Everton may not have had the entirety of the Anthony Gordon funds to spend on transfers in January with money owed elsewhere.

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It was a dismal January transfer window for the Toffees with their only major transaction of the month seeing their young star, Gordon, depart for Newcastle United.

It is believed the Merseyside club brought in £40m for the 21-year-old with an extra £5m potentially coming in through add-ons in the future.

However, the Toffees were still unable to provide Sean Dyche with any reinforcement to his squad with a serious relegation battle on the cards for the upcoming months.

But speaking on the FIVE YouTube channel, journalist David Ornstein has claimed he's been made aware that Everton didn't make the full £40m with debt owed elsewhere:

"What we don't know is how much of the Anthony Gordon transfer fee, which is £40m in one payment, £5m in add-ons, which would suggest you've got resources to play with.

"How much of that was available to Kevin Thelwell as the director of football at Everton to recruit and how much of it needed to go elsewhere to running costs, to any stadium requirements?

"I don't know the ins and outs of it, but it would appear that and I've been told that not all of it was available for recruitment."

Toffees in a sticky situation

The 2022/23 campaign has not been kind to Everton so far with the Merseyside club facing the prospect of what would be their first-ever relegation from the Premier League.

Now the January window is closed, Everton will pick up their season on the weekend with a clash against the league leaders, Arsenal, with Southampton the only side below them on goal difference.

And to add further insult to injury, Dyche will be the only manager in the league who has not seen his side bring in a single new player over the January window.

What is interesting about this is the reports surrounding a believed £45m bid from the Toffees late in the window for Chelsea's Conor Gallagher.

According to Ornstein's comments, it would suggest the funds were actually not there to put in a bid of the figures reported for Gallagher.

This could raise the question as to whether Everton were doing so with a firm expectation the player would be unwilling to make the move from Chelsea to the struggling Toffees.

Whether this is the case or not, relegation could prove a lot more expensive for Farhad Moshiri than what a few January signings could have proven.

The financial gap between the Premier League and the Championship is huge and with the Merseyside club building a state-of-the-art stadium on the docks, relegation could prove disastrous.