The arrival of Sam Allardyce at Goodison Park means changes are on the way.
Hinting as much during press conferences, the former Sunderland manager could add a couple of players to his squad in January, and TEAMTalk helped things along on Tuesday by suggesting two footballers who could be on their way to Everton in the coming weeks.
The first is Patrick Van Aanholt, a Sam Allardyce signing at Crystal Palace, and with Leighton Baines on the wrong side of 30, that makes sense.
Number two, however, doesn’t.
While Wahbi Khazri is indeed enjoying a good spell with Rennes in France, scoring five goals in his first nine Ligue 1 games, a return to England won’t happen this January.
Why? Well, firstly, there’s no guarantee Sunderland can recall him from his loan, as no information has leaked suggesting such a clause exists in his contract.
On top of the 10 games he’s featured in for Rennes, the 26-year-old also featured five times for Sunderland, three times in the Championship and twice in the EFL Cup.
Considering Hatem Ben Arfa was banned from featuring for Nice back in 2015 after playing for Hull City and Newcastle’s reserves, there’s very little chance of FIFA giving Khazri clearance to play for Everton if he were to be signed in January.
While a few might feel sorry for the Toffees, we don’t think the international governing body of association football are going to change the rules just because they’ve had a bad start to the season.
Although, can you imagine Ben Arfa’s face if it did?
