It was a summer which promised so much but delivered only stalled careers and broken dreams.



Before the start of the 2017-18 season, Everton signed three No 10s as part of a baffling £145 million outlay on nine players.



Davy Klaassen was the first to arrive in the June, swapping the Ajax captaincy for his hopes of being part of something special under Ronald Koeman at Goodison Park.



His realistic chances of making it on Merseyside lasted only as long as the manager who signed him during a disastrous recruitment tussle with the director of football, Steve Walsh.



After guiding Everton to seventh place and Europa League qualification in his debut campaign the previous season, Koeman was sacked by October with the club in the Premier League’s bottom three.



For Klaassen, lured by the opportunity to play for a Dutch legend, it was the start of a bleak period in which he began to question everything about the game he...