“I have watched this squad. There is more in it than the table says.” First press conference, first promise — Memphis Gakpo made the one every new manager makes, and now comes the part where it gets checked.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Everton have lost him in all but the paperwork.
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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Tyler Dibling falls out with a teammate over standards
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 new manager did not pick last season’s side and does not care what it looked like. Nick Woltemade has taken that personally, in the best sense, and Everton are seeing a version of him the last regime had stopped seeing.
Everton asked and Bradford City said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“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 The request is on a desk at Everton, and it is not being withdrawn.
Add another name to the list: Chelsea have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Tyler Dibling. The answer from Everton has not changed — yet.
The target is Memphis Gakpo, the approach is real, and the compensation clause is the whole conversation. Clubs deny this kind of story right up until the photograph.
Squad24 Jul 2028
Tyler Dibling falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
Middlesbrough have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
“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.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Accrington Stanley had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Tyrique George 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 Ainsley Maitland-Niles was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Everton would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Derry Murkin has written the date down.
In brief
The dugoutJack Patterson asks for a word with the manager
A Everton player has won an international tournament, and there is no version of that sentence a club page can print without a certain amount of borrowed glory. He goes back into training in a fortnight with 3 caps and a medal nobody here had anything to do with.
Everton have gone to Chelsea 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.
Day 9 of the vacancy. Candidates have been priced, sounded out and quietly ruled out — and the caretaker’s win ratio is becoming an argument all by itself.
Everton asked and Manchester United said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Words at Everton training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tyler Dibling 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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Everton will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
“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.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
“Somebody has to pick the team on Saturday, and this week that is me.” An interim appointment with no promises attached, which is how most of them start.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. West Ham United have kept their man, and Everton go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“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.
Matthijs de Ligt 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.
Everton offered $500.0K; Chelsea said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Stoke City have kept their man, and Everton go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Dean Henderson wants continental football; whether Everton can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
$500.0K on the table at Chelsea. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The name of Jannik Vestergaard has come up in conversations Everton were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Everton are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
The fee is $70.5M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Manchester United drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Everton and Stoke City have settled on $3.4M. 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.
The phone has started ringing about Jake O'Brien again, and this time the name on the line is Millwall. Everton are listening politely and promising nothing.
Nick Woltemade 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.
Everton had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Queens Park Rangers, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Matthijs de Ligt from Manchester United for $70.5M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Aston Villa have kept their man, and Everton go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
In brief
SquadWords at Everton training over how hard people work
“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.
The fee is $16.2M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Norwich City drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Carlos Alcaraz was one of the reasons people came, and $39.2M does not replace that by itself.
Everton asked and Chelsea said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Nick Woltemade 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Martin Sherif and Everton agree another 5 years.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Words at Everton training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tyler Dibling 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Stoke City waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Everton is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The offer went to Norwich City 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.
“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.
“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.
Everton offered $2.0M; Nottingham Forest said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
“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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Everton have done the hard part with Newcastle United, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
“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.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Jake O'Brien signs something — a contract at Everton or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Position 12 on 46 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
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.
Chris Rigg 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.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout22 May 2028
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Pietro Raimondi to a room that had heard them before.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Everton know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Derry Murkin 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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Pietro Raimondi after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall signs something — a contract at Everton or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Everton has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Manchester United next, and one man in the Everton dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Pietro Raimondi has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Everton is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Justin Clarke is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
Squad8 May 2028
Words at Everton training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tyler Dibling 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.
“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.
“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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Everton know it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tyler Dibling was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Jarrad Branthwaite 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.
Something was said to Jørgen Strand Larsen and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Pietro Raimondi after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Dean Henderson trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
Merlin Röhl 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.
Squad17 Apr 2028
Tyler Dibling falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
In brief
The dugoutDean Henderson asks for a word with the manager
“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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Justin Kluivert wants continental football; whether Everton can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Omari Benjamin will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Everton the goodbyes have quietly begun.
At 22 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.
Hugo Magallanes 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.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
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.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Christian Nørgaard.
