It has seemed a recipe for regressions. Everton have spent £144 million and gone into the bottom five. They have scored three fewer league goals as a team than the striker they sold, Romelu Lukaku, has mustered on his own for Manchester United.
Yet the forward is not the only man they are missing. Ross Barkley is injured but not gone. Everton replaced him without finding him an alternative employer. And not once, but three times. Change may have been enforced by Barkley's refusal to sign a new contract, but it was also botched by Everton's inability to sell him and their triple-pronged efforts at finding a successor.