David Moyes biggest summer transfer clear as staggering Everton situation emerges
The tears on the pitch, during and after the game, told you all you needed to know. Abdoulaye Doucoure was leaving Everton.
His departure was confirmed on Monday when the midfielder took to social media to post an emotional video message. But his reaction to being substituted in Sunday's Goodison Park farewell, and how he was when the players took one final walk around the pitch after the historic encounter, had already given the game away.
The warm tributes to the news being made official, both by the club and by fans, were fully deserved.
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After netting just fives times in his first two seasons with the Blues, Doucoure became a scorer of big and regular goals after being given a new lease of life by Sean Dyche.
Indeed, it is unthinkable to imagine just where the club would be right now without his incredible strike against Bournemouth on the final day of the 2022-23 season that settled yet another relegation decider and left Goodison shaking to its core.
Doucoure has also become a go-to player under Dyche's replacement, David Moyes, with his final goal for Everton fittingly being another memorable one to secure a last-gasp victory at Nottingham Forest.
The 32-year-old celebrated it by suggesting it was high time the Blues sorted his contract situation out after the club opted against triggering the 12-month extension in his deal.
It has since transpired that Doucoure was eventually offered fresh terms. However, they were clearly not to his liking and this Sunday's trip to Newcastle United will mark the end of his five-year stay on Merseyside.
Doucoure had already intimated he would not accept a decrease in his wages, telling his former Watford team-mate Ben Foster on the ex-goalkeeper's Fozcast: "It's funny because now I hear on especially X and Instagram that Everton fans were saying, 'we love Doucoure to stay but he has to lower his wages', and I'm amazed. Why are they talking about my salary? To be honest I deserve to have my salary right now.
"I hear a lot of things about my salary and I'm like, 'guys I see Mo Salah or Van Dijk they have a pay rise because they are playing good and okay I'm not at that level, Everton is not at the level of Liverpool, but I'm sorry'.
"And to be honest I won't reduce my salary to stay at the club because I don't think I deserve to reduce my salary. I'm playing every season, I'm scoring important goals, I'm very important for the club. No I should have an increase."
While completely understandable from the player's point of view, those comments were not universally well liked by supporters, whose gratitude for Doucoure will be eternal but whose views on his place in the team, despite his penchant for scoring crucial goals and his unflinching work rate, has been debated for some time.
The veteran, who responded to a fans' post on X yesterday about his role in the team, is a player who would not always pass the eye test, with his passing and final ball, in particular, often the source of frustration.
But it is no coincidence that a succession of Blues bosses - Frank Lampard aside - have continued to pick him.
And a post on X, from Michael Greenall (@greenallefc), following Doucoure's final appearance at Goodison, has suggested exactly why.
It showed that Everton, with Doucoure, have played 148 matches, winning 55, drawing 34 and losing 59. That works out as 1.34 per points a game (199 points in total).
Without Doucoure, the Blues have played 41 matches, winning just four, drawing 16 and losing 21. That works out at 0.68 points per (28 points in total).
That is a staggering difference and in a summer transfer market that will be exciting but challenging for Moyes, his biggest task could be just how to replace the man that Everton, almost literally, have not been able to do without.
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