Wolverhampton Wanderers have been dealt a blow in their pursuit of Gabriel Magalhaes, with ArenaNapoli revealing that Everton reached an ‘agreement for’ the 22-year-old ‘four weeks ago’ and had him on Merseyside to undergo a medical. The Independent said a similar thing back in March too.
Nuno Espirito Santo has been on the hunt for a centre-back to accompany Conor Coady and Willy Boly next season and was interested in Gabriel among others, but it appears Everton have been ahead of Wolves in the race for his signature for some time.
ArenaNapoli say Gabriel’s proposed €22m deal fell through due to the Covid-19 pandemic and now Chelsea & Napoli are ready to hijack the deal. It remains to be seen if Wolves stand a chance of doing the same, however, as Everton are still ‘expecting’ to make Gabriel their first signing of the summer.
Wolves have their sights set on a lot of other centre-backs anyway. The Midlands have been monitoring the progress of Galatasaray’s Christian Luyindama, Manchester City’s Tosin Adarabioyo and Olympiacos’ Ousseynou Ba among others, so they’ll go in another direction.
Nuno has Ryan Bennett, Roderick Miranda and Dion Sanderson returning from respective loans this summer, but Wolves attempted to sell Bennett for £5m to Leicester, haven’t included Miranda in the first-team since May 2018 and are likely to loan Sanderson out again next season.
