Anyone who has watched Portuguese football this season will know that Viktor Gyökeres has been shining for Sporting Club de Portugal, something Everton and Newcastle United will surely be watching with a tinge of regret.
Record cover the player today and how they both made moves to sign Gyökeres from Coventry City this summer but were ultimately beaten by the Portuguese side.
The newspaper explains that Everton and Newcastle were very much ‘in the race’ for Gyökeres’ signature this summer, with Record naming them exclusively as the two who competed most with Sporting.
According to them the negotiations for Gyökeres was not as easy one as Coventry sought to get the most they could from the player and Newcastle ‘seemed willing to pay more’.
They state that the Magpies even offered €20m plus €2m for goals at a time when Sporting were looking to close the deal at €20m.
Everton, meanwhile, offered €17m plus €3m in goals, a figure that proved to be ‘insufficient’. They then turned to Sporting striker Youssef Chermiti and signed him instead.
It seems they were less insistent than Newcastle but Sporting manager Rúben Amorim’s efforts behind the scenes proved decisive.
He called the player every week and assured him that he would take on a role of special importance in his team, a promise that Newcastle couldn’t make to him and ended up ‘proving crucial’.
That eventually helped Sporting to get him €20m, a record fee for the club but one that is ‘considered low’ given the performances he’s been putting in.
