Patience is wearing thin at Goodison Park.
While Premier League rivals Aston Villa, Arsenal, Crystal Palace and Leicester City have invested heavily and intelligently during the off-season – heck, even Norwich City are about to break the £50 million barrier – the wait for a marquee signing at Everton goes on.
Following last season’s disappointing tenth-place finish, the sudden departure of Carlo Ancelotti, and the subsequent appointment of Rafa Benitez, deals for Demarai Gray, Andros Townsend and Asmir Begovic were never likely to turn those Gwladys Street frowns upside down.
Gray, Townsend and Begovic feel like the definition of ‘squad players’ – signed on the cheap to pad out Benitez’s lopsided squad.
So with BILD yesterday reporting Everton had joined Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur in the race for Borussia Monchengladbach’s box-to-box battler Denis Zakaria, few on the blue half of Merseyside are holding their breath in anticipation.
Put simply, Everton can’t sign until they sell.
And with no offers in sight for the likes of Moise Kean or James Rodriguez, Zakaria looks like little more than a pipe dream at the moment.
Fabian Delph, Cenk Tosun, Jonjoe Kenny and Andre Gomes appear to be sticking around too, with the new Premier League season just three days away.
Can Everton afford Zakaria or will Arsenal swoop instead?
Zakaria is reluctant to extend his contract at Gladbach and, with just one year remaining, his price tag has more than halved from £35 million to £17 million.
But if Everton couldn’t afford £13 million for Euro 2020 star Denzel Dumfries, they’re in no position to make a serious play for Zakaria either.
Until someone comes in with a bid for a Kean, James, Tosun or Delph, Everton will be stuck in limbo.
Here’s what some Everton fans on Twitter had to say about the situation:
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