Everton will be due £400,000 in compensation should Isaac Price leave the Premier League outfit but Rangers look set to miss out to Standard Liege for the teenage midfielder.
So say the Belfast Telegraph; a Toffees side who have seen the likes of Mohammed Ali Cho and Thierry Small walk away from Finch Farm in recent times on the verge of losing another of their most exciting academy prospects.
Price has spent over a decade on the blue half of Merseyside. Everton, The Athletic report, were in extensive talks to extend a contract which expires at the end of this season. 19-year-old Price, however, obviously feels that a change of scenery is required if he is to obtain the first-team football he craves.
Rangers, Celtic and a host of Bundesliga and Championship clubs are watching the situation closely. Both Old Firm giants have successfully snapped up a host of fresh-faced, out-of-contract talent from below the border in recent years, from Calvin Bassey and Moussa Dembele and Joe Aribo.
Bassey, for instance, joined Rangers for a compensation fee of £230,000 before departing for around £20 million two years later. Perhaps Mick Beale and co felt that similar value could be found in Price; an all-action central midfielder capped twice by Northern Ireland even before his 20th birthday.
Rangers set to miss out on Everton’s Isaac Price
The Belfast Telegraph add that Everton will receive £400,000 when Price bids farewell to the club he joined all the way back in 2010, at the age of just seven.
Rangers appear destined to miss out, however. Standard Liege are reportedly close to signing a pre-contract with Price, their interest confirmed by ex-Celtic boss Ronny Deila in midweek.
“I don’t know if (the deal) done or not. But he is indeed a player we are following,” Deila tells DH Net.
In Beale, Rangers now have a coach who prides himself upon honing the talents of young players. But perhaps Price had reservations about joining a side already boasting a variety of central midfield talent, including John Lundstram, Nicolas Raskin, Todd Cantwell and Glen Kamara. Ryan Jack and Scott Arfield, meanwhile, could yet sign new contracts at Ibrox.
Price has only made two substitute appearances in the Premier League for Everton. Toffees boss Sean Dyche, however, is keen to rubbish suggestions that there is no pathway into the first-team for their Finch Farm fledglings.
“I don’t know the history of (Price’s situation), obviously,” argues Dyche, who arrived at Goodison Park in February. “But coming in, I think there’s a fair view of the younger players here.
“You’ve seen Simmy (Ellis Simms) play games. A couple of the under-18s have been over training with us as well. I certainly believe in the pathway of younger players.
“Some young players and their advisors don’t see if the same way. That’s part of football life.”
