Photo by Malcolm Couzens/Getty Images
Photo by Malcolm Couzens/Getty Images
Everton have been linked with a move for Luis Binks.
It has been a solid start to the new season from a defensive standpoint from the Toffees, who have kept five clean sheets in their first seven games across all competitions.
It remains a strong area of the pitch for Everton.
But undoubtedly, it is also an area that will need some attention before much longer, given the ages of the likes of James Tarkowski and Michael Keane.
It’s been reported by Alan Nixon via his Patreon that Luis Binks is on the club’s radar – and here’s everything you need to know about the Scottish centre-half.
Who is Luis Binks?
Luis Binks was born in Gillingham, Kent on 2 September 2001, making him 25 years old.
He joined the Tottenham Hotspur academy when he was six and spent 13 years at the club before leaving in 2020 without appearing for the first-team. Interestingly, he is previously reported to have turned down Jose Mourinho’s offer of a professional contract to move on.
He signed a contract with Montreal Impact in the MLS. That was only a brief stint though, and in August that same year he joined Italian outfit Bologna – although he did stay at Montreal on loan until the end of the 2020 MLS season.
He then had loan spells at Como and then Coventry City, for whom he signed permanently in 2024.
After one season there, he then went abroad again, joining Danish side Brondby. Having enjoyed a good first campaign, Binks was named Brondby’s new club captain ahead of the current season.
Binks was an England and Scotland youth international, but will now play for the Scotland seniors after being named in Sébastien Pocognoli’s first squad as Scotland manager for the 2026/27 UEFA Nations League qualifiers. He has always been eligible for Scotland due to his paternal grandfather being from Dunbar. The likelihood is that he will make his debut in this international break.
Binks is a central defender, standing at 6ft 3in tall, and is known for being a composed, ball-playing defender. He has experience of playing in both back threes and back fours. Like Jarrad Branthwaite, he is left-footed.
Binks is also quite a threat in the attacking third, having scored four goals and made four assists in 42 games so far.
Why Binks turned down Jose Mourinho
On turning down Mourinho, Binks said earlier this week (via The Herald): “To say no to Mourinho is a difficult thing obviously because I think he did like me, but I wasn’t naive enough to think that I was going to play at 17, 18, being a centre-back.
“I think I was 17 and I played with the U23s away at Everton and got beat 6-0, but the manager thought I played well for some reason! I was just a young kid, and the next day they offered me my pro contract. I thought about it for a couple of weeks and then I decided to turn it down. They said, ‘That’s fine, but you can tell that to the first team manager,’ because I was just having a chat with the academy manager.
“Then Mourinho came round with his entourage, I think the assistant manager was there, the sporting director, but I just said that I didn’t want to sign my professional contract because I knew it would be easier to get out as a scholar.”
Rejecting Mourinho certainly suggests Binks knows his own mind and while his journey may have been somewhat unorthodox, the defender is clearly in a very promising moment in his career, and it will be interesting to see if Everton’s transfer interest develops in the coming months, especially with Tarkowski and Keane both turning 34 this season.