Maguire transfer collapse opens door for Everton to move for defender

Harry Maguire’s proposed move to West Ham looks to be dead in the water and so Everton might perhaps have the chance to revive any interest in the Man United man.

The England international seemed set to join the Hammers in this transfer window, but it now appears as though the 30-year-old might not be swapping Manchester for East London after all.

Although it is clear to almost everyone that the priority for Everton in this transfer window is forwards, the club have been repeatedly linked with Maguire.

And it is the case that the Blues have let several experienced centre-backs leave with the departures earlier in this window of both Yerry Mina and Conor Coady.

Rumours also continue to surface that Mason Holgate will also be leaving Goodison Park if a deal can be reached, possibly with Southampton.

That leaves only James Tarkowksi, Micheal Keane, Ben Godfrey and Jarrad Branthwaite as Sean Dyche’s available first-team central defenders.

As every Evertonian knows only too well, of those four only Tarkowski can be said to be a totally reliable and consistently solid defender.

Keane is severly error-prone, Godfrey apparently lacking in the sort of nous needed for the position and Branthwaite talented but relatively inexperienced.

So, there is a case then for adding another Premier League experienced centre-half and Maguire is certainly that.

However, is the current England international that man?

Like Keane, the former United captain has a history of making mistakes whether forced or not and costing his side goals. That was a major problem last season especially.

That doesn’t sound like a good recommendation to me.

And then there is the question of his wages. Maguire is on a serious ammount of money rumored to be around £200,000 a week.

If so, that would anyway be prohibitive given that Everton are trying very hard to reduce their own catastrophically high wage bill.

All together this is not a move that I would want or expect to happen although bringing in another central defender, possibly on loan is not a bad idea.