Moyes Eyes Free-Agent Market as Everton Faces Deadline Exodus
David Moyes will head to Old Trafford this weekend knowing his squad is light in all the wrong places – and that the only lifeline now lies in the free-agent market.
The Everton manager confirmed on Friday that the club are actively trawling for unattached players after a bruising end to the transfer window stripped depth from key areas of his team.
Late-window departures for Iliman Ndiaye, Beto, Tim Iroegbunam, Adam Aznou and Nathan Patterson have left Everton short across the pitch. Both full-back positions are exposed, and there is just a single senior centre-forward on the books. For a manager talking about pushing towards the “top end”, it is a thin platform to stand on.
Free agents offer the only route to reinforcements. Players without a club can still be signed outside the window, though they must be registered before a separate cut-off point understood to fall roughly a week after the deadline.
Moyes, speaking at his pre-match press conference ahead of Sunday’s trip to Manchester United, did not hide the club’s current reality.
“We are looking at the free agents market,” he 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.”
The words carried a clear edge. Everton wanted more from this window. They did not get it.
The most painful twist came on deadline day, when a move for Folarin Balogun collapsed at the final stage. With the fanbase already anxious about the lack of attacking depth, the failed deal could easily have become a lightning rod. Moyes, though, 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 [the failed Balogun deal]. 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 move on, but with little margin for error. Every missed tackle at full-back, every misfiring performance from the lone senior striker, will only sharpen the focus on what comes next in the free-agent hunt.
Moyes wants a side that believes it is climbing, not clinging on. The next name through the door – or the lack of one – will say plenty about which of those futures awaits.
