Everton boss Carlo Ancelotti has a mighty task on his hands if he’s to rebuild the Merseyside underdogs this summer but if fresh reports are to be believed, he could be heading down an all too familiar path.
What’s the word?
According to Sky Sports, the Toffees are one of several teams chasing Sassuolo winger Jeremie Boga after the 61-year-old tried to sign him whilst in charge of fellow Serie A outfit Napoli.
They still remain keen on landing the 23-year-old under Gennaro Gattuso whilst Borussia Dortmund see the former Chelsea starlet as a potential replacement for Jadon Sancho and likewise over at Bayer Leverkusen, who could lose Kai Havertz to Frank Lampard’s Blues soon.
Everton’s struggles from out wide are no secret with summer signing Alex Iwobi failing to provide much more than a solitary goal all season, so a swoop for a player like Boga does make sense on the face of it.
However, as talented as he seems, this reeks of another disasterclass from director of football Marcel Brands…
Brands disaster?
If you go back to the start of the season, the Merseysiders made some encouraging moves, namely Iwobi as mentioned above but also in Jean-Philippe Gbamin, Fabian Delph, Moise Kean and Djibril Sidibe. Have any of those truly stood out? No, probably not.
Boga is adept at playing anywhere across the front three and has brought returns of 11 goals and two assists in Serie A this campaign, via WhoScored, as well as averaging 3.9 dribbles, 1.7 shots and 1 key pass per appearance.
Former Chelsea youth coach Michael Beale hailed the Ivory Coast international as the best talent to come through the system, claiming he could “beat teams on his own”.
Although, we’ve been here before haven’t we with Eupen sensation Henry Onyekuru. He joined for £7m in 2017 and played a grand total of zero matches despite being signed on the back of a whopping 24 goals and nine assists for the Belgian outfit.
As per Sportmediaset, Sassuolo are asking for at least €20m (£18m) and whilst this is nearly half the amount of Iwobi, it still presents some doubt in Brands’ ability to spot a winger.
Players like Onyekuru and his fellow Nigerian show that maybe the Dutchman’s weakest attribute is out wide and thus, you’d have to have doubts over Boga despite the evident talent.
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