Moyes Looks to Free Agents After Tough Transfer Window

David Moyes will head to Old Trafford this weekend knowing his squad is light and the margin for error even lighter. The Everton manager confirmed on Friday that the club have swung their attention to the free-agent market after a bruising end to the transfer window stripped depth from key areas of his team.

Everton lost Iliman Ndiaye, Beto, Tim Iroegbunam, Adam Aznou and Nathan Patterson late in the window, exits that have left both full-back positions and centre-forward badly exposed. Moyes now has just one senior option in each of those roles.

“We are looking at the free agents market,” he said in his pre‑Manchester United press conference. “I am trying to get a team that is going to be at the top end and challenge. I want the players to believe that we are moving forward – for me, that is really important.”

The Premier League window may be shut, but there is still a narrow route for reinforcements. Players without a club can be signed outside the official trading period, though any new arrival must be registered before a secondary cut-off, understood to fall roughly a week after deadline day.

That small loophole has suddenly become Everton’s lifeline.

Moyes did not hide his frustration at how the window closed. Everton had pushed to add firepower and competition, only to see plans unravel in the final hours.

“Disappointed we didn’t do more business and disappointed things didn’t go our way in the end,” he admitted. “Sometimes in football you have to live with disappointment and we will move on.”

The biggest blow came with the collapse of Folarin Balogun’s proposed deadline‑day move. Everton had lined up the striker to address their shortage up front, only for the transfer to fall apart during the medical stage. Moyes was adamant there was no drama beyond that.

“It wasn’t anybody’s fault,” he said of the failed Balogun deal. “It happens in football a lot. The player had a problem in his medical and that was simply it. There’s no other story behind it.”

So Everton pivot. The recruitment team are now scouring a much smaller, more unpredictable pool of options, searching for experience and reliability at full-back and a centre-forward who can carry the load in the months ahead.

The league campaign will not pause to let them catch up. Manchester United await on Sunday, with Moyes trying to convince both his dressing room and the fanbase that, even patched up and short on numbers, Everton can still “be at the top end and challenge.”

The next signing may not arrive with fanfare or a fee. But given the holes in this squad, whoever walks through the door from the free‑agent wilderness could end up defining Everton’s season.