Up for the corner, and Diego Gómez delivers — 7.69
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Diego Gómez scored, was marked 7.69, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Everton this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Everton heard it as anything else.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Everton can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Successful dribbles: 19. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
10 goals in 35 games at Port Vale — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Everton updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Tyrique George and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Words at Everton training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ainsley Maitland-Niles is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
The ambition story running backwards, and the one nobody tells: a footballer who wants a smaller ground, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is rarely reported as anything else.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Everton, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
A brace, and Rayan Cherki takes the afternoon — 8.23
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Rayan Cherki provided it, and the 8.23 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Notts County moved on, James Tarkowski reports back to Everton, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Christian Nørgaard and Everton agree another 2 years.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Everton are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Richard Hurtado was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ainsley Maitland-Niles was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 7 arrived, 2 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Everton hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Everton this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Rafiu Durosinmi wants continental football; whether Everton can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Everton people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The offer from Barnsley for James Tarkowski was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
1 for Hugo Magallanes, marked 7.63, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Richard Hurtado wants continental football; whether Everton can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 18-year-old it feels ownership of. Malik Olayiwola has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Everton and Wrexham have settled on $17.0M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Everton asked and Sporting CP said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Everton have gone to Wolverhampton with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.27 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
The phone has started ringing about James Garner again, and this time the name on the line is Watford. Everton are listening politely and promising nothing.
The offer from Bromley for Braiden Graham was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
500 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Richard Hurtado and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Andrew Simmons after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
A 1‑0 win over Watford, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Tyrique George, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.72
A mark of 7.72 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Richard Hurtado was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
At 20 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
A performance of 8.40 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Andrew Simmons, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Everton heard it as anything else.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Everton can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Everton this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Andrew Simmons was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Everton dressing room was either.
Nobody at Everton will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Everton can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Richard Hurtado and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Leeds United left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Andrew Simmons left the room before anybody could ask which.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Successful dribbles: 13. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Everton have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
1 for Ainsley Maitland-Niles, marked 7.56, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Everton heard it as anything else.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Everton, and 4 appearances in 11 say he has earned the hearing.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Everton told Jack Grealish something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Andrew Simmons after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Everton can pretend not to have heard.
Richard Hurtado and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Andrew Simmons after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
8 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
Nobody at Everton is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.04 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Richard Hurtado was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Brennan Johnson. 2‑1 against West Ham United, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
At 38, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Andrew Simmons could afford to be generous.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Sunderland in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Everton, and it is not being withdrawn.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Braiden Graham is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Carlos Alcaraz was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ainsley Maitland-Niles was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Jack Grealish and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Richard Hurtado wants continental football; whether Everton can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Successful dribbles: 16. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. James Garner may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Andrew Simmons chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Burnley defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Everton asked and Bournemouth said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and Everton agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Everton heard it as anything else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Everton this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
The clubs have shaken hands with Wolverhampton; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
The offer went to Bournemouth this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Everton close the window on a squad of their own making
6 in and 10 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $25.3M — a club that wants Fer López enough to be asked twice.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 17 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Add another name to the list: Barnet have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Braiden Graham. The answer from Everton has not changed — yet.
Union Berlin paid $66.6M and Everton took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Leeds United have kept their man, and Everton go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The chase for Richard Hurtado ended with $7.1M changing hands and Valledupar out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Iliman N'Diaye has gone, the accounts have $66.6M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
Everton had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Derby County, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Braiden Graham is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Ajax Cape Town pay $440.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Valledupar, and it is not being withdrawn.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Newcastle United have kept their man, and Everton go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The deal with Valledupar is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Everton have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Everton training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ainsley Maitland-Niles is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Valledupar people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Valledupar, and it is not being withdrawn.
Richard Hurtado was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
In brief
SquadWords at Valledupar training over how hard people work
Out, 0‑3 to Atletico Nacional, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valledupar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Fabian Caicedo after 0‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Valledupar will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Richard Hurtado and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Edwin Rodriguez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Valledupar will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Danilo Braga trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Valledupar hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Danilo Braga trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rafael Diaz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Valledupar will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
José Ramírez Agudelo arrives at 36 with nothing left to prove and plenty left to pass on. Legs are a young man's currency; knowing where to stand never ages.