When Everton paid £1.5million to sign Tim Cahill from Millwall in 2004, it’s probably fair to say few people would have predicted the success the Australian went on to enjoy at Goodison Park.
Cahill moved to England as a teenager to fulfil his dream of becoming a professional footballer, joining Millwall as a 16-year-old and going on to make 250 appearances for the South London club.
Then, in 2004, he got his big move to the Premier League with Everton. Any fears he might struggle to step up soon evaporated as Cahill top-scored in his first season at Goodison. Eight years, 278 appearances and 68 goals later, the Toffees could reflect on one of the best bargains of all time.
The problem
Everton had gone through a real up-and-down first two seasons of David Moyes’ tenure.
The Scot took over towards the end of the 2001-02 season when Everton finished 15th. They bounced up to seventh in his first season in full charge but then collapsed back down the 17th in 2003-04.
However, Moyes was not under pressure. It’s often used as an excuse, but this genuinely was a team in transition.
Moyes had inherited a bloated squad from Walter Smith, featuring too many players in their 30s who were blocking the first-team development of talented younger players, and in the space of a year Moyes allowed Alex Nyarko (30 in the summer of 2004), Steve Watson (30), Tomasz Radzinski (30), David Unsworth (31), Alan Stubbs (33), Mark Pembridge (33), and Kevin Campbell (34) to leave.
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READ: Kevin Campbell: I fell in love with Everton and still love them now
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Although Joseph Yobo (24), Tony Hibbert (23), James McFadden (21), and Leon Osman (23) had all featured for Everton in the disappointing 2003-04 campaign, moving out some of the older heads would allow that group of youngsters to enter the 2004-05 season with the confidence of knowing they were now trusted first-teamers.
However, Moyes still needed to secure a few more players to fill out the squad. All areas needed strengthening, but particularly central midfield and up front, the positions vacated by Watson, Radzinski, Campbell and departing 18-year-old academy graduate Wayne Rooney.
The market
Everton were notoriously short on funds for both transfers and wages, a situation not helped by the fact that the seven departing older players listed above yielded a total of just £2.5million in transfer fees. Between them they had cost the club £18.3million.
Even after accounting for the…
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