Everton sign Jake O'Brien - defender returns to England after impressing at Lyon

Everton have completed third major signing of the summer transfer window with the transfer of Lyon central defender Jake O’Brien all but complete. As Transfermarkt understands, the Republic of Ireland international completes a move to Goodison Park, after both clubs agreed a transfer fee of €20 million alongside Lyon retaining 10% of any future sell-on fee. The 23-year old’s move to Everton takes the club’s spending in this transfer window up to just over €50m, following the arrival of Iliman Ndiaye from Marseille and Tim Iroegbunam from Aston Villa alongside the loan signing of Napoli forward Jesper Lindstrøm. 

Although born and raised in Ireland, O’Brien will be no stranger to English football having come through the youth ranks of Crystal Palace before completing a €1m move to Lyon in August of last year. Although the central defender never featured in the Premier League for his former London club, O’Brien impressed almost immediately at Lyon and became an undisputed starter in Fabio Grosso’s side as they climbed the Ligue 1 table to eventually finish in a respectable sixth place. In total O’Brien made 27 league appearances for the French club, racking up no less than four goals and two assists in 2,370 minutes of league football - central midfielder Maxence Caqueret was the only outfield player to pick up more minutes in Grosso’s side than the Irishman. 

Indeed, another indicator of how well O’Brien did in France is a simple look at his market value over the course of the last 12 months. After joining Lyon with a market value of just €1.7m, O’Brien saw it rise rather dramatically over the next eight months to where it now stands at an impressive €12m. That €11.3m rise made the Ireland international the fourth biggest riser in market value among all Ligue 1 defenders aged 24 or under last season. And also now means that the new Everton signing makes the move to the Premier League as the fifth most valuable player in his nation. If he can impress in England as he clearly did in France, there’s no doubt that his market value will rise even higher in the not too distant future.