Charly Alcaraz Nears Everton Exit as River Plate Ask Terms

River Plate have asked Everton about the exit terms for Charly Alcaraz, barely thirteen months after he became the first permanent signing of the club’s Friedkin Group era. Argentine journalist Germán García Grova reported the enquiry on June 9, and Everton have yet to give a formal answer.

The timing traces back to the table. A thirteenth-place finish cost Everton the European football that would have funded a deeper squad, and it has left David Moyes short on transfer cash and long on midfielders he barely uses. Alcaraz, once tipped as a bargain find, is now the name most often attached to a summer clearout built on necessity rather than choice.

River Plate Ask Everton for Alcaraz’s Exit Terms

García Grova’s report was specific. River Plate asked about the conditions for an Alcaraz exit, and Everton had not responded on whether they would sell outright or consider a loan. The 23-year-old attacking midfielder made 20 Premier League appearances this season, six of them starts.

Everton are not desperate. One club-focused outlet reported the Toffees are not actively trying to offload Alcaraz, only that they would cash in if the right offer arrived. That distinction matters. It gives Moyes leverage, but it does not change the underlying math facing a club that just missed out on European revenue.

A Missed European Place Leaves Moyes Needing to Sell

Everton were sitting in a European spot with seven matches left in the 2025-26 season. They finished thirteenth. That collapse cost the club a financial boost that typically comes with continental qualification, and it reshaped the entire summer window around raising funds rather than simply spending them.

Everton chief executive Angus Kinnear addressed the financial picture directly in his final programme notes of the season, describing a two-summer window plan designed to build squad depth gradually rather than all at once. That plan now runs through players like Alcaraz, whose sale would help balance books stretched by four incoming deals already completed this summer.

Moyes is left choosing which reliable squad players get cashed in purely to make the ledger work. Alcaraz, signed permanently for around £13 million ($16.5 million) last year, fits that profile uncomfortably well.

The Numbers Behind a Lost Season

The contrast between Alcaraz’s two Everton spells is stark. During his loan half-season, he started fast and never really stopped. This season, he barely got going.

The drop shows up everywhere. Alcaraz finished the season with 685 minutes and a single assist all season, an average match rating of 6.65 and four yellow cards, according to FotMob. Across his whole Premier League career, spanning Southampton and Everton since 2023, Opta’s data shows 54 Premier League appearances with six goals and six assists, a modest return for a player once seen as a creative spark.

During that debut loan spell, though, he ranked in the 86th percentile among Europe’s top-five-league attacking midfielders for assists and the 88th percentile for progressive passes, numbers that explain why Everton moved to sign him permanently in the first place.

Why River Turned to Alcaraz After Almada Stalled

River Plate’s interest is not a first choice turning into a second. Argentine outlet Olé reported that River had prioritized a move for playmaker Thiago Almada, only for Atlético Madrid, who hold half of Almada’s economic rights, to demand around €20 million for their stake. That price stalled the deal and pushed River’s recruitment staff to look elsewhere.

River Plate sporting director Pablo Longoria has been scouting European squads, and Alcaraz caught his attention. Head coach Eduardo Coudet is said to like the player’s energy and versatility, qualities that showed up in flashes during his loan spell but rarely translated into consistent output this season.

What sealed the interest, according to that reporting, was Alcaraz’s recent game time. He played in four of Everton’s final five Premier League matches of the season yet totaled just 12 minutes across them, a detail that reportedly did not go unnoticed among Argentine observers tracking his situation.

A Congested Engine Room at Hill Dickinson

Even a clean bill of health would not guarantee Alcaraz a route back into Moyes’s team. Everton’s central midfield options have multiplied, not thinned, since he arrived.

• Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall – arrived from Chelsea and quickly became the first choice in the number ten role Alcaraz once auditioned for.
• James Garner – a versatile presence who has covered at right-back and is fielding fresh interest from Nottingham Forest in James Garner of his own this summer.
• Hayden Hackney – the reigning Championship Player of the Season, signed from Middlesbrough to add fresh central midfield competition before pre-season has even started.
• Merlin Röhl – his loan made permanent, giving Moyes another body competing for the same deeper midfield slots.

Idrissa Gana Gueye’s contract expired at the end of June with no fresh terms agreed, which should open a gap in experience. But with Hackney and Röhl both added this summer, that gap looks more likely to be filled by a new arrival than by Alcaraz reclaiming a regular shirt.

Five Clubs, Five Fresh Starts

Alcaraz’s path to Merseyside has never followed a straight line. Since his professional debut, he has changed clubs roughly once a year, and each move has followed a similar shape: quick promise, then a swift exit.

1. January 2020: Makes his professional debut for Racing Club in a 1-1 draw with Atlético Tucumán.
2. January 2023: Southampton sign him from Racing Club for a reported £12 million, with Racing Club said to have negotiated a sell-on percentage.
3. January 2024: Joins Juventus on loan, where he wins the Coppa Italia before returning to Southampton.
4. August 2024: Flamengo pay a club-record fee of around €18 million, their biggest transfer ever.
5. January 2025: Joins Everton on loan and scores the winner on his first league start, against Crystal Palace.
6. May 2025: Everton trigger a permanent deal, making Alcaraz the first permanent signing of the Friedkin Group era. The club confirmed the permanent switch from Flamengo that month.
7. June 2026: River Plate enquire about the terms of a possible exit.

Flamengo’s experience is instructive. Having paid a club-record fee for Alcaraz only months earlier, financial strain forced them to loan him out that same winter, then sell permanently for well below what they had spent. Everton risk repeating that exact pattern if a River Plate deal gets done at a discount this summer.

Does David Moyes Still Want Alcaraz to Stay?

Moyes personally pushed to keep Alcaraz through the spring, and sources told Football Insider in April he was “adamant” about not selling. By June, Everton’s own stance had shifted toward listening to offers, a sign the manager’s preference alone will not settle this.

Ahead of an April fixture against Brentford, with Alcaraz still working his way back from injury, Moyes gave reporters an update on his fitness.

They’re all fine, the players are fine. We’ve got just about a fully-fit squad. Charly Alcaraz is back in early training, so he’s not available for the game, but he’s getting fitter again.

David Moyes, Everton manager, speaking to reporters that week. Injuries have genuinely complicated Alcaraz’s season, and Moyes has pointed to that run of fitness problems as much as form when explaining his limited minutes. But sympathy from the dugout does not fund a right-back or a new striker, and that is the tension defining Everton’s summer.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much did Everton pay for Charly Alcaraz?

Everton’s permanent deal for Alcaraz, completed in May 2025, was reported at around £13 million, though earlier accounts put the base fee closer to £12.5 million with performance add-ons of up to £1.5 million. FotMob currently values him at about €16.5 million, above what Everton is realistically likely to recoup this summer.

Why are River Plate interested in Alcaraz now?

River Plate had prioritized a move for Atlético Madrid-linked playmaker Thiago Almada, but a roughly €20 million valuation for half his economic rights stalled that deal. Sporting director Pablo Longoria and head coach Eduardo Coudet turned to Alcaraz partly because his fringe role at Everton, including just 12 minutes across four appearances at the end of last season, made a move look realistic.

Is Alcaraz definitely leaving Everton this summer?

No deal is close. Everton have not formally responded to River Plate’s enquiry, and one report stressed the club is not actively trying to offload him, only that it would cash in for the right offer. He remains under contract until 2027, with an option for a further year.

Could Alcaraz play as a striker for Everton?

It has been floated by at least one pundit as a way to unlock his pace and movement, though Moyes has used him almost exclusively as an attacking midfielder since signing him. A move to River Plate would also send him to a rival of Racing Club, the Buenos Aires side that first developed him as a teenager.