According to Paul Joyce of The Times, Everton have placed Bernard on the transfer list and will listen to offers this summer. Carlo Ancelotti is desperate to improve his squad ahead of a top-six push next season and is targeting more prolific wide-men to achieve his goal. Theo Walcott could be axed as a result, and The Times say Bernard may follow him through the exit door.
Low goal output
Bernard has made 66 appearances in all competitions since joining us from Shakhtar Donetsk in 2018, scoring five goals with six assists. In 2018/19, the Brazilian international managed only one goal in 34 Premier League games. In 2019/20, he scored three goals in 27. For a forward who was once our highest-earner on £6.24m-a-year/£120k-a-week, Bernard should be doing a lot better.
Ancelotti soured on the 27-year-old last season too, handing him only 710 minutes of football spread over 17 games. Bernard started only eight league games under Ancelotti and was substituted on each occasion. He averaged only 41 minutes per appearance in all competitions, hadn’t made an assist since January and hadn’t scored since February.
The Brazilian does bring creativity to the side, making 64 chances and 70 successful dribbles in 61 league games, but we’ve only lost one game without him in 2020 and have only won two league games he’s started in since January.
Who could replace Bernard?
We’ve been linked with Leon Bailey of Bayer Leverkusen, Bertrand Traore of Olympique Lyonnais, Cengiz Under of AS Roma, Wilfried Zaha of Crystal Palace, Memphis Depay by Olympique Lyonnais, Jose Callejon of Napoli, Rafa Silva of Benfica, Jack Grealish of Aston Villa, Philippe Coutinho of Barcelona, Jesse Lingard of Manchester United and Lucas Ocampos of Sevilla, but it remains to be seen who we’ll bring in.
We recently confirmed the signing of James Rodriguez from Real Madrid, but he’s likely to operate in a central attacking-midfield role rather than out wide, so we’ll need to bring in another player if Walcott and Bernard are offloaded. Bernard is talented and does have his moments for us, but we coped well without him under Ancelotti so it wouldn’t be the end of the world if he left.
In other news, we’ve placed Theo Walcott on transfer list