Last season: 12th.

There has been trauma on Tyneside this summer. Some of their best players – sold. The manager who brought the first domestic trophy for 70 years – gone.

So, a challenging job awaits for new man Matthias Jaissle.

The momentum has gone out of the Saudi Arabian project with the departures of Eddie Howe, Anthony Gordon, Sandro Tonali and Bruno Guimaraes from St James’ Park. Uncertainty and instability reign.

Newcastle failed to land many of their top transfer targets, although Lukas Hornicek has arrived from Braga to address the goalkeeping problem, while midfielder Aladji Bamba is rich in promise after arriving from Monaco.

The same applies to Dutch midfielder Sean Steur, the 18-year-old signed from Ajax, and 20-year-old Bazoumana Toure, the Ivory Coast winger who has joined from Bundesliga side Hoffenheim.

Defender Amar Dedic has arrived from Benfica, having worked with Jaissle when winning the Austrian title with Red Bull Salzburg in 2023.

An experienced midfielder is key, with Tonali and Guimaraes gone, and Joao Palhinha has been mentioned after a deal for Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg failed to materialise.

Jaissle needs a good start – and more players – to settle the Toon Army’s nerves.

The 2026-27 season feels like a crucial one for Everton and their manager David Moyes.

They briefly harboured dreams of Champions League qualification last season, only to end up missing out on Europe entirely.

Big questions remain. Will Moyes, who has a year left on his contract, do enough to earn a new long-term deal?

And can the owner, the Friedkin Group (TFG), take Everton to the next level, injecting a sense of excitement and forward momentum into a club who have for a long time merely been treading water?

The Athletic previews the season to come at Hill Dickinson Stadium.

What are the expectations inside the club?

After successive 13th-place finishes, Everton will be looking to kick on.

Their immediate aim is to compete on and off the pitch with clubs such as Aston Villa and Newcastle United, but they will need European football for the first time since 2017 to do that.

Everton are looking to push on after missing out on European qualification last season (Jan Kruger/Getty Images)

Whether qualifying for one of those UEFA competitions is a realistic aim this season is debatable. The squad still lacks quality in key areas.

Much will depend on how they finish the transfer window, and whether a strong start can change the mood around the club after a difficult end to last season.

Who have they signed?

Everton have strengthened in midfield, bringing in the Championship player of the season, Hayden Hackney, from Middlesbrough for an initial £16.5million ($22m) and the experienced Christian Norgaard from Arsenal (£7m). The versatile German Merlin Rohl has also had his £17m purchase obligation from Freiburg triggered.

There is excitement around Tyrique George, 20, who has been signed on a permanent basis (for an initial £18.5million fee) from Chelsea, while Wales international Brennan Johnson was swapped for fellow wide man Dwight McNeil.

Everton feel they have got the better of that particular deal with Crystal Palace. But, importantly, a new right-back still eludes them.

What is their transfer priority before the window closes?

Right-back, right-back, right-back.

Just one would do, but you get the idea.

Everton have needed a long-term successor to Seamus Coleman for some time, but this was the summer the Republic of Ireland international finally brought his 17-year stint at the club to an end.

Seamus Coleman left Everton this summer (Jan Kruger/Getty Images)

There is uncertainty, too, around the future of the squad’s only other recognised right-back, Nathan Patterson, with central defender Jake O’Brien often preferred in a makeshift role last season.

Fresh blood is essential if Moyes’ side are to kick on.

What else is new?

Moyes has strengthened his backroom staff with the appointment of Dave Reddington from AFC Wimbledon.

Formerly of Crystal Palace and Denmark’s Aarhus, Reddington will be responsible for set-pieces, a role that has been vacant since Charlie Adam’s summer 2025 departure.

What’s the biggest lesson they learned last season?

That they need to use the squad more. Or at least that should be the message they took away from it.

Everton used the fewest players and made the fewest substitutions last season. That over-reliance on a small group of regulars seemed partly to blame for them running out of steam and the series of debilitating late goals conceded towards the end of the campaign that saw their European hopes fall by the wayside.

It remains to be seen whether promising youngsters such as Tyler Dibling, Harrison Armstrong and Adam Aznou can earn Moyes’ trust this time around.

Who’s been the best player in pre-season?

Rohl performed well in a variety of positions, including at right-back, and has surely advanced his claim for more regular minutes.

Hackney and Armstrong have both looked assured in midfield, the former adding an air of composure to Everton’s build-up play, while there have been promising moments from George, whose goal in the 3-1 win against Newcastle United highlighted his potential, and from Dibling on the wings.

