The end to Everton's summer transfer window has prompted fury and disbelief - and many are understandably demanding answers
Everton chief executive Angus Kinnear plus (inset) Dan Friedkin and son Ryan (top) with Folarin Balogun (bottom)
Everton chief executive Angus Kinnear plus (inset) Dan Friedkin and son Ryan (top) with Folarin Balogun (bottom)
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Those running Everton asked to be judged at the end of the transfer window and as such, they are being met with a damning verdict.
Many loyal but long-suffering supporters are understandably furious while numerous, well-respected voices within football have been left perplexed by what has unfolded to leave David Moyes, the manager who steered the Blues to nine top eight finishes during his first spell in charge, including their highest-ever Premier League position of fourth, with a paltry 18 outfield players in his senior squad.
Moyes knows this competition inside out. Only serial title winners Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United and Arsene Wenger at Arsenal have taken charge of more Premier League matches than him and picked up more Premier League points.
Later this autumn, the 63-year-old is on course to become Everton’s longest-serving manager of all-time. This correspondent has stated on numerous occasions that he has shown himself to arguably be the only man in the modern era to be able to manage this club when any degree of success over a sustained period.
READ MORE: Inside Everton's transfer window - club has serious questions to answer after damaging failure
Having been silent in public for most of the summer, once the action started and he finally opened his mouth, Moyes repeatedly warned that this squad needed strengthening if it was to be competitive this season. He also cautioned that late sales would make it difficult to bring in replacements.
Yet, on deadline day, the club added just one additional face from 2025/26, pocketing over £100million in sales as they lost their star player plus last season’s top scorer too only to see a move for Monaco’s USA international Folarin Balogun collapse.
Moyes deserves better than this. Much better. And so do beleaguered Blues, who once again are the biggest victims in this farce.
Despite enduring the longest silverware drought in their history – now into its 32nd year – and sharing a city with a global football superpower who ended the transfer window with the Premier League’s biggest net spend, Evertonians continue to passionately back their team in record numbers.
They regularly sold out matches by the Mersey waterfront as the average gate for 2025/26 was 52,121, eclipsing their previous best of 51,603 set in the 1962/63 title-winning campaign, the only previous occasion they had topped the 50,000 figure over the course of an entire season.
Wherever Blues go on their travels, they always take their full allocation and it was no different of course at Bournemouth last Saturday when those who had made the 520-mile return trip from Merseyside to Dorset made their feeling loud and clear over the proposed sale of Harrison Armstrong, one of their own, who has been with Everton since he was five years old and was featured in a promotional video about the club put out by The Friedkin Group last year.
Within hours of the window closing, the 1878s, a prominent Everton fans’ group who have been dedicated to improving the atmosphere on matchdays, put out a statement to say they are standing down for the foreseeable future due to their disappointment and disgust over how the transfer window has played out, reiterating that they do not feel that the fanbase’s ambitions and the club’s ambitions align right now and what happened on deadline day proved that even more.
Subsequently, the Everton Fans’ Forum have also issued a statement in which they state: “The conclusion of this summer’s transfer window leaves Everton supporters with serious questions about the club’s planning, recruitment and decision-making, adding the decision to allow players to leave without having suitable replacements secured has left the squad looking dangerously short in key areas.”
As a result, they are demanding competence, preparation and accountability. They say they believe “supporters deserve a clear explanation of what went wrong during this transfer window, why key targets were not secured and what measures will be put in place to ensure these failures are not repeated.”
It’s not just angry Everton supporters on the ground who are speaking out though.
Highly decorated and highly respected sports journalist Henry Winter observed on Tuesday morning: “At the very least, Everton owe their frustrated fans some form of explanation for that chaotic, embarrassing and deeply disappointing transfer window.”
Both Phil McNulty, chief football writer for BBC Sport, and Andy Hunter, Merseyside football correspondent for the Guardian described the situation as “a shambles,” while the ECHO’s Everton correspondent Joe Thomas spoke of how the transfer window ended in “disarray” for the Blues.
