Everton talent Josh Bowler faces huge summer after horror end to Hull City loan

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The capitulation of Hull City in the Championship is one of the more incredible stories of this season. Sitting in eight position after beating Sheffield Wednesday on New Year’s Day, the club fell apart both on and off the pitch and ended up finishing the season rock-bottom of the table and were relegated to League One.

An Everton player was at the centre of it all and it is hard to see him going on to have success at Goodison Park after this. 

Josh Bowler joined Everton in 2017 from QPR in a deal that, according to Sky Sports, could end up costing Everton a figure in the region of £4.25 million. 

After a difficult first season at Finch Farm, his former chairman at QPR Tony Fernandes claimed in a tweet that Bowler ‘should have stayed’ to which Bowler insisted he had ‘made the right decision’. 

Last season, Bowler started to show why Everton made a move for his services with some impressive displays in the under-23s. 

“Josh Bowler was terrific,” under-23 boss David Unsworth told the Everton website in February last year. “We need to get the ball to his feet in the final third and that’s where you see his magic.”

The result for his good form was a contract extension until 2021 before being loaned out to Hull last summer. 

But it has been a tough year at the Championship side. He has scored just one goal and provided one assist and came off after just 35 minutes of Hull’s humiliating 8-0 loss to Wigan earlier this month in his final appearance for the Tigers. 

In the same game, fellow Everton loanee Kieran Dowell was scoring a hat-trick and youngster Anthony Gordon’s emergence into the first-team at Goodison Park presents a further stumbling block for Bowler at Everton. 

There is undoubted talent in Bowler but it seems he joined a doomed club in Hull last summer whilst niggling injuries have not helped matters. Bowler needs a better loan destination if he is to show himself capable of a long-term future at Everton.

If not, then Fernandes’ assessment about his QPR exit might end up proving accurate.