Iliman Ndiaye could leave Everton before the deadline closes with Tottenham Hotspur tabling a bid
Iliman Ndiaye could leave Everton before the deadline closes with Tottenham Hotspur tabling a bid
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Like the fear of Harrison Armstrong joining Nottingham Forest, the prospect of Iliman Ndiaye going from Everton to Tottenham Hotspur is another transfer move that doesn’t sit right with me.
We haven’t had much to watch in terms of entertainers in recent years. Jack Grealish came in and the kids loved him, but Ndiaye is another one whose magic on the ball gets fans out of their seats.
He’s not the finished article and I wanted more goals and assists from him. He had a tough end to last season after the Africa Cup of Nations, but people don’t realise the amount of effort he puts in playing football and he’s difficult to replace as there are not many players like him.
At first, it seemed like he might be going to Saudi Arabia and given that they tend to over-pay, there would have been a chance to reinvest that in the team but when those links went cold, you thought Ndiaye’s next move could only be to a Champions League, whether that’s in the Premier League or elsewhere in Europe.
Tottenham are spending a lot of money but they’re still struggling after finishing 17th for the past two seasons. It doesn’t seem like a step up for him and a lot of fans are thinking: 'Why would you go there?'
Maybe it appeals to him and his family because he spent time in the London area growing up but the fans love him at Everton and have got a song for him.
If he feels like his time is up here, we’ve got to get as much money as we can for him to help David Moyes and the football club to keep competing. I think Everton fans would back him more if he moved abroad to a Champions League club to kick on his career at a level that we’re nowhere near at the moment.
That would make it easier to take when it came to wishing him all the best, but as it stands – and Everton go to Tottenham in less than a fortnight’s time – that probably wouldn’t be the case because it seems to be forced through for reasons that the fans don’t like.
Then there is the right-back situation and it shows you how well Armstrong did playing at Bournemouth when you compare his performance to Daniel Munoz’s for Crystal Palace at Hill Dickinson Stadium in the first game of the season. He had been linked with a move to Everton beforehand but had a torrid time that day which may well have stopped them from progressing with more talks.
Perhaps I’m way off the mark, but he was a player who knew that his future was not at the football club and was caught in two minds. He wanted to do well for his current team but was up against a side that he might have joined.
Kenny Tete was going to be one of Everton’s first signings of last summer on a free transfer but now he’s a year older and we’ll have to pay a significant transfer fee. He might have been an attractive proposition over 12 months ago on a free, but it feels like we haven’t done enough homework when it comes to recruitment in the right-back area.
I don’t want to be disrespecting the player, but it seems like bad business sense from the football club. Having failed to get him over the line last summer, now we’re eating into our transfer budget.
He could already be used to playing for Everton and what David Moyes wants, firing on all cylinders.
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