Everton 'close' to signing young Argentine midfielder

Love all this
Get the south Americans on the go.

The first of many rumors ??

I had hoped before I read the full thread, that it would have been Giovanni Lo Celso, the Argentinian who is earning rave reviews at Real Betis.

A hard working Centre Midfielder with an eye for goal, but never having heard of this lad I will endeavour to find out more about him. I like the idea we are being linked, whether true or not, with players from South America.

15 million seems a lot for a 20 year old from River with only four appearances in 2018-19 and two yellows. For that much money he should at least be on the cusp of starting. I hope I am missing something.

Work permit??

Reminds me of an exciting similar swoop for a River Plate player Leandro, who it turned out were an Uruguayan club. Didn't work out.

Defensive midfielder just into the first team squad at River. Will keep an eye out during the Libertadores, from what I saw from Argeninian wiki, the stand out element to his game is 'ball winning' and his strength - so a 'gueye' midfielder.

We could offer them Dowell or Williams or Baningime in return

Until we got Richarlison and Bernard we had not really had much luck in the South American market ever since we were continually linked with Juan Roman Riquelme all those years ago.

Since then we've had Funes Mori, Jo, Stracqualursi, hardly the most talented footballers on the continent.

There are some real diamonds of technically gifted footballers over there though, I watched a YouTube video documentary on the players training methods at clubs like Tigre, Boca Juniors to name a few and they train lads to be really technically sound (we have seen for example with Bernard)

Best coached player I've ever seen in a blue shirt was Steven Pienaar, Jim.

It's definitely in the coaching, and I'm sure he spent time at the famous “AJAX ACADEMY” were footballers are taught to enjoy the football.

That's a lot of money for a player with limited experience, in what I assume is a weak(ish) league? Apologies for my ignorance on that matter..

Surely we could loan him in and see how he goes, similar to what West Ham did with Lanzini who was equally as unknown.

Robert, Lanzini was far from unknown. He was the big hope of Argentina. You need to understand that Argentinians revere their number 10s. Particularly if you play for River or Boca. Lanzini played almost 100 times for River. He was hardly an unknown. I watched Lanzini play in the superclasico when they hyped the game on the back of Lanzini and it was live on YouTube. He did not disappoint.

Never heard of this lad, Sosa, never seen him, but there's a world of difference from Lanzini.

Edit: perhaps I should add that the reason for watching this game on YouTube was due to the battle of the number 10s. Riquelmhe was back in Argentina and he lined up for Boca. Whilst Lanzini was playing for the newly promoted River and was being talked up as the heir apparent to the aging (and past it) Riquelmhe.

Steve, do you think there's a chance Riquelme will finally sign for us? I've been hanging around Lime St for about 10 years now waiting for him and Moutinho to show up.

Well Colin, seeing as he's unattached now if we offer him a big fat contract then we might just be able to finally sign him.

Steve (#12)

Thank you for the comment - I had no idea! I thought Lanzini came in on loan from Saudi or Abu Dhabi initially?

This seems to be a bit of a problem with hoping the ‘Brands model' can be replicated at Everton. In the Dutch league there didn't seem to be a work permit issue, but it'll be much harder to bring young players like this into England. To do so may necessitate the kind of buy-to-loan deal that we've seen with Onyekuru, which personally I'd rather steer clear of.

It used to be the case that many Argentine players would qualify for a Spanish or Italian passport through ancestry, and thus circumvent the need for a work permit through having EU national status. We don't know what the rules are going to be on this moving forward and personally I'd prefer much stricter rules so that more English players were playing in the Premier League. This may not happen, and work permits may become easier to get for lads like this in which case fine, but it's a bit of a gamble. I'd rather become the club young English players want to come to because they know there's more chance of game time.

Ultimately, I want any player who is going to make Everton better, but I'm actually a bit worried about what appears to be our transfer strategy moving forwards. There seem to be a number of potential issues, and signing youngsters from overseas could be problematic for a variety of reasons.

If this is true I am impressed that we are looking at the stars of tomorrow rather than throwing big money at older players with no potential.
I think Marcel Brands is going to be the best signing Everton have made in a long time.

I've been saying for a long time now that these are the markets we should be looking at to bring in young, talented players who won't cost a fortune.

In recent years we've concentrated on buying “PL experienced” players, some of whom came from relegated teams. Another option was the championship some work (Cahill), most don't (Beckford), hoping to find the next raw diamond.

With Brands we finally have the possibility of really scouring the leagues which produce the most technically gifted youngsters I.e. Argentina, Brazil, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Portugal etc It's far easier to get these lads adapted to the physicality of the Prem than it is to teach a 20 year old championship player the basic skills needed to play at the highest level.

I'm not discounting young English players in the lower leagues (some of the talent in the Leeds-Derby playoff was extraordinary) but the price tags are exorbitant in many cases.

