Cenk Tosun has ruled out a January return to Besiktas but, speaking via Fanatik, confirms he will leave Premier League strugglers Everton at the end of this season.
While few on the blue side of Stanley Park were all that disappointed to see Marcel Brands go, the recently-departed sporting director deserves credit for loosening the restrictive wage bill hanging like a noose around Everton necks.
Last summer, The Toffees succeeded in pushing high-earning, underperforming players like Theo Walcott, Bernard and Yannick Bolasie out the door while James Rodriguez took his £200,000-a-week pay packet all the way to Qatar.
One player Everton failed to get off the books – not for a lack of trying however – is their £27 million Turkey international misfit.
When you consider that Dominic Calvert-Lewin has missed much of this season through injury, such a statistic speaks volumes about what Benitez thinks of the former Super Lig star.
Is Cenk Tosun on his way out of Everton?
The £50,000-a-week striker will be a free-agent next summer.
But if Everton were hoping to sell Tosun this month, and recoup a fraction of that £27 million outlay, it seems they will face plenty of opposition from the player’s camp.
“My contract ends at the end of the season,” said Tosun, who lifted a trio of Super Lig titles during two spells at Besiktas.
“Besiktas is my home. But, for now, I have no intention of returning.
“However, I want to finish this season here and go somewhere at the end of the season.”
The Toffees have made a series of high-profile transfer blunders in the Farhad Moshiri era but signing Tosun for £27 million may be the worst of the lot.
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