Everton on-loan striker’s excuses growing old

It’s astonishing how many of Everton’s signings from the ill-fated 2017 summer transfer window didn’t work out. What’s not surprising is that many of them continue to flop at other clubs in other leagues too, and further damns how poor the Toffees’ scouting and transfer policy under former Director of Football Steve Walsh had been.

Sandro Ramirez was coming off a lightning-in-a-bottle season with Malaga in La Liga scoring 14 goals and picking up 9 assists, when Walsh triggered his relatively cheap release clause by offering him high wages to bring him to Everton. However, even some simple analysis of his expected goals showed that he was wildly overperforming and a regression was expected.

Well, the Blues saw it. Consistently behind the pace of play and rarely ever well-positioned, he flopped miserably and as Ronald Koeman’s hot seat warmed up, Sandro was relegated to the depths of the squad and never seen again until the January transfer window when he was loaned out to Sevilla.

Marco Silva quickly noticed that Sandro did not show the kind of incisiveness he was looking for and promptly loaned him out to Spain again, this time to Real Sociedad. His time there has been marred by two injuries, and he has only featured in about 150-odd minutes in four games. Of course, all he has to show is a booking in that period.

That hasn’t stopped the one-time Barcelona youth player from talking big though. Speaking to El Desmarque (via The Flaming Hairdryer) -

“In principle, it’s just a loan, but in the end, in football, you do not know what can happen. I’ve given everything since the first minute I’ve arrived here and I’ll do it until the end here and show my best version.

“Let things flow and see how everything evolves. In football you never know what can happen. La Real is a great club, an important club in Spain. If everything goes well, why not? We’ll see what will happen.

“The style of football that suits me is played at Real Sociedad. At Everton, it’s about what I speak and what the team is playing, the style did not suit me. Before coming here I saw Real matches, and I think it’s the football that most resembles me and it suits me.”

His comments are interesting because at just 23 he’s already turned into a journeyman forward who has featured for five different clubs and failed to settle at any one of them. Sandro already showed that he isn’t a good fit in Silva’s system as he doesn’t meet the requirements out on the wing, and is certainly no use as a striker either.

If he continues his miserable run though, it’ll only become harder for the Blues to offload him this coming summer with the huge wages he’s commanding and a contract that runs until 2021.