Adam Aznou 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.
Something was said to Merlin Röhl and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Everton know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Chris Rigg is 20, and for one weekend he was the best of everybody his age in the division. Nobody should build a career on it and everybody quietly does.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Everton, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
Next up on the road: Hull City, position 18. The supporters who go will talk about it all week and the ones who do not will check their phones at ten to five.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Chris Rigg did not need any: 7.99, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Chances created: 16. Nothing on the scoresheet and everything in the match: the pass before the pass, over and over, until the defence stopped guessing right.
Merlin Röhl 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.
Marked 8.10 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
4 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
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.
21 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Everton lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“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.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.24 for the rest of it.
“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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Everton is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 12 actions, 6.69, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
In brief
The dugoutThe team sheet said everything about Merlin Röhl
“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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“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.
“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.
At 19 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Justin Kluivert. 1‑0 against Stoke City, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“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.
Player ratings28 Feb 2028
Justin Kluivert was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.15. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Tyrique George 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.
100 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Dean Henderson, and the manager let it.
The dugout28 Feb 2028
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.” Pietro Raimondi, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
“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.
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.
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.
Merlin Röhl 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.
Marked 7.20 on 10 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Tottenham scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
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.
“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.
Nottingham Forest wanted more than $6.2M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
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 have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Everton is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. West Ham United have kept their man, and Everton go back to a list with one name crossed off 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 Everton this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Middlesbrough had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
The fee is $16.1M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Derby County drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
$6.2M on the table at Nottingham Forest. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. FC Copenhagen have kept their man, and Everton go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Everton close the window on a squad of their own making
3 in and 9 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 $6.7M — a club that wants Stephy Mavididi enough to be asked twice.
The offer from Manchester City for Tyler Dibling 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.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Austin FC keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
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.
Michael Keane 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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Everton are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
27 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Everton lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brighton go through and Everton go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
“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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.27 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The offer from Leyton Orient for Merlin Röhl 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.
Add another name to the list: Paris Saint-Germain have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Jordan Pickford. The answer from Everton has not changed — yet.
A squad is not eleven players and a wish. Jørgen Strand Larsen arrives from Crystal Palace to make the number up properly, and the value of that will be argued about in March rather than today.
The offer went to Crystal Palace 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Salford City waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Everton is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
$22.4M was the most the club would pay and Aston Villa were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Omari Benjamin will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Everton the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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 clubs have shaken hands with Middlesbrough; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
The offer went to Aston Villa 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Luton Town have kept their man, and Everton go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Everton have gone to Middlesbrough 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.
“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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Everton have gone to Arsenal 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.
“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.
4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
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 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.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout27 Dec 2027
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 Pietro Raimondi left the room before anybody could ask which.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Everton has been clear about where Eli Campbell stands, which is more than many ever get.
0‑3 to Arsenal, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Everton they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Omari Benjamin has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
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.
200 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.
Michael Keane 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.
“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.
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.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Merlin Röhl 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.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Tyler Dibling, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.77
A mark of 7.77 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
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.
At 21 he was better than everybody his age in the division for four weeks running, which is harder than one good afternoon. Everton will try not to make too much of it.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Everton told Carlos Alcaraz something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Tyrique George has come out of that comparison in the side, and Everton have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
The dugout6 Dec 2027
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.” Pietro Raimondi, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
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 was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Everton has been clear about where James Hill stands, which is more than many ever get.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Pietro Raimondi after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Everton, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Bournemouth next, and one man in the Everton dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
Tyler Dibling, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.42
A mark of 8.42 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
At 19 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.
At 21 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.
“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.
Mads Hermansen 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.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Everton would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Everton, and both men came out saying it was fine.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Francis Okoronkwo may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Tyrique George obliged against Oxford United. 2‑1 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Everton.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 96th minute. Oxford United will replay every second of the added time for a week.
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.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Tyrique George did not need any: 8.27, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
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.
At 21 he was better than everybody his age in the division for four weeks running, which is harder than one good afternoon. Everton will try not to make too much of it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“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.
