Everton to sign sixteen year old Sunderland starlet
According to the Daily Mail Everton under new boss Rafa Benitez have made their first signing of this summer transfer window.
Everton have supposedly swooped to snap up talented youngster Francis Okoronkwo from Sunderland, ahead of a host of other interested Premier League clubs.
Well it’s not exactly the sort of high-profile addition that Toffees fans would have been hoping for as the forward certainly represents an investment in the future and is not a likely contributor to the first-team anytime soon.
But a young footballer of this type is very much in the mold of the kind of player that Director of Football Marcel Brands focuses on.
Okoronkwo is a very highly thought of 16-year-old and the latest in a batch of talented youngsters to have emerged from the Black Cats youth academy recently.
The fee that has allegedly been paid for the teenager is around £1 million, which is a lot to pay for a 16-year-old with potential but no first-team experience.
And Everton already have two young forwards on their books neither of whom have as yet made any significant impact in the first-team. They are Moise Kean and Ellis Simms.
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Both have been on loan this past season of course, Kean in Paris at PSG and Simms in the rather less glamorous surroundings of Blackpool, Lancashire.
On balance, Kean seems likely to leave if a good enough offer comes in from PSG or another European club while Simms immediate future appears likely to be another loan move.
As to other transfer targets there is still the usual lot of stories and rumours about players but as yet no clear idea who will be coming through the door this summer.
Related to this, Benitez has been quoted saying he is ready to ship out up to five players this summer to free up finances to fund buying new players.
One of those players might be James Rodriguez with uncertainty continuing and stories regularly claiming that he will leave the club this summer.
This one is rumbling on and on with still no clear idea whether the Colombian will be staying put on Merseyside or will leave for pastures new. I think it does need resolving soon though, one way or the other.