This is the kind of deadline-day deal that tells you Everton are not here to play a supporting role. A £38.5m agreement for Folarin Balogun is a serious outlay, a serious statement, and if it goes through it will be their second-most expensive signing in club history. In a market that has spent the entire window treating logic like an optional extra, Everton have at least made one thing clear: they are paying for a striker they believe can change the mood fast.
Balogun has not arrived out of nowhere either. The 25-year-old scored 19 goals for AS Monaco in 2025/26, which is exactly the sort of return that makes a fee like this easier to defend. Everton have granted him permission to travel for a medical, with the move happening on deadline day and the clock ticking towards 11pm BST on Tuesday 1 September, when the Premier League summer transfer window was due to close. There is still the usual late-window scramble to manage, and the fine print matters too, because deals can still be announced after the deadline with a two-hour grace period if a deal sheet is submitted before 11pm.
A fee that says plenty about Everton’s priorities
The size of the fee is the headline, and rightly so. £38.5m is not the sort of number clubs throw around casually, especially when the deal pushes into record-level territory for a team that still has plenty to sort out. But Everton are clearly betting on output, not caution. Balogun’s numbers at Monaco suggest a striker with the sort of sharpness that can justify a big fee, and Everton need exactly that sort of conviction after too many windows spent patching holes rather than solving problems.
There is, of course, a brutal football truth here: a big fee does not guarantee a big player, and a big player does not automatically guarantee a clean fit. That is why deadline-day deals always come with a little extra danger attached. But Everton are not paying for a maybe with Balogun. They are paying for a scorer who has already shown he can deliver at a serious level, and that makes the move far more than a headline-grabber.
What it means in the wider move picture
The timing is also telling. Everton were preparing for Iliman Ndiaye's exit in the opposite direction, while Jack Grealish was on his way back to Hill Dickinson Stadium for a medical and a season-long loan move. That is a lot of movement in one day, and it gives the whole operation the feel of a club trying to reshape itself in real time rather than waiting for the market to calm down and do the sensible thing later.
Balogun's medical is the next hurdle, and until that is completed nothing should be treated as finished. But the direction of travel is obvious. Everton have agreed a deal, Balogun has been cleared to travel, and the club have committed to a striker with proven scoring touch and a fee that makes the stakes impossible to ignore. If it gets across the line, this is not just another late-window signing. It is Everton choosing ambition, and doing it loudly.
