Everton’s new power duo, Marcel Brands and Marco Silva, let on to their transfer plans after a few days of speculation of both players arriving and departing the club during their first Everton press conference.
One such name is Wayne Rooney, who many expect to leave the club despite only returning from Manchester United last summer.
Rooney has been locked in talks with MLS side DC United for a couple of weeks but is expected to meet with Brands and Silva before coming to a final decision on the next step of his career.
Speaking at Finch Farm during an introductory press conference for Everton’s new power duo, the pair opened up about the possibility of Rooney’s exit.
“There is a possibility that he will leave and he’s talking with DC United, that’s not a secret,” Brands said.
“We will talk with him and see if it’s a move he wants to make.”
Silva was asked to chime in and responded by stating: “It’s something that has already started before I arrived - this deal with DC. It’s something we expect.
"We’ll see in the next few days. We’ll talk to Wayne because he’s a legend and we need to understand everything. We’ll talk with him, we’ll see where everything is and after that, it’s Wayne’s decision.”
Revisiting old stomping grounds
The Blues have been linked with the possibility of returning to Silva’s old clubs, specifically Watford and Sporting Lisbon, for potential players and possibly also raiding PSV for former signings of Brands.
Silva laughed at the mention of returning to his previous club for possible targets but let on to the fact that the pair are preparing plans for the market.
“In the next few days will come names and names and names,” the Portuguese boss said.
“We know really what we want for our team but the first thing we’ll do is look inside and analyse everything that we have. After that, we’ll be assertive and find the right targets for us.”
After, again, laughing off a link to Richarlison who he managed at Watford, the 40-year-old added: “I have big names. The list is not so big because it’s important for us to respect our squad, our players.
“Of course, we’ll do everything we can to improve and to put more competition for them here because that is something I like to do,” he stated.
“I like to see every day, competition between our players and for competition in our starting eleven.
“We’ll analyse everything in our squad, our young players and after that, we’ll make our decisions.”
Working relationship
The club are certainly hoping that the pair's relationship is better and more fruitful than that of the previous two regimes.
The duo have already held meetings before joining up together at Finch Farm but are set for more in the coming days.
On getting their new dynamic to work, Brands stated: “We’ll do it together because there is no sense if I try and get a player for Everton and the coach is not willing to have that player because he is going to pick the starting eleven - that’s not my job.”
The Dutchman added that he’ll be working from experience that has served him well in the past.
“I’ve worked with a lot of good coaches and I’ve never had one player that we didn’t both agree on so I’ll do that with Marco.”
Brands has already fielded plenty of calls about potential signings and sales but there is still plenty of evaluation to be done. That evaluation period, whilst may have already begun from afar, won’t get a chance to kick up a gear until July 2nd when players not at the World Cup return for pre-season.
“We have 38 players. We have to look at what we’ll do for next season and of course, we think there are maybe a few positions where we’ll look for targets,” he said.
“We’ll sit together in the next few days and look at what we think is the best for Everton.”