Bengaluru, February 14: Everton hierarchy are ready to dump their most valuable defender, £30million signing from Burnley Michael Keane during the Summer only after one year.

The young English defender who was one of the best defenders in the league last year for Burnley joined the Toffees just this season. However, he is yet to replicate his former club's form this season on a regular basis.

The Toffees sit ninth and possess the worst defensive record in the top-half of the table, having conceded 46 times in their 27 games. And it seems that Keane is set to bear the brunt.

The player often has been on the firing line for his defensive fratilities and there have been rumours going on that the Everton hierarchy are not happy with the player.

Everton owner Farhad Moshiri and chairman Bill Kenwright are reportedly not happy with the way the money has been spent on some of the new additions and reportedly they are ready to cut loose some of the players in which reportedly Keane is on top of the list.

But for the last couple of matches, the young defender has shown his capability though on an inconsistent basis. The player helped his side to win a tough match against Leicester with a 2-1 victory but then succumbed against Arsenal with a 5-1 defeat before again coming back to winning ways with a 3-1 win over Crystal Palace.

Now despite such rumours surfacing, the player has talked about his Merseyside future and summoned himself to achieve a level of consistent performance to fully establish himself in Sam Allardyce's starting line-up after enduring a rocky start to his Everton life.

"My confidence is always growing," Keane told Evertontv. "It took a dent last week [following the Arsenal match]. I think that happened to the whole team. I need to find more consistency and play like that week in, week out.

"I know that and will be doing everything I can to achieve that. I was happy with how it went against Palace. I thought we were really solid as a team, there was a lot of communication [across the pitch], and I was really pleased.

"I thought I did well. I enjoy the battles. I knew there would be a lot of aerial balls against Benteke and the new guy [6ft 4in Palace debutant forward Alexander Sorloth] and I worked on that in training. I enjoy games like that, they suit me and I felt I played well."

He added: "It was important we bounced back after last weekend's result. We were disappointed for everyone who travelled down and all the fans in general. We were not good enough. We wanted to put that right and we did that, especially in the second half. We came out of the blocks well and got ourselves 3-0 up.

"We wanted to make it easier for ourselves than we did against Leicester. We were disappointed to concede the goal, because we wanted a clean sheet. But it was a good win in the end.

"We felt comfortable in the first half without creating too much. But when you get the first goal it always lifts the pressure a bit. That helped the lads relax and we kicked on from there."

Despite Keane's gradually return to form, should the officials finally decide to sell the player, they may have to take a big financial hit in the Summer and as of now according to reports, only his former club Burnley have enquired about the player's situation. The player has played 23 matches so far this season.