OPINION
There are always one or two players at a club who split opinion right down the middle for one reason or another, and at Everton, Morgan Schneiderlin is one of those.
By no means a bad player in the middle of the park, the issues surrounding the Frenchman arise from supposed attitude problems, with the Liverpool Echo reporting an incident where he was offered the chance to finish training early under caretaker boss David Unsworth, and made the wrong decision in accepting.
A contentious figure then, and while Marco Silva will no doubt be running the rule over his performances both in friendly matches and training, it appears as though there could be a challenger for his role this summer.
The London Evening Standard claim that the Toffees have joined Crystal Palace in chasing Schneiderlin’s international compatriot Maxime Gonalons, who stands at 6’1″ (source: Transfermarkt) in what is a bargain hunt for the Roma enforcer, with a £10million asking price said to be on the 29-year-old’s head.
If that truly is the case, then Silva should be taking no risks and binning his current option for a figure who can carry out the same duties in the centre of the park, and will cost a fraction of what the Everton man can be sold for.
Gonalons’ experiences on the domestic, European and international stage make him ideal to replace Schneiderlin, and the profit gained from buying one and selling the other could go a long way to helping continue the club’s business this summer.
It would be an ambitious swoop, but one which could help strengthen the Toffees significantly – especially if they could bring in more players as a result.