Striker watch: 2025

Transfermarkt says he has 2 goals and 4 assists in 70 games for Portsmouth.

Personally, I'd rather see us go in big for Vlahović but he's really expensive and on a big contract.

Charly Alcaraz is on the phone for you.

A player I really like is Martin Terrier of Bayer Leverkusen. Excellent technique and can score and create. Primarily a winger but can play anywhere across the front line and also in the false 9 position.

He's 28 years old though, and has had some bad injuries the last few years, so probably never going to happen. But he'd be a serious upgrade to what we have and could replace Grealish when he goes back to Man City.

He's 28 years old and has 66 career goals at various levels beneath the Premier League.

Robert,

I'd go with Ferguson. I don't know why he suddenly fell out of favor at Brighton before being injured. But in his better times he reminds me of his namesake Dunc only without all the disorderliness. Remember Andy Gray? Had some rough years then became an icon? I think Ferguson has similar attributes.

Scored five in the tournament, including a hat-trick against Spain, after racking up 8 goals in qualifying. Played #10 in the tournament but he's tall, lightning quick and a natural finisher who will definitely move up top.

And he's just starting his top-level pro career in Brazil, so still undiscovered.

All roads point to Ivan Toney at the moment. I'd imagine plenty of other teams are thinking the same thing though.

Kaio Jorge: now 23. Hit 15 in 25 after struggling as a teenager at Juve and various loans.

Vitor Roque: now 20. Hit 13 in 25 after struggling at Barca and Betis.

Otherwise the Brazilian scorers chart is dominated by the very old or the very mediocre. Regularly linked Yuri Alberto has 7 in 19.

There are a handful of big striker talents as teenagers but none scoring more than 2 or 3.

The biggest scoring young talent is 19-year-old Rayan a fast powerful right-winger with 11 in 27. So not a striker.

The only vaguely interesting striker in Argentina is Veliz - who (age 22) has 5 in 11. But he is already with Spurs.

Along with European clubs, Saudi and the MLS take the best teenagers as soon as they emerge in South America now. You have to get them very young… and therefore not first team ready.

In terms of Toney, is there any suggestion at all that he's looking to return from Saudi? He's doing fine there and earning an astronomical amount of money too. I would have thought Al-Ahli would want their £40m back at least.

As with all of these players, you then have to ask if we are set up for him to score goals. At Brentford, the focus was on width and pace. Unfortunately these are the two things we are sorely lacking in. Until we remedy that, we will struggle to find a regular goalscorer (which is why I did the right-back article first).

The 'Needs-assembly and running in' talents, need time and patience, à la Barry, something we don't do.

If we had a couple of dependable veterans, 'Get me home' tyres if you like, we could have sent Barry on a 6-month or season's loan in the Championship to learn his craft.

It would of at least have helped if our one 'dependable veteran' could hit a barn door with a banjo this season.

Barry gave up Champions League football to join us.

If we have money we can buy a striker. The biggest attraction for most players is money.

I watched Monaco against Spurs yesterday and was quite impressed by Balogun, a USA player.

Perhaps Mike Gaynes can give us a better opinion on him.

I also agree that we need a better striker but is Beto's 1 in 8 as good as most of the above stats? I also keep saying that, although Beto has very limited ball control, we are playing to his strengths. Our play out from the back is way too slow.

Plan A is to play Grealish, who has great ball control but holds up play, which allows defenders to set up. His options then are to play sideways to bring in Garner or Dewsbury-Hall in midfield or cross into a crowded area.

On the other side, when Jake goes forward, he invariably passes back inside to the same midfield. If you look at City's first goal on Saturday, we were backpedalling, so when the ball was crossed accurately, Haaland only had to hang back and pick his spot.

Ferguson has also been mentioned, I saw him recently against Armenia; while he did score the goal, he had other opportunities which I would have expected a good striker to put away. (Even Beto!)

Once our attacking play is in a good rhythm, with the glaring problems of (lack of) width and pace resolved, then our strikers (whoever they are) will start scoring. The same way Barry was scoring in a high-quality, competitive league last season -- for a well-structured Villarreal side.

You can't just swap in some currently in vogue forward into our current attacking play and get the same goals output. It would be very Everton to put together a deal to sign Toney only to find his goals dry up on arrival.

It is no coincidence that big scoring seasons (few as they are) for our strikers in the Premier League era coincide with an overall team with pace and width and creativity.

I expect it will improve as the new players start to acclimatise and Moyes settles on a better shape. But it's obviously going to be a low-scoring season again.

The service to the strikers isn't great. Firing the ball at their head or into their body, when it's vs 2 centre-backs, is a tough battle.

This agricultural approach to attacking play has to go. If the tactic is fire it up there, and let them scrap for it, then Barry will struggle and Beto will lose a lot more than he wins.

The lack of a top-quality right-winger for the here and now remains a problem. Our most creative player is wasted out there, and Dibling is miles off it. I was against that buy, as it presented more problems than it solved with a big price tag.

I've question marks over both current full-backs, right-wing, and Number 10, and then most of the rest of the side is the wrong side of 30.

