According to David Ornstein of The Athletic, Everton are ‘eyeing’ Lucas Ocampos and may have to battle Arsenal, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund to procure his signature. The 26-year-old is coming off the back of an impressive season at Sevilla and may have his pick of clubs this summer.
How good is Ocampos?
He’s been outstanding for Sevilla. The 26-year-old has made 43 appearances in all competitions since joining from Olympique Marseille in 2019, scoring 17 goals with five assists. As per WhoScored, Ocampos has created 24 chances, whipped in 89 crosses with 21% finding a teammate and made 68/152 successful dribbles.
The Argentine international has completed 79.9% of his 839 passes, won 30/69 aerial duels, had 84 shots with 43% hitting the target, blocked 38 passes/crosses/shots, made 22 clearances, won 56 free-kicks and averaged a tackle (54) or interception (22) every 36 minutes.
Ocampos averages a successful dribble in La Liga every 40.5 minutes, more frequently than Richarlison (once every 50.5 minutes in the Premier League). The 26-year-old also scored more league goals (14) than Richarlison (13) and Dominic Calvert-Lewin (13), so he’d be a brilliant addition to our squad.
How much will he cost?
Sevilla paid £13.5m to sign Ocampos last summer, and his Transfermarkt valuation has more than tripled to £45m while his CIES Football Observatory market value is €40m-€50m (£36m-£40.6m).
Ocampos has a €70m (£63.2m) buyout clause at Sevilla and earns €38k-per-week/€1.98m-a-year (£34.3k-per-week/£1.79m-a-year) as per Sporttidings, so he won’t come cheap to sign. The Argentine would be our most expensive purchase if bought, surpassing Gylfi Sigurdsson (£45m from Swansea City in 2018), so it remains to be seen if we’ll make a move this summer.
Summary
With Theo Walcott (2), Alex Iwobi (1) and Bernard (3) only scoring 43% of Ocampos’ goal total this season, it’s clear that an upgrade is needed.
We’ve been linked with Leon Bailey, Cengiz Under, Wilfried Zaha, Memphis Depay, Jose Callejon, Rafa Silva, Jack Grealish, Philippe Coutinho and Jesse Lingard, but Ocampos may be the pick of the bunch.
Unfortunately, he’s far too expensive to sign and may not join us over Arsenal, United or Dortmund.
In other news, Mina Raiola is trying to get Moise Kean out of Everton