Sam Allardyce: £30m Yannick Bolasie ‘Was a Disaster’ during Everton spell
Sam Allardyce has labelled Yannick Bolasie a “disaster” after his fitness problems during their time together at Everton.
Bolasie joined the Toffees in a £30m deal from Crystal Palace before suffering a serious knee injury at Goodison Park, while Allardyce spent six months in charge of the club during the 2017/18 season and helped the team avoid relegation.
But during a conversation with Tony Pulis on the No Tippy Tappy podcast (2 April) where Pulis named Bolasie in his best eleven, Allardyce admitted he didn’t have the best experience with the DR Congo international because of his recovery from a knee injury.
“I had him at Everton and he was a disaster,” he said.
“You know what it was, he never recovered from a cruciate. When I got there he was trying to recover from a cruciate do you know what I mean?
“We were desperate to get his pace down the wing.”
Everton financial problems stretch back this far
The Toffees are under great financial stress right now and while a large part of that is because of how they spent money in recent years, most of it goes back further than that.
In fact, over the last five seasons the club are in a net profit when it comes to transfer as they try to claw back some of the money they wasted.
But this Bolasie deal was one of those big outlays that have helped the club be in the position they’re in today, because it was a huge amount of money for a player who never managed to offer a return on the pitch.
In Bolasie’s defence however it was due to a serious injury that he never managed to recover fully from, and his career has only spiralled downwards since then.
Allardyce never got the chance to really work with him at his best, and his quality was clear and definitely would have helped the team’s ambitions. It was just a shame for everyone that this deal never really worked out.
In other Everton news, Richard Keys was furious with officials after what he saw recently in an Everton game.
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