Such conclusions are poles apart from the pretty picture self-proclaimed “natural optimist” Angus Kinnear tried to paint in his interview with BBC Radio Merseyside’s Giulia Bould on August 19. But you need competence and a clear strategy to compete in world football’s toughest domestic division though, and much more than mere optimism.
Kinnear insisted: “I think the squad we have is really strong. I think we’ve made it stronger.”
Could he honestly look us all in the eye and say that is still the case on September 2 with just one recognised striker, one right-back and one left-back in the squad?
Everyone will be wishing the best of luck to Ainsley Maitland-Niles after he finally became the surprise solution to Everton’s 18-month search for a new right-back, an issue that even Prime Minister Andy Burnham spoke out on. But the 29-year-old is going to have to hope the Blues prove a more fruitful destination for him having been relegated in his previous two Premier League assignments with West Bromwich Albion and Southampton.
Kinnear acknowledged right-back was a top priority in the window – nobody could deny that – and claiming that top targets were still available, announced: “We’re working hard to bring one in, I’m sure it will be an improvement and I’m sure it will round off the squad nicely.”
Yet it seemed galling to see Everton’s most exciting option Guela Doue, who Moyes had scouted thoroughly, including watching him up close in Ivory Coast’s 1-0 win over Scotland at Hill Dickinson Stadium on March 31, leave Strasbourg for Bayer Leverkusen on deadline day in a £25.72million deal.
New Bayer Leverkusen signing Guela Doue on September 1, 2026
New Bayer Leverkusen signing Guela Doue on September 1, 2026(Image: Frederic Scheidemann/Bayer 04 Leverkusen via Getty Images)
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Earlier in the week, Brentford had paid £35million plus add ons for a full-back in the shape of El Hadji Malick Diouf, yet the Blues were left scrambling around with the name of Kenny Tete – who snubbed them last summer to bolster his new deal at Fulham instead – being mentioned again before Maitland-Niles was snapped up from Olympique Lyonnais. His fee was understood to be in the region of £4million, which considering Everton were paying higher prices than that for stars when Joe Royle was at the helm a generation ago, is loose change in Premier League terms these days.
Indeed, while Hill Dickinson Stadium chiefs could on one hand be applauded for relative bargain buys such as getting Championship Player of the Season Hayden Hackney from Middlesbrough for £16.5million, Christian Norgaard from Arsenal for £7million (if he ever gets fit), doing a swap with Crystal Palace to trade Dwight McNeil for Brennan Johnson and negotiating down Tyrique George’s price with Chelsea to an initial £18million, it now feels as though Moyes is being set up for a fall with a parsimonious attempt to demand European qualification on the cheap.
Kinnear said: “This window again, I think we will spend more than most of our competitors, the owners are very keen to back us.”
However, a graphic produced by Sky Sports on Tuesday after the window closed shows Everton down in 15th place among Premier League clubs when it comes to net spend. Indeed, they were one of just half a dozen teams to make a trading profit.
We have been told that Kinnear is the mouthpiece for The Friedkin Group with the Blues’ current owners preferring to operate in the background and keep a low profile – an approach that has been markedly different to their more hands-on role at Roma – but someone has to speak now and explain these failings, and they quite clearly are failings.
Evertonians know more than anyone about the dangers of having a meddling owner who tries to play out Fantasy Football in real life, instead of leaving the sporting side of the operation to the experts. But you cannot spout about missing out on Europe last season being a failure and “appropriate pressure to have everything place to go to the next stage,” then not give your manager the resources to rectify that or the supporters the squad they desire to fulfil that.
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Kinnear divulged of The Friedkin Group: “While they don’t speak publicly, what I can say is that 90% of my conversations with them aren’t about revenue generation, they’re not about ownership structures, they’re not about organisational pieces, they’re about how do we win more football matches They have bought Everton to win football matches.”
If that’s true, then we all deserve an explanation and accountability over this transfer window and the undesirable position it has left the Blues in.