Everton paid Queens Park Rangers £1.5 million with the option to increase to £4.25 million for talented teenager Josh Bowler in 2017, but he did not make a single appearance for the Merseyside club.

Every transfer fee is a gamble to some extent. Every transfer season, vast sums of money are spent on the unknown and untested, owing in large part to the enormous benefits for being lucky.

This can, of course, be critical when selling clubs. They can be a lifeline for Championship clubs whose media revenues are a fraction of those in the Premier League. To stay afloat, many teams rely on their ability to develop and sell young players.

Queens Park Rangers have had their share of financial difficulties, but they have also been able to sell players for a healthy profit. And not all of them were successful for the players or the clubs to which they were sold.

Rangers made a huge profit by signing winger Josh Bowler, who had already been rejected by another London team, and then selling him for millions at the outset of his professional career.

Everton took a massive Josh Bowler, QPR transfer gamble.

Josh Bowler had already been released by Fulham before joining Loftus Road in 2013 through the newly established Aldershot Town academy. Bowler was highly regarded, but when the 2016-17 season came to an end, he still hadn’t made a single appearance for the Queens Park Rangers first team.

That all changed throughout the last weekend of the season. Rangers were already protected from relegation going into their penultimate day journey to Norwich – a good thing, given they’d lost five of their previous six games – when manager Ian Holloway chose to give Bowler his senior debut.

In the 69th minute, with his club already 2-0 down, he was brought in to replace Jack Robinson, but his debut did not go well, with Norwich scoring two late goals to win 4-0, leaving QPR in 18th position in the league table.

This brief appearance, combined with previous scouting, persuaded Premier League giants Everton to purchase Bowler following summer.

Bowler had a reputation as a teenage sensation, and the Toffees agreed to pay Queens Park Rangers £1.5 million, which may rise to £4.25 million, for the winger’s talents despite having played less than 30 minutes of senior football.

QPR laughed to the bank when Everton signed Josh Bowler, but he can prove naysayers wrong against Blackpool.

Everton had recently finished seventh in the Premier League under Ronald Koeman’s management, so Josh Bowler’s path to the first team at Goodison Park would never be easy. He was assigned to their under-23s under former star David Unsworth, but by the end of the 2017-18 season, he has yet to make it to the main squad.

“You can see now the ability we saw,” Unsworth stated, as published by Everton fan site Toffeeweb. “He came in and we had to get him up to speed, and he battled; we have to be honest. “He struggled to adjust to the tempo and speed of the game, resulting in fewer games than his training performances suggested.”He’s needed to be patient. He’s a terrific guy, a great pro, and what he’s done in the last few months is get himself into the team, stay in the team, and, while he’s far from completed, you can see the talent and skill; he’s a game changer. He can outperform anybody; he’s someone who will continue to improve.”

However, Bowler never advanced beyond the Premier League 2 at Goodison Park, with only six appearances in the EFL Trophy over his first two seasons at the club.

He was loaned out to Hull City in 2019 and finally began to see action, making his debut for them against Derby County at the end of October and scored his first professional goal just nine minutes into his next encounter, a 3-0 win away to Fulham the following week. However, Hull’s play deteriorated near the conclusion of the season, and they spent another season in the Premier League 2 with Everton.

However, a hip injury sidelined him for much of the season, and by the conclusion of 2020-21, Everton had had enough, and Bowler was released when his contract expired, joining Blackpool instead. Successful at Bloomfield Road, Nottingham Forest were convinced to pay £4 million on him at the start of the 2022-23 Premier League season, and he was loaned to their sister club Olympiacos.

Bowler, once again, missed out on Premier League action. He began his EFL career on loan with Blackpool, then moved on to Cardiff City, Preston North conclusion, and Luton Town before joining permanently with Blackpool at the conclusion of the summer 2025 transfer window.

Speaking to The Sun regarding his loan transfer to Cardiff in 2023, he said, “Every night I dream about making my Premier League debut, and I don’t think my time is up. It is critical that I do not give up on myself, no matter how difficult the situation is.”

Josh Bowler, who is still only 26 years old, could be in for the best years of his career. He’s been a very consistent presence in the Blackpool squad this season, and there may still be time to impress enough to earn a third Premier League appearance.

But probably the biggest winner of all was Queens Park Rangers, who were able to sell on a player with less than half an hour of first-team experience for a seven-figure amount despite having paid nothing for his services initially. For them, the risk of selling Josh Bowler when he was still a youngster was undoubtedly worthwhile.