According to the Daily Mail, Everton could make a bid for Abdoulaye Doucoure and are considering loaning a player to Watford to sweeten the deal. The 27-year-old wants to leave the Hornets after their relegation to the Championship, but Watford are requesting £30m.
Doucoure has been on our radar for some time, but it remains to be seen if we’ll match his asking price. We’re not blessed with lucrative funds this summer and have a lot of positions to strengthen, so can we really afford to bring in Doucoure on top of Allan?
Could Delph make way for Doucoure’s arrival?
Possibly. Fabian Delph’s stock couldn’t be lower after a forgettable debut season, so it wouldn’t be the biggest shock if we were to sell him this summer. The 30-year-old spent a lot of the campaign sidelined with various injuries and often underperformed when he did feature.
Delph made 20/43 appearances in all competitions last season, missing a lot of football due to a groin injury, hamstring injury, sickness and muscle problem. He sat out for two months when football returned in June and hasn’t played for more than half a year.
We struggled getting the England international on the pitch, and we struggled getting him to perform. Delph started the season strongly but faded months in and never recovered. Doucoure would be a stark improvement, but money remains our biggest obstacle.
What’s the state of our finances?
Not the best. Marcel Brands has admitted that Farhad Moshiri won’t spend big this summer, previously telling De Telegraaf: “It won’t be a big-spending summer. You also have to deal with Financial Fair Play when it comes to investments. We’re trying to sell some players from the past. We didn’t plan a transfer window this summer with five or six major purchases.”
Covid-19 has hurt every club this year, but we already had the biggest pre-tax loss (£111.8m) of any Premier League club in 2018/19 with a turnover of £187.7m and a £160m spend on wages. We have six players earning £100k-per-week/£5.2m-a-year and more, so there will be some sales to facilitate transfers.
Summary
There’s no doubt Doucoure would improve our squad, but he won’t come cheap and that might throw a spanner in the works. If we’re bringing in Allan from Napoli this summer, spending £30m in the same transfer window for another midfielder in Doucoure seems ambitious but unlikely.
In other news, Everton are eyeing another Barcelona midfielder