Duvan Zapata may have played final game for Atalanta in Everton transfer news
Duvan Zapata may have played his last game for Atalanta in Serie A with a transfer to Everton now on the cards, according to Ilgiorno.
The Sunday People reported on 15 January that Everton were in talks to sign Zapata on a loan-to-buy deal this month with Lampard desperate to add some firepower to his squad.
Ilgiorno now reports that these talks are “well underway” and expect their second-highest-ever goalscorer to make the move to Goodison Park.
“The one against Salernitana may have been Duván Esteban Banguero Zapata’s last match as an Atalantino. The Colombian bomber, 32 years old in April, is being treated in these hours by Everton, for a sensational transfer to the Premier League,” as quoted by Ilgiorno.
“Negotiations launched in the last few hours, thanks to the presence in Bergamo of the co-chairman Stephen Pagliuca, and conducted by the Welsh general manager Lee Congerton with the management of the Toffees, just as the match between Atalanta and Salernitana was being played in which the cafetero was deployed in the last half hour of play.
“Negotiations already well underway, so much so that the English tabloids consider the deal almost a fact, with an agreement for an onerous loan until June and a redemption set at 17 million.”
Proven poacher.
Zapata is a proven poacher, with the former Udinese, Sampdoria and Napoli striker scoring 107 times in 268 top-flight appearances in Italy.
Nevertheless, his career has been slightly affected by injury concerns, something that has kept him out of action this season, with the forward only featuring 11 times.
13 goals and seven assists last season for Atalanta show that he’s still got what it takes to mix it at the highest level and hopefully he can regain this kind of form for the Blues.
The loan-to-buy option also sounds like the perfect road for the Toffees to explore in this one and slightly takes away any worries about the forward’s niggling hamstring problems.
Everton need all the help they can get at the moment and there are far worse options on the market than Zapata, this might actually end up being a decent bit of business from the Blues.