Marko Arnautovic rejected Everton but swapped Stoke City for West Ham just a year later.
With so many of Everton’s summer signings flattering to deceive so far, Toffees fans can at least take some solace in knowing that a player who rejected their advances is enduring his own nightmare start to 2017/18.
Austrian star Marko Arnautovic was quoted by The Sun admitting that he rejected the chance to move to Everton in the summer of 2016 when he had just a year left on his contract at Stoke City and was available for as little as £12.5 million. Arnautovic added that he even received personal phone calls from Ronald Koeman and Romelu Lukaku before deciding to stay in The Potteries.
A year on, however, Arnautovic was on the move at last, joining West Ham for a club-record £20 million, per the BBC. Though it’s fair to say that, even if you shifted that decimal point one place to the left, the 28-year-old has still been a disappointment in claret and blue.
He has more red cards than goals so far, picking up a three-match ban for a needless elbow on Southampton defender Jack Stephens in a 3-2 defeat in August. And manager Slaven Bilic seems less than impressed.
“Yes, he has made a slow start,” Sky Sports quote Bilic as saying after Arnautovic was hooked at half-time in Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Burnley. “But that is because he got suspended for three games. His slow start is because of his mistake.”
Everton, then, could claim that they have had the last laugh.
On further inspection, however, Arnautovic still would have been a welcome addition on paper with Koeman’s straggling side, who have accumulated eight points and five goals this season, lacking width and a clinical edge up top.
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