracy of 89% is better than anyone of his Premier League peers in a section where Brentford’s Yoane Wissa leads on 87%.
With Calvert-Lewin, who endured a 23-game drought last season, now having gone 14 matches without scoring, and from today able to sign a pre-contract with overseas clubs as he enters the final six months of his current deal at Everton, the Blues could be tempted to look for fresh firepower as current alternatives Beto and on-loan Armando Broja have just one goal between them so far this term. Everton did business twice with OL last summer as they paid £16.43million for Jake O’Brien before bringing in Orel Mangala on loan on transfer deadline day, with agent Giovanni Bia claiming the Belgium international had already agreed to join Fiorentina before club president John Textor stepped in to send the player to Goodison Park.
At the time, the US businessman was still in negotiations with Farhad Moshiri over a potential takeover of Everton but while Textor – who also owns a minority stake in Premier League rivals Crystal Palace – missed out, his French team’s financial troubles have been well-documented in recent months with the DNCG, the financial watchdog of French football, confirming they will be provisionally relegated next season and banned from making signings should their economic situation not improve. There could therefore be pressure to sell valuable assets like Mikautadze, but like Borussia Monchengladbach’s Tim Kleindienst who was also linked with a potential move to Everton last week, the player has already flopped during a spell abroad earlier in his career.
*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.
