Season › 2017-18 › News
Reports: Agreement in place for Anderlecht to extend Onyekuru loan
The Belgian club are keen to extend Onyekuru's spell after his promising loan was interrupted by a serious injury. He has made 19 appearances and scored nine goals and recently completed his recovery from the knee problem that sidelined him for months this season.
The Nigerian striker, now 20, was signed by Everton for £8m last summer and immediately loaned to Anderlecht to further his development and to enable him to earn enough international caps to enable him to get a work permit to play in the Premier League.
He is hopeful of making Nigeria's World Cup squad for this summer's tournament in Russia and, should he do so, will feel that he has a better chance of proving himself in the English Premier League with Everton.
He is also said to be stalling until he knows whether Anderlecht will qualify for next season's Champions League.
Reader Comments (42)
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2 Posted 03/05/2018 at 09:50:08
Does anybody else sniff smelly media work on this?
3 Posted 03/05/2018 at 09:55:37
4 Posted 03/05/2018 at 10:52:40
5 Posted 03/05/2018 at 11:06:45
Work permit issues, he wants to play champions league football, doesn't fancy Everton and or Sam football, Sam is staying and doesn't want him.
I know very little about him but IF he's going to get games and good experience with Anderlecht then that's probably best for his development and longer term for ours if we can sort out issues in the next year or so.
If he's good enough to play in the Premier league then try and get him in ASAP.
After that Brexit and it's anyone's guess what silly and awkward rules will come in to play.
6 Posted 03/05/2018 at 11:19:48
If, however, he has qualified for a work permit based on time spent in Belgium then we have a decision to make as a club. I can't see Allardyce picking Henry on a regular basis, given his handling of Lookman. Both are exciting young talents, but both are raw. If we end up with someone like Fonseca or Silva I can see these kinds of players getting a chance. Under Allardyce its the bench or U23s.
7 Posted 03/05/2018 at 11:31:16
8 Posted 03/05/2018 at 12:25:32
9 Posted 03/05/2018 at 12:39:46
10 Posted 03/05/2018 at 12:41:11
11 Posted 03/05/2018 at 12:55:07
He must have been 2 years in Belgium, he played for KAS Eupen the previous season.
12 Posted 03/05/2018 at 12:56:11
Just checked and as far as I can make out it's Belgian citizenship after 5 years living and working in the country.
13 Posted 03/05/2018 at 13:23:42
14 Posted 03/05/2018 at 13:33:48
15 Posted 03/05/2018 at 13:36:23
16 Posted 03/05/2018 at 14:29:11
Stroll on.
17 Posted 03/05/2018 at 15:02:34
18 Posted 03/05/2018 at 15:03:06
We would look even worse if we paid a few million for someone, gave them a 5 year deal but they only got a 3 year work permit.
Luckily, that would never happen us. Would it?
19 Posted 03/05/2018 at 15:43:06
Yeah we would be nuts to loan him out if we can help it.
20 Posted 03/05/2018 at 18:52:48
1) whether the knee is fully healed (he's scheduled to finally make his return Sunday), 2) who Everton's manager will be, 3) whether Vanhaezebrouck (often a sharp critic of Onyekuru) stays on at Anderlecht next season, 4) whether the managers critiques are legit and Henry needs to mature, 5) whether Henry makes the WC, 6) the work permit situation and 7) AC Milan's rumoured interest in buying him from us.
And every one of those questions remains unanswered right now, so there's no way in the world to even guess what will happen with this young man.
Personally, I hope he's healthy, matured, legal and with Everton next season, because his pace alone makes him fun to watch.
21 Posted 03/05/2018 at 18:54:01
22 Posted 03/05/2018 at 18:57:39
We don't know if he's fully recovered from the knee blowout. We don't know if he has matured, or whether his Anderlecht manager's harsh criticism has merit. And we don't know who our manager will be.
Decisions made now can be changed later. Let's just see what the situation is next month, when hopefully we'll have a new boss and hopefully Henry is playing for Nigeria in Russia.
23 Posted 03/05/2018 at 19:00:27
Well, Matt - How much are AC Milan willing to pay for him is maybe the question.
24 Posted 03/05/2018 at 19:04:43
25 Posted 03/05/2018 at 19:08:32
They unearth some great young talent and give them a fair run, they often turn out to be world class too boot.
Continio, Salah, Suarez, Firminho...
We find...
Niasse (bless him), Vlasic and numerous other failures who cannot hold down a first team place.
Something is not right somewhere.
