Everton fee emerges as Demarai Gray transfer closes in Wednesday – Sky Sports’ Alan Myers
Everton are set to receive around £10million for the sale of Demarai Gray which is set to go through on Wednesday, according to Alan Myers.
The Sky Sports journalist reported via Twitter the same morning (6 September) that he was “expecting” the winger to leave the club “today” for the eight-figure return.
Steven Gerrard’s Al-Ettifaq is set to be the 27-year-old’s destination with the Saudi Pro League transfer window remaining open a week later than the English one.
Gray will leave on top of Alex Iwobi’s deadline day move to Fulham for £22m to provide another cash boost but leave Sean Dyche’s squad with only three senior wide men.
Return
Given the wild sums of money getting thrown around for players to head to the SPL the club might have hoped to get more for a player with another season left on his contract and an options for 12 months after that.
But amid a rapid breakdown in the relationship between Gray and Dyche after the club looked to keep him at the close of the transfer window it might be the least bad option at this stage.
It does represent a major profit on the £1.7m it cost to bring him in from Bayer Leverkusen two years ago [Sky Sports], which should at least help towards the endless financial pressures the club seem to be facing.
But north of £30m in return for losing Gray and Iwobi in quick succession is little use if it means results suffer, when Dwight McNeil is only just getting back from injury and Jack Harrison hasn’t yet featured at all since his arrival from Leeds United.
Dyche’s ongoing interest in Willy Gnonto and Kamaldeen Sulemana during the summer became that much more important with Iwobi’s sudden departure.
But failure to land either on a deadline day which proved to be nowhere near what had been predicted seemed to have ended Gray’s chances of leaving.
He was clearly very unhappy with that outcome however, and the bad feeling looks to have convinced the club to agree to a deal anyway.
In other Everton news, Myers has provided an update on the investment search after Asian and American offers were put on the table.