Ashley Young is due for a medical at Everton on Tuesday with a view to joining as a free agent after leaving Aston Villa. The 38-year-old is in line to become Sean Dyche’s first signing since the manager took over in January.
Young started 23 games for Villa last season but has been released after two years there. He has played 17 consecutive seasons of top-flight football since winning promotion from the Championship with Watford in 2006, his time in the Premier League broken by a spell with Internazionale.
With 422 Premier League appearances, Young, who made his name as a winger but is able to operate in a number of positions including full-back, would bring enormous experience and versatility to Everton. Although last season he was used mostly at right-back and also at left-back, in the previous campaign he was also deployed across four midfield positions and as a left-winger.
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Dyche kept Everton up on the final of last season but said then that the club needed a “massive amount of change to build to a new dawn, a new future, a bigger future”.
The Chelsea striker David Datro Fofana has joined Union Berlin on loan for the 2023-24 season. The Ivory Coast international signed for Chelsea from Molde in January but started only one game. Union, who do not have an option to buy Fofana, have qualified for the Champions League.
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The new Leicester head coach, Enzo Maresca, has used his contacts at Manchester City to agree a deal to sign Callum Doyle on a season’s loan. Maresca, who worked as a first-team coach to Pep Guardiola last season, has moved for Doyle to further strengthen his defence after the arrival of the former Wolves captain Conor Coady. Doyle has spent the past two seasons on loan at Sunderland and Coventry respectively.