Moyes Turns to Free-Agent Market as Everton Faces Squad Crisis
David Moyes has admitted Everton are scouring the free-agent market after a bruising end to the transfer window left his squad short in key areas.
The Everton manager, speaking before Sunday’s trip to Manchester United, laid out the scale of the problem. Late exits for Iliman Ndiaye, Beto, Tim Iroegbunam, Adam Aznou and Nathan Patterson have stripped depth from a group already walking a tightrope.
Both full-back positions are now alarmingly light. Centre-forward is just as exposed. In each of those roles, Moyes has only one established senior option to lean on.
So the search has started.
“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.”
The transfer deadline has passed, but Everton’s work has not. Players who remain unattached after the window shut can still be signed, provided they are registered before a secondary cut-off, believed to fall roughly a week after the official close.
That narrow window now carries real weight for the club.
Disappointment and a deal that collapsed late
Moyes did not hide his frustration with how the summer finished. Everton pushed to strengthen, but the final days unravelled, with the collapse of Folarin Balogun’s proposed deadline-day move the most painful blow.
“Disappointed we didn’t do more business and disappointed things didn’t go our way in the end,” he said. “Sometimes in football you have to live with disappointment and we will move on.”
The Balogun saga could easily have become a blame game. Moyes shut that down.
“It wasn’t anybody’s fault,” he insisted. “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. Quickly.
A squad that was supposed to emerge from the window ready to push “at the top end and challenge” is instead being patched together from the list of out-of-contract players. The strategy is hardly ideal, but for Moyes, the message to his dressing room is clear: the club must still look like it is moving forward.
Whether the free-agent market can provide enough quality to match that ambition is the question that will shadow Everton into the new week.
