Everton eye Portugal winger

Everton want to sign the Portugal winger Gelson Martins, one of a number of players who cancelled his contract at Sporting Lisbon this week.

Another of Sporting’s Portugal contingent – goalkeeper Rio Patricio – yesterday confirmed his free transfer move to Wolverhampton Wanderers as the exodus from the club continued.

Patricio terminated his own contract with Sporting Lisbon, signing a four-year deal with Wolves. The 30-year-old is another client of Jorge Mendes, the leading “super-agent”, and will link up with the Wolves squad shortly after the World Cup.

The future of Martins, 23, is unclear with such widespread unhappiness at Sporting, but he is likely to be available this summer. He is one of the key targets identified by Marcel Brands, Everton’s new sporting director, and manager Marco Silva, who have not yet added a new player to the squad.

There will be a lot of competition for Martins, and there are a number of Premier League clubs, including Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur, who have expressed an interest.

Everton are also interested in the highly-rated Ajax defender Matthijs de Ligt. The 18-year-old centreback has also been scouted by leading Premier League clubs including Manchester City and could potentially cost as much as £50 million if any of the big hitters are able to agree a deal for him. De Ligt is now represented by the agent Mino Raiola who has a glittering roster of clients including Paul Pogba and Zlatan Ibrahimovic. The teenager was thrown into Holland’s qualifying campaign early in his career and struggled in their defeat by Bulgaria, but impressed in the loss against England in March.

As for City, they are expected to focus their efforts this summer on signing a winger and a holding midfielder. Both targets are ambitious for Everton, and potentially expensive, but having played down the club’s power in the transfer market, it indicates that Brands is prepared to compete for the best young players, who may not get game time at Champions League clubs.

The newly-appointed Dutchman, formerly at PSV Eindhoven, said this month that Everton may have to sell players to make room for signings in their budget.