Everton still confident of beating Chelsea to Gabriel Magalhães — report

Chelsea have reportedly made a strong attempt to sign Gabriel Magalhães in recent days with some sources even claiming that a deal is “almost complete”. However, before these Chelsea links started, Everton were in the driver’s seat with some rumors going as far as to say that an offsite medical had been completed.

Everton would most certainly not like to be gazumped for this transfer, and a report from Telegraph Sport states that they are still confident in beating their Premier League rivals to the 22-year-old’s signature. It’s worth noting that Everton have only three senior centre backs on their roster at the moment in Yerry Mina, Michael Keane and Mason Holgate after Chelsea refused their advances for Kurt Zouma last summer.

On paper, Gabriel suits Carlo Ancelotti’s idea of a hard-tackling, no-nonsense defender despite his weaknesses with the ball at his feet. He does have a contract until 2023, which he just signed a couple months ago, back in February, but apparently Lille are nonetheless resigned to losing him in the next transfer window.

Where he does end up is the question now, but we might have to wait for a while for the coronavirus pandemic to subside before we truly begin to answer that question.