Bournemouth striker Joshua King has sealed a deadline day move to Everton.
Carlo Ancelotti’s side edged ahead of Fulham and Southampton in the battle to secure the forward’s signature before the January transfer window closed.
King, 29, spent five seasons in the Premier League with the Cherries before their relegation last year and has scored three goals in 14 games this term.
The Norway international moves to Goodison Park on a short-term deal for the rest of this season which could be worth £5 million to his former club.
“I think that Josh King is the direct replacement that we needed,” said Ancelotti.
“The fact that we let Cenk Tosun go to Turkey, we let Anthony (Gordon) go to have experience, improve his knowledge at Preston, we needed someone to provide in the position up front.
“I think that Josh King is a really good option for us. We were looking at him also in the summer and we had a possibility to have him.
“With his quality he will improve our squad. He can cover all the positions up front and he has experience in the Premier League so I’m happy to have him in the squad.”
He added: “We didn’t score him to have more goals.
“We signed him to use his quality. He is a powerful player, a fast player, for this reason, not to score more goals.
“We signed him to have more options up front so with him we have more options.
“I’m not talking about more goals – of course we need goals – but we have players that can score goals.”
Everton have been keeping tabs on King for several months but only moved for the player following Gordon’s loan move to Deepdale.
The homegrown player was one of five deadline day departures from Ancelotti’s squad, joining Jonas Lossl, Cenk Tosun, Jonjoe Kenny and Beni Baningime.
Lossl and Tosun sealed returns to ex-employers Midtjylland and Besiktas while Kenny joined Celtic and Baningime moved to Championship side Derby County.
However Bernard’s proposed transfer to Dubai club Al-Nasr broke down, leaving the Brazilian to stay with Everton for the foreseeable future.