It perhaps highlights it is a side in transition, and it'll take more than one transfer window.

If we were looking to save money, then for me the question mark is over the signing of both Dewsbury-Hall and Alcaraz for circa £40M. We only needed one of them.

If we'd bought a proper right-back instead of Dewsbury-Hall, then I expect Moyes might be more comfortable having a talented rookie at right-wing.

We also don't know whether Grealish will be with us beyond this season, so Dibling offers us a similar player long term.

To be fair, Rangers are a total shit-show at the moment, everybody's struggling there.

I did notice an error in my post which meant to say we were not playing to Beto's strengths -- nor, as you pointed out, any other striker either.

I don't know enough to be able to solve it. That's what managers are for, namely to get the best out of the resources which are available to them.

Moyes did that very well when he came in a replace Dyche. He is doing reasonably well at the moment but I do believe there is a better performing side in there somewhere if he can find the right mix that works for in attack and defence.

Moyes's default is to make sure we are strong defensively, which he does well again given the players he has available. It is the middle third of the field where he has all the options.

For example, I thought Alcaraz was overrated, yet when he came on against Palace, he changed the game. His first instinct is the move forward at pace, which also suits Beto, but if we lose the ball, we are totally exposed at the back.

Dewsbury-Hall covers acres of space and is very good on the press but I'm not sure he has the same creativity as Alcaraz. Hence that's why I think Moyes prefers Dewsbury-Hall.

Also, Alcaraz didn't do himself any favours when he was selected against Wolves. Just one of the dilemmas.

Others include what to do with Iroegbunam, Dibling, Röhl -- not only as to how to get the best of their undoubted talents but how to find a combination where they fit in a team. We tend to always look and blame the individual but a team is based on the sum of the performance of all its players.

I once heard a very successful manager say that in their post-match analysis that each aspect of play was analysed, down to where a player may have made an intercepted pass. The focus of the analysis was not on blaming the player but to focus on what part of our coaching failed to guide the player to the correct decision.

Over to you David Moyes to find the correct combinations of the players available to get the best out of the side and to put pressure to find alternatives in January to complete the jigsaw.

Were joint 10th in terms of these “big chances” created.

Here’s the snippet on us:

“ Everton have shown marginal improvement in big-chance conversion. Having recorded a rate of 25 per cent in the first eight matches of three consecutive seasons, they have begun 2025-26 at 33 per cent.

Five of their 15 total chances came against Crystal Palace, and they converted two to get their biggest result of the season. They also finished two of three in the 3-2 win over Wolves. Everton did not create a single big chance against Liverpool and West Ham, while they frustratingly spurned three in the 0-0 draw with Villa.

James Garner and summer arrivals Jack Grealish and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall lead the team, with three big chances created each. Iliman Ndiaye has scored all three of his big chances but his success is offset by Beto and Thierno Barry converting just one of their combined six.

This miss by Beto against Manchester City was worth 0.84 xG, making it the third-worst miss after Haaland against Manchester United (0.93xG) and Ismaila Sarr against Villa (0.91xG).“

Whole article here:

Link

1) If we are not scoring goals, that does not solely fall as the responsibility of the striker. Neither of our strikers have had as many chances presented to them as the likes of Haaland (obviously) or Mateta, Welbeck, Gyökeres, Woltemade, Sesko etc. We are not creating enough good chances. Though I do think Beto should be on 2-3 goals rather than the 1.

2) There is a real dearth of viable strikers who would come to us and do significantly better.

In terms of your list, rather than Costa at Genoa (who I don't think exists?) I assume you mean Castro at Bologna who looks a talent but has a similar return to Beto this season.

Agahowa is a talent but wouldn't be cheap and would probably have better offers and the same is probably true of Strand-Larsen.

Most of the others on the list would be in the same category as Barry: good young players who would probably take time to adjust to the Premier League.

Evan Ferguson is yet to find the net in 400 or so minutes for Roma despite playing well. Perhaps he is an option in the summer but I imagine he'll stay at Roma this season.

The reality is that we bought our promising young striker who managed more last season than most on this list. We have to give him time to adapt and flourish.

Sargeant (Norwich), Thomas Asante (Coventry) to name two. Lawrence Shankland (Hearts) another.

We have bought too many foreign strikers who have never done well, besides Lukaku and say Jelavic.

I am very pleased to champion Championship players and Scots too. However, the ones you mention are rubbish.

We'd need to be relegated twice before Shankland was a sensible option.

Comparatively expensive, and offering nothing. It did mention it's a tough time to come in there but apparently some of his misses have been lacking in both technique and conviction. Meanwhile, apparently behind the scenes, Thelwell is still championing him as a future star.

It just illustrates that it is difficult to predict how a player will fare. Especially a young or inexperienced one, and that is before you factor in injuries -- of which he has had a few.

Not a word about Victor Osimhen?

What think yee of him?

Kone at QPR might be the best option and he's only just made the step up. Ivanovic at Milwall seems to have struggled so far this season.

