By Joe Ellis

4th Aug, 2022 | 2:40pm

Everton surge into lead of Amadou Onana race as all ties cut with West Ham

Belgian international midfielder Amadou Onana has cut all negotiations with West Ham as he wants to move to Everton, according to Sacha Tavolieri.

The 20-year-old has not been convinced by the offer put on the table by the Hammers with the reason for his rejection is that the conditions of the proposal are not “conducive to player development.”

As a result, David Moyes’ side now seem out of the hunt which has left Everton to take a defacto lead of the chase with Onana personally wanting a move to Goodison Park.

The Belgian still has four years left on his contract at Lille but he has not shied away from making moves early into his stay at any club.

He has not yet spent more than one year playing senior football at any club having gone from Hoffenheim to Hamburg to Lille in successive summer windows.

Adaptable

One thing Frank Lampard won’t have to worry about is how such a young person would adapt to life in a new country given his journeyman-like moving so far in his career.

And given the disappointment of last season, Everton can not afford for him to take too much time to adapt to English football if he is to join the club if they want to make improvements.

Lampard really needs new recruits in midfield having played Fabian Delph and Alex Iwobi there last season and this is the kind of move that needed to be made much earlier in the transfer window.

The new Premier League season is just two days away and the Toffees have a tough assignment to begin with at home to Chelsea that they really needed a big new addition to play in.

Onana could have been exactly that but now the long game will have to be played as they now are required to match West Ham’s bid before entering negotiations with the player himself.