The summer of 2007 was an exciting time at Goodison Park, as Everton arguably had the club’s best transfer window in the modern era, with David Moyes’ summer recruitment exemplifying the Scot’s keen eye for a player.
The arrival of centre-back Phil Jagielka from Sheffield United for £4 million proved to be a bargain, as did the £5 million spent on left-back Leighton Baines, who arrived from Wigan Athletic.
The two would amass close to 700 Premier League appearances between them, becoming fan favourites during their time at the club.
They were later joined by Nigerian forward Yakubu, who joined from Middlesbrough for a club record £11.25 million. As we all know, if you feed the Yak, he will score, and the arrival of left winger Steven Pienaar on loan from Borussia Dortmund gave Moyes’ side an extra creative output, the South African international going on to form an almost telepathic relationship with fellow new boy Leighton Baines.
Also arriving on loan was cult hero Thomas Gravesen, who rejoined the club on a short-term deal from Celtic, just two years after his surprise departure for Real Madrid.
However, there was one transfer that sent Evertonians into overdrive, when on July 2nd, 2007, the club’s official website announced that Juan Roman Riquelme had joined from Villarreal.
A dream signing for many Evertonians, if only it were true. Unfortunately, Everton had not signed the Argentinian playmaker, but had accidentally released the statement while completing maintenance work on the website, prompting an embarrassing press release from a club spokesperson.
They said, “During the process of uploading the new home page designs for the website some test data was displayed for a very short period of time and was immediately removed after it had been identified.
“Example data had been used during the testing process and this was unfortunately missed by our appointed web development company during the final upload.”
Though often linked with the club, Riquelme to Everton was unfortunately a move that failed to materialise.
What a player, and what a signing he could have been for Everton.