Silva wants another midfielder, watching Barcelona veteran

A few days ago we heard a rumour that we were quick to dismiss. Apparently Barcelona are looking to offload Croatian star Ivan Rakitic, and Everton got linked. Now that might not have come as a surprise with how good relations have been between the two sides, leading to permanent transfers for Lucas Digne, Yerry Mina and a few weeks ago Andre Gomes. However, it appeared that with Jean-Philippe Gbamin coming in this was not going to happen and was merely a product of someone’s fervent imagination.

However, after yesterday’s mostly-disappointing stalemate at Werder Bremen, manager Marco Silva let slip that the Blues were in for another midfielder as rumours about a rejected bid for Abdoulaye Doucoure were hitting the internet, and that brought a different perspective to the Rakitic chatter.

Manchester United have also been monitoring the 31-year-old as their Plan B while they chase Bruno Fernandes of Sporting Club Portugal with Real Madrid also now interested in the player.

Rakitic has two years left on his contract with the Catalans and makes about £115,000 per week, but has been shunted aside with the improvement of Brazilian Arthur and now the arrival of Ajax Amsterdam’s Frenkie de Jong.

Meanwhile, adding Rakitic to a group that already has Andre Gomes, Fabian Delph and now Gbamin would allow Brands to just about get rid of every other midfielder not named Tom Davies.

The Croat with 104 international caps picked up five goals and ten assists in 54 appearances across all competitions, and would outclass Gomes quite easily on the basis of the last three seasons.

Understat.com

Whether Rakitic would want to join Everton for almost a part-time gig in the middle with no European football, or even on a loan deal, is another matter altogether, but we’ll let Brands do his magic and leverage whatever wizardry he’s been using on the Catalans.

This should be a very interesting week ahead indeed.