Hayden Hackney has long felt like a Premier League player in waiting.The Middlesbrough midfielder has been followed by top-flight clubs for more than a year, and saw a move to fellow Championship side Ipswich Town fall through before the start of last season.Now, he finally seems primed to take the next step.Named Championship player of the season for 2025-26, he is being actively courted by a host of Premier League sides. The Athletic reported in this week’s Transfer DealSheet that Everton have emerged as leading contenders for his signature, with the 23-year-old expressing an early desire to move to the Merseyside club.There remains plenty of work to do to complete a deal — talks are yet to get underway between the clubs — and there is still a chance others will look to steal a march.Yet Hackney has a year left on his contract and, with Middlesbrough having lost the play-off final to Hull City last month, there is an expectation their homegrown star will depart this summer. There is a sense, too, that his contractual situation means he should represent good value for money for buying clubs.Middlesbrough lost the play-off final to Hull City (Julian Finney/Getty Images)While this summer’s World Cup is expected to push most top-level business into July and beyond, in theory there is nothing stopping Hackney, a former England Under-21 mainstay yet to be capped at senior level, from finalising a move in the early part of the window. His situation is one to watch in the coming weeks.Everton have tracked the Redcar-born player’s progress over an extended period of time. He first came onto their radar under their former director of football Kevin Thelwell, who was at the club between 2022 and the spring of 2025, and his recruitment team.They considered moves in the summer of 2024 and again the following January, when current manager David Moyes was appointed for a second spell in charge. The interest continued last summer and Hackney was on an initial shortlist before Merlin Rohl was signed on loan from Freiburg late in the window, with Moyes having sounded out former Middlesbrough manager Michael Carrick — one of his players during his time in charge at Manchester United — for his views.Everton are in the market for at least one central midfielder this summer — potentially two, given the uncertainty around Idrissa Gueye’s future.They like the Championship market, which Moyes used to good effect during his first stint at Everton and at West Ham United. Leighton Baines, Phil Jagielka, Joleon Lescott and Jarrod Bowen were all signed at those clubs from England’s second-tier and turned into England internationals on his watch.Scouts and coaching staff have regularly been sent to Championship games, with the league’s physicality and speed seen as comparable to that of the top tier. Clubs such as Crystal Palace have enjoyed success signing players such as Adam Wharton, Eberechi Eze and Michael Olise from Championship sides.Hackney’s data at that level is seen as exceptional, with some observers considering him to be far and away the best player in the league, and there is a sense it points to him being able to make the step up.He was unwittingly drawn into the recent ‘spygate’ spate with Southampton, who admitted to watching Middlesbrough train in part to work out whether Hackney had shaken off a calf injury to feature in the play-off semi-final, such was his importance.Some drop-off in output is to be expected when moving up a level, but the hope would be that Hackney could still make a strong impact in the Premier League.As The Athletic reported on Tuesday, Carrick’s Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur and Crystal Palace have also shown varying levels of interest in Hackney. He is lower down the Old Trafford club’s list and it may well work to Everton’s advantage that they would be able to offer him more regular game time.Moyes has been keen to improve the technical quality of his team. Hackney, a progressive passer who likes to drive forward with the ball, could help. He scored five goals in eight games for Middlesbrough this season and is more focused on the final third than either James Garner or Gueye.No Championship player (with 900-plus minutes played) averaged more than Hackney’s 35.7 touches in the attacking third per 90 minutes this season. He has a particular habit of drifting into advanced positions down the side of the penalty area, as the graphic below shows.Here are his touches, compared to those of Garner and Gueye. Note the higher proportion in more advanced areas. He is not, therefore, a long-term replacement for the Senegal international.There are some questions of balance here. Should he sign for Everton, Hackney would most likely line up alongside Garner. While he is a willing, combative presence out of possession, he is at his best when given freedom to roam. There would be more onus on his partner to put in defensive work, as well as dictate from deep.Hackney is not the biggest or quickest either, so Everton would probably need a more physical presence in that area at times. Should the 36-year-old Gueye leave, that would almost certainly become their focus in the market. So this transfer alone would not solve all of their midfield needs. The 19-year-old midfielder Harrison Armstrong is also expected to fight for playing time.Yet there is little doubt Hackney is a promising player. His record for Middlesbrough and England Under-21s, plus the number of clubs courting him, is proof of that.He has previously credited the help he received from Carrick as a mentor for improvements such as his body position, while the Manchester United coach has also spoken in glowing terms about his former player.“I’ve never really needed to guide him,” Carrick said in 2023. “I’ve let him develop and learn on the job. It’s obviously challenging for me to know how and when to help him, but he’s been fabulous and keeps adding to his game all the time.”Now, the Premier League could be his next step.Additional contributor: Conor O’Neill