Everton Transfer Rumours End With One Senior Striker

Everton transfer rumours about Dusan Vlahovic arriving on a free never made it to a medical. The Serbia striker signed for Besiktas in August, and David Moyes closed the summer window on 1 September with Thierno Barry as his only senior centre-forward.

The same list had Alexander Sorloth, John Stones, Guela Doue, Hayden Hackney, Jordan Pickford and Iliman Ndiaye. Hackney was the one who joined. Ndiaye was the one who moved, and he went to Manchester City.

Vlahovic Took the Turkish Money Instead

Vlahovic’s Juventus contract ran out on 30 June after renewal talks broke down. Italian journalist Nicolò Schira said the striker wanted €8 million a year plus a signing bonus, while Juventus, through chief executive Damien Comolli, held at €6 million plus extras. Giorgio Chiellini, Juventus’s director of football strategy, put the ending in public: “With these figures, he won’t remain in Italy.”

He did not remain in England either. Arsenal, Atletico Madrid, Napoli and Milan were named around him through the summer, and none of those deals landed. On 13 August Besiktas told Turkey’s public disclosure board it had signed him for three seasons, through 2028-29, on 7.5 million euros a season in guaranteed pay, with bonuses on top.

That is a pay cut from the €12 million he earned in his last Juventus campaign, and it is still a wage Everton were never going to carry for a player who had just walked. He scored 68 goals and added 16 assists in 168 games in Turin. The wage bill that ended his Turin stay followed him onto the open market, which is why a “free” striker spent July in limbo and August in Istanbul.

I arrived with the desire to become part of Juventus history. I leave knowing Juventus will forever be part of mine.

Dusan Vlahovic, farewell post after signing for Besiktas

Everton’s name sat in that gossip for a simple reason: no fee. The number that mattered was always the salary, and Besiktas wrote it down.

The Enquiry for Sorloth Never Became a Bid

Spanish journalist Matteo Moretto said Everton had asked Atletico Madrid about Alexander Sorloth, a 30-year-old Norway striker under contract until 2028. Atletico, he added, would listen around €30 million. The player himself was not interested in a move to Merseyside at the time of that enquiry.

Juventus then treated him as a Vlahovic replacement and still could not agree a fee with Madrid. By late July, Atletico’s position had hardened: unless an offer blew past €40 million, Sorloth was staying as Diego Simeone’s centre-forward. He is still there.

The enquiry told you what Moyes wanted, a big, proven No. 9. It also told you the price and the player were never aligned with Everton’s summer. When the window shut, the club had sold Beto to Fiorentina and had not replaced him.

Why Hackney Arrived After Talks Stalled

Early summer noise said Everton had stopped talks with Middlesbrough because the clubs were far apart on value. On 2 July the club announced Hayden Hackney anyway, on a five-year contract until June 2031, as Moyes’s first signing of the window. The fee stayed undisclosed.

Hackney, 24, had just been named Championship Player of the Season after captaining Middlesbrough. He told evertontv the choice was quick. “As soon as I spoke to the manager, as soon as I knew Everton were interested, to be honest, it was always going to be Everton.”

Moyes called him a player the club had tracked for some time and pointed at Everton’s habit of lifting Championship midfielders. That deal is the cleanest counter to the rest of the rumour sheet: the one that was supposed to have died was the one they finished first.

A Goalkeeper Offer Juventus Would Not Meet

Pickford was the other name that never left. In early June, Schira wrote that an intermediary had offered the England goalkeeper to Juventus. Italian coverage put Everton’s asking price around €20 million and treated that figure as the problem, not Pickford’s wages. He had signed a new deal through June 2029 the previous October and said, “I’m over the moon! I want to build a legacy here.”

Stones and Doue went the other way. Stones left Manchester City when his contract expired and joined Inter Milan on a free, the injury record that had cooled Everton still hanging over a player who had considered retirement the year before. Doue, the Strasbourg right-back Moyes liked, joined Bayer Leverkusen on 1 September, a fee that sat well above the right-back money Everton had set aside. The club’s late answer at that position was Ainsley Maitland-Niles from Lyon.

THE SUMMER RUMOUR SCOREBOARD

Read down that column of outcomes and the pattern is blunt. The glamorous incomings were noise. The sale was real.

Ndiaye Left for £60m and a Five-Year Deal

Manchester City completed a five-year deal at Manchester City for Ndiaye on 1 September. Fabrizio Romano had the club-to-club agreement the evening before, a £60m plus £5m add-on package. Ndiaye, 26, said: “I’ve worked my whole life for an opportunity like this.”

