Everton are reportedly battling with Napoli over a deal to sign Manchester City forward Jack Grealish, as per Football Insider.
The Toffees want a new wide forward and have been exploring numerous names. They initially tried to sign Malick Fofana from Olympique Lyonnais and reached advanced negotiations with the French side to seal the deal.
However, the player doesn’t want to move to the Hill Dickinson Stadium as his preference is to play Champions League football. The Merseyside club also enquired about the details of signing Assane Diao and Takefusa Kubo, but Como have no intention of letting their star man leave, while Everton haven’t decided to step up efforts to buy the Real Sociedad star.
Everton made a concrete approach to sign Tyler Dibling from Southampton and tabled two official bids worth up to £40m. But the Saints have no intention of letting the youngster leave for anything less than £50m, so the Toffees have now started exploring other options.
Football Insider state that Everton are interested in Grealish and David Moyes is backing himself to bring the best out of the former Aston Villa star.
However, the 29-year-old is on high wages and Everton can’t match that. Therefore, purchasing him permanently will be difficult for Moyes’ side if he doesn’t take a pay cut. If Everton sign him on loan, they want Man City to cover a portion of his wage.
Grealish to Everton
Grealish, valued at around £24m by Transfermarkt, is out of Pep Guardiola’s plan, so he is available on the market, and considering the World Cup is next year, the player would be desperate to play regularly in the 2025/26 season.
The report say that Everton will have to overcome stiff competition to seal the deal as Napoli are also keen on Grealish and they are also unwilling to match his current salary to buy him.
Grealish is comfortable playing in the No.10 and out wide. Following Abdoulaye Doucoure’s departure, Everton need a new CAM, and the Man City man would be able to fill that void should he eventually join.
However, it is going to be interesting to see who Everton eventually opt to sign to strengthen the wide forward position in this transfer window.