Mauro Icardi: Everton's Potential Free-Agent Striker
Everton’s search for a striker has taken a familiar turn: late, urgent and focused on opportunity. This time, the name on the table is Mauro Icardi.
The Argentine, once the ruthless focal point of Inter Milan and a Champions League regular with Paris Saint-Germain, has been offered to the Merseyside club as a free agent, according to TyC Sports journalist German Garcia Grova on 7 September. His representatives are understood to be open to Everton as a possible next stop.
For David Moyes, short of options and shorter still on goals, the timing is hard to ignore.
Everton’s striker problem
Right now, Thierno Barry stands as the only natural centre-forward in the senior squad. He is talented, raw and still very much learning the position. He is also missing chances.
The collapse of the Folarin Balogun deal on deadline day left Everton exposed. The window closed, the goals didn’t arrive, and the recruitment team at Hill Dickinson Stadium turned to the only market still available: free agents.
That is where Icardi comes in.
Icardi’s profile: not peak, but still potent
Icardi, 33, last turned out for Galatasaray, leaving the Turkish club when his contract ran down at the end of the 2025–26 season. Before that, he carried the No. 9 burden at Inter Milan and Paris Saint-Germain, scoring at a level that made him one of Europe’s most feared penalty-box forwards.
He is no longer that headline act. The legs are slower, the explosiveness dulled. Yet the numbers from last season suggest the instincts remain razor sharp.
Across all competitions for Galatasaray, Icardi hit 16 goals, many of them from the bench, with Victor Osimhen preferred as the starting striker. In the Super Lig alone, he scored 14 times, posting a 24 per cent conversion rate and outperforming an xG of 10.53, according to Sofascore.
That is not a forward in decline beyond use. That is a finisher who still punishes mistakes.
Big-stage experience, box-first mentality
Icardi also brings something Everton’s current attack lacks: hardened experience at the very top level. Last season he faced Liverpool and Juventus in the Champions League, and held his own. The stage, the noise, the pressure – none of it is new to him.
He will not stretch defences with blistering pace. He will not dribble past three men on the halfway line. What he does offer is far more straightforward and, for a team like Everton, arguably more valuable: he lives in the penalty area, times his runs, and finishes.
For Moyes, who often builds around structure, deliveries from wide areas and quick transitions, that profile fits. Put the ball into dangerous zones, and let a specialist do the rest.
Risk, reward and timing
There are obvious questions. At 33, how much can he give across a full Premier League season? Can he adapt quickly to a new league, a new country, and a team likely to spend long spells without the ball?
Yet the flip side is compelling. He would cost no transfer fee. He offers a very different threat to Barry. He has a proven record of turning half-chances into goals – something Everton have sorely lacked.
For now, the club are weighing their options. Do they move now, take the free-agent plunge and hand Moyes the penalty-box predator he is missing? Or do they gamble on getting through to January and chase younger, longer-term targets then?
The decision will say plenty about Everton’s ambitions – and about how urgently they believe this season needs saving.
