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Henry Onyekuru has still not kicked a ball for Everton, 18 months after Everton spent £7m to sign him from KAS Eupen.

He probably never will.

Complicated work permit rules mean that Everton have had to send the promising Nigerian youngster on loan to Anderlecht and now Galatasaray.

Everton gambled. The punt backfired.

They've been gambling for too long under Farhad Moshiri's tenure - and the club's majority shareholder has understandably had enough.

It isn't just a £7m transfer fee which Everton were forced to write off to experience with Onyekuru. For the remaining three-and-a-half years of the youngster's Blues deal he is contracted to be paid around £40,000 a week.

Henry Onyekuru £7m Transfer Fee £40,000 Weekly salary 0 First Team Games

Galatasaray will meet some of that sum while he is on loan in Turkey, but not all.

Onyekuru is merely the poster boy for a remarkable summer of spending which is impacting on Marco Silva's January transfer plans.

Everton need a centre-forward, a striker, a goalscorer as plain as the nose on Silva's face.

But this week Silva said: "We don't have the financial conditions to go in the market, is the feedback I have at the moment. I have to find different solutions."

(Image: KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP/Getty Images)

Of the seven players acquired on Silva's watch so far, six have all made significant impacts in Everton's first team squad, six are playing regularly while the one who isn't, goalkeeper Joao Virginia, is a free transfer for the future.

But Silva is being held back by the excesses of the past.

Moshiri has been astonishingly generous during his near three-year reign as Everton's majority shareholder. But the Iranian billionaire has been hurt by his own generosity.

Last summer's spending spree was as profligate as it appeared to be reckless.

Ronald Koeman, aided and abetted by Steve Walsh, squandered, £144million in a single summer on FIFTEEN players!

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Names like Denis Adeniran, Josh Bowler and Boris Mathis were always earmarked for Under-23 football rather than Ronald Koeman's squad.

Likewise Lewis Gibson whose advertised transfer fee was £6m.

(Image: Nick Taylor/Liverpool FC/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)

But others clearly were identified as first team footballers and, just 12 months later, are playing no part at Goodison Park.

That has been a legacy of changing managers so frequently, but equally since Moshiri arrived at Everton the sums of money squandered has been eye-watering.

Morgan Schneiderlin cost £20million and hasn't started a match since October 2.

Yannick Bolasie cost £25m. Ashley Williams £12m. Sandro Ramirez £5.3m. Nikola Vlasic £10m. All have been farmed out on loan, along with Kevin Mirallas and Mo Besic.

Cuco Martina is still an Everton footballer. So is Ashley Williams.

The only players signed last summer who have been successfully moved on are Davy Klaassen - at a loss of £12m - and Wayne Rooney.

And the cost of that failure to move players on is staggering.

The following list of footballers are nowhere near the Everton first team - but are paid significant salaries.

Everton weekly player salaries

Morgan Schneiderlin £120,000 per week

James McCarthy £50,000

Kevin Mirallas £75,000

Cenk Tosun £67,000

Ashley Williams £60,000

Cuco Martina £40,000

Mo Besic £25,000

Yannick Bolasie £70,000

Sandro Ramirez £120,000

Phil Jagielka £50,000

Nikola Vlasic £40,000

That's a staggering three-quarter-of-a-million pounds committed every single week on players who aren't getting anywhere near Marco Silva's first team.

Loan deals may have eased some of the pain from that salary list - Oumar Niasse's £55,000 a week salary will now largely be met by Cardiff City - but only some.

It is an astonishingly wasteful spell in the club's recent history.

Everton have gone from a club who "made every pound work" under David Moyes, to a club who have spent money like a Lottery winner on a trolley dash around Harrods.

That is why Everton have so far declined to spend in the January transfer market.

It is why names like Michy Batshuayi are only being spoken of as potential signings if and when Everton can offload another salary.

And it is why the judicious, astute and strategically forward thinking Marcel Brands was appointed as a Director of Football last summer, and subsequently promoted to the board of directors.

He has one hell of a mess to sort out - and it may take him several transfer windows to do so.

But probably not this one.

Evertonians are not likely to be staying up late on Wednesday night to listen to Jim White's over-excitable oversell on a handful of transfer deals.

Everton "don't have the financial conditions to go into the market" - and won't have until next summer.

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