Everton’s transfer window ended with a thud, not a flourish. Now David Moyes is reaching for the only lever left.
With the window closed and a threadbare squad exposed by a flurry of late exits, the Everton manager confirmed he is actively trawling the free-agent market in a bid to patch key gaps before the season bites.
“We are looking at the free agents market,” Moyes said ahead of Sunday’s trip to Manchester United. “I am trying to get a team that is going to be at the top end and challenge. I want the players to believe that we are moving forward – for me, that is really important.”
He has little choice.
Iliman Ndiaye, Beto, Tim Iroegbunam, Adam Aznou and Nathan Patterson all departed late in the window, stripping depth from a squad that was already walking a tightrope. Both full-back positions and centre-forward are now glaring pressure points, with only one senior option available in each role.
For a club with Everton’s ambitions, that is a risk. For a manager who talks openly about “the top end” of the table, it is a problem that needs solving quickly.
Free agents offer the only solution. Players without a club can still be signed outside the window, as long as they are registered before a secondary cut-off, understood to fall roughly a week after the main deadline. It’s a narrow window inside a closed one, and Everton are trying to squeeze through it.
The mood around Finch Farm after deadline day was flat. Moyes did not hide his frustration at how the final days played out.
“Disappointed we didn’t do more business and disappointed things didn’t go our way in the end,” he admitted. “Sometimes in football you have to live with disappointment and we will move on.”
The most stinging blow came on deadline day itself. Everton had pushed to bring in Folarin Balogun, only for the deal to collapse at the final hurdle. In a window where every attacking option mattered, it felt like the defining miss.
Moyes, though, refused to turn it into a blame game.
“It wasn’t anybody’s fault,” he said of the failed Balogun move. “It happens in football a lot. The player had a problem in his medical and that was simply it. There’s no other story behind it.”
No conspiracy, no late hijack. Just a medical issue, and a striker who never made it through the door.
So the plan changes. Instead of unveiling a marquee forward, Everton’s recruitment team are now combing through the list of unattached players: experienced full-backs who can plug in immediately, a centre-forward who can offer minutes and presence, maybe even a versatile option who can cover more than one role.
The stakes are clear. Moyes wants to convince this group that Everton are “moving forward”, yet his starting XI is already being stretched before autumn has truly arrived. Every injury risk looks magnified. Every selection dilemma feels sharper.
Manchester United away is hardly the kind of fixture that allows for gentle experimentation, but this is where Everton find themselves: heading to Old Trafford short on numbers, long on questions, and hoping that somewhere in the free-agent wilderness lies a solution that can keep their season on track.
