Report: Everton made £45m deadline day offer for forward | OneFootball

Everton’s £45m Taty Castellanos Bid Shows Scale of Deadline Day Striker Problem

Everton’s late-window search for a centre-forward ended in familiar frustration, with TeamTalk reporting that the club failed with a major Deadline Day move for West Ham striker Taty Castellanos.

The detail is striking. Everton were “prepared to pay more than £40million” for the Argentine, with a verbal proposal of “around £40million plus another £5million in add-ons” put forward as their attacking options began to disappear. It underlines both the urgency inside the club and the difficulty they faced as the market moved into its final hours.

Castellanos had only joined West Ham from Lazio in January for a fee “worth just shy of £30million”, and despite the Hammers’ relegation, he remains a significant part of their plans for the Championship campaign ahead. That context matters. West Ham were not pushing him out, and any late sale would always have depended on finding a replacement at speed.

Everton striker search reached last-minute stage

Everton’s interest in Castellanos emerged after moves for a series of other forwards began to break down. As reported, “their attempts to land Folarin Balogun, Joshua Zirkzee and Tammy Abraham began to falter”, forcing the club to widen the search during the most difficult part of the window.

From Everton’s perspective, Castellanos was clearly seen as more than a stop-gap option. He was “a player Everton rated highly” and the size of the offer reflected a willingness to invest heavily for immediate impact. In pure fee terms, paying up to £45m for a player signed months earlier for just under £30m would have represented a major commitment.

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Yet timing was everything. West Ham “were prepared to listen to the proposal” and “would have been willing to accept the offer if they could find a suitable replacement for the Argentine before the window closed.” That caveat proved decisive.

West Ham held firm as clock ran down

With only a few hours left in the market, West Ham decided the risk was too high. The club “could not afford to leave themselves short in attack” while trying to secure an immediate return to the Premier League, and that made Everton’s push extremely difficult to execute.

In many ways, this was a deal structure and timing issue rather than a flat refusal. West Ham’s stance was clear, they could consider the money, but not the consequence of losing a key striker without cover. The report states that “the timing of the approach proved decisive”, which appears the central point in the collapse.

For Everton, that meant another route closed. “Their primary pursuit of Balogun ultimately collapsed when he walked away from a deal”, while “United said no to Zirkzee’s prospective loan with option” and “the deal for Abraham was agreed between Everton and Aston Villa but the player said no to The Toffees.” It paints the picture of a club chasing solutions and finding obstacles at every turn.

Failed Castellanos deal raises bigger recruitment questions

There is no doubting Everton’s intent here. The proposed package for Castellanos demonstrated serious financial backing and a readiness to act. At the same time, the sequence of events raises obvious questions about planning, prioritisation and execution.

A Deadline Day strategy can always become chaotic, particularly for clubs searching in a thin striker market. Still, moving from Balogun to Zirkzee to Abraham and then Castellanos suggests Everton were reacting to setbacks rather than driving a controlled process. The result was another miss.

Castellanos now stays with West Ham and “will now focus on helping Nuno’s side fight their way back into the Premier League.” Everton, meanwhile, are left reflecting on a window where the need was clear, the money appeared available, but the key deal never arrived.

Our View

From an Everton point of view, this is exhausting. Every window seems to end the same way, big need, late scramble, missed targets, and a growing sense that the club are always reacting rather than shaping the market. If we really rated Castellanos that highly, why was this only happening with “only a few hours of the transfer window remaining”?

The most frustrating part is that the money was there. A package of “around £40million plus another £5million in add-ons” is not small change. So supporters are entitled to ask why that level of decisiveness did not arrive earlier, when clubs had time to respond and deals had room to breathe.

Reading that Balogun fell through, Zirkzee was blocked, Abraham turned us down, and then Castellanos could not be done because West Ham had no time, it all sounds too familiar. It feels like Everton went into the final stretch needing a striker and ended it with a list of reasons why each option failed.

Fans do understand that deals can collapse. That is football. What is harder to accept is a pattern of uncertainty. Everton needed a forward who could “make an immediate impact” and ended the window without one of the main targets secured. Supporters will back the team, as ever, but patience wears thin when recruitment appears this disjointed. At some point, Everton have to stop admiring problems and start solving them earlier, faster and better.