Everton tracking Burnley star Maxwel Cornet
The transfer stories are coming thick and fast and one of the latest claims Everton will make a move for Burnley’s Maxwel Cornet.
With Burnley’s relegation, Everton are already being linked with two of the Clarets’ best players: James Tarkowski and now also Maxwell Cornet.
Cornet only joined the Clarets last season and is a player who has been linked to the Toffees’ in the past, along with so many others of course.
The Ivory Coast international is a very versatile and adaptable player who has operated mainly on the left hand side either at left-back or in a wide midfield role.
The 25-year-old is certainly a talented footballer and netted nine times in twenty one Premier League matches. This depsite often playing deeper and after joining a Burnley side who struggled all season and aren’t renowed for creating a lot of goal chances.
One of those strikes was against the Blues’ in that 3-2 defeat at Turf Moor in early April, which dealt a heavy, although ultimately a temporary, blow to Everton in their relegation battle.
The loss was a particularly shattering one as the Toffees’ had for a change played well in an away game and battled hard. It looked like they had done enough to secure at least a point.
That was until Cornet popped up to score the winner after earlier grabbing an assist. I for one thought that night’s result might even turn out to be a terminal defeat in the end.
It gave Burnley a timely boost and momentum in their bid to stay up, although of course the twist was that it was they who fell through the trap door and not Everton.
The Ivorian is certainly too good a player for the Championship and will surely move on to pastures new. I think he would make a good addition to the Blues’ squad.
His abiltiy to play in a number of different positions is one reason as a Premier League season is long and demanding making these sorts of footballers especially valuable.
In addition, several older players are out of contract and manager Frank Lampard and Kevin Thelwell are presumably also going to be trying to offload several other unwanted players, so the squad could be short of cover in several positions too, as was the case at times this past season. .
With Nils Nkounkou’s future at Everton uncertain after his season-long loan in Belgium, Cornet could provide cover for new left-back Vitalii Mykolenko and also give Lampard another attacking option on the left in front of the Ukrainian. All that makes him a decent option.
He’s also in the right sort of age range at 25 and certainly offers the sort of pace and energy this Toffees’ team needs more of.
It’s not certain exactly how much he might potentially cost (figures being quoted are around £17 million) which is obviously a major consideration. But, if it’s not a prohibitive fee I think it’s a deal worth considering.
However, it’s very likely Everton would face stiff competition from other Premier League clubs so as always we will have to see if the Blues’ do make a concrete move and whether it would be enough to persude him to move to Merseyside this summer.