Moyes Explores Free-Agent Market After Everton's Transfer Window Setbacks
David Moyes has admitted Everton are scouring the free-agent market in a bid to repair the damage of a bruising end to the transfer window.
Speaking before Sunday’s trip to Manchester United, the Everton manager laid out the scale of the problem. Late exits for Iliman Ndiaye, Beto, Tim Iroegbunam, Adam Aznou and Nathan Patterson have stripped his squad of numbers and experience at the very moment the season begins to bite.
Both full-back positions are exposed. So is centre-forward. In each of those roles, Moyes is effectively working with just one senior option.
That is why the club’s recruitment work has not stopped with the closing of the window. Players without a club can still be signed, and Everton intend to exploit that loophole. Any new arrival, though, must be registered by a secondary cut-off point understood to fall roughly a week after the official deadline.
“We are looking at the free agents market,” Moyes said. “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.”
His words carried a hint of defiance, but also frustration. Everton went into deadline day hoping to strengthen; instead, they emerged lighter and with one marquee deal in pieces.
The collapse of Folarin Balogun’s proposed move summed up the chaos. The striker appeared set to arrive before the window shut, only for the transfer to fall through after his medical.
Moyes refused to point fingers.
“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.
“It wasn’t anybody’s fault. 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.”
So Everton pivot. The data analysts and scouts are now trawling through the list of unattached players, searching for experience at full-back and a body who can ease the burden up front.
The budget is tight, the timeline even tighter. But with Manchester United looming and a long season stretching ahead, Moyes knows the next free signing through the door might end up defining Everton’s campaign.
