Everton's Transfer Targets: Hackney, Bowen, and Striker Dilemmas

Everton are back in familiar territory. The transfer window is open, the chequebook is not, and the rumour mill is already running hotter than the fax machines at Finch Farm.

What they do have is intent. And a growing list of names.

Hackney the priority, fee the problem

At the top of Everton’s agenda sits Hayden Hackney, the Middlesbrough midfielder who has just been crowned Championship Player of the Season. The 22-year-old is understood to be keen on the move, ready to swap his boyhood club for a Premier League stage and a manager who believes he can build around him.

The problem is price. Talks continue over what it will take to prise him out of Teesside, and Boro know exactly what they’ve got: a homegrown talent, under contract, with no need to sell on the cheap. Everton want him. Hackney wants Everton. The numbers, for now, don’t match.

While that negotiation rumbles on, the rest is speculation. And a lot of it leads to one place.

West Ham’s relegation, Everton’s opportunity?

West Ham United’s drop into the Championship has turned their squad into a shop window for clubs looking to add proven Premier League quality. Everton, unsurprisingly, are being linked with a string of Hammers, helped by the David Moyes connection and the clear overlap in player profiles.

Moyes has already explored that route once. Last summer he tried to bring in Tomas Soucek, the experienced, physically dominant midfielder who would add steel and goals from deep. With Hackney now the main midfield target, it is unclear whether that pursuit will be revived, but the interest underlined exactly what Moyes feels his squad still lacks.

Right-back remains a priority position, yet Aaron Wan-Bissaka is not currently on the agenda. That stance emerged last month and has not shifted, despite the obvious need for reinforcement on that flank.

On the opposite side of the pitch, Everton’s gaze has drifted towards a more attacking solution at left-back. El Hadji Malick Diouf has been linked, a player whose front-foot, adventurous style would contrast sharply with the steadier, more conservative Vitalii Mykolenko. The Ukrainian has just signed a new three-year contract, a show of faith in his reliability. Diouf, if a move materialised, would offer something very different: thrust, width, risk.

And then there is Jarrod Bowen. Moyes knows him, trusts him, and would love to work with him again. Bowen, now West Ham captain, is exactly the sort of wide forward Everton lack: direct, relentless, decisive in the final third. But he is also exactly the sort of player every ambitious club is watching. Any move for him would sit in the realms of dream rather than plan.

Pace, goals and the wide threat

Crysencio Summerville falls into a similar bracket of intrigue. The winger, already admired for his club form, added another line to his growing CV with a sharp finish for Ronald Koeman’s Netherlands in their World Cup opener against Japan on Sunday night. That goal only underlined what scouts already knew: he brings pace, unpredictability and end product from wide areas.

Everton’s attack has long cried out for that injection of speed and directness. Summerville would provide it. So would Bowen. Both, though, will have no shortage of suitors, and neither will come cheap.

Striker search meets market reality

Behind those wide options sits the most familiar dilemma of all: the centre-forward. Everton are open to exploring the striker market, but there is a clear-eyed acceptance inside the club that proven goalscorers are the most expensive, most contested assets in the game.

If an affordable, realistic option emerges, they will move. If not, they will not force it.

One such possibility is Taty Castellanos. The Guardian reported at the weekend that the Argentine could be among the names under consideration. Castellanos, 27, only joined West Ham from Lazio in January and could not keep them in the Premier League, yet his seven goals in 22 appearances showed enough cutting edge to catch attention.

For a club operating under financial pressure, those numbers – both on the pitch and on the balance sheet – matter.

Kretinsky’s stance changes the equation

For weeks there has been a convenient assumption around the league: West Ham, relegated and wounded, would have to sell. Big names, big wages, big fees. A fire sale waiting to happen.

Daniel Kretinsky has moved quickly to challenge that idea.

On Saturday it was announced that the Czech billionaire had agreed a deal with the family of the late David Gold to buy some of their shares. If completed, the move will lift his stake in the club to 43 per cent, making him the dominant force in the boardroom and the man shaping West Ham’s immediate future.

In an interview with The Times, Kretinsky laid out that future in blunt terms. He insisted West Ham do not need to sell players to balance the books and made it clear the strategy is built around keeping the core of the squad together for an immediate promotion push under Nuno Espirito Santo.

“We have a very credible strategy. We don’t need to sell the players for financial reasons. We are doing this to make sure we are promoted back to the Premier League immediately. That is our only goal,” he said.

“Key players are waiting for us. They want to see there is a real chance of keeping the squad together. What matters is funding, strategy and consistency.

“We have spoken to all of them. They need to see that our project is real and serious. Promotion is our only goal.”

Those words matter on Merseyside. Every Everton enquiry, every tentative call about Bowen, Castellanos or anyone else in claret and blue, now runs into a club determined not to be picked apart.

West Ham are not behaving like a club braced for a clear-out. They are behaving like a club planning a one-season detour.

For Everton, that shifts the landscape. The window has opened, the rumours have started, and the list of targets is growing. But if Kretinsky holds his line and West Ham stand firm, the question for Moyes is simple: how many of these names will ever move from gossip to reality?