Everton linked with Jamie Vardy move
With speculation over a change of manager at Everton continuing to rumble, there are also rumours about possible new player signings as the club look forward to next season.
One possibility being mentioned is that Everton might try to prise Jamie Vardy away from Leicester City.
Vardy has a link to the Blues’ hierarchy in that he was brought to the King Power stadium by Everton’s recruitment guru Steve Walsh when he was at Leicester.
The Sun are reporting that Everton will make a bid for him this summer as the club try to rebuild and arrest the alarming decline in form seen this season.
The Blues have conspicuously failed to replace the goals that left Goodison Park with Romelu Lukaku when he went up the M62 to Manchester United last summer.
Vardy would certainly offer the pace and proven goal scoring ability that Everton have so badly lacked this season. However a move for him would leave the future of Cenk Tosun in doubt only a few months after his arrival.
The Turkish forward who came to Goodison Park in January for £27 million has not had an easy start to life in the Premier League.
There were though signs in Everton’s last match at Burnley that he might be beginning to find his feet. Although Everton lost the game, Tosun scored his first goal for the club and gave a solid all round performance.
It’s possible that the two might be paired together but that would be unusual in a league where the lone front man is so much favoured. Although I personally think it can still be very effective approach.
Vardy though has also tended to play on his own at Leicester, using his pace and movement especially on the break to devastating effect. His arrival would presumably signal Everton’s intent to play very much on the counter-attack.
However I’m not sure a move for Vardy makes sense. He is over 30 and would command a fee of probably around £50 million; does this make sense given how much money the Blues have already shelled out on forwards?
As well as Tosun, manager Sam Allardyce spent £30million on Theo Walcott and all this was on top of the £45 million paid for Gylfi Sigurdsson by Ronald Koeman last summer. That’s over £100 million forked out on forwards by Everton in less than 12 months!
Surely it’s not unreasonable to expect that these players start to deliver given their massive transfer fees and wages?
In addition there are two youngsters Dominic Clavert-Lewin and another Koeman purchase Henry Onyekuru to consider.
True Calvert-Lewin had a poor game at Burnley although that hardly marked him out as unique amongst Everton’s players!
But he has real potential and has in fact scored nine goals and assisted another four this season, not a bad return for a teenager in and out of a struggling team.
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Onyekuru is an unknown as far as the Premier League is concerned and after signing him for around £10 million last summer, Everton immediately loaned him out again in Belgium.
Since then he has suffered a serious injury but is apparently on the way to recovery and should be fit for the start of next season.
So Everton have plenty of options, at least on paper, in the forward positions. And I’ve not even mentioned that likeable, perennial misfit Omar Niasse!
My own preference would be to give Walcott a chance to play up front with Tosun and have Sigurdsson behind them in the so-called ‘number 10’ role.
Walcott I believe scored a career-high number of goals last season for Arsenal playing as a striker and I think Tosun can be an effective centre forward given his strength, power in the air and ability to hold the ball up.
In addition I feel that Everton’s priority this summer should be strengthening the midfield and finding a left-back to succeed Leighton Baines.
The Blues look painfully short of craft and inspiration in midfield and although Idrissa Gueye and Tom Davies are willing, energetic and hardworking they are not truly creative players.
The experiment of playing Wayne Rooney in central midfield seems to be working only in fits and starts and obviously doesn’t represent a long-term answer there.
And while it will be good to have Baines back in the side when he does eventually return, in the long-run Everton need to find a replacement for him.