I should declare an interest before we start. I’m paid to care about Everton, and I really do.
I was born caring about Norwich.
And watching Ipswich operate in the transfer market this summer isn’t the guilty pleasure I hoped it would be — it’s been more a reminder of exactly how far ahead of Norwich they currently are, and how much they’re prepared to spend to make sure it stays that way.
And it’s been annoying to see them cross paths with Everton so regularly in this window.
Four targets, four collisions
It started with Karl Etta Eyong. Everton put in a late enquiry for the Levante forward back in June, only to find Ipswich already well down the road; talks opened, deal moving.
The Toffees never really got close. Ipswich eventually missed their man, but only after moving decisively. They didn’t hang about.
It didn’t feel or look like a newly-promoted club scraping together loan deals to ‘give it a go’ — it was (is) a club backing its recruitment team with conviction and lots of money.
Then came Tim Iroegbunam. Everton made clear they’d sell the midfielder this summer rather than let his contract run down with him unhappy about game time, and TEAMtalk reported Ipswich had already made an approach.
Whatever happens with that one by deadline day, the pattern’s the same: wherever Everton have a player available, Ipswich are, it seems, invariably circling. Eugh.
Alistair Johnston is the one where Everton currently have the upper hand. Reports still have Everton as the leading club in the chase for the Celtic full-back, with Ipswich among the rival interest rather than out in front for once — proof they’re not winning every one of these, at least.
And then, this week, Gabriel Jesus. Spanish outlet AS reported Everton have made contact with Arsenal over the Brazilian, with Ipswich (of course) credited with a similar approach.
Two very different Premier League projects, but both with eyes on the Brazilian. One with, it seems, deeper pockets than the other.
What it says about Ipswich’s ambition
Four separate targets, four separate ‘collisions.’
Ipswich came up under Kieran McKenna playing a high-tempo, possession-heavy style that overlaps more with what Moyes wants than you’d expect from a club that spent some of its recent history in League One, and their recruitment has matched that ambition — moving fast, paying up, not waiting around for certainty before committing.
That’s the part I find hard to enjoy from the Norwich side of things.
Ipswich went up (their second attempt) the same way Norwich have tried and failed too many times before, and where City have, in the past, always done so on the most shoestring of shoestring budgets, Ipswich are now spending like a club that means business. Buy now, think later.
Whatever the results say by next May, the intent’s already there in how they’ve recruited.
From the Everton side, it’s a different, more modest story — a club with, in theory, the pedigree to win most of these races if they move quickly and decisively enough. But they didn’t and haven’t.
From where I sit, watching both, it says more about Ipswich’s ambition than it does about Everton’s effectiveness in this transfer window.
Etta Eyong nearly went to Suffolk. Iroegbunam may actually go there. Johnston, for now, looks like heading to Merseyside. Jesus is anyone’s guess.
I’ll be following all four — but nothing surprises me anymore. Not where ‘that lot’ are concerned.
[Follow our live Everton transfer tracker for the latest.]
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