On a quiet Bank Holiday Monday the rumour mill is still active and claiming Everton are seriously looking at Brentford’s centre-forward Ivan Toney.
The Bees’ striker has had a superb season helping the London club to push once again for a playoff place. So could he be the additional striker Everton need?
The Toffees have struggled for a while to successfully replace Romelu Lukaku’s presence and goal-scoring since he left for Manchester United in 2017.
Recently Dominic Calvert-Lewin has emerged as a more reliable striker than he was when he first came into the team after Lukaku had left for Old Trafford.
Calvert-Lewin has had a good season overall during this campaign especially early on when he seemingly couldn’t miss and was scoring goals for fun.
Since that first month or so he’s been less prolific as a consequence of injuries to players like James Rodriguez and his own problems, which have kept him out of the team recently.
There are also still continuing doubts about his finishing as we’ve seen in several matches recently particularly against Crystal Palace.
Still there are highly speculative transfer stories circulating that he might tread the same path to United as they supposedly want to buy Calvert-Lewin to replace Lukaku.
Even if there weren’t any doubts about the consistency of his finishing, Everton are still over-reliant on him and a mis-firing Richarlison up front.
The Brazilian has had a sub-par season in front of goal this campaign after netting thirteen times in each of the past two seasons. His erratic form has highlighted further the team’s over-reliance on the England centre-forward for their goals.
As for Toney, he has been a revelation with Brentford scoring thirty goals and also chipping in with ten assists as well, that’s serious productivity.
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He’s not dissimilar to Calvert-Lewin, a forward with pace and power and very good in the air too but he’s also able to play off a centre-forward and create as well as score goals. That’s exactly what Moise Kean was brought to do.
Obviously this has been in the championship and so Toney is unproven in the Premier League but his statistics indicate an excellent natural finisher and strong all-round ability.
The 25-year-old is the latest talented young player brought through by the Bees that they hope after breakthrough seasons can be sold on for a handsome profit.
Just 48 hours ago Everton were on the wrong end of Toney’s predeccesor Olly Watkins, who scored Aston Villa’s first goal and was a serious handful all evening long. Watkins certainly seems to have made the transition to the Premier League easily enough, just ask Mason Holgate.
According to transfermarkt.co.uk Toney would be available for around £15 million or so. That is probably an underestimate but even so he might be more affordable than some other forward options being considered and if Kean does leave this summer Everton will need to replace him.