Everton's four transfer priorities - and three players on Moyes's wishlist
There have been tensions between Moyes and the rest of Everton's recruitment team - but hope is not lost this summer with one last push before deadline day
Everton are monitoring Nathan Ake (Photo: Getty)
August 22, 2025 11:00 am (Updated 11:54 am)
Everton still want to sign four new players before the end of the month, with Premier League-ready targets who can “plug in and play” at the top of the wishlist.
It is a challenging ask for a club who have faced an uphill task this summer to rebuild a squad that lost 11 senior players at the end of last season.
There is quiet satisfaction about some of their additions – Jack Grealish is the marquee arrival but Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall’s signing is understood to be more typical of the blueprint they’re working to.
Yet there haven’t been enough new faces who are ready from day one to make it an easy landing for David Moyes’s new era.
Those issues have made it a tense run-up to their first competitive fixture at Hill Dickinson Stadium on Sunday, when a response to their tepid defeat at newly-promoted Leeds is sorely needed.
The Leeds defeat was a wake-up call (Photo: Getty)
That loss came after weeks of Moyes warning that his side wasn’t ready as they struggle to strike the right balance in their recruitment drive – and his dire warnings were proved correct at a charged-up Elland Road.
The answer in the short term has been to refocus recruitment efforts. While Moyes has the undisputed final say in transfer dealings, there have occasionally been tensions over targets in the newly-formed transfer committee of the Scot, Angus Kinnear and Nicky Hammond.
That was to be expected given the scale of the rebuild this summer and sources stress they have worked well together but Everton now face a decision: move on to targets who are attainable right now or continue to wait it out until closer to September’s deadline for players who belong in the next tier up but who they have had a mixed record in signing?
Everton’s transfer targets
Everton’s priority is a right-winger – they are toying with another approach for Tyler Dibling, although Southampton’s demands have been prohibitive until now and Spurs are emerging as a rival – and need a full-back and a central midfielder.
They are also looking for another striker, with Thierno Barry still considered enough of a work-in-progress that he isn’t ready to shoulder the burden of leading the line just yet.
That verdict – which sounds curious given Everton spent £27.6m on him this summer – is based on performances in training which have revealed a rawness to the player.
Moyes believes that blooding him in more gradually, as is the current plan, will allow him to fulfil his undoubted potential, even if it does rely on Beto to perform a great deal better than he did on Monday.
Alternatives are understood to include former Burnley man Josh Brownhill, who is a free agent and scored 18 goals in the Championship last season. But with the club still needing to be mindful of the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules (PSR), his wage demands might yet sink that deal.
In defence Manchester City’s Nathan Ake is an interesting and ambitious option that has been explored. Everton want a defender who can play across several positions – a box that Ake ticks – but City could be reluctant to allow the Netherlands international to leave.
Sunday marks the exciting start of a new era at Everton – but the anxieties of more recent times haven’t been shaken off just yet.
“Alternatives include Josh Brownhill” - does he think he’s a striker or something???
