Everton initially acquired Andre Gomes on loan from Barcelona in the summer of 2018. In his first season in Merseyside, the Portuguese impressed with his technical and sought after performances. His fruitful loan spell resulted in Everton signing Gomes permanently for £22 million.
Gomes played with technical finesse and was often given the freedom to push up the pitch to support the attack and make use of his skills to create chances. After failures at Barcelona, he was succeeding in some capacity at Everton before a horrific ankle injury traumatized the former Valencia man.
After long and draining recovery, Gomes returned to the squad in February 2020 but since his injury, the Portuguese has been a shadow of himself, failing to put in effective performances consistently. Gomes has looked out of sync in games, failing to match the pace of the game and looking slow in the midfield.
Everton are in serious financial trouble and have been trying to offload high wage earners with little output. Frank Lampard doesn’t entirely trust Gomes, indicating that he would be allowed to leave this summer should an appropriate transfer offer arrive for the 28 year old. Earlier this window, he was linked with a return to Portugal but there was no fuel to this news.
Everton midfielder Andre Gomes open to Sevilla move
Now, as per Mundo Deportivo (via Tutto Mercato Web), Gomes is ready to leave Everton and eyes a return to La Liga. The former Benfica midfielder has spent four years in Spain, playing for Valencia and Barcelona, before eventually switching to Everton. The report further goes onto mention that Gomes would like to join Julen Lopetegui’s Sevilla.
Offloading Gomes would reduce the load on the wage budget. If Sportac’s estimations are correct, the Portuguese midfielder earns in excess of £110,000 per week, amounting to almost £5.9 million a season. For a player who is not a regular starter, paying such a humungous sum is not exactly smart business.
Lampard is looking to sign a quality midfielder who will be an upgrade on the current available options. Everton have Allan, Abdoulaye Doucoure, Tom Davies, Jean-Philippe Gbamin and Gomes in midfield but the futures of Gomes and Gbamin hang in the air. The Toffees ciuld be left with wafer thin squad depth in central midfield which is just going to add further troubles for Lampard.
Nonetheless, Gomes’ departure would free up funds in the wage budget and also bring in money that can be used to bring a better midfielder.
Will Andre Gomes leave the club?