Everton close to signing underwhelming central defender

What happened here?

If Kurt Zouma was Everton's Plan A at centrehalf, then Marcos Rojo is surely somewhere in the nether regions of Plan Q or Plan Y.

Yet, here we are into the latter half of Transfer Deadline Day and apparently Manchester United defender Marcos Rojo is on the way to Finch Farm to sign the paperwork on a permanent transfer to the Blues. Note that well, not a loan, the 29-year-old will become an Everton player for a few years now.

That has also been corroborated by a pretty reliable source -

Rojo has featured pretty prominently in United’s preseason, but remains on the fringes of the side after they signed Harry Maguire this week. The Blues had made an approach for his teammate Chris Smalling yesterday, but that was turned down by the Red Devils.

The Argentine international with 59 caps has been with United since 2014, but has fallen out of favour in recent years, featuring in just eight games last season. The Blues were linked with Rojo last summer too before coming to their senses and grabbing Kurt Zouma on loan.

Nicknamed ‘Chopper’, he’s been injury-prone too, featuring in 26, 28, 41 and 12 games in the seasons before last year at both the centreback and leftback positions. He remains marginally useful, but certainly not the kind of world-class player we needed to back up Michael Keane and Yerry Mina, with the Colombian also facing injury issues often.

Silva has previous experience with Rojo too, having coached him at Sporting Lisbon when the player switched to Manchester. The defender is on a current that expires in 2021 and dropping £25m reeks of bad business, no matter how well Brands has done in the transfer windows before this.

A move for Rojo seems out of character for Marcel Brands, and might be driven by desperation. Questionable at his best, it’s hard to see Everton getting faster and more skillful in the back with the addition of the Argentine.