Sign up for the big Everton stories from a fantastic season so far Get the newsletter Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

At least Dick Turpin had the good grace to wear a mask.

Marcel Brands and Bill Kenwright may not have committed actual highway robbery with the deal they are close to striking for stylish Portuguese midfielder Andre Gomes, but they're close to clinching a deal which is the very antithesis of the squanderlust which gripped the club barely two years ago.

Think back to those hazy, lazy, spendthrift days of summers past.

£25million - rising to £30m - for a 27-year-old Yannick Bolasie, £12m for Ashley Williams - a man already north of his 30th birthday, £20m for Theo Walcott, who was closing in on his 30th. All with salaries to match.

Then there was Cenk Tosun £19.5m, Oumar Niasse £13.5m ...

That was then.

CLICK HERE for all the latest Everton transfer news from today as Nikola Vlasic exits

A sum of £22m - or a fraction more - for a player who cost Barcelona 30m Euros down, with 20m Euros of realistic add ons two summers ago, is a steal.

Barcelona also promised Valencia a further 20m Euros if he fulfilled more ambitious clauses, like being shortlisted for the Ballon d'Or.

They never had to make good on that promise, but the fact that that final clause was even inserted underlined how good Barca believed Gomes could become. After all, he had just played a key role in Portugal winning Euro 2016.

But putting the numbers aside, just think of what Andre Gomes will bring to the Everton midfield once the paperwork and the admin is signed off.

He is miserly in possession - for a player for whom almost every pass is forward, an 84.8% passing success rate is impressive.

His passing accuracy in the attacking third of the pitch where space is congested and action frenetic is 77%.

(Image: Tony McArdle/Everton FC via Getty Images)

He has a powerful stature and is not fazed by the physical nature of the Premier League - a fate which befell previous summer signings like Davy Klaassen and Sandro Ramirez - although seven bookings and a three-match ban for an unpunished transgression at Fulham suggests that aspect of his game could be reined in just a little.

But most of all he has all the hallmarks of a modern midfielder in the classical Everton mould.

Think School of Science, think Martin Dobson with a beard, think Asa Hartford with height, think Gary Speed, without the goals.

Yes goals. That's the one area of Gomes' game which can be improved upon.

CLICK HERE for all the latest details on the Andre Gomes transfer to Everton from Barcelona

The one goal he has managed for Everton - three deft touches with his right foot then a vicious rising drive past Wolves' Rui Patricio, hints that Gomes has it in his arsenal to score much more regularly, even operating as the number eight he currently wears on his back.

He scored five in his final season at Valencia, the campaign which convinced Barcelona to buy him, and four the previous campaign.

Bar an instinctive Alisson save at Anfield very early in his Everton career he might even have opened his account Duncan Ferguson fashion - and who knows how the Everton fan-base would have heralded him then.

But even now he is a fans' favourite.

We all thought £5.3m was excellent business for Sandro Ramirez. But he was a player who hadn't kicked a ball in English football.

Gomes has almost a full season's elegant experience in the hurly burly of the Premier League - and flourished.

And at £22m he is also in Farhad Moshiri and Everton's bank manager's good books.

All achieved without donning a highwayman's mask.