Moyes returns to Everton: Replacing Calvert-Lewin with Brighton striker among six moves for perfect January

After nearly 12 years away, David Moyes returns to Goodison Park just as much a hero as when he left, somewhat remarkably as the tiki-taka-adjacent antidote to his predecessor.

The future may be brighter following the Friedkin Group’s takeover of the club and a new stadium ready to go next season, but things look incredibly bleak right now and Moyes arrives with his beloved Toffees knee-deep in a relegation battle.

Sean Dyche’s sacking reportedly means he will have less than nothing to spend in January, but he desperately needs fresh faces to aid a depleted and ailing squad.

They will have to sell to buy, which won’t be easy when you assess their saleable assets, or rely on short-term deals to ensure their safety this season. We’ve come up with six moves – three exits and three arrivals – because any more than that would be absurdly optimistic, in what we reckon is the best Moyes can hope for in his first transfer window back at the helm.

We’ve already done similar for Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal and Graham Potter’s West Ham, if you’re interested.

Beto out

On the surface it seems incredible that having signed Beto for £21m 18 months ago Everton have the gall to refuse all offers below £16.6m for a striker who’s scored eight goals for them.

But having dug a little deeper it’s in fact far more incredible that in their desperate quest for goals they haven’t used him more, with his coming at a half-decent rate – certainly by Everton striker standards – of one every 220 minutes.

That’s over 15 Premier League goals if you spread it over the season; a tally bettered by just three players – Tony Cottee (16 in 1993/94), Romelu Lukaku (18 in 2015/16; 25 in 2016/17) and Dominic Calvert Lewin (16 in 2020/21) – in their Premier League history.

That sounds like a reason to keep him but as pretty much the only player on their books they would be willing to sell that they can get any money for, he’s got to go.

Idrissa Gueye out

He’s 35 and out of contract in the summer so it might be easiest to let him see that deal out and be on his merry way, but the guy’s Everton’s third-highest earner on £120,000-a-week, below only Jordan Pickford (£125,000-a-week) and Abdoulaye Doucoure (£130,000-a-week), and it would be great to have six months without him on the wage bill.

Doucoure’s deal is also up in the summer and if Everton can attract bidders for him as well as Gueye in January – let’s face it, probably from Saudi Arabia – they should accept any offer going, because they’ve both been entirely rubbish.

Dominic Calvert-Lewin out

On the subject of out-of-contract layabouts. Calvert-Lewin’s scoring record since that 16-goal season in 2020/2021 is absolutely honking. He’s scored 17 Premier League goals – less than Mohamed Salah has managed so far this season – in 85 games, at a rate of a goal every 360 minutes. Shocking.

And yet having phoned it in for at least the last year, at this point for no reason other than his contract being up at the end of the season, teams continue to be linked with him. It was Arsenal and Chelsea in the summer and now Bournemouth.

Don’t try to fix him Moyesy. He’s done. Send him packing.

Evan Ferguson in

Just when we thought Everton couldn’t be in more need of a striker, after scoring a paltry 15 goals in 20 Premier League games, embarrassingly drawing a blank in four of their last five, poor old Armando Broja – having only just returned from an Achilles problem that’s meant he’s started just two games for Everton on loan from Chelsea – was receiving oxygen between screams of pain after going down late on in the win over Peterborough on Thursday.

It looked as if he will be out for a significant period, and with other strikers not scoring as they look towards inevitable exits, quite simply, if Everton don’t sign a striker they are going to go down.

No-one would have thought Everton could be in with a sniff of signing Ferguson, who was at one stage tipped for £100m moves to Chelsea or Manchester United, but two years after his debut for Brighton he’s at a point in his career where he needs to be playing football.

Moyes’ old side West Ham should be keen as well and Graham Potter may provide an added draw as he gave Ferguson his debut, with Everton’s hopes presumably resting on the 20-year-old being attracted to the idea of it being impossible to be worse than the current crop of so-called goalscorers.

James Ward Prowse in

We have absolutely no idea why West Ham let him leave on loan as their central midfielders are crap, or why Nuno Espírito Santo wanted him at Nottingham Forest as he’s barely played. It’s a bit weird that a guy who was playing in midfield for England two years ago now can’t get a game at Forest, but not so weird when you consider Forest have ripped up guides, rulebooks and whatever else as they sit third in the actual Premier League.

He would definitely get a game at Everton and having been excellent under Moyes at West Ham, scoring goals and providing some composure in midfield sorely lacking in the Toffees’, here’s hoping they can persuade West Ham to call him back from his Forest loan to instead lend them a hand.

Miguel Almiron in

It may feel a bit desperate but Everton are desperate and that’s also a tad unfair. Almiron’s not been playing for Newcastle but that’s more down to Jacob Murphy’s outstanding and entirely unforeseeable form.

He wants out and the Toon bosses are hoping they can a decent fee through a permanent transfer in January, but failing that they would presumably want him off the wage bill, at which point a loan offer from Everton – who could really do with a right winger to balance the team with Iliman Ndiaye one of the only positives for them on the other side – will be tempting.

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