Everton interest confirmed for young star who impressed against Liverpool
Everton’s potential future transfer plans may have been revealed as their summer interest in a bright prospect was reportedly confirmed by a report.
The Toffees could be involved in a transfer chain with Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain next summer. The former look likely to take Kylian Mbappe from the latter when his contract expires. As a replacement, the French side have Richarlison lined up.
That would leave Rafael Benitez looking for a new forward to fill the big gap left in his squad.
When it emerged PSG would favour taking the Brazilian to the French capital, Everton started to assess their options.
One player who seemed to be on their radar was Rafael Leao. According to Calciomercato, they did indeed express their interest to his club, AC Milan.
Their enquiry was one of four the Italian side received for the 22-year-old. Wolves were another Premier League team who took a liking, while Borussia Dortmund and Marseille contacted them too.
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This would therefore indicate Everton will have him top of their target list should Richarlison depart Goodison Park in 2022.
Leao impressed against Liverpool in the Champions League on Wednesday night. He assisted Ante Rebic’s opener at Anfield.
And he already has two goals to his name in Serie A at the start of the season having scored six and set-up six more in 2020/21.
Come next summer the Portuguese striker will have just two years left on his contract. AC Milan will be looking for a considerable fee still, though.
They signed him for around £27m from Lille in 2019. It’s hard to see them letting him go for anything that won’t bag them a bit of profit on that investment.
Leao appears to be becoming a more established part of the team in Milan. But they were willing to let him go this summer and could be again next.
Benitez has Everton headache
Meanwhile, Benitez has reached the same conclusion as Carlo Ancelotti regarding one area of his Everton squad.
He also desires a world class January transfer to remedy the situation, per a report. Despite rampant scepticism, Everton have made a fine start to life under Benitez.
However, the Spanish manager has a headache amongst his defensive options, citing an issue in the centre-back department.
To that end, he has a plan in place to rectify the situation at the earliest available opportunity…
READ MORE: Everton working on ‘world class’ transfer after Benitez reaches grim conclusion
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