According to media reports, Everton have entered the race to sign Denmark international Christian Eriksen as the former Spurs star is now a free agent.
Eriksen has been at Brentford for the last six months since he signed for the Bees in the January transfer window on a short-term deal and now Everton are one of several Premier League clubs supposedly interested in signing him.
There has been a lot of transfer speculation already with the window yet to officially open and inevitably the Blues’ have been linked with what seems like dozens of names already.
The Danish player has returned to something near his best from a potentially career-ending heart attack in the European Championships last summer.
He recovered and joined the London club to play an increasingly influential part in their season as Brentford finished comfortably mid-table.
Toffees’ fans will remember him pulling the strings expertly when the Bees came back from one down (with the help of the referee of course) to beat Everton 3-2 at Goodison Park and seemingly put the Blues’ survival in real jepardy.
Along with an obvious need for more pace, energy, athleticism and defensive resilience this Everton team does also needs more attacking creativity.
Eriksen would certainly offer that additional creativity, although looking at his stats he only managed one goal but did notch four assists in his eleven matches for Brentford.
Anyway, these media reports claim several other Premier League outfits including Manchester United are in the race for his signature.
The question is apart from whether Everton would have a realistic chance of getting him with all this competition, is his age and the question of what sort of wages he would expect.
I personally think the Toffees’ need to be looking at younger players as a general rule as the current squad still has quite a few ageing individuals the wrong side of thirty such as Seamus Coleman, Abdoulaye Doucoure and Allan who remain key members of the team.
In addition, it’s likely that a player of his calibre and experience will be expecting very significant wages before committing to any potential new employer.
With the club’s finances in such real mess I don’t think Everton should be forking out big money for a 30-year-old especially after getting their fingers burnt so often in the recent past with signing older players on big money.
So, for these reasons I think Everton should be looking at other options when considering how to improve the creative abilities of the side next season.