📅 September 4, 2026

The Window Is Shut. Sunday Isn’t. The Case for Feeling Good About Everton.

By Mav Jones · Manchester United fan writer

The window shut on Tuesday and we’ve spent three days on it: no defenders, the net-spend table, a Turkish deadline, eight contracts. All of it true, all of it worth saying, and none of it changes a single thing about what happens at Hill Dickinson Stadium at 9 AM Eastern on Sunday. So this is the last word on the window from this site until January. From here the season is what’s in front of us, and what’s in front of us is better than the mood.

Start with what actually happened on the pitch

United lost at Hull and then put five past Ipswich from a goal down. That second game gets forgotten under the transfer noise, so remember what it was: a team that went behind on 29 minutes and scored four times in 26 second-half minutes, with the captain finishing a hat-trick and setting up the fifth. Bruno Fernandes was Player of the Matchweek with 69% of the vote on a shortlist that included Erling Haaland. He is the reigning Player of the Season and he holds the single-season assist record. He’s ours, the club has said he isn’t going anywhere, and the new contract has been on the table since May.

The same team finished third last season and is in the Champions League. That’s not a consolation; that’s the baseline everyone was arguing from all summer. The frustration was that the club didn’t build on it as much as it could have. The club that finished third is still the club.

The last time we went to Everton, we won

United’s last visit to Hill Dickinson was February, and it ended 0-1 to United. The goal was the move this side is built to produce: Cunha’s long pass out of his own half, Mbeumo running at Michael Keane and beating him, a square ball, and Sesko finishing on 71 minutes. Everyone involved in that goal is fit and available on Sunday.

The head-to-head from last season was a win each, 1-0 both ways. Everton beat United at Old Trafford in November, which was Moyes’s first league win there as an away manager after a career of trying. Nobody is pretending Sunday is easy. It’s a game United won last time and have the players to win again.

Everton’s window was worse than ours

This is the part that gets lost when a fanbase is looking at its own feet. Everton finished the summer as net sellers, roughly £34m to the good on Sports Mole’s ins-and-outs. On deadline day they sold Iliman Ndiaye, their most dangerous forward, to Manchester City for £60m plus add-ons, and sold Beto to Fiorentina the same afternoon. The £40m deal for Folarin Balogun that was supposed to replace them was reported to have collapsed on a medical. Thierno Barry is their one recognised senior centre-forward. They spent the summer bidding for right-backs, in Moyes’s own words, and signed none, so Merlin Röhl, a winger, has started both league games there.

United’s problem is a missing left-back and a defence that hasn’t been improved. Everton’s problem is a missing attack. One of those is easier to play against on Sunday than the other.

The squad is better than it was in May

United spent about £150m this summer and every pound went into midfield: Carlos Baleba, Andrey Santos and Youri Tielemans. The complaint was about what didn’t arrive, and it was fair. But look at what did. Tielemans kept his place after a bad day at Hull and ran the Ipswich game. Santos is 22 and cost around £50m for a reason. Baleba is the club’s biggest outlay of the summer and hasn’t played a minute yet; he’s targeting the Brighton cup tie on 16 September. The midfield that beat Ipswich 5-2 did it without him.

Mason Mount is back in full training after the knock that kept him out of the Ipswich game. Rashford has the 9 and started on the left against Ipswich, where he’ll find a converted winger at right-back on Sunday. Sesko, who scored the winner at this ground, is the striker we’d start. The forward line is Mbeumo, Sesko, Rashford, with Cunha coming off the bench at the hour. That’s a good problem.

What the next fortnight looks like

Everton away on Sunday, 9 AM Eastern. The Champions League opener at home to Sabah on Thursday, 3 PM Eastern, United’s first European night at Old Trafford since qualifying. Then the derby, at home, on Sunday 13 September at 11:30 AM Eastern, and Brighton in the cup three days later. Four games in ten days, three of them at Old Trafford, one of them the biggest of the autumn.

That run was written up on this site as a congestion problem, and for the squad it is. For a supporter it’s the best fortnight of the year so far. The full list, converted to Eastern, is on the schedule page, and which US service shows which game is in the watch guide.

The honest read

None of this erases the summer. The left-back wasn’t signed, the defence that conceded twice from set pieces at Hull is the same defence, and the contract work starts now. This site said all of that and will say it again if the back four costs United a game.

But the window is a thing that happens to a club four weeks a year. The other 48 are about the players who are here, and the players who are here finished third, scored five last time out, have the league’s best player in the form of his life, and go to a side that just sold its two best forwards. Sunday morning, coffee, 9 AM. Let’s talk about Everton.

Sources: ESPN — Everton 0-1 Manchester United (23 Feb 2026); Sports Mole — Everton summer transfers 2026, all confirmed ins and outs (updated 2 Sep 2026); ESPN — Ndiaye joins Manchester City (Sep 2026); Fiorentina official — Beto signing (1 Sep 2026); Yahoo Sports — Everton on deadline day, Balogun (Sep 2026); Yahoo Sports — Man Utd injury latest v Everton (1 Sep 2026); Sky Sports line-ups, Bournemouth v Everton (29 Aug 2026); ToffeeWeb — Moyes on the right-back search; Premier League — Player of the Matchweek, MW2; mavjones.com/schedule for kick-off times.