Demarai Gray ‘ready’ to leave Everton as Crystal Palace and Fulham battle Saudi interest
Demarai Gray is “ready” to leave Everton which will allow the club to offset their summer spending with his sale, according to Mail Plus.
The Jamaica international winger, 27, is a target within both the Premier League and the Saudi Pro League and the Toffees appear to be prepared to let him go.
With the club chasing El Bilal Touré, who has a release clause of €40m [£34.5m], multiple sales have already been made to help boost the transfer budget with Ellis Simms leaving for Coventry City in an eventual £8m deal [Fabrizio Romano, 6 July] and Chelsea snapping up Ishe Samuels-Smith for around £4m [The Athletic, 5 July].
In that context Simon Jones writes in his Transfer Confidential for the Mail: “With Financial Fair Play a constant weight on their shoulders, Everton, who have also considered Ajax forward Brian Brobbey, would offset their spending by offloading Demarai Gray with Crystal Palace, Fulham and Saudi clubs keen on the 27-year-old who is ready to leave.”
Necessary evil
Gray had said all the right things to Sky Sports on 20 July amid the transfer speculation, stating that he was “here to fully focus on contributing to the team”, but with Everton already proving this summer they will take money that is available it appears he is also prepared to play ball.
Were Sean Dyche in a position to carry a larger squad there would be no reason not to have the former Leicester man as an option, as he has proven the most dynamic forward player at times when Dominic Calvert-Lewin has been injured.
But if both sides are realistic about the current situation then a decent fee for a player who finished the previous campaign as the third choice winger is probably a sensible deal to do.
The loan arrival of Arnaut Danjuma replaces him for a relative discount, and may have pushed him down to fourth in the pecking order anyway.
If there are teams fighting it out to bring the current Everton wide man in then he should be in line for greater opportunities at a new club.
And if it is the Saudi route that he ends up taking, with Al Hilal said to have made a “good offer” by Alan Myers (25 June), he will presumably make significantly more money as well.
In other Everton news, an unwanted first-team player appears to have generated the interest for the Toffees to benefit from a “larger” exit deal.