You couldn’t make it up….
After a 79-day summer transfer window, Everton have somehow emerged from it with one recognised senior centre-forward.
One.
And that’s Thierno Barry, a player whose own future was the subject of speculation earlier in the summer after RB Leipzig enquired about his availability.
Whatever your view of the individual deals Everton completed this summer, there is simply no dressing up what happened at the end of this window.
It was a shambles.
How did Everton allow this to happen?
The problem isn’t simply that the proposed £40m signing of Folarin Balogun from Monaco collapsed.
Transfers collapse. Medicals uncover problems. Players change their minds. No recruitment department can eliminate that risk.
The problem is that Everton left themselves so horribly exposed if anything went wrong.
Beto was allowed to complete a permanent move to Fiorentina, on the same day Iliman Ndiaye was sold to Manchester City in a deal worth up to £65m.
That left Barry as David Moyes’ only recognised senior attacker.
Balogun was supposed to change that.
The USA international arrived on Merseyside on Deadline Day after Everton and Monaco had agreed a deal worth around £40m, only for an issue to emerge during his medical.
Everton subsequently renegotiated the agreement with Monaco and submitted a deal sheet before the 11pm deadline to give themselves additional time to complete the transfer.
They also looked elsewhere.
Manchester United’s Joshua Zirkzee was targeted as a potential loan signing, while Aston Villa’s Tammy Abraham emerged as another late option. Neither happened.
Everton eventually revived the Balogun deal, only for the striker to have a change of heart and decide not to proceed with the move.
By then, the window had closed.
That’s the part which is difficult to comprehend.
Everton had 79 days to construct a squad capable of improving on last season and somehow reached the final hours desperately trying to ensure Moyes wasn’t left with one senior striker.
And they failed.
Angus Kinnear cannot escape the questions
Inevitably, attention will now turn towards chief executive Angus Kinnear and the recruitment team.
It would be unfair to pretend Kinnear personally identifies, negotiates and signs every Everton player. The club deliberately moved away from the traditional director of football model and established a broader football leadership structure, with Moyes also having a major say in recruitment.
Responsibility has to be shared.
But Kinnear is the chief executive.
And when a club’s recruitment operation ends a 79-day transfer window in this position, serious questions have to travel upwards.
Talking of the recruitment team, may as well name them: Nick Cox (Technical Director), James Smith (Director of Scouting and Recruitment), and Nick Hammond (player trading and negotiating).
But this isn’t really about Balogun changing his mind.
It’s about risk management.
Why was Beto allowed to leave before another centre-forward was secured?
Why did Everton’s search for another striker ultimately come down to a frantic Deadline Day scramble?
And why were alternatives such as Zirkzee and Abraham still being explored with the clock running down?
And, above everything else, how can a Premier League club complete an entire summer transfer window and leave its manager one injury away from having no recognised senior centre-forward?
Those are questions Kinnear and Everton’s wider leadership will have to answer.
There was already supporter frustration towards the chief executive before Deadline Day. What happened during the extraordinary final few hours of the window has inevitably intensified it, with some Evertonians now openly questioning whether Kinnear’s position is tenable.
Understandably so.
The Friedkin Group have invested heavily in changing the culture and infrastructure around Everton. Kinnear was appointed as an important figure in that new era and the club’s football operation was supposed to represent a more modern, calculated way of doing business.
Instead, Everton were scrambling around in the final hours of Deadline Day trying to find another striker.
They didn’t find one.
Now Moyes has Barry.
And that’s it.
Ambition?
For a club with Everton’s history and supposed ambition, that is an extraordinary position to be in.
Whether it ultimately costs Kinnear his job is for The Friedkin Group to decide.
But after a conclusion to the transfer window like this, Evertonians are perfectly entitled to ask the question.
For updates on the Toffees throughout the season, take a look at our LIVE! Premier League 2026/27 News, Transfers, Updates & Viral Moments page.
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