Hull City have confirmed the signings of Oumar Niasse and Evandro.
Niasse joins on a loan deal with the option of the Tigers signing the Senegalese international for a reported £10 million from Everton. Evandro has signed from Portuguese giants FC Porto for an undisclosed fee, subject to international clearance.
Evandro is reunited with boss Marco Silva who he played under at Estoril from 2012 to 2014 where he played 53 times and scored 14 goals. An attacking midfielder who Silva recently described as "a creative, expressive player-a smart and clever player," he has played at eight clubs including Palmeiras, Atletico Mineiro, Vitoria, Red Star, Estoril and more recently FC Porto. After joining in 2014, he made 58 appearances for the club, eleven in the Champions League, scoring eight times.
Silva and Evandro are close from their time together at Estoril and Silva knew he "wasn’t happy at Porto because he wasn’t playing regularly" and that the Premier League "is a very good challenge for him."
Niasse, 26, hasn’t yet fired in the Premier League, having not been giving a chance at the Toffees. He started his career in his homeland at US Ouakam where he scored 102 goals in 152 games, and has had spells at Brann, Akhisar Belediyespor and Lokomotiv Moscow. At Lokomotiv Moscow, he found the twelve times in 28 games between 2014 to 2016. He only featured 5 times on Merseyside failing to score however, as with Evandro, Silva believes coming to Hull is "a good chance for him to show his quality."
In his first Premier League press conference of his career, Silva spoke about how these transfers are a positive for the Tigers. Silva said that at this level it is "impossible to work with only 13 or 14 players" and said his new recruits did "okay" in their first training session on Friday.
Henriksen sidelined for three months
On the topic of injury, Markus Henriksen has been ruled out for up to twelve weeks with a shoulder injury suffered in the first half of the EFL Cup Semi Final at Manchester United on Tuesday. The midfielder saw specialists earlier this week which confirmed he will miss a key part of the season.
Henriksen had started both of Silva’s first two games and would have wanted to cement his place as the attacking midfielder in the squad. He had appeared in eleven league games, five of which he came off of the bench for. His deal from AZ Alkmaar became permanent this month where he signed a two and half year deal.
Hull will be looking to increase the depth of their squad just in case more injuries occur before the end of the window on 31 January.