James Rodriguez’ Everton medical scheduled for today

The rumours have been building up for months now, pretty much since Carlo Ancelotti took over at Everton. The Blues have been linked with a number of the veteran manager’s former players, but none as big as James Rodriguez who is about to seal his transfer to Merseyside.

Rodriguez flew into London yesterday as reported by mainstream media sources, and was expected to make the drive up north last night ahead of a scheduled medical this morning with Everton.

The player had dinner at a swanky restaurant in the capital where he met a fan in Irish Jockey Rossa Ryan.

The attacking midfielder brings a wealth of experience from his career so far which has been waylaid in recent years by injuries and managerial changes. After winning the Golden Boot accolade at the 2014 World Cup, Rodriguez was signed by Ancelotti at Real Madrid where he had an excellent couple of seasons under the Italian, before being loaned out to Bayern Munich on a two-year deal.

Despite scoring 15 times with 20 assists in 67 games at Bayern, the 76-capped Colombia international asked the German giants not to exercise their buyout option as he wanted to prove himself at Madrid again under Zinedine Zidane. The 29-year-old suffered through another injury-hit season and leaves Real having featured 125 times, scoring 37 goals and 42 assists.

With one year left on his current deal with the Spanish side. Real Madrid were asking for about €25m (£22.3m/$29.7m) for the player, and it appears Everton have converted that into a new three-year deal along with unnamed performance initiatives as add-ons.

Italian media are reporting it differently, saying that a new deal has been handed to the player already, which muddies the waters around when any fee would be paid to Real.

Another Italian journalist Tancredi Palmeri has previously reported Everton have agreed personal terms with James Rodriguez, with the Colombian set to earn around £4m a year in wages, roughly £77,000 a week, again a very reasonable number for a high-profile player of his nature.