Everton could land their own Tomas Soucek with £25.9m transfer swoop

Everton could land their own Tomas Soucek with £25.9m transfer swoop

Everton have been linked with a move for Lens midfielder Neil El Aynaoui

Neil El Aynaoui of Lens (Image: Johnny Fidelin/Icon Sport via Getty Images )

Wimbledon fortnight has just come to a close with the 'other' Carlos Alcaraz falling at the final hurlde against Jannick Sinner. But having made namesake 'Charly' their first signing of the summer, Everton are now being linked with a potential move for a player whose father is a former tennis ace.

Younnes El Aynaoui, now 53, peaked at number 14 in the ATP Tour world rankings in 2003, the same year that readers of leading Moroccan newspaper L’Economiste named him as their favourite role model for society, ahead of athletics star Hicham El Guerrouj – who remains world recorded holder for the 1500 metres and the mile – but injury problems would plague his later career.

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The family’s sporting torch has now been passed on to son Neil El Aynaoui and a report by TEAMtalk states that Everton have joined Roma in the race for the Lens midfielder.

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The article adds there could be a potential transfer battle between the two clubs, both owned by The Friedkin Group, but with different recruitment teams and while the 24-year-old has verbally agreed a contract with the Serie A outfit until 2030, both the Blues and FA Cup winners Crystal Palace have recently asked for information on his situation on the player who is valued by his current employers at €30million (£25.9m).

Although Idrissa Gueye, who turns 36 on September 26, has penned a new one-year deal with an option for a second year, Everton are still a man light in central midfield from last season, especially in an attacking sense, following the exit of Abdoulaye Doucoure after his contract expired and El Aynaoui, who has been capped once by Morocco at Under-23 level, could fit the bill.

Having started his career at home city club Nancy, he penned a four-year deal with Lens in 2023 and has been a regular for them in the French top flight for the past two seasons.

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El Aynaoui played 23 Ligue 1 matches in 2024/25, helping Lens to finish eighth and he scored eight goals in the process. By using Comparisonator’s Virtual Transfer tool, we can correlate his statistics from last season with Premier League players in his position and El Aynaoui averages more goals per 90 minutes (0.33) than any of them, with West Ham United’s Tomas Soucek – a David Moyes buy who has also been linked with Everton this summer – on 0.29, followed by Bruno Fernandes of Manchester United (0.24) and James Maddison of Tottenham Hotspur (0.23).

The Blues boss likes having a midfielder who can get forward and score headers, too, having enjoyed success deploying Tim Cahill and Marouane Fellaini in such roles during his first spell on Merseyside, and with an average of 0.11, El Aynaoui averages more goals by headers than Premier League leader Mikel Merino of Arsenal (0.09), ahead of Soucek and Brentford’s Christian Norgaard, who has also joined the Gunners, both on 0.08. El Aynaoui has been making sure that he at least works the opposition as two thirds of his shots are on target (67%), a figure which is significantly higher than Premier League leader Maddison’s 56%.

Lens midfielder Neil El Aynaoui's goals per 90 minutes for the 2024/25 season compared to Premier League players in his position

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Only Soucek (0.29) can edge out El Aynaoui’s average for opportunities converted (0.28), with Maddison next up on 0.23, while the Lens ace’s figures would rank him ninth in the Premier League for expected assists (0.13), a category topped by Fernandes on 0.25. He’d come in third for successful dribbling percentage in the final third of the pitch (80%) after Andre of Wolverhampton Wanderers (100%) and Will Hughes of Crystal Palace (83%), and he would occupy the same position for interceptions (4.72) behind Leicester City’s Wilfred Ndidi (5.09) and Norgaard (4.92), a category in which he rises to second on 1.17 behind Carlos Beleba of Brighton & Hove Albion (1.25) when it comes to the opposition half of the pitch.

Everton did a couple of deals with Lens for midfielders a generation ago, selling them Olivier Dacourt in 1999, just one year after buying him from Strasbourg – a deal that helped them to turn Kevin Campbell’s loan move into a permanent switch – and then paying them £4.5million for Ghana international Alex Nyarko the following summer. However, fast forwarding to 2025, Moyes has spoken about the need to add goals from areas other than his strikers, from the very start.

Following the 1-0 defeat to Aston Villa at Goodison Park in his first game back, the Blues boss said: “I’ve only been here a couple of days and I’m nearly burned out, looking at how we can score more goals and how we’re going to get players that can do that.

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“With the squad we have, everyone’s going to say: ‘how are you going to find that?’ If we get something different, that’s not the case, but we’ve got to keep finding ways of scoring with what we’ve got at the moment to make goals, score goals and improve our attacking play.”

*Comparisonator is a football data comparison tool from 271 professional leagues around the world which compares players and clubs by utilising over 100 different parameters. Click here for more details.

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