Neal Maupay 13

Everton signed Neal Maupay from Brighton & Hove Albion in late August 2022 as the club desperately sought attacking reinforcements to cover for the injured Dominic Calvert-Lewin. The Blues went into the 2022-23 season with only Salomon Rondon as a fit centre-forward and as the transfer deadline approached, the club finally secured another forward option in Maupay in a deal that had the potential to be worth £15m.

The Frenchman, who was in talks with Nottingham Forest and Fulham prior to agreeing to join Everton, completed a relatively swift transfer to Merseyside after Everton Blues had agreed a fee with the Seagulls.

Maupay played 109 times for Brighton after joining them from Brentford in 2019 and scored 27 goals, an average of 9 per season. In 2021-22 he notched 9 goals in 35 appearances in all competitions.

According to the reports, Everton paid £12m for the striker, who signed a three-year contract with an option to add another year, with another £3m in appearance-related add-ons part of the final arrangement.

However as a goalscoring threat, Maupay proved to be anything but. Be it through poor service, being played upfront as a lone striker, or a strike partner often missing through injury or not selected, Maupay's return was paltry in his first season as a striker at Everton. He managed one goal – in just his second game – to secure a precious win over West Ham but, on the whole, his performances were in the main an abject disappointment and a damning indictment of Everton's recruitment problems that had been compounded by first-choice targets going elsewhere in the summer of 2022.

With Sean Dyche having replaced Lampard in January 2023 and the club reassessing its needs that summer, Maupay's future remained murky as the new season approached. The Frenchman had come close to joining Italian side Salernitana during the preceding winter transfer window and there were reports that that deal might be rekindled but he was a regular in the Blues' pre-season fixtures as the search for a reliable alternative to Dominic Calvert-Lewin continued.

For the 2023-24 season, he was given the No. 13 shirt previously worn by Yerry Mina but his travails in front of goal remained and on transfer deadline day he made a season-long loan move back to Brentford. He scored six times in 29 league games for the Bees but returned to Everton again at the end of the campaign, although by that point there were few Evertonians welcoming him back.

Maupay had put Blues fans' noses out of joint when he tweeted a congratulatory note to his former Seagulls captain, Lewis Dunk, for his injury time goal against the Toffees in a Premier League draw at the Amex Stadium in February 2024 and again rankled on the social media platform when as he mocked England — and, by association, Everton team-mate Jordan Pickford — when they lost the European Championship final to Spain.

There was no love lost when the Frenchman was finally sold to Marseille on transfer deadline day in August in a loan deal that included an obligation to buy for €5.5m the following summer, with all clauses potentially taking the final sale to €10m.

FactFile