Theo Walcott and Bernard could be sold this summer and Everton have been linked with a number of potential replacements, but Hiving Lozano is one player who’s been on our radar for some time.
The 25-year-old hasn’t set the place alight in his first year at Napoli, but Il Mattino (h/t Sport Witness) say Gennaro Gattuso has no intention of selling him just yet. It’s bad news for our ongoing pursuit and may force us to turn our attentions elsewhere.
What happened in Lozano’s debut season in Italy?
Lozano joined Napoli from PSV Eindhoven for £34.2m in August 2019 and has gone on to make 34 appearances in all competitions, scoring five goals with two assists. The Mexican international started only 10 Serie A games from a possible 38 (26%) and amassed 1019 minutes of top-flight football from 3420 (29.8%).
His poor form and lack of playing time convinced Gattuso to sell him and a move to Everton was mooted as Marcel Brands brokered a deal for Lozano in the past (Pachuca to PSV in 2017). The Napoli manager has made a U-turn, however, with Il Mattino saying Lozano is now ‘making great strides’ so Gattuso ‘doesn’t want to give him away’.
Good news for him, bad news for us.
What next?
If Napoli aren’t looking to cash in on Lozano, we’ve got no other choice but to move on. Carlo Ancelotti has transfer-listed Walcott & Bernard and could offload the pair, so we may need two wingers coming in the opposite direction.
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 of 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, so there are other irons in the fire.
Time will tell who we end up bringing in, however.
Summary
Lozano’s disappointing debut season at Napoli suggests he’s no big loss for us. We’ve got many players on our shortlist and haven’t been shy spending this summer, so we should be able to pull off another coup in the transfer market.
In other news, Everton are close to signing Fiyako Tomori as Carlo Ancelotti strengthens the defence 10am