More rumours of Everton moving for Leao
This story won’t go away and Everton have regularly been one of several Premier League outfits who are still being linked with a summer move for Milan ace Rafael Leao.
As the fallout from the European ‘superleague’ breakaway continues, the rumour mill doesn’t miss a beat and Everton keep on being associated with the forward who has produced some eye-catching displays this season in Serie A.
Apparently the Italian club want around £50 million for him, which seems a pretty excessive fee in this financially troubled time.
The Toffees have confimed that they are looking to sign a right-winger this summer to strengthen their attacking threat on that flank and provide more genuine width, pace and goals.
Leao though doesn’treally fit the profile of that type of player although he can play in a number of different attacking positions.
The Portguese player likes to primarily play either at centre-forward or on the left side and also as a attacking midfielder.
He’s certainly a talented and promising player, the Blues got their fingers burnt signing a talented, much-regarded young forward in 2019.
This article claims Everton want the 21-year-old as a back-up to Dominic Calvert-Lewin, that would be one expensive reserve striker!
All this seems the usual media pie-in-the-sky stuff and it doesn’t appear very likely Leao is on the list of targets that Carlo Ancelotti and Marcel Brands are drawing up.
Havng said that I do think the Toffees need to try and find another centre-forward if they can in this summer’s transfer window.
Because although Calvert-Lewin offers plenty of qualities with his pace and power and has had a good season – his most productive in terms of goals – he still has spells when he misses too many chances and the team are becoming over-reliant on him and Richarlison for goals.
What Everton ideally need is an experinced and reliable goal-scorer who perhaps wouldn’t expect to start every week but could give Ancelotti another option and a player to bring on when his usual front two aren’t firing.
The recent draw against Crystal Palace was a perfect example of this as Everton were leading 1-0 and were knocking in the door to score a second but Calvert-Lewin and Richarlison had each missed several guilt-edged chances.
With the result still in the balance and chances being squandered that would have been the time to bring on another striker to settle it.
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Ironically that’s exactly what Palace boss Roy Hodgson did as his attacking substitute Michy Batshuayi promptly scored to give Palace a point and do further damage to the Bleus hopes of qualifying for European football.
An ideal candidate would be someone like Edin Dzeko or Olivier Giroud. Although they are the wrong side of thirty, both offer a huge amount of experience, nous and goal-scoring ability, all things Everton need more of.
Talking of Giroud it’s posible the Frenchman might well be leaving this summer as new Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel continues his re-shaping of the squad at Stamford Bridge.
And another striker on Chelsea’s books Tammy Abraham is also apparently surplus to requirements now with Tuchel expected to get the usual pot of cash to spend this summer.
The German left Abraham out of his FA Cup side and there have been persistent rumours Chelsea will move for Borussia Dortmund’s Erling Braut Haaland, the hottest striking property in Europe.
Abraham is quite similar to his fellow 23-year-old Englishman Calvert-Lewin in that he’s tall, rangy and quick. He does also offer a good goal-to-games ratio. If Chelsea don’t want him Abraham might just be what the club need to inject a bit of competition and additional goal-scoring quality into the mix up front.