Everton: Everything suggests the end of cycle for £5.2 million man at Everton

Everton have three local lads in their current squad. Anthony Gordon, Tom Davies and Jonjoe Kenny have emerged from the youth academy but have followed different trajectories. Davies has been in the first team mix from time to time meanwhile Gordon is just beginning to make his mark for his boyhood club. As for Kenny, there is little hope left in his Everton career.

The right back made his Everton debut way back in 2016 after a couple of loan spells at Wigan Athletic and Oxford United. The 2017-18 season was where Kenny got the most opportunities to showcase his potential as Seamus Coleman was rehabilitating from a long term injury. Kenny went on to register 25 appearances that season and put in fairly decent performances to suggest that he was on the right path of development.

Being Coleman’s backup, Kenny didn’t give assuring signs that he could shoulder the responsibility of being the first choice right back in the future when Coleman is past his prime. Perhaps, a loan deal would have sufficed and helped the youngster to gain confidence and sharpen his skills. The Englishman was sent on loan in 2019 to Schalke 04 as Djibril Sidibe arrived on loan from AS Monaco.

Under David Wagner, Kenny’s progressed well and upon his return, there was a sense of new hope, especially, when Carlo Ancelotti refused to send him on another loan expedition and instead include him in the first team plans. However, owing to a barren run in the first half of the season with the Toffees, he was sent out on loan to Celtic in January.

Jonjoe Kenny is at the end of his Everton cycle

At this point, it was getting evidently clear that Kenny is not a long term solution. He is expendable and Everton won’t mind him getting off the books. The summer saw the arrival of Rafa Benitez at the helm and instantly one of the priorities was to bring in a right back despite the tight budget.

We are now inching closer to the January transfer window and Kenny’s situation hasn’t improved. He is in the squad as a backup to Coleman but gets regularly neglected. Everything is pointing at the end of a relationship between Kenny and Everton.

So far, Kenny has just played 220 minutes of football out of which 210 minutes have come in the Carabao Cup. When Coleman suffered a hamstring injury that ruled him out for almost a month, Ben Godfrey was preferred over Kenny in the right back role despite Godfrey not being a traditional right back. Even in the previous season when Coleman was out with muscle injury it was Mason Holgate and Godfrey who deputized there.

His deal runs out next summer and there have been no signs of a contract renewal from Everton. The club is comfortable in letting the 24 year old leave. Furthermore, what acts as proof that Kenny’s time could be over at Goodison is the fact that the Royal Blues are constantly searching for a new right back for the past couple of transfer windows.

Names such as Tariq Lamptey, Diogo Dalot, Max Aarons, Denzel Dumfries, Nathan Patterson and Ainsley Maitland-Niles have been linked to the club. The Toffees did pursue some of the aforementioned names but regularly faced failure in getting the deals over the line.

From the looks of it, every aspect points at the end of the road for Kenny at Everton. The January transfer window provides one last chance for the Toffees to cash in on him and pocket a minimalistic fee for a right back who never hit the ground running.

Will Everton manage to offload Jonjoe Kenny in January?