Daily Star journalist Paul Brown believes that Everton's director of football Marcel Brands worked a "miracle" by getting a transfer fee for Morgan Schneiderlin last summer.

What happened to Schneiderlin?

The Toffees signed Schneiderlin for £20.7m from Manchester United in January 2017, and he was a mainstay in the team in his first full-season at the club, making 30 top-flight appearances in 2017/18.

He quickly fell down the pecking order, though, and managed a combined total of 29 league games in his final two campaigns at Goodison Park. 

Across 88 matches for Everton, Schneiderlin scored just once, and he was sold for £2m to Ligue 1 side Nice in July 2020.

What has Brown said about Brands?

Brown feels that Brands did extremely well to get any money for Schneiderlin considering the Frenchman's form in his final months at Everton. He has claimed that the Schneiderlin deal was a high-profile example of Brands doing his best to undo errors made in past transfer windows so that the team can move forwards.

Speaking about Brands' impact at Everton, Brown told GIVEMESPORT: “I think, broadly speaking, Brands has sold the right plan long-term to Moshiri, and he’s trying to bring in the right kind of players. Don’t forget, he’s done really good work getting rid of people at Everton.

“Everton are trying to unwind two or three transfer windows of really bad, failed transfers and they still have people on the books they can’t get rid of. But the people he has been able to get rid of, including getting a fee of any kind for Schneiderlin, which was an absolute miracle in the market that was in, I think if you look on the whole at what Marcel Brands has done, I think he’s done pretty good work at Everton.”

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Are Everton starting to get things right in the transfer market?

Getting £2m for Schneiderlin might not sound like a lot of money in modern-day football, but Everton certainly seem to have put that fee to good use. 

In the recent transfer window, they brought in wingers Andros Townsend and Demarai Gray for even less money than they received for Schneiderlin. The duo have been in scintillating form, directly contributing to nine top-flight goals already this term.

Everton have targeted big-name players in the past without really thinking about how they could fit into the team. Now they seem to be setting their sights on players who suit the system that Rafael Benitez wants to play, like Townsend and Gray, which is a far smarter way to go about things in the transfer market, and Brands deserves credit for that.