Baines and Jagielka are special and we will decide soon, says Everton manager
Marco Silva has said Everton will delay a decision on the futures of Leighton Baines and Phil Jagielka until the summer when the club plans another overhaul that, it hopes, features the permanent signings of Kurt Zouma and André Gomes.
The Everton manager and the director of football, Marcel Brands, have told Zouma and Gomes, currently on season loan from Chelsea and Barcelona respectively, they want them to remain at Goodison Park long term. The pair alone could cost in the region of £70m.
Everton will also seek a work permit for the striker Henry Onyekuru, who was signed for £7m in 2017 but has spent the past two seasons on loan at Anderlecht and Galatasaray, and consider Nikola Vlasic part of their plans for next season. The Croatia forward is currently on loan at CSKA Moscow.
Both Baines and Jagielka are out of contract at the end of this season and have made only six and three Premier League appearances respectively under Silva. The long-serving defenders will have offers to move on, with the 34year-old Baines expected to have interest from MLS, but the Everton manager believes both veterans remain valuable to the club without playing regularly.
Silva said: “Everything is open for the players who are out of contract but the players you are talking about are special players because of everything they did and everything that they can do in the future also. We will make a decision at the end of the season. The players will be the first to know.
“I keep speaking with them. I know these type of things are coming now. We are happy and they are really important players for us even if they are not playing as much as they played in the starting XI in the last seasons. They keep being important for us.”
The Everton manager admits preparations for the summer are under way but insists building on victory over Chelsea before the international break is the over-riding priority. Silva, who takes his team to West Ham on Saturday, added: “Of course we are doing our work and preparing and planning everything but the most important thing for me as a manager, and us as a club, is to prepare well the next game. And the game after. That is our way.
“What we will decide is not because of the last seven games, it is to do with all of the season. We have all season to picture and analyse and after we make decisions. But the important thing for us is West Ham and after that Arsenal and in the meantime we are doing our normal work behind the scenes.”