Everton ‘decided to recruit’ player during winter market, and then something went wrong

This week’s edition of France Football has yet more on the failed transfer of Idrissa Gueye to PSG.

The Ligue 1 club had been keen to sign the Everton midfielder and he’d been keen on the move. Thomas Tuchel wanted a player of that profile and PSG’s failure to do the deal has come into further focus following the club’s exit from the Champions league at the hands of Manchester United.

In this latest post-mortem, it’s explained that PSG didn’t want to pay the €40m Everton were demanding for Gueye, but the Toffees were prepared to negotiate that fee downwards if they could find a replacement.

Watford’s Abdoulaye Doucouré was the first option but considered too expensive, with the Hornets hardly keen on a sale during January.

France Football say that attention then moved to Lyon’s Lucas Tousart, who Everton ‘decided to recruit’.

At that point he wasn’t a regular.

However, it all went wrong when Tousart gave a straight ‘No’, with the 21 year old preferring to stay at Lyon.