Everton are in for a busy summer.
There will be a hectic schedule of pre-season games, players departing, youngsters promoted to the first-team, preparations for the season and, of course, transfers.
One man who is concerned with all of those first-team football aspects is Dave Harrison, the Blues' club secretary and director of football operations.
Harrison has worked for the Toffees for more than 20 years and outlined his role with the club when it comes to the transfer window, which opened on May 16 and will close on August 8, and making deals happen for Everton .
"In most cases, 90 per cent of the transfer is already in place by the time it is passed to me," he said.
"Marcel and the board keep me well informed of deals and progression with players’ contracts so that we’re ready to sign the paperwork as soon as we have a completed deal in place.
"A lot of it is a paper-based role, a lot of it is a people role and a lot is communication, whether that’s between player and agent, the club we’re dealing with, or with our internal departments.
"It’s trying to pull all the facets within the club together at the same time to make a transfer happen."
The highly-respected Harrison spoke about what he does at the club back in May and used the examples of Yerry Mina and Andre Gomes to highlight what his role can entail - which in that case involved him flying out to Barcelona to speak to agents, lawyers, arrange paperwork and oversee medicals to get the deals over the line at the eleventh hour.
He admits that "rarely are two days the same" and that is really due to the very nature of how deals are done in football.
For the Blues, goalkeeper Jonas Lossl will move to Goodison Park on a free transfer after his contract with Huddersfield Town officially expires.
Phil Jagielka and Ashley Williams have not had their deals renewed and will depart while Jonjoe Kenny completed his loan move to Schalke for the entirety of the 2019/20 campaign on Monday.
But, alongside letting a number of players leave the club, manager Marco Silva and director of football Marcel Brands will be focused on bringing in a number of stars across multiple positions in the squad.
Harrison works alongside both Silva and Brands and he spoke about what that generally means in his day-to-day role.
He said: "If something major comes up – whether that’s in relation to a player or for the club to fulfil a commitment – then I will communicate with Marco and Marcel to see how best to proceed.
"Marco likes to have a consistent plan for the first team each week.
"Depending on where we are playing games, we know when there will be a rest day and what time players will report for training at USM Finch Farm which means that part of the operation is usually seamless.
"It’s been a pleasure working with both Marco and his coaching team and Marcel since they joined the club last summer."
Finally, Harrison outlined how proud he was to work in the role and reiterated Everton's vision for the future.
"What a privilege it is to be in a position to help drive Everton forward to underline our ambitions for the future.
"We continue to progress with our plans for a new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock and, on the pitch, we all strive to finish as high as possible in the league.
"As important as that is, I think people can see our footballing philosophy has changed over the course of this season and that’s a work in progress.
"It takes time to build a team, a culture, and there’s certainly been a change at the football club since Marco and Marcel came on board.
"We have foundations in place to help Everton progress as we strive to achieve our ambitions both on and off the pitch."