Hayden Hackney has shown potential this summer (Christian Kaspar-Bartke/Getty Images)

Striker Thierno Barry, meanwhile, scored three times this summer and deserves to start against Palace.

What are they worried about?

The full-back positions, for starters, as well as the lack of consistency from Barry and Beto up front.

For all the Frenchman’s promise this summer, Everton need at least one of their strikers to perform consistently across the whole campaign.

James Garner, player of the season last time out, missed most of the summer after undergoing groin surgery, while Norgaard has also been carrying an unspecified issue and is behind in his preparation.

Everton will also need to ensure central defender Jarrad Branthwaite’s injury problems are a thing of the past.

The 24-year-old is key from a tactical perspective but made only 10 league appearances last season. He sought specialist advice in Germany this summer and his pre-season minutes have also been carefully managed.

How’s the manager feeling?

Until recently, we did not know. Moyes refrained from doing media this summer, including with the club’s own channel.

But speaking to Sky Sports ahead of Saturday’s opener, he called for more signings and questioned his side’s readiness for the campaign.

“We’re putting things together, but we certainly feel behind the scenes that we’ve got a long way to go and want to do an awful lot more,” he said.

An important couple of weeks await.

What’s the percentage chance of Moyes seeing out the season?

Sixty-five.

Moyes is in the final year of his deal, and talk of a new contract has quieted for now. There are parallels with his predecessor Sean Dyche’s situation, with TFG having originally planned to keep the former Burnley manager until the end of his deal, before he forced their hand.

A big decision awaits the club’s hierarchy. Moyes has been credited with helping to stabilise the team, but the disappointing end to last season meant an opportunity to progress went begging.

At 63, time is running out for the Scot to secure his Everton legacy. He needs a strong start and the fans on his side.

I wouldn’t be surprised if…

Everton finished in a similar position again.

They have some talented young players, but holes remain, and so far they appear to have done little to move the dial significantly in the short-term.

Much, though, will depend on Branthwaite’s fitness. They are a different team when he plays.

What is their strongest XI?

(4-2-3-1): Pickford; Rohl, Tarkowski, Branthwaite, Mykolenko; Garner, Norgaard; Ndiaye, Dewsbury-Hall, George; Barry

There has been something almost absurd about Ferran Torres’ summer.

On July 19, he came off the bench in a World Cup final, scored the winning goal in the 106th minute and became a Spanish football hero.

Spain celebrated him. Barcelona celebrated him, too. At the trophy parade held in Madrid following the team’s return, inflatable sharks could be seen among the crowds — referencing the nickname he cultivated at Barca (tiburon, shark) as a way to deal with pressure.

Now, a month on from Torres’ strike in that 1-0 win over Argentina, some Barcelona supporters are celebrating his departure in a €50million (£42.7m; $57.9m) transfer to Paris Saint-Germain.

It’s not the ending you would expect for a World Cup hero.

Torres, 26, is not leaving Barcelona as a unanimously hated player, nor is he departing on bad terms with the club or the people inside it.

But many fans have been upset or annoyed by his behaviour over the past month — and the widely held theory is that his winning goal for Spain was the catalyst.

First of all, we need to talk about the hat.

During Spain’s World Cup celebrations in Madrid, Torres wore a red baseball cap bearing the words ‘Make Spain Great Again’. You don’t need to be a politics junkie to recognise the echoes with U.S. President Donald Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ slogan.

The White House reacted to the image through its official account on X, posting a video of Torres wearing the cap with the line: “Everyone wants in on the movement.”

Torres later insisted that it had nothing to do with politics, that it was simply about celebrating Spain being back at the top of world football.

SEE IT: Spain World Cup champion Ferran Torres gives fans a front-row look at the national team’s championship parade, sharing a POV video from the celebration on his Instagram Story while wearing a “Make Spain Great Again” hat.

The championship-winning forward rides through the… pic.twitter.com/BcwG8BIxqr

— Fox News (@FoxNews) July 21, 2026

Then there was the bracelet.

At the celebrations, Torres was also spotted wearing a rubber bracelet with a Spain flag that carried branding from the Guardia Civil — one of the country’s two national law enforcement agencies (the other being the Policia Nacional).

It would be unfair to assume that Torres was wearing that as some kind of political statement, but Catalonia’s recent history means some people saw one regardless.

In 2017, at the peak of the region’s now considerably weaker pro-independence movement, a referendum on the issue was organised by local authorities — without the permission of the Spanish government, who deemed it illegal. It brought huge crowds into Barcelona’s streets and was met with a heavy police crackdown.

