Report: Everton to battle two Premier League rivals for exciting £38.5m star

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A player believed to be on the radar of Everton head coach Carlo Ancelotti is now being checked out by two of the Toffees’ Premier League rivals, according to Calciomercato.

Napoli winger Hirving Lozano joined the Italian giants last summer under Ancelotti’s watch following a superb campaign at PSV Eindhoven where he registered 21 goals and 12 assists.

However, the Mexico international is not getting much of a look-in under current head coach Gennaro Gattuso, mostly having to make do with cameo appearances off the bench at best.

Italian outlet Area Napoli claimed in February that Lozano is sought after by Everton, and Goodison Park scout Carlo Jacomuzzi dropped a hint earlier this week.

“At Everton there is a general manager (Marcel Brands) who bought Lozano and brought him to PSV, they know very well what to do,” he told Area Napoli.

According to a report from Calciomercato, however, West Ham United and Wolverhampton Wanderers have now also joined the race for Lozano.

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Lozano is a dynamic, exciting player, the kind of which Ancelotti is fond of deploying to devastating effect in his teams, and Gattuso’s penchant for link-up players means he’s simply not a match for the current Napoli coach.

However, such a player isn’t likely to come cheap – Goal.com claims he joined Napoli for €42million (£38.5million) and the Partenopei will most likely want to recoup as much of that fee as possible.

Wolves are probably expecting summer bids for Adama Traore and as such will be keeping their eyes out on potential replacements – their advantage comes in the form of Lozano’s Mexico teammate Raul Jimenez being in their ranks.

West Ham, meanwhile, are battling relegation, and should they stay up, they will likely want to make a marquee signing to show they mean business in 2020-21 – so Everton will need to pull out all the stops to get their man ahead of their rivals.