£160m and counting – Everton’s search for their dream striker

Everton, who have won three and drawn two games this season, come into Hill Dickinson Stadium undefeated on Sunday.

A question mark still appears at center-forward, which has been a problem position since Romelu Lukaku left in 2017, despite a summer of largely successful recruitment.

Over the past ten years, the Toffees have signed 17 strikers for almost £160 million, with distinctly mixed outcomes.

The Blues have scored 357 Premier League goals, which is the fewest of any team ever present since Lukaku’s sale in the summer of 2017.

Despite playing two seasons in the second tier, Leicester City have scored 388 goals, 31 more than the Toffees did in the same time.

Everton are yet to find a reliable long-term option despite signing 17 strikers at the time, and selection issues persist as a result.

It was also the third time manager David Moyes felt the need to switch his centre-forward at half-time in their most recent home victory against previously unbeaten Crystal Palace.

Beto should have buried a close-range header, which Moyes later said was inappropriate, but instead led to Jack Grealish bundling in a stoppage-time winner.

After failing to convert a low cross from Iliman Ndiaye into an open goal, Beto missed a wonderful chance to open the scoring in last weekend’s 2-0 defeat at Manchester City.

In his second season in a prestigious European league, Barry, a £27 million summer signing from Villarreal, will understandably need some time to adjust to the pace of Premier League play.

The 22-year-old scored 11 goals in La Liga last season, but he lacks patience and raw talent.

Everton’s fanbase is frequently irritated by Guinea-Bissau international Beto, who recently signed for £21.5 million from Udinese.

On the one hand, Everton’s recovery from relegation was largely influenced by a flurry of five goals in four matches in February, including a well-taken one-touch finish in the final Merseyside derby at Goodison Park.

It was a deal of convenience rather than quality, according to Udinese, who was willing to accept a deal with no initial payment.

Despite the love that so many of us harbor for him, he won’t be the 20-goal-per-season striker we crave.

No Everton forward has ever come close to replicating Lukaku’s performance.

Being a striker requires you to respond each week at a club like Everton, he said.

“When I watch Everton right now and watch some of the players when they are in doubt, I get it because there is a lot of pressure and a big story here,” says one player. “Unfortunately, we haven’t been where we should be recently.”

Beto, for example, is difficult to criticize because he is passionate and enjoys playing for Everton.

Both Richarlison and Everton’s search for their next elite goalscorer and their timing were key.

Richarlison scored 10 goals in his final Everton campaign in 2021-22, avoiding relegation by making 66% of his Premier League starts at center-forward.

However, the club’s parlous financial situation and the pressure of Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR) led to the acceptance of a £60 million offer from Tottenham in July 2022, when he had a year to go on his contract. The 25-year-old was becoming more established in a central role.

The main concern for Dominic Calvert-Lewin was fitness.

He signed for Sheffield United for a bargain sum of £1.5 million in 2016 and was a prolific scorer under Carlo Ancelotti’s leadership, earning him England recognition.

With nine permanent managers at Everton in 12 years, it has been more difficult for strikers to establish themselves at the club.

Sam Allardyce praised Cenk Tosun for being “the best in Europe” for the money he spent when he signed for £27 million in 2017, but a managerial change led to his eventual return to Besiktas due to injuries and Marco Silva’s managerial managerial appointment, which led to his eventual return to Besiktas after only nine top-flight goals.

Following a breakout season at Juventus, Moise Kean made his debut in 2019 with a stirring performance before making his debut in Italy two years later.

Salomon Rondon, Joshua King, Enner Valencia, and Armando Broja’s short-term moves failed to pay off, while Sandro Ramirez, a Malaga academy graduate, made three Premier League starts in four years with a cheap deal from Barcelona.

Everton’s search for a top-level striker has been severely hampered by limited resources.

Between 2021-22 and the end of 2024-25, the club made an additional £85 million in profit from player trading as a result of its financial difficulties, which included multiple points deductions for PSR breaches.

The signings of 19-year-old Tyler Dibling and 22-year-old Barry highlight the need to box clever in the transfer market, bringing in young talent that could be acquired for a profit if necessary.

Everton have been operating at the bottom of the food chain in recent years, and nearly half of the £2.6 billion spent by Premier League clubs this summer went to players.