Everton, What Are You Doing?!

Supporting Everton is a rollercoaster. However, the ups and downs don’t come every season. Rather it’s minute-by-minute. 

Here are my ‘live’ thoughts heading into the final hour of deadline day.

As the departures of Beto and Nathan Patterson were announced, I found myself feeling jealous; jealous of the fact they have been set free of the madness that is Everton.

Then, when it was confirmed Iliman Ndiaye had also been sold and the number of exits were rising, I hoped it would continue to the point even season ticket holders would be flogged so that I could finally stop entertaining a baffling mess I have followed so intently for thirty years.

I’m writing this at 9.23pm on the night of Deadline Day. The squad is now lighter than a feather but transfers will still happen won’t they? Things can change.

But that’s the thing with Everton. No matter who is in charge, no matter who leads recruitment, who sits in the dugout or the players on the pitch. Nothing. Ever. Changes.

As it stands, we are short. So short. Short on quality always but now, short on numbers. Even if Everton bring in five players overnight, this looks a wholly unbalanced squad in which we will all suffer another patch-up job season.

At the turn of the century, Walter Smith used to play six centre-backs at times with a couple deployed in midfield. As it stands, Everton only have five defenders. There’s one full-back. We’ve sold one and loaned another out. James Garner is going to have to play seven positions in one game at this rate.

Injuries and suspensions will kill us. Even at full strength, this is going to be difficult. Another long, arduous season all of our own doing.

A two-summer plan they said. A plan though, wouldn’t involve this level of anxiety on September 1. A plan would be realising your first-choice right-back was unlikely to join and making a move to ensure another option was brought in before a ball was kicked.

I adore Everton. The suits who control what happens to the football club? I’m not as enamoured with. This just seems a crazy way for a multi-million pound business to operate.

Hey, look, I don’t work in football recruitment. I have no idea what goes on behind the scenes and don’t know the opportunities or challenges the club have had this summer.

What I do know is, as an outsider, a fan who sat in the Gwladys Street and now the South Stand, this looks bleak.

Today, the club reportedly turned down a bid for Michael Keane. He’s never been great for us and the team conceded plenty of goals when he was favoured to play last season. He’s 34 this season. Where is the foresight? Planning ahead, the club could have brought in a young up-and-coming centre-back to be fourth choice and cash in on Keane. Instead, he’ll leave on a free eventually.

The centre of the park will be the next issue next summer. You can see it a mile off. Keane and Tarkowski will be less than a year off 35; O’Brien may well be frustrated by a sustained lack of opportunities in the middle and Jarrad Branthwaite will have suitors. That looks a massive job and the groundwork with a signing should have been laid this summer.

It’s now 9.42pm and I’ve just had a Whatsapp message from a mate who has followed us for the last 15 years.

‘Ell.

Why does this happen?

Always?’

It’s a question I have asked myself a thousand times. There are no answers. Just another sigh. They must be in the hundreds of thousands now.

Nick Hammond, who is part of the current Toffees’ recruitment team, once conceded six goals against the Blues. He was Swindon’s goalkeeper in Mike Walker’s first game in charge at Goodison Park. I hope when the transfer window closes, he and his colleagues fared better this time around.

As for the comments made by CEO Angus Kinnear around the transfer window this summer… actions certainly speak louder than words. Namesake Joe Kinnear, as it stands, did a better job for Everton simply starting Hans Segers in goal for Wimbledon on the day of the Great Escape in 1994.

There’s little time left and I’m not hopeful; not for tonight and no longer for the season. Despite an unbeaten start and progress in the cup, the banality of another bizarre window has made for a vibe of bafflement.

Oh, now Tim Iroegbunam’s gone - just been announced. I didn’t rate him too highly and the club have made a profit so that’s cool. But still, it’s another player out the door and no arrivals. In the past I’d react to such a situation with baffled fury on the inside. Now, it’s just a bemused headshake and not much feeling at all.

I’m not sure ‘Where’s the Beto-Patterson-Ndiaye-Ireogbunam money?’ will even fit on a banner, anyway.

I cant be arsed with them anymore, I’m not willing to get worked up about it all

— Nick (@Yozz_1980) September 1, 2026

I hope they prove us doubters wrong. But they never ever do. And that’s what irks and hurts.

With all the finances involved in the Premier League, it’s beyond me how this level of dysfunction in a squad is possible.

One full-back. Perhaps two if it’s a good night. For a football club in the biggest league on the planet, this is unreal.

A Sunday League team who lose players to hangovers on the morning of a game end up putting together a more balanced line-up than Everton do.

The whole shebang is pure parody now. It feels like a mix of The Thick of It and The Office. The reality though goes beyond a script even the most haughty of Kopites would write for us.

Everton have done it again haven’t they? Until the football club gets serious, this will happen year after year.

*****

(Ten minutes after hitting ‘publish’, Jack Grealish was announced with a graphic of Everton donuts, harking back to the joke that the sales would contribute to his second loan. The donuts have a round hole and are kept in a square box. Makes a change from the square peg in a round hole, doesn’t it?)

*****

It will be interesting to look back on these musings come Wednesday morning, - hopefully it will be announced Everton signed seven players that satisfy exactly what we need and the worries were for nothing.

An Everton season ticket holder and football writer, you can subscribe to all of Ell Bretland's work at https://ellbretland.substack.com