Could Everton enter Romagnoli race
It’s April the 1st and this one might just be a Fools Day joke but anyway Everton are being mentioned as a possible suitor for AC Milan centre-back Alessio Romagnoli.
The Italian defender is at logger-heads with his club over a new contract and Milan are resigned to losing the centre-back and captain with Everton supposedly interested in him.
Italian media outlet Gazzeta Dello Sport claim that the Rossinari are now having to consider selling Romagnoli as his contract expires next year so the club are hoping to cash in on him before then with several clubs including Serie A rivals Juventus apparently looking at him.
The Toffees are being relentlessly linked to new central defenders at the moment with stories about Napoli’s Kalidou Koulibaly and then yesterday we reported on the Blues monitoring another Napoli defender Nikola Maksimovic!
Romagnoli is a player Milan have built their defence around. He is an excellent all-round player in particular a very fine and accurate passer of the ball.
According to the Gazzetta, Carlo Ancelotti is a an admirer of the Italian player although that seems to be the case with almost all of these player rumours.
So there we go another of these defensive rumours swirling around. We could easily dismiss all these endless stories as just the usual paper talk and rumour recycling but it’s possible that there is some substance to them.
Ancelotti is a big fan of Koulibaly and knows him and his team-mate Maksimovic of course so he’s aware of the qualities both might bring.
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There is an argument for Everton to consider whether bringing in another, genuinly world-class defender might prove an important addition to take this Toffees team to the next level.
I think the Blues have enough central defenders with Micheal Keane, Yerry Mina, Ben Godfrey, Mason Holgate, Jarrad Branthwaite and Lewin Gibson. In addition Jean-Philippe Gbamin can also play at centre-back.
However, while Keane, Mina and Godfrey have been good, especially Godfrey, there are still questions over Holgate and the two young players on loan Branthwaite and Gibson.
So perhaps if Everton were to sell Mina (the most likely candidate) and use that money to help pay for Koulibaly and he can offer another level of defensive strength like Virgil Van Djik did at Liverpool, then it might be a worthwhile consideration.
But the alleged fee of around £50 million seems excessive for a 30-year-old. The Blues will surely need to sell players such as Bernard, Theo Walcott, Yanick Bolasie and Cenk Tosun, even if they decide to sell Mina, before they can consider paying anything like that for Koulibaly and the other new signings this team needs.