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Traoré loan not affected by Falcao injury

Player's agent expects loan to go through

Lacina Traoré's move from Monaco to Everton is still on track despite a season-ending injury suffered by Radamel Falcao last night. The player's agent has said that he expects the French club to honour the terms of the deal which would see the towering forward spend the rest of the current season at Goodison Park.

Reports in France had suggested that Monaco would assess the condition of their €60m star forward Falcao, who, it is now confirmed, has damaged his ACL, before making a final decision on whether or not to let Traoré go.

The 23 year-old Ivorian only joined the Ligue 1 outfit earlier this month but was not considered by Claudio Ranieri to be a first-team option in the short term.

Speaking earlier in the day, Roberto Martinez said he was hopeful that the Falcao situation would have no bearing on Traoré.

"We hope that is something which won't affect the decision of allowing Lacina to go out on loan," he said.

"It should go down to what the player needs in his development and I hope that has got no bearing on the decision.

"At the moment, the deal is not completed so it's difficult for me to comment. It's a situation we are going to find out quite quickly about.

"We've done the work permit. That's been granted, that was successful. We have a few other issues to get through, but there's nothing to announce yet."

And the manager hinted that a successful conclusion of the Traoré negotiations would probably end his business for the current transfer window, that despite his pledge last month that he would be looking to bring in cover for injured pair Darron Gibson and Arouna Kone.

While Traoré would replace either Kone or the departed Nikica Jelavic, it is not clear whether Martinez sees the addition of Aiden McGeady as a surrogate acquisition to central midfield reinforcements.

"That will be the two major targets we had - a striker and Aiden McGeady," the Spaniard said.

"We are delighted in that respect and that's been very good business. We haven't finalised that striker and we will carry on trying to strengthen the squad as much as we can."

 

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