Armando Broja —

Everton pulled off a very late transfer deal with Chelsea for forward Armando Broja on deadline day in August 2024 after a revived move by Ipswich Town for the Albanian international had collapsed again earlier in the day.

The Blues got a deal sheet in under the wire just as the summer window was about to close and were able finalise the paperwork on an intial loan deal with a £30m option to purchase the following summer.

It wasd the secone time Everton had tried to sign Broja — attempts were made to lure him away from Stamford Bridge in 2022 when Frank Lampard was in charge at Goodison Park but the Londoners opted to keep him given a shortage of strikers.

The agreement with Chelsea did not include any move for Dominic Calvert-Lewin in the other direction — that despite the Londoners sounding the Merseysiders out over a £10m bid earlier in the day — neither did it involve a loan fee. Everton would begin to cover the 22-year-old's wages once he recovered from an injury that meant Toffees fans were unllikely to see him play until after the second international break.

Ipswich had spent the days leading up to the deadline trying to get a similar loan-plus-option agreement over the line but the East Anglian club eventually balked at the terms due to the fact that Broja is expected to be out of action until the second half of October at the earliest because of an Achilles injury.

That followed a lengthy spell out with a ruptured anterior cruciate knee ligament he sustained in December 2022, after which he joined Fulham on loan for a largely unproductive spell last season. He was fit enough to represent Albania at this summer's Euro 2024 but should his transfer from Stamford Bridge go through, he won't be available to Sean Dyche for another two months.

Born in Slough, Broja was signed by Chelsea in 2020 and farmed out to sibling club Vitesse in the Netherlands for a season where he scored 11 goals in 38 appearances.

He spent the next season in the Premier League at Southampton where he really came to prominence as a powerful, pacy forward and notched another nine goals in 34 games.

Brought into the first-team fold at Stamford Bridge for the 2022-23 season, he struggled to make an impact in a more talented squad making 18 appearances in all competitions and scoring just once before his ACL injury, suffered during a friendly against Aston Villa arranged during the hiatus for the Qatar World Cup, wrecked his hopes of making further progress.

Once he had regained fitness, it was hoped he would be able to refind his form at Craven Cottage but in eight games he failed to find the net. His move to Goodison Park offered him another chance to reignite his career once his latest injury problems were behind him.

FactFile