I think the reality is we wouldn't have been able to spend anything at all had Digne not been shoved through the door. Whilst the circumstances surrounding Digne's exit aren't the best, I am far less concerned about this than the vast majority on here appear to be. He is a pretty good left back, nothing more, nothing less. In the calendar year 2021, he ranged from being completely average to downright terrible. Interestingly, the performance he put in against Aston Villa earlier in the season is easily the single worst individual effort any Everton player has put in this season, and I do include all of Rondon's 'displays' in that. Sadly however, every time Mykolenko has a sub par performance everybody is going to compare him to 2018/19 Digne instead of the one he is actually replacing.
I have been begging us to get creative in the market for so long - it was my biggest annoyance with Brands that he always ended up pursuing the easy option rather than taking calculated risks (new contract for Keane, signing Doucoure 18 months on from when we first wanted him rather than looking elsewhere for a younger/cheaper alternative etc).
Selling a left back for £25m who has appears to have already peaked and replacing him with a player 6-7 years his junior on half the weekly wedge and one of the most promising prospects around (Patterson) for the biggest problem position in our team with the proceeds is smart - regardless of the circumstances it came about.
At the end of the day we can only sell players who other clubs actually want, so whilst we'd all prefer to bin off the absolute crappers in this team like Holgate, Davies and Iwobi to boost our coffers the reality is nobody will pay us any money to rid us of these clowns. This is why the next person we need to be getting out of the door is Yerry Mina, again a player I like a lot but it looks evident now that he doesn't want to sign a new contract and as we are approaching last chance saloon of getting a decent fee for him, we need to act now.