Five signings from Everton transfer guru Nick Hammond after £250k masterstroke and huge Newcastle deal

Five signings from Everton transfer guru Nick Hammond after £250k masterstroke and huge Newcastle deal

A look at five of the best signings made by Everton's new transfer guru Nick Hammond

Five of Nick Hammond's best previous transfer signings: Dan Burn, Kyogo Furuhashi, Bruno Guimaraes, Jeremie Frimpong and Ao Tanaka

Everton’s new-look recruitment team is starting to take shape with ‘transfer guru’ Nick Hammond having followed chief executive Angus Kinnear from Leeds United to Hill Dickinson Stadium. Everton announced on March 7 that director of football Kevin Thelwell, who had been in place since February 25, 2022, would be leaving them when his contract expired at the end of the season and the club would transition to a wider sporting leadership team.

As first reported in the Athletic, the ECHO understands that James Smith, who is director of scouting and recruitment at Manchester City, is expected to rejoin Everton, having worked under David Moyes previously with the Scot bringing him to Goodison Park in 2003 before he followed him to Manchester United a decade later.

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Hammond has now started his work for the Blues and over the years he has earned a reputation for being an astute talent spotter.

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Born in Hornchurch, some 15 miles to the north east of central London, on September 7, 1967, Hammond is a former professional footballer himself who played as a goalkeeper. Starting as an apprentice at Arsenal, he was unable to break into the Gunners’ first team in the late 1980s and made his senior debut on loan at Bristol Rovers while also being farmed out to Peterborough United and Aberdeen.

Hammond’s most prolonged spell of first team football came with Swindon Town after joining them on a free transfer in July 1987. Despite breaking his leg twice while with the Robins, prompting him to request the number 23 squad number for the club’s only Premier League season in 1993/94, rather than the ‘unlucky’ 13.

With Glenn Hoddle, the player-manager who guided Swindon to promotion having departed for Chelsea, Hammond was one of four keepers. Along with Fraser Digby, Jon Sheffield and Paul Heald, used by manager John Gorman that term as the rock-bottom Robins conceded 100 goals.

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He made 13 appearances that season, including one at Goodison Park. Facing Everton in Mike Walker’s first Premier League game in charge, Hammond was beaten half a dozen times in a 6-2 defeat that proved something of a false dawn for the former Norwich City manager at the Blues with Tony Cottee netting his sixth and last hat-trick for the club (the most since Dixie Dean).

After 67 outings for Swindon, Hammond then had a short spell with Plymouth Argyle before finishing his career with Reading, where he became Alan Pardew’s goalkeeping coach after retiring from playing due to a back injury.

In October 2000, he replaced John Stephenson as Reading’s youth academy direction and then became the Royals’ first director of football in September 2003. Hammond’s 20-year association with the Berkshire outfit ended in April 2016 as he became technical director at West Bromwich Albion.

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Following his earlier stint at Pittodrie, Hammond went north of the border again in June 2019 to join Glasgow giants Celtic in a recruitment consultancy role and in October that year he was named head of football operations.

He moved into the Premier League in December 2021 as Newcastle United’s interim transfer consultant and followed Leeds United’s relegation, he became the Yorkshire club’s ‘interim football advisor.’

Although this was initially a short-term contract to ‘help support the club during the summer transfer window’, in November 2023 it was confirmed Hammond would be staying on as a transfer consultant.

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Just what kind of inspired moves has Hammond been involved with? Based on the choices in an article first published by Harry Diamond on Toffeeweb, here are six of the best.

Jeremie Frimpong – Manchester City to Celtic (£250,000)

Born in Amsterdam but raised in the east Manchester suburb of Clayton, Frimpong was on the books at Manchester City from the age of nine but failed to make the breakthrough to their first team. Soon after arriving at Celtic in his recruitment consultancy role, Hammond helped spot the youngster’s potential and he’d win a domestic treble with the Bhoys in 2020.

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He also bagged a German double with Bayer Leverkusen in 2024, hitting 14 goals in all competitions after making an £11.5million switch in January 2021. Last month the 24-year-old joined Everton’s neighbours Liverpool for €35million (£29.5m) as a replacement for Real Madrid-bound Trent Alexander-Arnold.

Kyogo Furuhashi – Vissel Kobe to Celtic (£4.5million)

Teaming up with Ange Postecoglou who had just left Japan himself for Celtic having been coach of Yokohama F. Marinos, Hammond identified Furuhashi as a player who could transition to European football despite having played his entire career in his homeland up to the age of 26. The diminutive 5ft 7in frontman plundered 85 goals in 165 games north of the border before he was sold to French club Rennes in January this year for £10million.

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Bruno Guimaraes – Olympique Lyonnais to Newcastle United (£35million)

When Hammond joined Newcastle United in December 2021 they had just obtain the vast wealth of the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia but were embroiled in a relegation battle to stay in the Premier League. The Magpies required a marquee signing who would not only be a statement of intent but someone who could hit the ground running when it came to becoming an instant hit in English football.

Guimaraes – capped 35 times by Brazil – has done much more than that, skippering Eddie Howe’s side to victory over Liverpool in the Carabao Cup final to secure their first domestic trophy in 70 years. Agent Kia Joorabchian claimed the Blues rejected the chance to sign the same player, and in January 2023 said: “Everton haven’t taken any of our advice. So we can’t be that influential.

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“In the past, we have offered them Bruno Guimaraes at £16m when he was leaving Athletico Paranaense. They didn’t like him and they went for Jean-Philippe Gbamin instead and Guimaraes went to Lyon.”

Dan Burn – Brighton & Hove Albion to Newcastle United (£12million)

Another one of the Geordies’ crucial recruitments to avoid the drop in January 2022, the giant defender from Ashington – birthplace of Bobby and Jack Charlton – went from one end of the country to the other when he quit the Sussex coast to return to his native North East. Since then he’s been in the same side as Guimaraes that ended the club’s lengthy silverware drought and won the first of his two England caps to date just shy of his 33rd birthday.

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Moyes tried to sign a then teenage Burn himself back in 2011 when he made an offer for the Darlington prospect but the player ended up moving to Fulham instead. The Blues boss said at the time: “We have made an offer for him and he would come into the same category as Greek striker Apostolos Vellios. So before people say we are making a big signing, it is a young player who might have a chance of improvement.”

Ao Tanaka – Fortuna Dusseldorf to Leeds United (£2.95million)

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Having been impressed by the achievements of Tanaka’s compatriot Furuhashi at Celtic, Hammond was turning Japanese again to revive Leeds’ fortunes, albeit with a player who this time who already had European experience in the second tier of German football. With the likes of Georgino Rutter, Archie Gray, and Crysencio Summerville all having departed after failing to get the Yorkshire side back into the Premier League at the first time of asking, the midfielder was part of a rebuild at Elland Road.

The 26-year-old, who has been capped 32 times and scored eight international goals, has proven to be a revelation across the Pennines – and a snip at his bargain price – as he was voted Leeds United Players’ Player of the Year by his team-mates. Tanaka was also named in the 2024/25 Championship Team of the Season as the club returned to the top flight after winning the title under Daniel Farke with him bossing the engine room.

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