Perhaps Torres was simply expressing his Spanish identity. But in Catalonia, even a seemingly harmless gesture can take on political significance. In Barcelona, a mural of Torres by Italian street artist TVBoy was defaced with the slogan: “We want Catalan national teams”, Another message scrawled on top simply read: “Spain”. Both were written in Catalan.

The mural of Ferran Torres by TVBoy as seen in Barcelona on July 22 (Josep Lago/AFP via Getty Images)

Torres responded to the situation in an interview with Radio Play Valencia a few weeks later.

“I am Valencian, a Valencianista (a proud supporter of the Valencia region) and Spanish,” he said. “If someone doesn’t like that, that’s their problem.”

Torres made those comments on August 7. By that time, he had already caused a bigger stir with several interviews in the United States.

After the World Cup final, Torres and the other seven Barca players in Spain’s squad had holidays before returning for pre-season training. Torres travelled to the U.S., where he took Barca by surprise with a round of media appearances on August 3.

“I have a contract at Barcelona, but in football you never know,” he said on NBC when asked where he would be playing this season, his Barca contract due to expire in June 2027. “I am just waiting to make the right decision, but I don’t know it yet.”

Later, speaking to Sportico, he also addressed reported interest from PSG.

“Every time these teams want you it’s a good thing,” Torres said. “In football you never know what can happen, but the good thing is that, as I have a contract, I can wait and decide on my own.

“What do Barca need to do to keep me? They have to show me they want me, come to negotiate, and in the end it’s all about talking.”

Spain held a trophy parade and celebrations in Madrid the day after the World Cup final (Diego Souto/Getty Images)

Torres is not a player who set the world alight at Barca. It would be fair to say he struggled overall to live up to the expectations following his €55million arrival from Manchester City in January 2022.

He also struggled with the mental side of the game and consulted psychologists to help get the best out of himself. This is where that nickname comes in again. The ‘shark’ reference comes via UFC fighter Ilia Topuria. Torres heard an interview with the Georgian-Spanish athlete in which he said of his rivals: “There’s only one shark here; the rest are sardines.”

He found it funny and told his Barcelona team-mates about it while they were eating. After an upturn in his goalscoring form for Barca at the beginning of 2023-24, the team started calling him ‘El Tiburon’. His goal celebrations reflected a player who felt he was proving doubters wrong.

But Torres has still never quite managed to deliver consistently, and that feeling of it being him against the world has not disappeared.

Ferran Torres’ goal sealed the second World Cup in Spain’s history (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

At the start of 2025-26, Hansi Flick’s idea was for the season to mark a transition from Robert Lewandowski to Torres as Barcelona’s leading No 9, but the reality was different. Torres struggled and ended the campaign with 21 goals and three assists in 49 appearances, going 14 games without scoring between late January and mid-April. After the season ended, there were no advances on a contract renewal, a situation complicated by the deal that took him from City four years ago.

Barca would have had to pay City about €8million if they had renewed Torres’ contract, while club sources — speaking anonymously as they did not have permission to comment — also said another clause meant selling him for anything over €55m would have forced them to pay City €10m.

The Spanish club ended up seeing him as a top-class substitute rather than a regular starter. Further to this, they have been trying to sign Atletico Madrid’s Julian Alvarez all summer.

Barca’s pursuit of Alvarez reinforced a perception that had been building around Torres. He felt he had been treated harshly for some time, and he wanted to respond to that. Every goal had become an answer to his critics, every good performance a rebuttal.

Ferran Torres joins up with former Spain manager Luis Enrique at PSG (Lou Benoist/AFP via Getty Images)

The critics were real, of course. So was the pressure. Barcelona is an unforgiving place for any player, and Torres has received his share of criticism. No one can blame him for carrying it as he has. But at times he seemed to be fighting a version of his critics that was larger, louder and more permanent than the one that actually existed. Many Barcelona supporters saw a betrayal of some kind in those U.S. media interviews — as they felt the club’s fanbase had rallied behind him in important moments.

Did Torres receive more criticism than he deserved? Did he receive more support than he remembers? The truth probably lies somewhere in between. Then, he scored the winning goal in a World Cup final.

The comparisons with Andres Iniesta’s extra-time strike in the 2010 final against the Netherlands (another 1-0 win for Spain) were obvious. The logical next step, in Torres’ eyes, might well have been to get out there and say, as the new hero of the nation, I told you so.

But in the end, there is perhaps nothing more Spanish than emulating Don Quixote — fighting battles against giants that may have been much smaller than they seemed.