Everton boss Roberto Martinez has confirmed that the club failed in their summer pursuit of Dynamo Kiev star Andriy Yarmolenko.
Speaking to the press ahead of tomorrow’s crunch fixture against Chelsea, the Catalan suggested that the Ukrainian side were reluctant to sell their star man due to Champions League commitments, but that all parties would reassess the matter in January.
“We have a good relationship with Dynamo Kiev because we played them in the Europa League and they did not want to lose the player as they are in the Champions League after five years and that was the end of the story,” said Martinez.
“But the relationship is very good and it was very clear that the player was not going to be available. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future but at the moment the club want him for the Champions League and we’ll have to assess it after that.”
Yet Martinez, whose unsuccessful search for a player to fill the number 10 void at Goodison defined a frustrating window for Everton fans, feels that the Blues have enough talent in the squad to cope without a player of that ilk.
“We had a few options where we felt the player could fit in from a technical point of view but not from a physical point of view. Also, I felt that having Leon Osman and Steven Pienaar fully fit will be a good opportunity to see how significant they can be in the squad.
“Also, the emergence of a more mature Barkley who can fill that role in a different way to 12 months ago is very important.
“I feel Arouna Koné is becoming an important member of the squad after injury and that gives us a different option which means we don’t really need the number 10 we were thinking of last season. It was a combination of all those.”
