Everton are making a mistake by selling forward to Norwich
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Steven Naismith is only a medical away from becoming a Norwich City player after Everton agreed to sell him to the East Anglian club for £8.5million.
The Canaries are getting a player who has only made four Premier League starts this season, but that’s not a reflection of the Scottish forward’s ability.
His total number of league appearances this term is ten and, despite the limited playing time, the 29-year-old has managed to find the net three times.
Naismith’s hat-trick against Chelsea in September showed just how good the former Rangers man is and the Canaries have done well to bring in such a tenacious player.
The strong showing against the Blues came as a result of an injury to Muhamed Besic, with the Scotsman starting the game on the bench.
Roberto Martinez didn’t take notice of the performance against Chelsea and continued to limit the amount of time Naismith spent on the pitch before allowing him to leave.
The amount the Toffees received for their unwanted forward is a reasonable sum, especially as they signed him from Rangers on a free, but they will still come to look back on this as a bad piece of business.
In only 67 starts for the Goodison Park outfit, the 29-year-old racked up 25 goals for his club and proved himself to be a reliable name to call on when others weren’t delivering the goods.
Reportedly, Martinez is looking to reinvest some of the fee received for Naismith by bringing in Andriy Yarmolenko and this too is a mistake.
Yarmolenko is clearly a quality player, demonstrated by the fact he has scored eight times in 15 league appearances this campaign for Dynamo Kiev, signing a player from a foreign league during the January transfer window is always a big risk.
You only need to look at last season to see this is the case, with Juan Cuadrado and Wilfried Bony ,the two big deals of the window, struggling at Chelsea and Manchester City respectively after joining in the new year.
Indeed, Cuadrado was shipped out on loan to Juventus this summer, while Bony has only registered ten strikes for the Citizens across all competitions.
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