Everton are edging closer towards an agreement with Sporting CP for the signing of Youssef Chermiti, as Sean Dyche looks desperate to add a new striker to his attacking ranks.
The Royal Blues have already wrapped up the signings of Ashley Young on a free transfer from Aston Villa and Arnaut Danjuma on loan from Villarreal. Now, it is in the striker department where Sean Dyche has turned his attention to.
Everton escaped relegation on the final day of last season with a narrow 1-0 victory over Bournemouth thanks to a fantastic Abdoulaye Doucoure strike and, having scored only 34 goals in 38 league games, the addition of a new striker is an absolute necessity. Dominic Calvert-Lewin has become injury prone in the last two years, while Neal Maupay failed to make any sort of an impact following his summer move from Brighton.
With Dyche losing Calvert-Lewin to another injury, the Toffees have accelerated their pursuit of Youssef Chermiti. They are reportedly set to agree a £12m deal with Sporting CP for the young striker.
Chermiti, 19, is a raw talent who only broke into Sporting’s first-team squad last season, scoring three league goals in 21 appearances in all competitions. He has been scouted by Wolves, while Bournemouth had also held an interest.
Youssef Chermiti would be a future investment for Everton
Everton failed in their pursuit of UD Almeria striker El Bilal Toure, who joined Atalanta for a fee of €28m last week instead. However, it hasn’t taken them to shift their focus to other striker targets. And it seems, though, that the Toffees have seen enough of Sporting CP’s Youssef Chermiti to lodge a bid for him worth £12m and make him their third acquisition of the summer transfer window.
At 19, it will be criminal to expect Chermiti to arrive in the Premier League and hit the ground running. He is highly rated in Portugal but remains in the developmental stages of his career, so Dyche must look to ease the teenager into his first XI rather than throwing him in at the deep end.
Standing at 6ft 4ins tall, Chermiti would be a good fit in Dyche’s style of play at Everton. Despite his towering stature, the Portugal Under-19 international is quick through the ground and likes to take up positions on the left before cutting in on his favoured right foot to shoot. His ability to hold the ball up and dribble past players in tight areas will no doubt have left Dyche keen to further negotiations.
Chermiti has the qualities to become an archetypal Dyche striker but he will need time to acclimatise to the fast-paced nature of Premier League football. Thus, if the teenager signs, he will be viewed as an investment for the future rather than someone ready to shoulder Everton’s goalscoring burden.
I am Rohan Sengupta from one of the busiest cities in India, Mumbai. A Journalism graduate with a keen interest in sports, football is something I simply cannot live without and writing, discussing and analyzing the game is what I do 24*7.
