Everton star Jordan Pickford on Chelsea summer wishlist

We all know how difficult and challenging the upcoming transfer window is likely to be for Everton, let's face it when is it not?!

For the last three or four years at least the Toffees have been struggling to find and sign the right sort of talent to improve the team while also dealing with an almost endless succession of managerial changes.

This season has been one of unprecedented crisis with points deductions and yet another near-relegation battle only averted with three matches to go.

Now we have a seemingly never-ending saga over the ownership of the club with no clear idea when, or if, 777 Partners will, or should, be able to take over Everton.

If they can't complete the deal and no one else comes to the rescue in time, what will happen this summer?

It is as if this football club has some sort of hoodoo or is cursed as there never seems to be an end to the problems besetting it.

Regardless of what becomes of 777 Partners attempted takeover, player sales seem inevitable and we will have to brace ourselves for a lot of speculation and rumours about the Toffees main playing assets.

One of them of course is England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford.

Pickford has had another excellent campaign and once more underlined his fundamental worth by regularly making critical saves in games, especially late on in the season as he has so often over the last few years.

His worth to the side is almost incalculable and without him between the sticks over the last four or five season the Blues would certainly be a Championship team by now.

According to reports today Chelsea are considering making a summer bid for the Everton number who is now preparing for England's Euro 2024 campaign.

I have previously written that Pickford is probably the only top talent at Goodison Park who is basically irreplaceable.

While Amadou Onana and even Jarrad Branthwaite - two players who could well be sold this summer - might be replaced (although in Branthwaite's case in particular with great difficulty) I don't think that is true of Pickford.

It is very hard to see how Everton could find another hugely experienced international calibre goalkeeper with their limited financial resources and lowly league position.

Will he go this summer? Who knows. The player seems happy on Merseyside and has recently signed a new contract, but a massive bid could well be impossible for a cash-strapped and unstable club to resist.