Everton very nearly brought Axel Witsel to the Premier League in 2016 but he is now playing in China and struggling at the World Cup for Belgium.
Everton were so close to signing Axel Witsel in that frustrating summer of 2016 in which seemingly all of their top targets turned down a move to Goodison Park.
It is common knowledge now, however, that Witsel rejected the chance to move to Merseyside with the lack of European football understood to be a major factor. But, in truth, the 29-year-old has done very little in the two years since to suggest that £25 million would have been money well spent.
A player who frittered away the peak of his career hoovering up the dosh at Zenit despite being linked frequently with some of Europe’s biggest clubs moved to China in 2017. And, with five months until his 30th birthday, Witsel could now have missed his chance to star in England.
Although if his performance in Belgium’s dramatic 3-2 World Cup comeback win against Japan is anything to go by, Everton might have dodged a bullet.
Witsel, bizarrely chosen ahead of Moussa Dembele by the much-maligned former Goodison gaffer Roberto Martinez, has looked a little out of his depth in Belgium’s star-studded XI all throughout the World Cup.
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