When Everton signed Henry Onyekuru from Eupen, loaning him to Anderlecht made perfect sense. The 20 year old had the carrot of a future move to the Premier League, but not the immediate test of jumping from Eupen to all that pressure.
Anderlecht is a big Belgian club and could provide something of a halfway house, and the loan would also help Everton build a relationship with a club who have a knack of bringing through young talent.
On the face of it, statistics alone, things are going well. Three goals in 7 appearances is a good return for the Everton owned player, but he’s been somewhat caught up in Anderlecht’s ongoing dramas.
A little like Bayern Munich in Germany, there always seems to be something happening at Anderlecht. Whether it be player issues, agents, the president, infighting, there’s often stresses to be found where there needn’t be any.
Belgian newspaper HLN have a look at the situation, and with Anderlecht currently 9th in the table, the crisis feeling is growing.
There are political battles throughout the club, disagreements with media, officials, and fans, and a lot of boat rocking. Amidst all this is Onyekuru, with HLN feeling it’s strange that despite him scoring 40% of the club’s league goals so far this season, he’s not starting every game.
Onyekuru didn’t start against Bayern Munich, and he was on the bench against Kortrijk, coming on to save a draw for his side in the latter.
HLN say: ‘RSC Anderlecht, the country’s biggest club, has become a street fight – media, fans, trainer, press, even the president is already involved.’
The last thing Ronald Koeman and Everton will want is for Onyekuru to get wrapped up in the situation, and for it to harm his progress. As things stand, he’s clearly dealing with the circus rather well, and will hope the pressure for him to start gets him off the bench.
Should Anderlecht continue staggering through the season like they’ve had one too many Leffe, perhaps Everton can save Onyekuru in January.
To add to the circus, Anderlecht parted company with their manager René Weiler on Monday.
