Everton left with one senior striker after deadline chaos

Everton went into deadline day chasing a striker and came out with one senior forward on the books. Folarin Balogun pulled out of a move from Monaco shortly before midnight, an hour after the Premier League window had shut, leaving David Moyes with just 18 senior players and Thierno Barry as his only recognised centre-forward until January.

The Balogun deal had looked done. An initial £40m package plus £5m in add-ons was agreed with Monaco on the Monday evening, and the 25-year-old flew into Liverpool's John Lennon airport by private jet before heading to Finch Farm for a medical. Complications arose there, Everton told Monaco around 6pm, and by the time Balogun's camp had been consulted in emergency talks, he had decided against the move and wanted to fly home.

Beto had already gone to Fiorentina, sanctioned once the Balogun deal looked set to go through, and Everton did not replace him. and Nathan Patterson also left without incoming cover. A late loan approach for Manchester United's Joshua Zirkzee was turned down, and

Chelsea's late scramble to replace Enzo Fernandez, who is Manchester City-bound, briefly touched Everton's business too. The London side were reported to have tried Monaco's Lamine Camara before that deal collapsed, and rumours linked Chelsea with a last-gasp move for an Everton player, which Moyes dismissed as having no truth to it.

Moyes was blunt about the window his club had just endured. "If you want success, then you all need to be aligned. I think we've got new owners in who are still finding their way at the club," he said, adding that the process of building a Premier League squad required numbers he understood well but did not get. "Some things went against us and some things could have gone better," he said, noting the remaining group would "have to be able to muck in" with such a small squad.

The window closed only days after Everton's men's team played their final match at Goodison Park before the move to Hill Dickinson Stadium. Moyes had marked the occasion with a message aimed as much at the club's American owners, the Friedkin Group, as at supporters.

«This club felt like, to me, one which was a big family but looked broken, felt broken – and it doesn’t feel like that anymore,».

Moyes did not leave it there. In the same programme notes, he pressed the point further, turning from what Goodison had been to what he expected the ownership to take from the send-off.

«I hope the owners are recognising what they’re seeing today as well, because this is to be built up, brought back and get us back to where we belong - and where we believe we should be. There are 100 players here today who played in some great games here and have been in some great teams. We have to now try to make that happen again».

Reports from Spain described Everton's own supporters turning on the club over the same window, a mood that sits awkwardly against Moyes's appeal for the ownership to build on what he called a family feel restored at Goodison. With one senior striker and one senior left-back, that rebuilding now waits for January.