Jose Mourinho wants to sign Everton defender Ben Godfrey as Roma hit with £1.3m red tape for transfer
Jose Mourinho’s AS Roma want to sign Everton defender Ben Godfrey in January but have a £1.3m budget to work with, according to Corriere Dello Sport.
Writing on their website (2 January), the Italian news outlet report that Roma want to sign a new defender in the winter window but have just £1.3m to work with for the transfer and wages combined.
Godfrey is now on the list of sporting director Tiago Pinto, but a deal that suits all parties is believed to be “not easy”.
“In short, Roma cannot spend more than one and a half million between the salary and the cost of the operation,” they wrote. “A disaster.
“This is why Pinto had made an attempt on Bonucci (low cost), which is why he will now look for a “creative” solution, as he said, to add another element to the squad.
“It is therefore not easy to find a solution that costs almost zero and can concretely help the defending team. In Pinto’s list there is Ben Godfrey of Everton who plays little or nothing but is athletically ready (a little less perhaps Rob Holding of Crystal Palace), plus some other elements from the Premier League, the best championship from which to draw purged from their respective clubs but of a good level.”
No chance
Godfrey may well want to leave the club, and Everton may be in some financial disarray currently, but we’re not in a position where we simply need to shift people for the sake of it.
The defender has struggled for game time this season under Sean Dyche after finding himself behind James Tarkowski, Jarrad Branthwaite and Michael Keane at centre-back while Vitalii Mykolenko and Ashley Young are ahead of him at left-back too.
He now looks likely to head out, but only if the Toffees are able to secure a replacement and with Kevin Thelwell’s words about the club not being busy in January that seems unlikely.
Unless Roma come with an offer that makes it unarguable that the right decision is to let him go, then expect the defender to stay put and Roma to be forced to look elsewhere to get what they want.
Sorry Jose, but you can’t always get what you want.
In other Everton news, 29 Premier League goals ace handed “Lifeline” as Toffees want to sign England international.