He had scored 15 Premier League goals and made four assists in 67 league games for Everton after joining from Marseille in July 2024. Last season he completed 73 of the team’s 250 dribbles, the largest share of any player in the division. He has 44 Senegal caps. Tottenham had terms with Everton on the Friday, tied to a separate move for Richarlison that never happened, and Al-Hilal had talked to him earlier in the summer. City stepped in after an £80m push for Cody Gakpo stalled.

Jack Grealish came the other way on a season-long loan, a separate deal, not a swap. Ndiaye had already turned down new contract offers at Everton. Chief executive Angus Kinnear’s staff had been asking for £70 million. They took less, and they took it on the night they also needed a striker.

EVERTON’S SEVEN SENIOR ARRIVALS

• Merlin Rohl: Permanent from Freiburg after a loan, reported at about £19m.
• Hayden Hackney: Permanent from Middlesbrough on 2 July, undisclosed fee, five-year contract.
• Tyrique George: Permanent from Chelsea, reported at more than £20m after a loan.
• Christian Norgaard: Permanent from Arsenal, reported at about £7m.
• Brennan Johnson: Straight swap from Crystal Palace, with Dwight McNeil going the other way.
• Jack Grealish: Season-long loan from Manchester City, back after a foot injury cut short his first spell.
• Ainsley Maitland-Niles: Permanent from Lyon on deadline night, reported at about £4m.

Everton’s 2026 transfer list also records the other side of the ledger: Ndiaye, Beto, Tim Iroegbunam, Nathan Patterson and McNeil out, plus Seamus Coleman and Idrissa Gana Gueye leaving on expired deals. Midfield got deeper. The No. 9 line did not.

One Senior Striker Until January

The striker Everton actually tried to buy on deadline day was Folarin Balogun, not Vlahovic. A £40m deal with Monaco was agreed. The United States forward travelled for a medical. Then the medical threw up a problem, the clubs reworked the terms, and Everton even put a deal sheet in before the 11pm cut-off to buy time. David Ornstein reported that Balogun decided not to proceed and left the training ground without signing.

Beto had already been sold to Fiorentina on the same day. Joshua Zirkzee, a possible loan from Manchester United, did not come. Tammy Abraham did not come. Monaco have since left Balogun out of their Conference League squad and are trying to move him elsewhere.

HOW DEADLINE DAY UNRAVELLED

1. 31 August 2026: Romano confirms City have a £65m package agreed for Ndiaye, with personal terms done and a medical to follow.
2. 1 September 2026: Ndiaye’s move is announced, Beto joins Fiorentina, Grealish returns on loan and Maitland-Niles signs from Lyon.
3. 1 September 2026, late: Balogun’s medical hits trouble, a deal sheet goes in, and he walks away. Barry is the only recognised senior centre-forward left.

Moyes now has 18 senior outfield players, Vitalii Mykolenko as the only specialist left-back, and one senior striker until January at the earliest. After the Carabao Cup win at Preston he had already said the squad was not big enough. By 4 September he put it shorter.

We’ve got a really small squad now.

David Moyes, after the summer window closed

Kinnear had told BBC Radio Merseyside the squad was “in a good place” and that the test was having the best available player in each position by the close of the window. Missing Europe last season, he added, was viewed as failure by the Friedkin Group. That language is now being thrown back at the chief executive, not at Moyes.

January Priority Is a Striker for Barry

People inside the club say the January window is about a centre-forward to play with Barry, and that there is little appetite for scraping the free-agent market. Links with Anthony Martial and Mauro Icardi have been played down. The attack is already thin, and River Plate’s terms for Alcaraz are another outgoing thread that has not been cut.

The Friedkin Group has been sounding out investors for a stake, with Moelis testing the water, while player sales remain part of how the club stays inside the Premier League’s squad-cost and liquidity tests. Patterson, Ndiaye and Iroegbunam were moved as that pressure peaked. Moyes’s own contract runs to the end of the season.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The hole: Barry is the only recognised senior centre-forward on the books until January.
• The plan: The next window is being framed as a striker hunt, not another free-agent sweep.
• The manager: Moyes has said the squad is too small and that some things in the window went against the club.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The names: Martial and Icardi have been played down; no replacement has been agreed.
• The backing: How much January money Kinnear and the Friedkins actually release is still unsaid.

Everton visit Tottenham on 12 September with that single No. 9. The summer rumour sheet promised Vlahovic without a fee. The squad that took the field after 1 September is still waiting on a striker who actually signs.