Three Players Everton Can Target As A Replacement For Ross Barkley
Premier League club Everton are set to lose star midfielder Ross Barkley in the summer. The 23-year old England international is entering the final year of his existing contract with the club and has refused to sign a new deal.
Barkley came through the Everton academy and had been touted as the next big thing to have graduated from the academy after Wayne Rooney. However, despite spending close to 6 years with the first team, the versatile attacking midfielder has been unable to fulfill the potential that he has shown in plenty.
Manager Ronald Koeman has issued a stern warning to the player on multiple occasions that if he failed to agree on a new deal, the club will be left with no choice but to sell him in the summer. And amid strong interests from the Premier League runners-up Tottenham Hotspur, it is increasingly looking likely that Barkley’s future lies away from the Goodison Park. He will leave the club having made more than 170 appearances over a spell of 6 seasons, in which he has managed to score 27 goals.
With his exit getting closer by the day, Koeman and Everton will be working hard on finding a replacement in the summer. And here are three options that they should consider to bring in to replace the exit-bound Barkley:
Manuel Lanzini
The 24-year old Argentine has been the sole bright spot in what has been a poor season for West Ham United in many ways.
Having signed him on loan in the summer of 2015, an extremely impressive season saw the Hammers make his transfer a permanent one and Lanzini carried on from where he left off in the 2015/16 season. He finished the season with a total tally of 8 goals and 2 assists from 35 league games. Had West Ham possessed more potent strikers, the assist tally would have easily been much higher.
Primarily a central player, he has been utilized out wide on rare occasions, but Lanzini has proven over two seasons now that he is a Premier League quality player and a chance to play in Europe may attract him to the Goodison Park.
Davy Klaassen
The 24-year old AFC Ajax captain is one of the most talented Dutch players around at this point of time and Koeman will be well aware of that.
Klaassen, an Ajax academy graduate, stepped up for the team upon the departure of Christian Eriksen to Tottenham a few years back and has gone on to become the leader of the team and is tipped as the future Netherlands captain. An attacking midfielder by trade, Klaassen has excelled playing in slightly deeper roles as well. He has notched up 20 goals and 12 assists so far this season from 49 games and will be playing the UEFA Europa League final against Manchester United.
He may not be the biggest name, but Klaassen’s talent is obvious and he has the ability to take this Everton side to another level altogether.
Gylfi Sigurdsson
The 27-year old has been pursued actively by Everton and it was reported by Mirror that the Toffees had agreed a £25million deal with Swansea City for Sigurdsson.
The Icelandic international has been the Swans’ best player for 2 years now and played a huge hand in them surviving the drop to the Championship this season. Sigurdsson finished the campaign with 9 goals and 13 assists and his performances earned him the club’s Player of the Year award for the second season running. Adept at playing through the middle or on the flanks, the former Tottenham Hotspur man has proven himself time and again on the Premier League stages.
Sigurdsson is a player of quality that needs to be playing European football and if it is indeed true that Everton have agreed on a fee for the Icelandic international, they will be getting their hands on a gem of a player.