So, rather than waiting for the usual suspects (Spain, Portugal) to find these nuggets on the cheap and sell them for a pirates ransom let us get them at the source!

If only we could do work permits and visas.

To be fair, Beckford was financially a far smaller risk than somebody like Klaasen - we even sold him on for a reasonable amount I seem to remember. There's something to be said for picking settled players from our own leagues - if you can avoid the premium.

In the meantime we've thrown good money at Tosun, Klaasen, Vlasic and Ramirez with little return.

Players like Jags, Baines, Pickford, Keane, Gana, T.Cahill, Coleman, DCL, Stones, Lescott etc. etc. have all been decent investments.

All that said, the wider the scouting network, the better.

Remember when all our players seemed to come from Scotland ?

If MB has been over to South America watching players how do you read "nothing in it". Did Brands get so jet lagged he slept through all the games?

The fact can are searching far and wide in South America is promising, and now I'd like to think that the lessons learned from the past regards, work permits are now manageable and there's a realistic solution.

But who we may get will be interesting as we are linked with so many players, journo - media circus in over drive.

MB said he'd be doing business early in the window, let show see what happens.

I think I might take a break for the next two months. Once the Italians and Latinos get going they will have us buying everything, even Zapata has resurfaced. Definitely I am having a break, may look up Sam's prospects in the meantime, Hope it all goes well see you all in two months, unless we resign Rooney.

I must admit Michael/Lyndon whoever's idea it was, I am impressed with Transfer Rumour Heat chart, it does add a bit of realism, and credibility in terms of rumour/gossip, to the fantasy of the Transfer Window Open season.

There has been such a diversity of opinion on TW already, on who we should or shouldn't sign, or we could have signed last year for half the asking price, or we would have been better avoiding this numpty we have on a 'lottery for life' wages and a long contract.

Personally I love it as it keeps the site going, when there are no matches involving Everton, as the diversity of opinions are interesting with many good points and arguments put forward, and of course the occasional drivel thrown in for good measure.

No-one has crossed the threshold of Finch Farm in either direction yet, and some have already manned the battle stations, in offence or defence of what we should be doing, or who we should be signing.

At the end of the day, they are all rumours or hypotheses, until we see, WHOEVER, signing in, and wearing the shirt with his new squad number on it.

Yep, let's buy another player who can't play for us, in the hope that he might just be good enough to one day get a work permit.

Come on, let's work with something tangible. I don't want another Onyekuru because as we all know, the less we see of him, the better he will be.

Is this Sosa really that good to have to go down this route again?

Not seen much of this guy but he was talked about as one of the best prospects at the SudAmericano U 20s recently where his figures are strong especially in the progressive passes, defensive duels and interceptions category. I think he's more or a Schneiderlin than a Gueye. An intelligent reader of the game able to distribute effectively both long and short whilst also making a good amount of tackles and interceptions.

Always a risk with players this age but this is what the best scouts do, getting it right more than their rivals. I think already alot more is expected of this player than someone like the Uruguayan kid Leandro.

I'm pretty sure he won't be able to make an impact in the PL right away but if he reaches his potential then we would have a very good player on our hands. The top clubs invest heavily in youth and then either sell them (often at profit) on or unearth a gem who can make it in their first team.

Everton need to adopt a style of playing then get the right players in to fit the style. At present, we're just continuing with the scattergun method and we've won nothing for decades.

We're too much of a soft touch, more interested in players wellbeing than putting the club first and it shows continually. We're too sentimental with past-it players and too patient with those who are never going to be good enough.

It all adds up to us being exactly what we are at present, a club going through the motions and making up the numbers, taking it up the backside constantly and getting sand kicked in our faces.

Back to basics-method of playing, players to fit method, stand up for our selves and take no shit off anyone.

We're miles off it now, the club don't even seem to understand what the problems are, never mind the solutions.

Hopefully this is what Silva, is trying to do Paul, and some of the things that you mention can finally become a thing of the past mate?

I agree Tony. He's bought players to fit a system. 5 of the 6 signings are in the side week in, week out. I haven't given up on Mina. I think the purchases were done with purpose.

I hope that unlike Koeman he can build on this. For me, Koeman went wrong by trying to change too much in his second season. I hope Silva tries to maintain what he had at the end of the season and then build upon it slowly and improve it.

Anybody interested can catch some video of Sosa here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDaQkFuGQlg

Clearly a deep-lying midfielder/distributor in the Gomes mold. Knows what he's doing on the ball (check out the slick dribble at :52) and can put in a tackle (1:20, 1:30, 1:50, 2:10).

The influence of Brands is beginning to shine through as the club is being run more and more like a proper business as opposed to a wide-eyed child in a candy store.

I suspect the 㾹M is agent and media hype, but nothing wrong with investing in an up-and-coming talent who is earning positive reviews; even if a work permit is a problem for now.