Ronald Koeman was overseeing the final preparations for Everton’s game with Arsenal when he resorted to barking out one instruction repeatedly during training at the club’s Finch Farm base on Saturday.

“Long balls, long balls,” came the Dutchman’s command, prompting quizzical looks from members of his first-team squad as a practice game ensued. Everton had spent all summer acquiring No 10s at no little expense — Gylfi Sigurdsson, Davy Klaassen and Wayne Rooney to go with Ross Barkley and others — and here was the manager instructing his team to bypass them all and play direct despite their failure to sign a new target man during the summer transfer window.

The most damning indictment of the club’s flawed transfer policy had inadvertently been delivered by