In the summer transfer window, Lyon accepted an offer from Everton for Rachid Ghezzal, and the Goodison Park club offered the player €400k per month, which was 20x his current salary.
Ghezzal, however, turned Everton down, with there being noises about sporting ambitions, and still seriously considering staying at Lyon beyond the end of his contract, which runs out in June.
Now we’re in January and Ghezzal still hasn’t signed a renewal with Lyon, report L’Equipe, despite them now offering him €280k per month before bonuses, which is a huge amount for the French club.
The Lyon offer still isn’t close to Everton’s and Ghezzal seems to want to have his cake and eat it. If Everton aren’t a high enough sporting level, then Ghezzal needs to seriously consider if teams like the Manchester pair, Chelsea, Tottenham, Liverpool, Arsenal would want him.
If not, and there’s no reported interest from any of them, then turning down Everton would lead him on to European clubs. Even there, he’d have a task getting an offer to match Lyon’s, never-mind Everton’s €400k a month.
As the Algerian edges on becoming a free agent and potentially leaving the club which developed him, there’s lots of questions to answer. If Ronald Koeman remains interested then another go at signing the player is worth a try. This time Everton could offer Lyon much less, given the contract situation, the trouble is that Ghezzal may well eye the difference for himself.
