Armando Broja arrived at Everton late on deadline day this summer knowing he had to make his mark.
Even he would likely admit that his career, at one stage so promising, has stalled due to a series of significant injuries and an unproductive loan spell at Fulham last season.
The last couple of years have been particularly tough for the 23-year-old striker.
Long billed as a top prospect in parent club Chelsea’s academy ranks, he returned from successful loans at Vitesse Arnhem and Southampton ready to make an impact, but suffered a serious knee injury in December 2022 that kept him out of action for around nine months.
The loan move to Fulham was meant to be a chance to revitalise his career, but Broja struggled, featuring in just 88 minutes of Premier League action. That was despite a penalty clause inserted into the loan deal that meant Fulham would be liable to pay Chelsea a fee of up to £4million ($5.2m) if Broja failed to start a certain number of games.
Speaking to The London Standard in April, Fulham manager Marco Silva would later describe Broja’s situation as “difficult for him and for me”.
Silva had pushed to sign Broja after earmarking him as a potential replacement for Aleksandar Mitrovic that summer, believing the Slough-born forward to possess all the attributes needed to make it at the highest level.
But chances were promised and did not come. The day after Broja joined on loan, fellow striker Rodrigo Muniz scored against Burnley. The Brazilian, who had gone 11 games without a goal, went on to score eight times in eight games, cementing his place in Fulham’s starting line-up.
“Marco Silva desperately wanted me to join,” Broja told The Athletic last summer. “He was telling me I would play games and get opportunities.
“It did not help that Muniz started scoring straight away. I understand you can’t drop a player who is scoring game after game, but I felt like we had conversations where he (Silva) would say, ‘Don’t worry, just keep doing what you’re doing, you will get opportunities’. I never did.
“All thoughts go through your head: ‘I have wasted four months of my career just sitting around training’, ‘I could have been at Chelsea for four months and played more’. It sucked but that’s football.”
A further six months on and an end to that difficult spell may finally be in sight for Broja.
The Albania international has made positive progress in his bid to return from a foot injury and is set to step up his rehabilitation during the international break.
Instead of joining up with Albania, he will stay on Merseyside to continue his programme. A mid-November return to action is deemed to be a viable target, although Everton will handle his comeback cautiously, most likely pitching him into under-21 action to build his fitness.
Broja has started light training with Everton’s medical staff, who will handle his rehabilitation. He is already engrained in the squad, having spent time at their Finch Farm training ground, and has attended games alongside other injured players, including fellow striker Youssef Chermiti. After the recent win over Crystal Palace — Everton’s first of the season — he could be seen in the tunnel congratulating new team-mate Jarrad Branthwaite.
What the remainder of the campaign amounts to is a seven-month long audition for Broja at Goodison.
The terms of his loan deal mean Everton will only start paying his wages when he returns to senior action. There is no loan fee but an option to buy the player from Chelsea for £30million. With first-choice striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin out of contract at the end of the season and yet to re-sign, Broja has a chance to prove he can be his colleague’s long-term successor.
There is a sense across the board that Goodison may just be the best place for Broja resurrect his fortunes after a tough couple of years. The striker needed to feel wanted and Everton, who had tracked his progress for years, did just that.
Broja was a long-time target for the club’s recruitment team but had always been slightly out of reach.
They explored a deal to sign him during Frank Lampard’s tenure on his return to Chelsea in the summer of 2022. They looked again the following summer but Broja was still recovering from the serious knee injury sustained against Aston Villa during the mid-season pause for the Qatar World Cup.
When he did finally become available midway through last season, Everton were already oversubscribed in the striker ranks and had to be careful with money.
There is a belief at Goodison in his ability, provided he recovers well from his injury. It is seen as a low-risk move — a sort of ‘try-before-you-buy’ — for a player they have long coveted. There is room for further development.
“Armando has built up some impressive experience but is someone we also feel has lots more potential to be unlocked,” Everton director Kevin Thelwell told the club’s official website when the deal was confirmed.
At 6ft 3in (191cm), Broja has made his name as a physically imposing but mobile forward, capable of running the channels and carrying from deep.
In his first loan to Vitesse in the Netherlands, he scored 10 times in 1,866 minutes of action, a goals-to-game ratio of nearly one in two. That came from an expected goals (xG) tally of 7.0, meaning he finished significantly better than the average striker. At Southampton the following season, he scored nine times in all competitions, including six Premier League goals from an xG of 6.0 across 21 starts.
He tends to strike the ball hard, low and with minimal backlift, often catching goalkeepers unaware.
It’s a beauty! ✌️#CheWol pic.twitter.com/Onm51NR2uW
— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) October 8, 2022
Broja is capable of linking play and holding off defenders, but has also shown the pace to spin in behind or run the channels. He is a frequent ball-carrier and in the top one percentile across Europe’s top leagues for take-ons attempted (6.6 per 90 minutes) over the last 12 months.
Whether he returns as the same player after his injury problems remains to be seen, but Broja is itching to show his worth after the frustration of recent years.
“I have a lot to prove to people, and to myself,” Broja told The Athletic last summer. “People are always doubting you. They only remember your bad games and judge you at your lowest. The real pleasure in football is overcoming that. I will use all the negativity as fuel to prove people wrong.”
As Broja moves closer to a return, he should have the chance to do just that.
(Top photo: Bernd Thissen/picture alliance via Getty Images)