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.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 5 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Something was said to Merlin Röhl and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Harrison Armstrong has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Dean Henderson
Looking aheadEverton take on the side everybody is chasing
Tyler Dibling, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.36
A mark of 8.36 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Carlos Alcaraz 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Tyler Dibling 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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Everton know it.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 9 combined actions and a mark of 7.50, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
The dugout25 Oct 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Pietro Raimondi kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 17 actions, 7.38, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
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.
7.97, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Everton had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
The dugout18 Oct 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Pietro Raimondi kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
The dugout18 Oct 2027
Somebody else is better right now than Kelvin John
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.
Chris Rigg is 20, and for one weekend he was the best of everybody his age in the division. Nobody should build a career on it and everybody quietly does.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Jake O'Brien signs something — a contract at Everton or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Tottenham in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Dean Henderson has written the date down.
“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.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
James Tarkowski 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.
Aston Villa made Everton work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Tyler Dibling is the division's best young player this month
At 21 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. Everton will try very hard not to make too much of it.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Michael Keane has his answer from Everton; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Pietro Raimondi could afford to be generous.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Pietro Raimondi on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
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.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
In brief
Player ratingsA defender's afternoon for Jake O'Brien
“I have watched this squad. There is more in it than the table says.” First press conference, first promise — Pietro Raimondi made the one every new manager makes, and now comes the part where it gets checked.
12 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Crystal Palace were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Tyler Dibling did not need any: 8.15, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
At 21 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.
Justin Clarke 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
The dugoutJordan Pickford is playing like a man with something to prove
“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.
“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.
At 22 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.
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 was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Everton has been clear about where James Tarkowski stands, which is more than many ever get.
“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.
$8.9M was the most the club would pay and Norwich City were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
The offer from Millwall for Merlin Röhl 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.
Rotherham United paid $8.6M 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.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Swindon Town moved on, James Tarkowski reports back to Everton, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 16 arrived, 12 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
36 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Rotherham United waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Everton is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The offer went to Venezia 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.
The terraces30 Aug 2027
The mood at Everton has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
“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.
The offer went to Norwich City 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.
$10.0M was the most the club would pay and Newcastle United were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
$6.8M on the table at Queens Park Rangers. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Tyrique George did not need any: 7.86, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
10 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
The offer went to Crystal Palace 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.
The offer from Crewe Alexandra 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.
Jake O'Brien 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.
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Everton asked and Manchester United said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Leicester City have kept their man, and Everton go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall 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 fixture the calendar is arranged around. Form goes out of the window, the table is not consulted, and for ninety minutes Everton will be judged on one thing only.
14 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Everton know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Joseph Clark trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Hayden Hackney had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
The name of James Tarkowski has come up in conversations Everton were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
8 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Joseph Clark has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 16 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
A new manager did not pick last season’s side and does not care what it looked like. Jordan Pickford has taken that personally, in the best sense, and Everton are seeing a version of him the last regime had stopped seeing.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
“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.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
“Somebody picks the team on Saturday. This week it is me, and that is as far as I have thought.” No promises were made in either direction, which is how these usually begin.
381 appearances across 9 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
At 21 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.
“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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Merlin Röhl wants continental football; whether Everton can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Michael Keane 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Everton know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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.
The name of Jake O'Brien has come up in conversations Everton were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
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.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Manchester City have kept their man, and Everton go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Everton will quote 16 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
14 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Everton know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Brentford paid $6.5M 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Vitaliy Mykolenko wants continental football; whether Everton can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
The offer from Rotherham United for Omari Benjamin 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.
“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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Tottenham have kept their man, and Everton go back to a list with one name crossed off 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.
The offer from Bristol Rovers for Jake O'Brien 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.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
The phone has started ringing about James Tarkowski again, and this time the name on the line is Stevenage. Everton are listening politely and promising nothing.
Christian Nørgaard 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Stoke City have kept their man, and Everton go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Signed today, seen by nobody for years, and one of them may one day be the reason the club exists. That is the whole of the argument for an academy, and it is a good one.
