Barcelona fire sale an opportunity for Everton
Reports in the Spanish press claim that Barcelona are ready to sell a number of players in the January transfer window. This could be an opportunity for Everton.
After a successful summer transfer window Everton made very significant strides on the pitch at the beginning of the season.
However, following that bright start, the Toffees have lost their early season momentum and have slumped to consecutive defeats in their past two Premier League matches away at Southampton and Newcastle United.
These defeats have underlined how reliant the Blues are on several key players, in particular the South American forwards Richarlison and James Rodriguez.
The inability of other squad players to fill the boots of those two players and the new midfield signings Allan and Abdoulaye Doucoure, is proving a costly weakness.
It seems clear that unless Everton can strengthen the whole squad further they will struggle this season and in the future, to sustain any initial success and overcome inevitable injuries and the possibility of suspensions too.
This situation and the worries about the quality of the squad seemed to be underlined with the strange team selection of manager Carlo Ancelotti in the Newcastle game.
There have been repeated transfer stories and rumours circulating again about new players that the Toffees might be interested in.
There’s no certainly that the club will go into the transfer market in the new year. Still, it does look as though the outcome of Everton’s season could depend on whether Ancelotti is able to make some strategically significant additions in January to turn a campaign that began so promisingly into an ultimately successful one.
One club that the Toffees have successfully mined for new talent regularly in the past, is Barcelona, from where the Blues have acquired Lucas Digne, Yerry Mina and Andre Gomes.
The La Liga giants have been under severe financial pressure for a while and the events of the last year have only deepened those problems.
Now it seems as though new head coach and former Everton boss Ronald Koeman is ready to further cull his squad to save money.
There are several players who might be available that would interest the Toffees. Perhaps the most interesting is Ousmane Dembele.
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The Frenchman is a very talented forward who has in the past been heavily linked with a move to Goodison Park.
Despite a very expensive and high-profile move to the Camp Nou, things have not worked out for Dembele and therefore he could be made available at a very reasonable price or even on loan with an option to buy him later.
Taking him would be a risk of course, but given his age and undoubted ability a change of scenery might be just what he needs to rediscover his best form.
Critically he can play either on the left or right-hand side of the attack and that would give the Blues an alternative option to either Richarlison or Rodriguez to help with injuries or for tactical reasons as well.
While ideally I would like to see the Real Madrid player Isco come to Everton in January, if he’s not available or the deal is too expensive, Dembele might be a very acceptable alternative.