Everton have been one of the first clubs to do some business in the transfer window with the signing of Ukrainian left back, Vitaliy Mykolenko, within just a few hours of the window opening on the first of January, and now another transfer option has been allegedly put on the table for Rafa Benitez to take advantage of.

What's the word?

Northern football correspondent, Dominic King, has written an article for the MailOnline claiming that Everton have been offered the chance to sign Barcelona flop, Philippe Coutinho, during the January transfer window.

In the article King writes;

'Barcelona are eager to move him on and his representatives have spoken to Everton about the possibility of him moving to Goodison Park this month but it remains to be seen whether Rafa Benitez will pursue the deal.'

Rafa Benitez spoke out in his pre-match press conference ahead of the clash with Brighton on Sunday, outlining the goals for the current transfer window.

"We are looking for players that will come and they will give us something straight away.

"My idea, the board has agreed with the principle, is that we bring players that want to be here, especially in January when it is a difficult window. The second one is that they're players that will help the team, give us something different."

Coutinho has failed to make an impact on his La Liga side since he joined the club back in 2019 for a huge fee of £146m from Liverpool, although he did go out on loan to Bayern Munich in 2020, in which he played a huge part in the Bundesliga giant's Champions League win, in an iconic performance against his parent club Barcelona, scoring two goals and one assist in less than 15 minutes.

Fans will be fuming

There are a few reasons why fans would not respond well to the signing of the £16.2m-rated attacker who was hailed "phenomenal" by his Brazilian teammate Roberto Firmino.

Firstly, Coutinho's arguably most memorable moments in his career were during his time with fierce rivals, Liverpool, with an impressive 54 goals and 45 assists in 205 appearances for the red Merseyside club, with two of those goals scored against Everton in heavy defeats for the Toffees of 4-0 and 3-1 away at Anfield.

The second reason fans wouldn't be pleased with the addition is because of the habit of wasting money the owners, sporting director and managers have displayed over the last five years, with over £500m spent on 43 acquisitions that have resulted in no clear progression or trophies for the club.

Coutinho would be a considerably expensive signing by just looking at his current wages alone, as he is currently on £380k-per-week at the La Liga giants.

Sporting Director, Marcel Brands, recently left the club as a result of a conflict in opinion over the direction the club wants to go in, and after the Coutinho rumours surfaced, one fan took to Twitter to claim that Brands was clearly not the issue in the pursuit of bad signings;

"Marcel Brands proving he certainly wasn’t the issue at Everton when we are trying to sign Coutinho and Ross Barkley."

Everton need to do something in this transfer window to reignite their season after struggling in the first half, which has seen the Toffees fall as far as 15th in the table, and Benitez will need to do everything he can to ensure that the side can improve and gain some momentum to pick up points to get back into the top half of the table.

In other news: Lucas Digne pushed out further after transfer update