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.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Jack Patterson is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Hayden Hackney had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
“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.
Justin Kluivert 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Justin Clarke is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
The chase for Dean Henderson ended with $9.5M changing hands and Crystal Palace out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
The offer from Plymouth Argyle 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.
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.
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.
Malik Olayiwola 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.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Kelvin John falls out with a teammate over standards
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 medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Everton have done the hard part with Crystal Palace, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Swansea City have kept their man, and Everton go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Nobody at the club will say out loud who this signing is for, which is how you know exactly who it is for. Mads Hermansen has been brought in to take a shirt somebody is still wearing.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
The name of James Tarkowski has come up in conversations Everton were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $50.7M — a club that wants Saša Lukić enough to be asked twice.
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.
Everton have gone to Ipswich Town 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.
Everton and West Ham United have settled on $13.5M. 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Ipswich Town have kept their man, and Everton go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Everton have gone to Ipswich Town 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.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Stephen Jones has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
“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.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $104.0M — a club that wants Julio Enciso enough to be asked twice.
Tyler Dibling 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.
At 19 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.
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.
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.
9 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 37 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
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 manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Carlos Alcaraz has his answer from Everton; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Manchester United held the lead for 2 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. Everton answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
8 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Vitaliy Mykolenko wants continental football; whether Everton can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Successful dribbles: 22. 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.
Malik Olayiwola 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 dugout17 May 2027
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.” Stephen Jones chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
7 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
1 for Merlin Röhl, marked 7.91, 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.
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.
Justin Kluivert 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.
Merlin Röhl scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑3 to Tottenham, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
The dugout10 May 2027
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 1‑3 Stephen Jones left the room before anybody could ask which.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
11 combined actions and 6.94. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout3 May 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑3 defeat, delivered by Stephen Jones to a room that had heard them before.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. James Hill is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Nobody's fault and entirely his: a goal that goes into the book with his name against it and nothing about it intended. Everton deserved better, and so did he.
“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.
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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Stephen Jones after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer 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 Everton this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
50 for the club now, each one filed in somebody’s memory with a date and a scoreline. Numbers like this are what supporters argue about in twenty years.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑3 defeat, delivered by Stephen Jones to a room that had heard them before.
Every touch weighed, every quote parsed, every mistake replayed. Some players grow into that; some are quietly finished by it; nobody knows which until afterwards.
The unglamorous genius of a well-written contract. Tyler Dibling is somebody else's player now, and $340.0K has arrived because the people who sold him thought further ahead than the transfer window.
In brief
The dugoutMerlin Röhl has become a man the manager trusts
Manchester City go through and Everton go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.74 for the rest of it.
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.
Merlin Röhl 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.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
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 2‑3 Stephen Jones left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
“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.
“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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Tyrique George is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Carlos Alcaraz 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 board was up, the win was priced in, and then Bournemouth scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
At 19 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.
Malik Olayiwola 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Carlos Alcaraz trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Brennan Johnson is on it.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Justin Kluivert’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Everton needing him to play as if none of it matters.
5 goals in 12 games at Luton Town — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Everton updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
“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.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Brennan Johnson. 1‑0 against Leeds United, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
4 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Stephen Jones kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 10 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Everton pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑4, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Jordan Pickford: 2 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
0‑3 against Newcastle United, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
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.
A point taken on 107 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
A penalty is the one moment in football with nowhere to hide, and he did not score it. The walk back was long and the week will be longer.
The dugout8 Mar 2027
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 0‑3 Stephen Jones left the room before anybody could ask which.
22 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
“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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Stephen Jones after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
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.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Ainsley Maitland-Niles scored, was marked 7.63, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
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.
500 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.
1‑2 to West Ham United, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
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 1‑2 Stephen Jones left the room before anybody could ask which.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Merlin Röhl is on it.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Everton will try again when the window opens; Plymouth Argyle may not be selling by then.
“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.
Jack Grealish 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.
