When at first you don’t succeed…
It seems the promise of a new right-back, once made by CEO Angus Kinnear, is to be fulfilled by returning to the player who rejected an Everton move this time last year. At least this way, he has something to show the fans…
That’s if we are to believe Fabrizio Romano:
🚨🔵 EXCL: Everton have agreed personal terms with Kenny Tete as new right back, deal now depends on clubs.
Fulham are in active talks for Andrei Rațiu from Rayo Vallecano as replacement ⚪️⚫️ pic.twitter.com/IE7kHwnhrz
— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) August 29, 2026
And now, Kenny Tete is a year older, a full year closer to the standard Finch Farm medical table retirement village, and yet here we are again, watching our standard transfer policy unfold: If a target snubbed us 12 months ago to stay down south, wait until his options narrow and offer him a 3-year pension plan.
It’s classic Everton efficiency. Why scout fresh talent across Europe when you can just dust off last summer’s abandoned shortlists? Never mind that the squad has been crying out for pace and dynamic width on the right since the early days of the Farhad Moshiri administration; we’re meant to applaud the board’s “relentless focus” for landing a 30-year-old on a hefty deal who previously left us waiting at the altar while Fulham sorted out their paperwork.
Kinnear can talk all he wants about “aggressive squad rebuilding” and “strategic delivery”, but recycling old target lists feels suspiciously like the same old pragmatism wrapped in a glossy corporate press release.
So what happened to the much-vaunted “two-summer window plan” Kinnear was preaching just weeks ago? We were assured by the executive suites that The Friedkin Group brought a modern, analytical, elite-level multi-club vision. Yet, as the deadline looms, the strategy looks less like a high-tech data operation and more like a panicking intern scrolling through TransferMarkt under the desk while David Moyes demands someone — anyone! — who can stop a left-winger crossing.
While TFG’s financial muscle was supposed to drag Everton into the 21st Century, the reality on the ground feels uncomfortably familiar. We are watching money funnelled into long-term infrastructure and sister-club priorities while the first-team squad is patched up with short-term fixes and recycled targets. Forcing Moyes to shoehorn central defenders into full-back roles three games into the season isn’t part of a master plan; it’s emergency triage.
If Tete pulls on the royal blue shirt, stays fit for more than three games in a row, and manages to overlap without pulling a hamstring, we’ll happily eat our words. But until then, pardon the skepticism if the fanbase isn’t throwing a parade at the docks just yet. We’ve seen this exact movie before under different directors, and no matter how shiny the new corporate logos are, we usually know how the final act ends.