Sometimes, footballers just don’t do themselves any favours when it comes to transfers. They’ll overplay their cards, lose an opportunity they should have grasped and then struggle to get anything matching the same level.
Weston McKennie is living through that right now. He could have moved to Aston Villa earlier this summer as part of the Douglas Luis deal, but he wanted too much money from the Premier League club and was reportedly also keen on a pay off from Juventus.
Perhaps the US international thought everyone would just cave in so the Luiz deal didn’t collapse, but instead he was extracted from the transfer and replaced. Calciomercato now report ‘the latest proposal’ was from Everton, and it’s one which is thought to have been more tempting that others.
Everton, though, haven’t gone ahead with anything concrete, and that could be related to the wage requests. Calciomercato suggest Juventus would accept €18m, and to be frank there’s a chance they go even lower.
McKennie wants €5m a year, a figure almost certainly after tax as that’s how it’s reported in Italy, and there’s simply nobody he wants to play for who are keen to pay that.
Everton wouldn’t, and the same can be said of other ‘mid-tier’ clubs it’s stated have shown interest.
That chance to join Aston Villa on relatively high wages, and potentially shine under Unai Emery, with Champions League football to boot, looks like one McKennie should be kicking himself over missing out on.
If he genuinely has a chance to join Everton, maybe he should seriously think about revising those wage requests before he finds himself having to convince everyone he wanted to move to MLS anyway.
