Everton have made a fatal error by not signing Hirving Lozano before the World Cup
New Everton manager Marco Silva and director of football Marcel Brands will have their summer transfer targets firmly in mind even though it appears that they need to sell before they can bring players in due to the size of their squad, but they may well have one big regret when the window closes on August 9 – two days before the beginning of the new Premier League season gets underway.
The Toffees have been linked with a move for PSV Eindhoven winger Hirving Lozano, rated at £22.5m by Transfermarkt, every since the January transfer window, with the 22-year-old making a huge impression on the left flank for the Eredivisie champions following his move from CF Pachuca last summer.
11 goals and seven assists before 2018 showed the quality that the wideman had, and he helped push his team into title contention – eventually helping them win it ahead of Ajax – with his performances and the huge impact he was making in the final third.
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While the Merseyside club did sign Theo Walcott from Arsenal and Cenk Tosun from Besiktas during the January transfer window, they weren’t able to get a deal done to bring the PSV man – who the Dutch giants understandably didn’t want to lose having only bought him a few months previously – to Goodison.
That was a time when Steve Walsh and Sam Allardyce would have been overseeing the recruitment, and they would have likely seen the summer as the perfect opportunity to get Lozano.
While the duo have both left and been replaced by Brands and Silva, whom fans want to sign another exciting £22.5m World Cup attacker, respectively since the end of the 2017/18 campaign, it is unlikely that Everton’s transfer plans would have changed when it came to targeting the Mexican, because of the quality he has.
The winger played his final match of the season on May 6, and knowing that he was going to be linking up with his country for the 2018 World Cup in Russia just a few weeks later, the Toffees should have made it their priority to get him before then.
However, Brands didn’t officially take on his role at Goodison Park until June 1, with Silva appointed a day earlier with discussions happening between them and Watford with the Hornets wanting compensation for the Portuguese boss.
By that point, they had left themselves little time to get a deal for Lozano done, and they would have been praying in a way that he didn’t have too much of an impact in Russia.
However, that hope was extinguished in the central American country’s opening fixture against Germany, with Mexico causing the reigning champions all sorts of problems and securing a memorable 1-0 win, with the 22-year-old getting the winning goal.
The PSV man impressed with his pace, skill and finishing ability – he perhaps should have had more than the one goal he did get – and he made Bayern Munich full-back Joshua Kimmich look like an average player, which is certainly no mean feat.
The very biggest clubs in Europe are always looking for talented attacking players, and with 19 goals and 11 assists in 34 for the Dutch club last term and now with him producing a standout showing on the world stage, one of them is surely likely to move for him when the tournament ends.
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Everton would have pulled off a huge coup by bringing Lozano to Goodison Park this summer, but it appears as though they have made a fatal error by not getting a deal done before the World Cup got underway.
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