Premier League transfer window losers: Everton, Liverpool, Aston Villa, Manchester United
David Moyes must be apoplectic with how abysmally Everton handled this summer, the Toffees sparing Liverpool and Villa from more criticism.
The Premier League transfer window winners have been carefully chosen. Now to point and laugh in the general direction of Merseyside.
Everton
“This club felt like, to me, one which was a big family, but looked broken, felt broken – and it doesn’t feel like that any more,” said David Moyes after Everton’s final game at Goodison Park in May 2025.
The peace lasted all of 15 months or so at best.
In fairness, “I think you always have to consider supporters; supporters aren’t always wrong” is an exceptional quote from a manager essentially backing the stance of an indignant fanbase willing to riot over the future of Harrison Armstrong, speaking as it does to the suspected default of Moyes generally entirely disregarding the collective opinion of those who pay good money to watch their club each week.
Yet if Moyes is true to his other pre-deadline day message – “Your manager is an Evertonian” – then the man sat in the dugout will be as irate as those shuffling in the stands at what has transpired this summer.
This was the grand culmination of Angus Kinnear’s “two-summer window plan”. It remains to be seen if he is “happily dissatisfied” to end up with one left-back, whatever fraction of a right-back Jake O’Brien and Ainsley Maitland-Niles represent, and more stadiums than strikers.
Even Kinnear and his hapless transfer committee must admit that saying “our vision is very much that our best players like Ndiaye are retained,” and “I really hope that he’s with us for many years to come,” two weeks before selling him without a replacement, is sub-optimal.
Only Sunderland, Crystal Palace and the bottom three scored fewer Premier League goals than Everton last season. Ndiaye and Beto scored 15 of those 47 between them and were sold on deadline day, with only a returning loanee Jack Grealish coming in.
They were not the only ones burned by the volatility of Monaco, but Everton left themselves needlessly open to such capriciousness by opening negotiations so late. It meant Beto, much like Ndiaye, was offloaded without anyone taking his place.
As beloved as Grealish is, there are chasms in this squad he cannot hope to fill, and indeed was never intended to. Even the announcement of his triumphant return was undercut by aggrieved supporters demanding answers they know will either never come, or never satisfy.
READ NEXT: Everton are rare beacon of stability but is that really enough?
Liverpool
When Andoni Iraola noted that “we have signed two players already but we need more” in mid-July, he perhaps did not envisage that number only being doubled by early September.
Since then, Ronald Araujo joined on loan and Bradley Barcola was finally secured at great expense, a dazzling cherry atop a cake many have deemed largely inedible.
Liverpool’s lack of depth was flagged as a problem before the season and little has been done to rectify it. They are light at centre-half, right-back, central midfield, the right wing and up front, with the extravagance of last summer perhaps catching up.
Iraola thrived in adverse conditions at Bournemouth, but he might have expected to be dealt a better hand for his first full season in European competition, coming as it does with lofty expectations.
If you top the net spend table, you expect to improve.
Arsenal
They have failed Mikel Arteta.
Aston Villa
A rebuild so painful it would have left even fundamental Spurs masochist Mauricio Pochettino wincing.
It cannot have been part of the plan to oversee such squad churn in one go. The six Europa League final starters Aston Villa have sold this summer had made more than 1,200 career appearances for the club. The first, second, fourth, fifth, seventh and ninth most-used players of Unai Emery’s reign leave an experience gulf where an established spine once was.
In short, it’s a good thing that John McGinn is so gluteally blessed, because he’s about to bear most of that weight of responsibility to bring a new crop through on the pitch.
While Morgan Rogers is the only member of that exodus under 28, none of Villa’s signings for a fee are over 25. There is certainly an argument for managing that entire transition – and it was necessary, considering the age profile of the squad – all at once, especially with the pull of the Champions League, provided there is patience and understanding on all sides.
It probably doesn’t work and certainly doesn’t encourage as much hope and optimism as it has if Emery isn’t in charge. He remains the most important cog in this Villa machine, and has an overdraft of credit in the bank to be trusted with this next cycle.
But a process-affirming win/point/goal/shot wouldn’t go amiss. And while it isn’t difficult to envisage long-term prosperity emanating from the decisions both taken by and forced on Villa this summer, it is even easier to imagine a fair deal of struggle in the short term.
The anti-Aston Villa conspiracy
SCR is only out to get you if you put release clauses in contracts, keep inviting Chelsea suits into the boardroom and insist on turning Donyell Malen into a Ballon d’Or contender through sheer humiliation.
Simply put, any complaints about The Rules having been put in place by The Cabal specifically to prevent Villa from breaking in were undermined the second they took on Alejandro Garnacho.
Manchester United
As many journalists on the Carrington beat coincidentally simultaneously informed us when the Carlos Baleba signing was sorted, Manchester United have had very big brains indeed this summer. Perhaps the biggest of all.
An entire new midfield for the cost of about 1.2 Enzo Fernandezes? Not bad for a window’s work, even if only one of them is a guaranteed weekly starter.
And it follows on from last year, in which the attack was completely rebuilt basically from scratch. The 2027 renovation of the defence will hit different, especially if it comes with the customary signing of a keeper.
There might be some value in taking a position-specific approach to squad-building every 12 months, especially when the work required on this squad is so painstaking, extensive and expensive.
But it does underline how Manchester United still seem incapable of spinning more than a single transfer plate at once. They did not sell a single first-team player beyond Rasmus Hojlund, whose exit at a loss was already tied into a loan-to-buy deal with Napoli anyway.
Heading into a Champions League season with Luke Shaw as the only senior left-back in 2026 is also a choice. And not a good one.
Crystal Palace
It could have been a hell of a lot worse. The losses of Maxence Lacroix and Daniel Munoz sting – particularly the latter to Forest – but Palace managed to avoid a post-Glasner exodus for the most part.
Not for the want of Jean-Philippe Mateta or Ismaila Sarr’s trying, of course. How well both are integrated will dictate much of how this season pans out.
There was some decent business in terms of incomings; Anan Khalaili looks very handy indeed.
But honestly, can Steve Parish not just sort stuff a bit bloody quicker?
Sunderland
It was funny when they hijacked Palace’s hijacked hijacking hijack for Malick Fofana, whose goal celebration must be that of a plane and first interview as a Sunderland player ought to include a Robinho-esque moment of confusion as to which club he joined in the end.
That ridiculous, positive end to the window did, however, come after a sub-par recruitment push to prepare for European football.
There is plenty to be said for Sunderland setting the tone early in the window by clutching tightly to Granit Xhaka before keeping an overachieving squad together. But the suspicion remains that they could be dragged into trouble and not enough has been done to offset that.
Mykhailo Mudryk
Has missed close to two entire years of professional football for reasons which must now automatically rank as the second-worst career decision made by a player who has joined Spurs.
Everyone
What a historically stupid transfer window that was.
