Everton could sign a player this summer who shares a trait that Jack Grealish has become synonymous with.
The Toffees endured a terrible end to the 2025/26 season, and are now facing a rather big couple of months.
The Friedkin Group are starting to face a little bit of pressure from the fanbase, with many people feeling that Everton could end up getting left behind if they don’t get things right this summer.
If you were Angus Kinnear who would you be going all out for this summer? 💰
Certainly, finishing 13th in the end last season was disappointing.
And several Premier League teams with similar ambitions to Everton are going to kick on this summer.
In recent days, there was a rather exciting transfer link, suggesting Lois Openda has been offered to Everton.
And if he signed, we would surely see him doing one thing that we often see Jack Grealish doing.
Everton target Lois Openda is very good at winning fouls
Openda struggled for game time last season.
He joined Juventus on an initial loan from RB Leipzig last summer, and the move is to be made permanent soon.
But it seems the Italian giants are already ready to move him on.
It hasn’t really worked out for the Belgian, who made 37 appearances, but for just over 1000 minutes of football.
He was mainly used as an impact substitute, and scored just two goals.
But Openda showed in the 2024/25 season how much of a handful he can be. He scored 13 goals and made 11 assists in 43 appearances.
And he was very hard for defenders to deal with that term. Data via worldfootball.net showed that Openda was the most fouled player in the Bundesliga with 77.
In the season before that, he was high up again in joint-third out of all Bundesliga players, winning 64 fouls. In the term just gone though he won considerably fewer as he made mainly sub appearances.
Of course, we know that Grealish is another player who suffers a lot of fouls.
In seasons gone by, the winger has shown excellent ball retention ability and is very good at winning territory for his team.
Although they do share this trait, Openda and Grealish are quite different in terms of play style though.
Openda – who has studied former Everton striker Romelu Lukaku – tends to play more as a striker and is much quicker than Grealish. Grealish protects the ball which often leaves opposition players frustrated, leading to kicks and hacks.
It, of course, remains to be seen if Grealish – who has remained at Finch Farm to continue his rehab – will return to Everton for a second spell.
Everton are currently looking into re-signing him, but in the event a deal can’t be struck, then perhaps if Openda came in the Toffees would at least still get plenty of free-kick opportunities.
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