Everton confirmed in their 2019/20 retained list that four first-team players (Maarten Stekelenburg, Cuco Martina, Luke Garbutt, Oumar Niasse) and six from the U23s (Morgan Feeney, Alex Denny, Matty Foulds, Manasse Mampala, Kieran Phillips, Korede Adedoyin) have been released while announcing that two players from the senior squad (Leighton Baines, Djibril Sidibe) and two from the reserves (Nathangelo Markelo, Con Ouzounidis) have been handed contract extensions.
Stekelenburg’s deal was up this summer and Everton opted against retaining his services with Jordan Pickford, Jonas Lossl and Joao Virginia at their disposal. Martina’s departure has been a long-time coming as he’s not made an appearance for Everton since 2018 and was dropped to the reserves.
Garbutt is another player whose exit from Everton was expected. He’s not featured for the Toffees since 2015 and has been stuck behind Leighton Baines and Lucas Digne in the pecking order. Niasse has known for a while that he was surplus to requirements, but the £16.1m signing turned interest from other clubs and had been a hard player to ship.
Everton want to tie Baines down to a new deal, but the £6.7m signing from Wigan Athletic is yet to put pen to paper on an extension. He’s been an able deputy for Digne, but it remains to be seen if he’s content seeing out his career as backup. The Toffees have also offered Sidibe an extension until the end of the season. He’s been a regular while on loan from AS Monaco so it makes sense to keep him for another month.