Victor Osimhen moved to Galatasaray less than 3 months ago for €75M. A very good striker. But won't be joining Everton any time soon, so I didn't include him in my list.

Sam # 23, yes, I got my Castro mixed up with a (imaginary?) Costa!

A team that has no right-back or established right-winger seems to be a bigger issue. The money was there, so it wasn't as if it was a choice of one or other, they just couldn't get deals done.

Dibling is very much for tomorrow, but the team is crying out for delivery on the right now. My fear remains that we don't have the patience to wait for him to deliver.

We were goal shy last season, and still lack players that will get more than 5 -- and probably way off double figures. I can only see Ndiaye getting there, and that's probably with some penalties.

I promoted Balogun here a while back after he established himself as the most talented striker the USA has ever had (admittedly a low bar to clear). Glad we didn't go for him then as he then went down for almost a year with an injury.

He's the full package of quality in a forward but staying healthy is a problem. Assuming he's in one piece, he will definitely start up top for the USA next summer.

He looked quite threatening against Spurs the other night but, like all strikers, you need to assess them over a longer period.

Although I like both players, buying both robbed us of the money to buy a right-back, and it's hurting our style of play badly.

If it's not fixed in January, it will be a difficult low-scoring season.

Mike: it's been a while since Balogun had his one good scoring season at Reims. Do you really think he's still good? I left both him and Pepi out …

Big, powerful, strong centre-forward. Looks like he can head the ball.

Dewsbury-Hall has the ability to play at Number 10, centre-mid, left-wing, and I'd say left-wingback, whilst he's played 82 games in defensive midfield (per TransferMarkt). That to me demonstrates fair versatility when we are light in midfield.

It's interesting that many signings in the summer for many Premier League clubs have not hit the ground running, so to speak.

However, our main creative sources, Ndiaye and Grealish, spend a hell of a lot of time faffing about, trying to beat as many players as they can, so that, by the time they do release the ball, whichever striker plays is, unsuitably for them, in the middle of a crowded penalty area.

nb: This is not in any way a criticism of our creative players -- two of the most exciting players we've had in the last 20 years, but a call for a change in how the wide men interact with our strikers.

It is a sad fact that -- quality though Grealish obviously is -- we might have been better off bringing in a very fast wing-forward to create width, stretch the play, and speed up the delivery of the ball to our strikers.

At the moment, we have no-one in the squad capable of performing this role. Maybe we need a poor man's Doku to supply our poor man's Haaland (Barry)?

I think Ivan Toney has the quality and confidence to score in our current set up, so don't see that as a problem. As for your other question, no I don't think there is much suggestion that he wants to come back other than a natural assumption that surely he doesn't want to waste the final peak years of his career playing at such a low level.

I'm certainly not the only one making that assumption, as there's all kinds of speculation out there, but nothing credible or claiming to be linked to the player himself.

I still think our current strikers would be scoring more if we set up more positively with Garner at right back, Dewsbury-Hall deeper and Alcaraz at ten. Moyes is Moyes and will always take the cautious option, meaning that any striker will struggle for long periods.

To be honest, though, I am not sure Saudi is that low a level.

I would have thought Toney's present club Al Ahli (managed by Inzaghi) would certainly give us a run for our money - with players like Mendy (ex Chelsea GK), Demiral (ex Juve CB), Kessie (ex AC Milan CM), Millot (ex Stuttgart ACM), Mahrez (ex City) etc etc. And Al Ahli are only a mid-table club.

Saudi is not just a retirement home - it is now a career choice for players in their prime and young and upwardly mobile players from across Europe and South America.

Toney is rubbing shoulders with some very, very good players out in Saudi.

Moyes was given the opportunity to divulge his feelings in his presser with the reporter phrasing a question about Jimmy's and Jake's flexibility and how important that is in light of Jarrad's injury.

She was essentially asking "Are we likely to see Garner at right-back and Jake centrally?" -- in a more subtle and encouraging way without getting the fallback.

The manager was stoic in his response that Jake will be the right-back for the foreseeable with Tarkowski's role not up for debate. Keane only was an afterthought, whom he had to nearly correct himself after almost forgetting, getting tied up by the questioner framing it about the versatility of Garner and O'Brien.

You view this as oversight and proffered that it will take another round of spending for us to be able to push up and play like a 'big team'. I would bet that, if Moyes oversees another 3 windows before his contract ends, you would still see the name Tarkowski in his last team sheet.

Unfortunately, I think you are looking at summer time before we get the overlapping full-back and pacey winger you crave.

Great thread this, by the way, a bit like ToffeeWeb of old, with some excellent contributions from Pete and Neil.

Does that mean Moyes wouldn't have liked a quality right-back? No. In the same way, I am pretty sure he'd have liked Ekitike and / or Isak (instead of Barry), I am pretty sure he'd have been pleased to sign the likes of Frimpong, Mukiele, or even Tchatchoua and Kayode as a new right-back. But what can you do when the budget runs out?

It may well be summer 2026 before we sort out some of the glaring issues with the squad -- by which time we might (who knows) have seen the last of Grealish in an Everton shirt.