Everton Eye Jamie Vardy as Free Agent After Cremonese Departure

Everton are weighing up a move for Jamie Vardy, the 39-year-old former England striker who is currently without a club after leaving Italian Serie B side Cremonese at the end of the 2025-26 season, according to a report by The Sun published on September 3, 2026. The move has not been confirmed by either party and remains at an exploratory stage, with no official announcement made by Everton or Vardy’s representatives.

David Moyes‘ Everton were unable to secure a striker before the summer transfer window closed on September 1, 2026, leaving the Merseyside club short of firepower going into the new Premier League season. According to Talksport, Everton are also considering an approach for Anthony Martial, 30, a free agent after his contract with Mexican side Monterrey expired. No deal with either player has been agreed, and both reports should be treated as gossip at this stage — neither Everton nor any of the players’ camps has publicly confirmed a transfer is imminent.

What the Reports Say: Vardy and Martial Both on Everton’s Radar

The Sun’s September 3 report stated that Everton are “considering a move” for Vardy following his departure from Cremonese, with the Italian club confirming he left at the end of his contract in the summer of 2026. Vardy, who turned 39 in January 2026, scored seven goals in 29 appearances during his single season at Cremonese in Serie B, according to data from Statmuse and Wikipedia. The spell in Italy was seen as a final professional chapter after his decorated Leicester City career.

Talksport separately reported that Everton could approach Martial as an alternative or additional option. Martial, who was released by Monterrey after a difficult spell in Liga MX, is also unattached and would be available on a free transfer. As with the Vardy link, this remains unconfirmed rumour — no formal bid has been reported, and the talks, if any, are understood to be at a very early stage.

Crucially, because both Vardy and Martial are free agents, Everton could sign either player at any time — free agents can be registered outside the standard transfer window. This gives Moyes’ side flexibility to strengthen in the coming weeks without waiting for the January window.

Jamie Vardy: An Extraordinary Career From Non-League to Legend

Any potential Everton move would represent one final chapter in perhaps the most remarkable career story in English football history. Vardy’s biography reads like fiction: rejected by Sheffield Wednesday as a teenager, he dropped into non-league football and worked in a carbon fibre factory while playing for Stocksbridge Park Steels and Halifax Town. He was 24 years old and playing in the sixth tier of English football before Leicester City paid just £1 million to sign him from Fleetwood Town in May 2012.

What followed was extraordinary. Vardy progressed from Championship footballer to Premier League striker to England international to, most impossibly of all, Premier League champion. In the 2015-16 season — the year of the greatest footballing fairytale — he scored 24 Premier League goals and set a record of scoring in 11 consecutive Premier League matches, a landmark that still stands. He was named in the PFA Team of the Year and finished runner-up in the FWA Footballer of the Year award, won the Premier League Golden Boot in the 2019-20 season with 23 goals, and represented England at Euro 2016. His refusal of a move to Arsenal in the summer of 2016 — turning down a club with Champions League football to stay at Leicester — became one of the defining loyalty decisions in recent Premier League history.

According to data published by Wikipedia and verified career databases, Vardy scored 200 goals for Leicester City in all competitions across his 13-year association with the club, which ended in the summer of 2025 when he left on a free transfer for Cremonese. He also won the FA Cup with Leicester in 2021, completing a remarkable honours list for a player who was non-league as recently as his mid-20s.

Career Statistics: Jamie Vardy by the Numbers

Sources: Wikipedia career statistics table; Statmuse (Cremonese 2025-26 season figures). Table ordered newest season first.

Everton’s Striker Crisis: Why Moyes Needs Reinforcements

The context behind the Vardy link is straightforward: Everton entered the 2026-27 Premier League season without adequate depth up front after a difficult summer window. Moyes, appointed as Everton manager for a second spell, has consistently spoken publicly about the need for a clinical finisher — though no direct quote attributing the specific Vardy interest to the manager has been verified by the available sources at this time.

Everton’s situation is not unique. Multiple Premier League clubs ended the summer window without completing all their planned signings, and the availability of experienced free agents like Vardy and Martial is being monitored by several clubs. Vardy’s age, 39, is a genuine consideration — he would be among the oldest outfield players in the Premier League if he returned — but his fitness and continued productivity at Cremonese, where he averaged a goal every four matches in Serie B, demonstrates he remains capable at a competitive level.

From a biographical and cultural standpoint, a Vardy return to English top-flight football would also carry significant symbolism. He has never played for another English club at the top level — Leicester City was his only Premier League employer — and a move to Goodison Park would mark a genuinely new chapter in his storied career.

The Cremonese Chapter: Vardy’s Italian Adventure

Vardy’s decision to join Cremonese in the summer of 2025 surprised many. Serie B — Italy’s second division — is not the destination most Premier League legends choose. But the move reflected both Vardy’s continued competitive desire and Cremonese’s recognition that a player of his profile and Premier League pedigree could make a genuine impact in the Italian second tier.

He scored seven goals in 29 Serie B appearances during the 2025-26 campaign, according to Statmuse. While Cremonese did not win promotion to Serie A, Vardy’s contribution was respectable for a player at 39 adapting to a different style of football. Analysis from Total Football Analysis noted that Vardy remained an effective runner in behind defensive lines and retained his trademark ability to exploit high defensive lines on the counter-attack — the movement pattern that defined his entire career.

