Everton might sell Kean
Everton striker Moise Kean has been caught out breaking the coronavirus quarantine by going to a house party. This latest lapse in discipline, raises further questions about whether the Blues will cut their losses and sell the young Italian this summer.
Kean has had a troubled time ever since his high-profile transfer to Everton last summer. He’s struggled to win a regular place in the Toffees team and has had intermittent disciplinary issues to compound his problems settling in.
Signing the Italian teenager, was considered a real coup for the Blues when they persuaded Juventus to sell him as Kean was regarded as one of the most promising young players in Europe.
However, he is very young and inexperienced and so it was always likely he would need time to adapt to a new country and league and force his way into a struggling team.
And so that proved to be the case. It didn’t help that Marco Silva seemed reluctant to give Kean much game time early on, almost as if he hadn’t wanted him in the first place. So the young striker only had fitful opportunities to make a mark.
During this time Kean’s performances were very mixed and he also appeared to have some lapses in his commitment and discipline and this compounded Silva’s lack of confidence in him. There were intermittent rumours that Kean might want to return to Italy too.
Then finally, after a dreadful first half of the season, Silva was sacked in early December to be temporarily replaced by Duncan Ferguson.
But if the Italian teenager hoped this change might give him more opportunities, he was soon disabused of that. In Ferguson’s second game away at Manchester United, Kean came on only to be substituted himself soon afterwards in a bizarre moment.
He would have hoped things would surely improve once fellow Italian Carlo Ancelotti took over as the Toffees new permanent manager in mid-December.
Although Ancelotti didn’t though give his compatriot a starting chance straight away, Kean did get more opportunities and started a few games, leading to him finally breaking his Everton duck when he scored against Newcastle United.
However Ancelotti is focused on using a 4-4-2 and soon on a strike force of Richarlison and Dominic Calvert-Lewin and so there still wasn’t a regular place for Kean when the season stopped suddenly for the coronavirus crisis.
Now he seems to have broken the current lockdown rules, which is not endearing him to the hierarchy at Everton.
Given all this, it probably wouldn’t be very surprising if the club did consider selling him, were a decent price to put on the table whenever the transfer window opens.
However I don’t think that the Toffees should sell Kean, yet. For a start, having spent upwards of £30 million on him, it seems unlikely Everton would get that sum back with the decline in transfer values because of the pandemic.
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He’s a very talented but still very young player who may yet fulfill all that potential. It’s not that surprising that he’s struggled a bit to settle into life on Merseyside, but as I said when he took over, I hope that fellow countryman Ancelotti’s appointment will help him eventually do so.
I also personally think that Ancelotti should give him a chance to start alongside Calvert-Lewin with Richarlison playing nominally on the left. This he can do, but would still be free to come inside and link up with them.
That would solve the problem of finding someone to fill in on the left hand side, while giving Kean that chance in Ancelotti’s 4-4-2. Perhaps he could try this when, or if, the current season resumes as it seems like a great opportunity to experiment a little bit.