26 Posted 03/05/2018 at 19:10:05
27 Posted 03/05/2018 at 19:27:06
28 Posted 03/05/2018 at 19:37:43
If he's still raw, he can go out on loan before the window shuts or in Jan. God knows the team needs pace and we've got 3 put on loan: this lad, Lookman and Sandro.
I'm in the minority but I'd like to see Sandro with a full Preston but I doubt he'll come back.
29 Posted 03/05/2018 at 20:01:26
He's had six appearances and he "cannot hold down a first team place"??
You have to have an opportunity before you can fail. And he's 20.
Also, the RS didn't "unearth some great young talent" in Suarez, Salah or Firmino. All were age 24 and already established international stars. The RS paid €42m for Salah, £29m for Firmino and £23m for Suarez, which was big bucks back in 2011. They didn't discover world class, they bought it.
Coutinho was the only one they discovered in obscurity. And as you point out, they gave him a run in the side right away. We haven't done that with Vlasic. Or Lookman.
30 Posted 03/05/2018 at 20:34:09
Was it not revealed the other day that Cenk Tosun's conversion rate of 49% is the highest in the league?
There is not much point having a striker who requires a mere 2 shots to score a goal if you only create one chance for him a game now is there?
Who can yet say what Vlasic might do for the team?
31 Posted 03/05/2018 at 20:51:45
My gut tells me he never wanted to leave La Liga in the first place. But his agent probably told him something to the effect of "Look... you'll make way more money in the Premier League. Everton's a club on the rise - they have a new owner who's investing heavily and they're in the Europa League this season, so joining them will help your profile. And they're probably losing Lukaku, so there won't be an established striker blocking you."
32 Posted 03/05/2018 at 22:26:52
The lad joined inter to big fan fare. Sure he flopped and Liverpool took a gamble on him, but he was hardly obscure.
33 Posted 04/05/2018 at 04:52:29
Give Rafa credit, he spotted Moutinho as a teenager and got him for Inter, and even after he failed at Inter, Rafa then brought him to Anfield for the bargain price of £8.5m.
34 Posted 04/05/2018 at 07:25:04
35 Posted 04/05/2018 at 10:31:47
36 Posted 04/05/2018 at 13:10:50
Coutinho was signed by inter with an agreement in place that he'd remain at Vasco for two seasons, to take him to 20 years old.
He actually joined Inter in 2010, two years after they signed him. It was big money, major fanfare and a big deal. He flopped, sure, but it was not obscure. He arrived in Italy as one of the best young players on the planet. Even after flopping, Espanyol took him on loan.
If he was so obscure, then why did Liverpool pay good money for him and intend to play him in the team from the word go?
He was a big player who had had a bad move. Plenty of players do this, and the reason why club give them a second chance is because of what happened to Coutinho at Liverpool.
37 Posted 04/05/2018 at 13:14:03
38 Posted 04/05/2018 at 16:39:13
39 Posted 04/05/2018 at 16:47:58
Poor saints fans must dream of another dimension where Pochettino and all their star players stayed.
40 Posted 04/05/2018 at 16:58:53
What they've done is loaded up on exciting and skillful attacking players that can occupy any space up front. It's plug and play with them. Similar to City with the ability to call on Sterling, Aguero, Jesus, Silva (David and Bernardo), Sane. And that doesn't even get to add Bruyne who sits behind those players. We on the other hand have Walcott and Tosun.
41 Posted 04/05/2018 at 17:04:49
Only Coutinho's former managers Rafa and Poch knew better and went after him. Nobody else was in for him at the time. Nobody was writing about him -- the Corriere Dello Sport database shows almost no Coutinho stories between July 2010, when Rafa proclaimed him Inter's future, and January 2013, when he left Italy. And the English press pretty much ignored his signing with the RS. Like I said, pretty obscure at that point.
Anyway, my main point was that the RS get too much credit for "discovering" and signing talent in comparison to us. Had it not been for Rafa knowing all about him, they'd have missed on Coutinho like the rest of the world.
42 Posted 04/05/2018 at 17:10:54
When Inter signed him, and Inter are one of the biggest clubs in the world, they said he's the future of Inter.
He was talked up for years as being the next Messi. Just because he had a couple of bad years at Inter (yet still played a significant number of games in 2.5 years there - far more than Vlasic for us) doesn't push him into obscurity.
He was a gamble by Liverpool. That's very much agreed. The fee was not as small as you make out. £8.5m in 2013 for a 20 / 21 year old kid is not pocket change. Sturridge was there other big signing and he cost £12m.
It says more about inflation.
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1 Posted 03/05/2018 at 09:33:48
Let's just buy lots of players, then loan them out (paying their wages) and then sell them on.
Not a chance of him ever pulling on an Everton shirt.