Everton asked and Sunderland said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Brentford tried to reorganise, Everton did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
Manchester United wanted more than $34.8M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Everton will try again when the window opens; Crystal Palace may not be selling by then.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and James Tarkowski reports back to Everton with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
“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.
“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.
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.
The clubs have shaken hands with Crystal Palace; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
$34.8M on the table at Manchester United. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Bournemouth did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $17.9M for James Hill, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
Everton asked and Crystal Palace said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“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.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Everton close the window on a squad of their own making
4 in and 3 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.
“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.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $14.1M — a club that wants Michael Baidoo enough to be asked twice.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Hayden Hackney obliged against West Ham United. 1‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Everton.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Everton have paid $23.0M for Justin Kluivert, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
$17.9M on the table at Bournemouth. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Everton have gone to Crystal Palace 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.
“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.
Everton offered $7.0M; West Bromwich Albion said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $18.9M — a club that wants James Hill enough to be asked twice.
Nottingham Forest paid $57.0M 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.
$25.7M was the most the club would pay and Ajax Cape Town were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Everton have paid $9.1M for Kelvin John, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
James Garner has gone, the accounts have $57.0M 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.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
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.
Match16 Jan 2027
Nobody could stop scoring
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Everton and Liverpool in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $21.0M — a club that wants El Hadji Malick Diouf enough to be asked twice.
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.
Everton asked and Sunderland said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
A 1‑0 win over Manchester United, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Everton will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The offer went to Ajax Cape Town 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.
$13.2M on the table at Brentford. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Everton have gone to Stoke City 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 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.
“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.
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.
In brief
SquadA move Max Howells would have made for nothing
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Everton will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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.
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Nicolás Montiel is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Everton will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
8.30. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
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 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.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 39 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.96 for the rest of it.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Jannik Vestergaard commits to Everton for another 2 years.
The dugout7 Dec 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 1‑2 Stephen Jones left the room before anybody could ask which.
The unglamorous genius of a well-written contract. Harrison Armstrong is somebody else's player now, and $110.0K has arrived because the people who sold him thought further ahead than the transfer window.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Carlos Alcaraz wants continental football; whether Everton can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Everton told Braian Martínez something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Chelsea next, and one man in the Everton dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 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.
Michael Keane 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
There was one mistake and it ended in the net. Defenders are judged on the worst thing they did rather than on the eighty-nine minutes either side of it, which is unfair and is also the job.
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.
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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Mark Travers’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Everton needing him to play as if none of it matters.
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.
Merlin Röhl 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Everton has been clear about where Carlos Alcaraz stands, which is more than many ever get.
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.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Hayden Hackney has written the date down.
4 goals in 11 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.
The first defeat in 9 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Manchester City; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Everton and Wigan Athletic, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
“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.
Successful dribbles: 18. 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.
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout2 Nov 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.” Stephen Jones chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
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.
“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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Hayden Hackney trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.96 for the rest of it.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
At 24 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
It needed James Garner to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against West Ham United, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Stephen Jones after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
At 21 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Everton, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Mark Travers has written the date down.
2 goals in 9 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.
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Jordan Pickford has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Up for the corner, and James Garner delivers — 7.87
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. James Garner scored, was marked 7.87, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 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.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
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.
8 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
It needed Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall to find the net to bring anything home at all: 2‑2 against Arsenal, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 2‑2, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
The words a physio says slowly. 16 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
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.
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.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 14 actions, 7.18, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
8.39. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Michael Keane 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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Stephen Jones could afford to be generous.
The words a physio says slowly. 23 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
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.
Marked 8.01 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Stephen Jones could afford to be generous.
31 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Everton lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Everton will try again when the window opens; Wrexham may not be selling by then.
“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 needed James Garner to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Crystal Palace, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout14 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.” Stephen Jones chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Everton will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
The words a physio says slowly. 41 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Everton and Wrexham have settled on $12.9M. 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Middlesbrough have kept their man, and Everton go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 3 arrived, 7 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
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.
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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
8 new faces, and Everton are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.