According to Le10 Sport, Everton have withdrawn their interest in Thomas Lemar, paving the way for Wolverhampton Wanderers to procure his signature.
The 24-year-old was on our radar this summer, but we ended up bringing in James Rodriguez from Real Madrid and seem content enough with our squad not to sign another wide-man.
Lemar isn’t good enough
Lemar has scored only three goals and made six assists in 72 appearances in all competitions since joining Atletico Madrid from AS Monaco in 2018. He failed to score or make an assist in 22 Liga games last season (no goal or assist in all competitions since April 2019) and looks on his way out of the Wanda Metropolitano this summer.
Lemar is in poor form, has a €60m asking price and earns €120k-per-week/€6.24m-a-year, so he wouldn’t be a good addition to our squad. The French international looked a talented midfielder before he joined Atleti, but he isn’t the same player right now and wouldn’t improve our squad.
You could argue that a loan-to-buy deal would benefit all parties, but would Atleti accept that? And do we really need the out-of-form player at Goodison Park?
Will we sign another winger instead?
We’ve been linked with Hirving Lozano, Leon Bailey, Bertrand Traore, Cengiz Under, Wilfried Zaha, Memphis Depay, Jose Callejon, Rafa Silva, Jack Grealish, Philippe Coutinho, Jesse Lingard and Lucas Ocampos over the summer, but it doesn’t appear we will sign another wide-man.
Carlo Ancelotti has James Rodriguez, Richarlison, Bernard, Anthony Gordon, Alex Iwobi and Theo Walcott at his disposal and should stick with them this season. We’ve enjoyed a bright start to the 2020/21 campaign, winning 4/4 games in all competitions, so is there a fervent need to strengthen before the transfer window shuts?
Summary
If we had to bolster our attack with one more winger, signing somebody who fired blanks in La Liga last season wouldn’t be the best place to start. It remains to be seen whether Wolves will go all out to sign Lemar for the same reasons either.