We’re not really sure what happened during the January window, but if you piece all of the stories we’ve covered from various outlets in Europe, it seems like Carlo Ancelotti picked up the phone, called Aurelio De Laurentiis and just asked him which players he could talk to about a transfer.
Kalidou Koulibaly, Hirving Lozano, Allan, Fabián Ruiz and Piotr Zielinski have all been linked at some point with Everton, and now we have another one: Dries Mertens.
Along with Lozano and Allan, this one perhaps makes the more sense, mostly because the Belgian’s contract, at least for now, runs out in June.
He was heavily linked with an exit from the Serie A side in January, but he ended up staying, and he now appears to be close to renewing his deal with Napoli.
DH in Belgium look at the situation and reveal some interesting information.
They state Mertens, in his current deal, had a €10m release clause that was able to be triggered up until January 10th, but only by foreign clubs.
This led to clubs sniffing around, including Everton, who ‘took the temperature’ of the situation, clearly wondering if they would be able to convince him to move to Goodison Park.
However, Mertens was then very close to becoming Napoli’s all time goalscorer, needing to overtake Marek Hamšik, and he stayed true to his goal: ‘No question of him leaving the club’ without breaking that record.
He has yet to do so, but is currently joint top, scoring 121 goals in 309 games, which is the same amount as the Slovakian, who did it in 520, but from midfield.
