Rafa Benitez denies that he’s told Jean-Philippe Gbamin that he can find a new club but admits Everton’s options remain open when it comes to outgoings or further incomings during the current transfer window.
Yesterday, the ECHO published a story stating Gbamin has been told he can leave Everton this month but when asked about the £25million injury-plagued star’s situation in his pre-match press conference for Saturday’s FA Cup third round tie at Hull City, Benitez said: “No, I didn’t say that. I have contact with him and his agent.
“The point here is that people can talk but the reality is that if you want a player to go then, and here we have experience of that, you have to have an offer, the player has to say yes, and the club has to say yes, so we don’t have anything like that.
“A lot of clubs talk about ‘I’m interested in this player’ but have no commitment in terms of obligations.
“We are considering everything but at the moment there’s nothing new in terms of players leaving or players coming.”
After drafting in full-back pair Vitaliy Mykolenko and Nathan Patterson in the first week of the January transfer window, Benitez is hoping to bring in one or two more new faces this month.
He said: “To be fair we are hoping, like every team, that good players can be available and that they can improve the squad.
“We’re not specifically focused on this or that, we have some ideas, we are working on these ideas and if we can find something that is interesting for us, we will try to do it.”
Asked if Sean Longstaff, a midfielder he knows from his time in charge of Newcastle United, was one of them, the Spaniard remarked: “To be fair I’m focused on the games so I try to concentrate on that.
“Other people are working on names and possible negotiations so we have different options, different names, and we’re working on that.
“This window is so complicated that you never know.”
