Everton's Transfer Plans: Focus on Hayden Hackney and West Ham Links
Everton’s summer has not yet sparked into life, but the rumour mill around Goodison Park is already running hot – and West Ham United sit right at the centre of it.
The transfer window officially opens today. Everton have no deals in place, no unveiling staged, but plenty of plans in motion.
At the top of the list is Hayden Hackney. The Middlesbrough midfielder, freshly crowned Championship Player of the Season, is understood to want the move. Everton want him too. The only stumbling block is the fee it will take to pull him away from his boyhood club, and those negotiations are ongoing. For now, Hackney is the concrete pursuit in a summer otherwise fuelled by whispers.
And those whispers keep drifting back to relegated West Ham.
That link is no mystery. David Moyes knows the club, knows the dressing room, and knows exactly the type of player West Ham have stockpiled – the type Everton lack. Relegation usually signals a fire sale. Agents circle. Premier League clubs lurk. Everton are among them, watching closely.
Midfield is already a live discussion. With Hackney in the frame, it is unclear whether Moyes will revive his interest in Tomas Soucek, the experienced West Ham midfielder he tried to sign last summer. The need for legs and presence in the middle is obvious, but so is the reality of budgets and priorities. One big midfield signing might close the door on another.
Right-back is another long-running issue. The position remains a priority, yet last month it emerged that Aaron Wan-Bissaka was not being actively pursued at that stage, despite his name being floated. Everton are looking, but not at any price and not at every option.
On the left flank of defence, the picture is more nuanced. Vitalii Mykolenko, steady and reliable, has just signed a new three-year contract. Everton value his solidity. Still, they have been linked with El Hadji Malick Diouf, an attacking left-back who would offer a very different profile – more thrust, more risk, more ambition down that side. It is the kind of balance modern squads crave: one full-back to lock things down, another to break lines and stretch games.
Further forward, the dream name is Jarrod Bowen. Moyes would love to work with his former player again. Bowen, now West Ham captain, brings goals, work rate and leadership from wide areas – precisely the kind of all-round forward Everton have missed. But he will not be short of admirers. Any move for him would be a heavyweight contest, not a quiet negotiation.
The same applies, in a different way, to Crysencio Summerville. The winger, already admired for his pace and direct running, has only burnished his reputation with a fine goal for Ronald Koeman’s Netherlands in their World Cup opener against Japan on Sunday night. He offers exactly what Everton’s attack often lacks: raw speed and the ability to hurt teams in transition. That profile alone guarantees competition.
Up front, the dilemma is familiar. Everton are open to exploring the striker market, but there is a hard truth at play: proven centre-forwards are scarce and expensive. They know it. Everyone knows it. The club will move if an affordable, realistic option appears. If not, they will not force it.
One name has surfaced as a possible opportunity. A report in The Guardian suggested at the weekend that Taty Castellanos could be on Everton’s radar. The 27-year-old Argentina international only joined West Ham from Lazio in January and could not prevent their slide into the Championship, but he did score seven goals in 22 appearances. It is a record that hints at potential value, particularly if West Ham were braced to offload assets after relegation.
Except that assumption is now being challenged from inside the London club.
There had been a widespread belief that West Ham would need to cash in on big names to steady the books outside the Premier League. On Saturday, though, a development at boardroom level shifted the narrative. Daniel Kretinsky, already a major shareholder, agreed a deal with the family of the late David Gold to buy some of their shares. If completed, the move will lift his stake in the club to 43 per cent.
With that, came a clear message.
In an exclusive interview with The Times, Kretinsky set out his stance. He wants to keep the bulk of the squad together and give Nuno Espirito Santo the tools to bounce straight back up at the first attempt. This is not a club resigned to losing its stars; it is a club trying to ringfence them.
“We have a very credible strategy. We don’t need to sell the players for financial reasons. We are doing this to make sure we are promoted back to the Premier League immediately. That is our only goal,” he said.
He went further, stressing the importance of reassurance in a fragile moment after relegation.
“Key players are waiting for us. They want to see there is a real chance of keeping the squad together. What matters is funding, strategy and consistency.
“We have spoken to all of them. They need to see that our project is real and serious. Promotion is our only goal.”
Those words land loudly on Merseyside. Every Everton enquiry now runs into a West Ham hierarchy determined not to be picked apart. Any move for Bowen, Soucek, Castellanos or others will not be a bargain hunt; it will be a negotiation with a club trying to power its own promotion charge.
So Everton’s summer takes shape in the usual Premier League tension: ambition against budget, opportunity against resistance. Hackney remains the live chase. The West Ham links remain tempting, but complicated.
The window has only just opened. The question now is whether Everton can turn all this noise into the kind of deals that actually change a season.
