The £21m former Liverpool target that could be set to join Everton instead

Since Sean Dyche got his feet under the desk at Goodison Park and really got his team attuned to his methods, Everton have become one of the better defensive teams in the Premier League and steered themselves well clear of relegation last season despite the damage done by multiple points deductions – but they still need to work on signing some reinforcements to freshen up a rather leaden attack.

That could be where Danish international Jesper Lindstrøm comes into the equation. According to Sport Witness, who cite reports from Sky Italia and national newspaper Corriere dello Sport, the Toffees have “made contact” with Napoli over a deal for the attacking midfielder which could be worth around €25m (£21m). So who is Lindstrøm, and does he have what it takes to get Everton’s attack firing?

The 24-year-old came through the youth ranks at Brøndby in his homeland, and a haul of ten goals and ten assists in the Danish Superliga in the 2020/21 season earned him a move to Eintracht Frankfurt, where his form over two years was sufficient to convince newly-crowned Serie A champions Napoli to spend €30m (£25.2m) to acquire his services last summer – allegedly beating off competition from Liverpool, with Lindstrøm apparently convinced that he would play more often in Italy.

That conviction proved to be ill-founded, and he may well be rueing his decision given that he apparently grew up as a Liverpool fan, something which may not immediately endear him to the Everton fans. The Dane was given just two league starts all season despite Napoli’s struggles over the 2023/24 season, and ended up playing just 430 minutes in Serie A, failing to score or assist in that time. Now that his spell in Italy has turned sour, he seems keen to move on.

Regardless of his lost season and which team he followed when he was younger, Dyche and his transfer team seem to have decided that Lindstrøm has plenty left to offer. An attacking midfielder who typically looks to ply the channels in front of the penalty area rather than a player who looks to burst into the box, he is nevertheless a mesmerising dribbler who is always looking for chances to run at defenders and beat them.

He’s pretty effective at it, too, and although his first touch isn’t always the tightest, once he gets the ball under his spell he’s extremely tough to tackle and often gets past his opposite number to stretch play and open space up in behind. That means that although he is only a moderate goal threat in his own right – he scored 14 goals in 80 appearances for Frankfurt – he creates a lot of room for the players around him.

That suits a team who look to play as direct as possible, as Dyche’s Everton do. He isn’t a creative wizard who will open the opposition up with his passing, but he will break through the lines and get the ball up to the front line at speed, which suits playing on the break.

He further fits into the Dyche template thanks to his tenacious pressing. He makes a high number of tackles for a notionally attacking player and isn’t above tracking back and working hard in the deeper areas when out of possession – in other words, his style matches Everton’s strategy both in attack and defence.

The only question, then, is whether there is £21m or so’s worth of player in there. Antonio Conte clearly decided that there wasn’t at Napoli, but his form at Frankfurt and in Denmark, as well as the 16 caps he’s earned for Denmark (he was a member of the 2022 World Cup squad but missed out this summer) suggest that there is still plenty of quality which the right team could use – and on paper, Everton could well be that team.