It's time for your Everton FC morning headlines on Wednesday, October 12.
Former Everton player dubbed 'enormous young talent' retires because his body 'no longer co-operated'
Over six years on from his arrival at Goodison Park, Shani Tarashaj remains an enigma to Evertonians after announcing his retirement from football at the age of just 27.
Sport Witness cite 20 Minuten back in Tarashaj’s Swiss homeland as reporting that the forward has decided to hang up his boots and while his career had started “promisingly” and he was considered one of his country’s “greatest talents” at one point, the former wonderkid was “unable to assert himself” on Merseyside or anywhere else he went and two years after officially departing the Premier League, he conceded that his body “no longer co-operated.”
Everton originally signed Tarashaj on a four-and-a-half-year contract for a £3million fee on January 7, 2016, although he was loaned back to his previous club Grasshoppers of Zurich for the remainder of the season. Typically, then-Blues boss Roberto Martinez, the man who would splash out a further £13.5million on Oumar Niasse less than a month later, was full of hyperbole about his recruit.
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The Catalan proclaimed: “Shani is an enormous young talent in Swiss football who, without a doubt, will have a great future. We’re delighted to have found a young player who believes that our club is the perfect step for him to enhance his quality and to grow his career.
“He fits in really well to our style and the way we want to play the game. He is a family boy, hungry and he is desperate to fight for his place in our talented young squad.
“I’m delighted we have been able to act quickly and secure the deal for Shani which means that, due to his national service commitments, he will be able to be part of our first team squad from next season. Grasshopper have been very professional and the deal has been conducted in an exemplary way.”
The problem was in between Tarashaj’s signing and the summer, Everton had a 3-3 draw at Chelsea (going 3-2 up on 90 minutes but conceding an equaliser eight minutes into additional time); a 3-2 home defeat to West Ham (having been 2-0 up until 12 minutes to go and missing a penalty to make it 3-0); a 4-0 defeat to Liverpool at Anfield and a stoppage time 2-1 loss at Wembley to Manchester United in the FA Cup semi-final, by which time long-suffering Blues had seen enough of Martinez and new owner Farhad Moshiri sacked him before the final game of the season. By the time Tarashaj finally made it to these shores, Ronald Koeman was at the helm and like Niasse – who infamously wasn’t even given a locker by the Dutchman – he found that he wasn’t part of the new manager’s plans.
Read the full story HERE.
Lille boss makes defiant Andre Gomes claim as Everton face transfer fear
As well as bringing in a clutch of new faces, Kevin Thelwell has been credited for being able to offload a number of players who were surplus to requirements in his first transfer window as director of football, but there are fears that Everton’s Andre Gomes issue may yet resurface.
With a trio of new midfielders arriving at Goodison Park in the shape of £33.5million man Amadou Onana and deadline day buys Idrissa Gueye and James Garner, Gomes, who had already become a bit-part player – starting just three times in the second half of last season after Frank Lampard’s appointment – had fallen even further down the pecking order.
The 29-year-old joined the likes of fellow midfield men Jean-Philippe Gbamin and Dele Alli in being loaned out (going to Turkish sides Trabzonspor and Besiktas respectively) with Allan subsequently being released to join United Arab Emirates outfit Al Wahda. In essence, Gomes has replaced Onana at Lille and although it was hoped that the slower pace of French football might suit him better than the hurly-burly of the Premier League, it seems he’s already being questioned in Ligue 1.
HITC cite Jeunes Footeux as writing last week that Gomes has so far been “far from convincing” and it would be surprising if an offer is made at the end of the season to secure his services permanently and now they reveal that his coach and Portuguese compatriot Paulo Fonseca – who himself has been linked with Everton managerial vacancies under Farhad Moshiri – has been forced to defend the player. The Lille boss is quoted as saying: “Andre Gomes is a very experienced player, with great technical qualities, a very good pass, (who makes) good decisions.”
Gomes has completed 90 minutes just once this season – in a 2-1 win over Toulouse on September 17 – but after helping Lille to a 1-0 victory over Lens on Sunday, Fonseca believes the best is still to come from the player. He said: “We tried to find spaces in the Lens team. We had prepared him (Gomes) like that, it’s important to recover balls, to find spaces.
“He is a player who has not played much in recent seasons. He hopes to have more minutes now and he will improve more over time.”
Read the full story HERE.
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