All being well, perhaps within the next few hours, Everton will unveil their first new signing of the 2026 summer transfer window, sporting the 2026/27 home kit with the new shirt sponsors, CMC Markets, to boot. And, if further well-placed reports come to fruition, another could follow him (back) through the door in fairly short order.
Evertonians have become accustomed over the years to their club's transfer dealings taking an inordinate amount of time to bear fruit but the important thing – particularly in a World Cup summer where most deals will be back-loaded towards the end of the window – is that a prime target in Hayden Hackney has been secured and on terms favourable to the Blues.
In that respect, patience has paid off and ensured that in a window where Tottenham Hotspur are close to taking their summer expenditure to £230m on just three players and Manchester City have signed yet another player for more than £100m, Everton aren’t willing to over-pay for players.
It would have been easy for them to meet an inflated asking price from Middlesbrough, who sought to leverage their captain’s status as the Championship’s best player and interest from Crystal Palace. It appears, however, as though head of player trading, Nick Hammond, has adeptly navigated the negotiation process with a deal worth an initial £16.5m, rising to close to £25m if appearance and performance-related clauses are eventually met.
The key to the deal, though, was the player’s stated preference to join Everton, which will come as especially pleasing news to Everton fans, many of whom, after the deflating end to the season just gone, were perhaps fearing that the club’s attraction had diminished, particularly with no European football on offer at Bramley-Moore Dock next season.
Blues supporters will be further buoyed if the club are able to secure Tyrique George on a permanent basis after his loan move from Chelsea expired this week. Reports suggest that a deal for the England Under-21 winger is in the works, with the Toffees offering a fresh proposal to the original terms agreed back in January when he made a temporary switch to Merseyside from Stamford Bridge.
Reading between the lines, both deals hint at the longer-term project that is being sold by the transfer committee to potential recruits this summer. A year ago, with the overhaul of the Blues’ recruitment set-up still in its infancy and before the likes of James Smith and Nick Cox had come on board, David Moyes was very much in charge of the process of identifying new signings and, by his own admission, had final say on any new recruits.
And the manager’s approach for much of the 2025/26 campaign was one of trusting an experienced core of the squad in an attempt to push Everton into Europe, largely at the expense of the younger players.
The Scot will, of course, still be very much involved in the hiring process but the fact that the 20-year-old George and the ambitious Hackney have shown a desire to sign on permanently could be seen as a sign that both Moyes and Everton are now placing greater emphasis on the medium- to long-term future rather than the here-and-now.
George, especially, will have other suitors, almost certainly from elsewhere in the Premier League and he also had misgivings about his lack of playing time towards the end of last season. That he is willing to come back on board with Moyes still at the helm means he must have been given concrete assurances of his role moving forward.
All of this hints, on the more macro level, of Angus Kinnear and the Friedkin Group threading the needle to a degree with regard to Moyes’s future at Everton. Had there been an impulse to ease the 63-year-old out this summer, either in line with their reputed desire at the outset to only take him on board for 18 months when Sean Dyche was sacked or in response to a poor run-in that cost the Toffees a place in Europe, it would have come at a price: around £6m in compensation to Moyes and a further £1m to his staff.
In prioritising funds for squad-building ahead of paying off the manager and, perhaps, having to shell out further compensation of their preferred successor was contracted to another club, the ownership are prepared to kick the proverbial can down to the road for another year.
That would give them the leeway to either let his current terms expire or offer a short-term extension that gives either party the option to pull the rip cord at any time with no financial penalties.
Moyes, himself, has said he is relaxed about his contractual status and he has, of course, been in this position before at Everton when he entered the final season of his first spell in charge without having signed a new deal. It may be that there is a mutual understanding that either this coming season will be his last or that both parties will play it by ear depending on how successful 2026/27 ends up being. That is, of course, if the appeal of the Scotland job doesn't throw a spanner in the works!
Some have voiced their concerns that a lame-duck manager presents its problems, both in terms of trying to attract new players to the club and keeping the squad as a whole focused and bought-in on the project. But if the Hackney and George deals get over the line and are followed up with yet more important acquisitions to plug the holes in the team later in the window, those fears could be unfounded.
Regardless, it’s just nice to have the ball rolling now on part II of Kinnear’s stated “two-window” rebuilding plan.
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