Everton made Ellis Simms move to disrupt Sporting signing Viktor Gyokeres from Coventry City
Everton reportedly made an audacious last-gasp effort to prevent Sporting CP from signing striker Viktor Gyokeres this summer.
According to TEAMtalk [8 July], they offered Ellis Simms as a sweetener knowing that Coventry City wanted to sign him.
However, he had his heart set on moving to Portugal and Simms eventually did move to Coventry for an £8million fee while Gyokeres’ sale will see them make £20.5million.
Not going to work
Gyokeres seemed to have eyes only for Sporting and Coventry wanted to get as much money as possible from his sale.
Signing Simms for £8million was only affordable due to the big bucks the Swede’s sale brought in – something the Toffees would not be able to provide.
Most Everton signings this summer are either going to be free agents or loan deals and perhaps decent money will be spent on one or two players but that’s about it.
The stadium expenses are increasing and there’s also the chaos with the P&S rules and also new investment into the club.
Whether or not that materialises soon to benefit Everton in the current transfer window, remains to be seen.
Dyche knows that he’s going to have to make do with the limited resources and perhaps look to cash in on one or two assets to generate funds and strengthen the first team.
How they plan on doing that is anyone’s guess but they need to get it done sooner rather than later as time’s running out.
In other Everton news, an exit-linked Toffees player has recently been spotted in talks with a senior Goodison Park figure ahead of the new season.