His departure from Cremonese at the end of his contract left him a free agent for the second consecutive summer — he was also a free agent when Leicester released him in 2025. At 39, the question of whether he can still contribute regularly at the Premier League level is legitimate, but the reported Everton interest suggests clubs believe he retains value as a specialist finisher and impact substitute even at this stage of his career.

Anthony Martial: The Other Free Agent Option

The Talksport report linking Everton to Anthony Martial provides an interesting contrast. While Vardy’s career narrative is one of relentless over-achievement against all expectations, Martial’s is almost the polar opposite: a player blessed with extraordinary natural talent who never quite fulfilled the enormous promise that led Manchester United to pay Monaco €80 million for him in September 2015 — at the time, a world-record fee for a teenager.

Martial, 30, made 317 appearances for Manchester United between 2015 and 2023, scoring 90 goals across all competitions, before a difficult final years at Old Trafford and subsequent departures. His time with Monterrey in Liga MX was his most recent senior engagement, and he too departed as a free agent in the summer of 2026. At 30, Martial is eight years younger than Vardy, and his availability on a free transfer makes him an attractive low-risk option for a Premier League club willing to bet on him rediscovering his best form.

Again, it must be emphasised: no move for either Vardy or Martial has been agreed, and these reports represent unconfirmed transfer gossip attributed to The Sun and Talksport respectively. Everton have not made any official statement on their striker plans.

Vardy’s Legacy: The Story That Will Never Grow Old

Whatever happens next in Jamie Vardy’s career, his place in football history is already secured in the most extraordinary terms. The Sheffield-born forward’s journey from carbon fibre factory worker and sixth-tier footballer to Premier League Golden Boot winner, title-winning champion and England international is one of the most compelling human-interest stories the sport has ever produced.

His 2015-16 record-breaking run of scoring in 11 consecutive Premier League matches — a mark that has never been beaten — was one of the defining moments of that season’s fairy-tale title race. In a league full of players developed from childhood by elite academies, backed by six-figure weekly wages and guided by entire teams of performance coaches, Vardy arrived through the back door and became one of the most feared strikers of his generation. As Wikipedia’s career overview notes, he remains the only player in Premier League history to have won the title with a team that had been in the sixth tier of English football as recently as eight years before winning it.

The prospect of Vardy pulling on a Premier League shirt once more — at 39, as a free agent, potentially for Everton — is the kind of subplot that makes football endlessly fascinating. There is also broader context for Everton supporters: the club has been through significant turbulence in recent years, and the arrival of a figure as motivating and experienced as Vardy could carry genuine dressing-room value beyond the purely statistical.

What Happens Next: The Free-Agent Window Advantage

One important practical detail: because Vardy and Martial are free agents, Everton are not bound by transfer window deadlines to complete any potential signing. Premier League clubs can register free agents at any point during the season, subject to league rules. This means Moyes could sign Vardy in October, November or even later in the season if he chooses to do so — the urgency that defines a deadline-day deal does not apply here.

That flexibility also means the story is likely to develop slowly. There will be no dramatic 11 p.m. deadline announcement. Instead, Everton will assess their attacking options over the coming weeks, Vardy’s camp will weigh up their interest alongside any other approaches, and a decision will be made at a pace that suits both parties.

Key things to watch in the coming days and weeks:

• Whether Everton’s attacking injury situation worsens, which would accelerate any free-agent recruitment
• Whether David Moyes makes any public comments about squad depth that hint at movement
• Whether other Premier League clubs enter the picture for Vardy, given his free-agent status
• Whether Vardy himself has indicated a preference — Everton would not be a traditional destination for a player whose entire English career was at Leicester
• Whether the Martial alternative progresses in parallel, or whether the two options are mutually exclusive

This remains, as the BBC Sport gossip column noted on September 3, 2026, a story to watch rather than a done deal. But in the extraordinary context of Jamie Vardy’s career, even a rumoured return to English football carries weight far beyond a typical free-agent link.

Summary: What We Know, What We Don’t

To be clear about the status of this story as of September 4, 2026:

• CONFIRMED: Jamie Vardy, 39, is a free agent after leaving Cremonese at the end of the 2025-26 Serie B season.
• CONFIRMED: Anthony Martial, 30, is a free agent after departing Monterrey.
• REPORTED (The Sun, September 3, 2026): Everton are considering a move for Vardy. No official approach confirmed.
• REPORTED (Talksport, September 3, 2026): Everton may also approach Martial. No official approach confirmed.
• NOT CONFIRMED: No fee, contract, medical, or any stage of formal agreement has been reported for either player.

The story was first aggregated by BBC Sport’s Friday gossip column on September 3, 2026, drawing on The Sun and Talksport as the primary sources for each respective link. Until Everton or Vardy’s representatives make an official statement, this remains unconfirmed transfer gossip — but gossip rooted in the genuinely extraordinary story of one of English football’s greatest ever overachievers.

Photo: Кирилл Венедиктов, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons