Everton manager David Moyes is wary of a potential signing that his club hierarchy are pretty keen to pull off, according to a report.
Everton plan for key summer after excellent Moyes-led season
Eighth in the Premier League and three points off the European places with seven games remaining — Everton's season, viewed against the turbulence of recent years, represents genuine progress.
Everton's James Garner and David Moyes
Moyes' second spell in the Toffees dugout — now transplanted to the gleaming surroundings of the Hill Dickinson Stadium — has delivered stability where before there was only drift.
The ambition for the summer is already taking shape, with reports even suggesting Everton could try to sign Real Madrid centre-back Raul Asencio as Moyes seeks to stamp his authority on a squad he believes can challenge for European football again next season.
Jack Grealish, impressive on loan from Man City, is another player the club are reportedly hoping to retain on a permanent basis.
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The Toffees are making plans to back David Moyes.
Into that planning comes a defensive subplot that encapsulates precisely the kind of dilemma that competent clubs must navigate between sentiment and pragmatism.
Moyes and Everton in disagreement over John Stones transfer
SportsBoom report that Everton are set to offer 33-year-old Michael Keane yet another one-year contract extension — a move that would extend his association with the blue half of Merseyside to a full decade.
Everton defender Michael Keane
The former Burnley centre-back, who arrived for £25m in the summer of 2017, has made over 200 league appearances for the club, and shown this season that reports of his decline were premature.
The Keane decision cannot be viewed in isolation, however.
It sits directly alongside the more complex and rather more contested question of whether Everton should pursue a homecoming for the most prominent defender to have come through their building in a generation.
John Stones is leaving Man City, with reports this week that the 31-year-old will not be offered a new contract by the club he has served since 2016, with his deal expiring at the end of June.
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Manchester City's John Stones applauds fans after the match
The decade at the Etihad has been extraordinary — six Premier League titles, two FA Cups, two League Cups and the Champions League among his major honours — but City's shifting recruitment strategy under new sporting director Hugo Viana, combined with Stones' dwindling game time, means the split is coming.
He has managed just 15 appearances across all competitions this season.
A fresh injury sustained during the international break has further complicated his situation and cast doubt over his place in Thomas Tuchel's World Cup plans.
Regardless, Everton chiefs are very keen on signing Stones for free, SportsBoom reports.
The logic is obvious: a Toffee returning home, available on a free transfer.
Moyes was the one who brought Stones to Goodison from Barnsley for £3m in January 2013. The symmetry is appealing, the sentiment powerful, and the financial cost of acquisition negligible given his contractual situation.
Stones-everton-premier-league
However, Moyes apparently has 'wary' reservations.
Stones' injury record in recent years is the specific concern giving the Everton manager pause. The pattern is well-established: recurring knee and calf problems have interrupted his campaigns with increasing regularity at City, limiting his availability precisely when Guardiola needed him most.
Signing a free agent whose chronic fitness issues have restricted him to 15 appearances this season carries a meaningful risk, regardless of the quality that remains when he is on the pitch.
Those concerns — combined with Keane's ongoing contribution and Branthwaite's eventual return — mean Moyes is not simply greenlighting a deal that the board appears significantly more enthusiastic about than he is.
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The Toffees could take advantage of his situation.