Everton said goodbye to Ishe Samuels-Smith in 2023, but few could have expected him to be at the centre of 2025’s strangest transfer saga.
Everton fans would love to see more homegrown players emerge into the first team under David Moyes.
Harrison Armstrong continues to impress for Preston North End and may be next in line from the Everton youth ranks.
The frustration is that some former Everton talents are shining elsewhere, such as Anthony Gordon, Antonee Robinson and Isaac Price.
Ishe Samuels-Smith decided to leave Everton at a young age, but his career has taken a strange turn.
Former Everton talent Ishe Samuels-Smith at the centre of bizarre transfer saga
Manchester-born Samuels-Smith joined Everton at the age of just nine, and progressed up through the ranks while playing for England at youth level.
The left-back was promoted to the Everton first-team bench under both Frank Lampard and Sean Dyche in the 2022-23 season.
Come the end of that season, Samuels-Smith decided to leave Everton and join Chelsea in a £4million move.
Samuels-Smith has never made a first-team appearance for Chelsea and found himself at the centre of a strange transfer saga this summer.
Chelsea sold Samuels-Smith to partner club Strasbourg in July 2025, sanctioning a £5million deal.
The Blues then stunned the footballing world by re-signing Samuels-Smith just a month later, completing a deadline day return to Stamford Bridge.
As if that wasn’t enough, Chelsea then immediately sent Samuels-Smith out on loan to Swansea City.
Samuels-Smith bizarrely completed three moves in a matter of weeks, leaving many neutral fans baffled.
The regular deals between Chelsea and Strasbourg are often held up as being a prime example of everything that is wrong with football now.
These multi-club projects see players moved around at will, and Samuels-Smith has found himself in that exact position just two years after leaving Everton.
Ishe Samuels-Smith yet to make an impact for Swansea City
Samuels-Smith is looking to gain first-team experience at Swansea, but that hasn’t really happened just yet.
The 19-year-old has yet to play a Championship game for Swansea, either from the start or from the bench.
Samuels-Smith did play well in a Carabao Cup tie against Nottingham Forest, but that hasn’t resulted in Championship opportunities.
It’s early days in Samuels-Smith’s career, and he will have every chance to prove himself at Swansea over the course of the season.
The long-term situation at Chelsea seems a little unclear, given his toing-and-froing over the summer, and it’s easy to wonder where he would be if he had stayed at Everton.
Everton signed Adam Aznou over the summer as a potential long-term left-back option, which could have been Samuels-Smith’s role if he had snubbed Chelsea.
Samuels-Smith will now hope to settle down after a chaotic summer, but only time will tell whether leaving Everton was the right call.
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