Everton have had their fair share of transfer disasters during the Moshiri era at Goodison Park, with more than £500m spent on signings and nothing to show for it beyond relegation scraps and financial concerns.

However, since the arrivals of Frank Lampard and director of football Kevin Thelwell in 2022, Everton are looking like a team who can compete comfortably in the Premier League this season so far after signing nine new players over the summer.

The Toffees are currently unbeaten in their last six games and have the best defensive record in the top flight after eight outings, with Conor Coady, James Tarkowski, Amadou Onana and Neal Maupay all becoming consistent features in the team since they joined the Merseysiders over the summer.

Nevertheless, it has taken a lot of trial and error to get the team into shape; and even when transfers have looked promising for the club, the reality sometimes hasn't lived up to expectations, with James Rodriguez the perfect example of a player who was a superstar on paper but a flop for Everton.

Before he made the move to Merseyside, he was one of the hottest prospects in football, scoring 37 goals and delivering 42 assists in just 125 appearances for Real Madrid.

On the international stage for Colombia, he was the standout performer in the 2014 World Cup, scoring six goals in five games and winning the tournament's Golden Boot.

Therefore, when the opportunity came for the attacker to join the Toffees in 2020, it was met with great excitement. The talented goal machine had worked with Carlo Ancelotti on two occasions already by that stage and on the surface seemed the perfect fit for Everton.

However, it turned out to be one of Moshiri's biggest transfer disasters, and financially Rodriguez completely drained the club over his 12 months at Goodison Park.

The player joined on a free transfer from Los Blancos, as confirmed by then-Toffees director Marcel Brands despite initial reports of a £22m fee at the time of the transfer. However, when you take into account the player's £140k-per-week salary during his 54 weeks at the club, it cost Moshiri £7.56m in total.

Rodriguez made just 26 appearances for the Toffees, scoring six goals and delivering nine assists as he was plagued with injuries, suffering six separate instances of injury in just one year and missing 22 games whilst he recovered.

The former Bayern Munich ace has also branded "spoiled" by journalist Ivan Mejia in the past before he was sold for an undisclosed fee to Qatari club Al-Rayyan just over a year after his arrival on Merseyside.

With that in mind, there is no doubt that Moshiri will feel rueful over signing Rodriguez, but the club could have never predicted that a player with so much promise could be such a letdown at Everton.